The Trouble With Tigers Read online

  Dad, Hank and I raised our hands.

  Mom giggled.

  My eyes widened in surprise when I noticed the other two bikers were busily stuffing their faces with chips and salsa. Guess they had the munchies.

  Harry whispered, “Ya think they forgot they’re robbing the place?”

  My dad shrugged.

  The minute the chips were gone, the head doofus yelled, “Give me the fucking money or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

  The terrified cashier fumbled with the drawer.

  “Now Tinkerbell.”

  The Yorkie let out a ferocious growl.

  The lookout just blinked.

  “One more time Tinkerbell.”

  The Yorkie did her best impression of a rabid coyote.

  The lookout gave a startled yelp, opened the door and peered out. “Ain’t no bears in Phoenix, is there?”

  A feral grin curved my father’s mouth as he grabbed the glass salt and pepper shakers off the table and threw them in quick succession.

  Thunk! Thunk! The shakers nailed the two older bikers in the head, and they toppled over like poleaxed steers.

  “Hey! You can’t do that!” The lookout swung his shotgun toward us.

  Tinkerbell jumped up and latched onto his balls. Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

  “Aiieeeee! Aiieeeee! Aiieeeee!” The lookout did a funky, chicken dance and fired wildly. Several big holes appeared in the wall.

  Dad threw another shaker.

  Thwap! It hit the lookout dead center in the forehead. His eyes rolled back in his head and down he went. A dozen flies settled on his face.

  Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

  “Spit Tinkerbell. I think he peed his pants.”

  Tinkerbell made a hacking noise and ran back to me.

  “You’re such a good girl.” I picked her up and hugged her.

  Dutch charged into the restaurant with his gun drawn. He kicked the lookout’s weapon away and approached the other two bikers.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  I glared at him. “Are you following me?”

  “It’s lunch time and I was hungry.” Dutch pulled the radio off his belt and said, “Two David Twenty to radio.”

  The dispatcher answered, “Go ahead Two David Twenty.”

  “Code Four. Three in custody. I need two units for transport.”

  “Copy Two David Twenty. All units we have a code four at 1921 West Glendale Avenue. Two Adam Twelve and Two Adam Fifteen I need you to respond for transport duty,” the dispatcher said.

  “Two Adam Twelve copy,” a male voice responded.

  A gravelly voice said, “Two Adam Fifteen copy.”

  The sirens stopped.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Lunch time, huh?”

  “Hilberto’s is my favorite Mexican food joint.” His gaze surveyed Harry from head-to-toe. “It was a good thing I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Dad had it under control,” I retorted.

  “That he did.” Dutch grinned. “You throw a mean saltshaker, sir.”

  “I’ve had some practice,” Dad rumbled.

  “Nick’s the star pitcher for the Sand sharks,” Mom advised proudly as she climbed out from under the table. “You think our food’s ready yet?”

  Dad wrapped an arm around Mom. “No. How do you feel about Italian instead?”

  Mom smiled up at him. “Romanelli’s?”

  Dad nodded as he watched two patrol cars skid to a stop out front. The officers bailed out and rushed inside the restaurant.

  “Jones you’ve got the one at the door. Ramirez you can help me with these two. The salt and pepper shakers are evidence,” Dutch instructed. Using a napkin, he placed the shakers on the nearby table.

  While Dutch and Ramirez cuffed the bikers, I placed Tinkerbell on the table. “Slobber on them.”

  Tinkerbell gave the shakers a good wash. Woof?

  “Perfect.” I set her on the floor. “Get the other one too.”

  My clever Yorkie trotted over to the saltshaker on the floor and picked it up. Dutch wasn’t getting my dad’s prints any time soon.

  “Hey! Bad dog. Spit,” Officer Jones cried, trying to grab Tinkerbell.

  My Yorkie scooted under a table and barked.

  I let out a theatrical gasp. “I’m so sorry. Tinkerbell loves playing keep away.” I kneeled on the floor and held out my hands. “Come to momma.”

  Tinkerbell trotted over to me.

  “Spit.” She dropped the shaker in my hand, and I handed it to the officer. “Sorry.”

  Officer Jones gingerly dropped the shaker in an evidence bag. “I should write you a ticket for dog at large.” Grabbing some napkins, he wiped the dog slobber off his hand.

  “Would an apology help?” I held out my hand.

  Officer Jones took my drool-covered hand and grimaced.

  “Ooops. Sorry.” I walked outside with Tinkerbell. What a dick.

  Mom, Dad and Harry followed me.

  Dutch stuck his head out the door. “Going somewhere?”

  “Romanelli’s,” Mom replied.

  “I still need to take your statements.”

  “You know where to find me and my parents,” I said.

  Dutch looked at Harry. “And your friend?”

  “I work for the Humane Society on Hatcher. You can get ahold of me there,” Harry said, handing Dutch one of his business cards.

  A smirk curved Dutch’s mouth. “A dog catcher, huh?”

  I rolled my eyes in disgust. “Harry investigates animal cruelty. It’s an important job.”

  “Uh huh.” Dutch went back inside the restaurant.

  “My lunch hour is up. Gotta get back to work,” Harry said.

  “Rain check, mom? I need to help Harry find the emu.”

  Mom hopped up and down like an excited kid. “Lunch can wait. I want to help you on a case.”

  “You heard your mom, let’s go,” Dad stated.

  I knew when I was beaten. “Where’s the last place the emu was spotted, Harry?”

  “The emu ranch just off Central and Northern.”

  My dad frowned. “Isn’t it the owner’s responsibility to catch it?”

  “The owner is one Ruth Miller. She’s eighty-years-old and her son is a friend of my boss.”

  “Nuff said. Got anything the emu has worn?”

  Harry reached into the back of his truck, grabbed a halter and handed it to me. “Here ya go.”

  The images of an old, red barn and a badly plucked emu popped into my mind. Who knew there was a market for feathers? “I know where the emu is.”

  Chapter Two

  An emu can sprint up to 30 mph. How do I know that fun fact? I had been chasing the dang bird around an abandoned alfalfa field for the last twenty minutes. For some unknown reason my Doctor Doolittle talents were a bust. The emu wouldn’t obey any of my commands. I also discovered that when an emu is being chased, it’ll raise one of its wings upward, while pointing the other at the ground and do an almost 180-degree turn.

  My Dad rode in the back of the truck while I tried to get close enough for him to lasso the emu.

  Mom kept yelling, “Yippee-ki-yay!”

  Tinkerbell barked wildly.

  Harry hung on for dear life as we bumped and bounced over the rutted earth. “For God’s sake, try talking to it again, before you kill us all.”

  “Quit being such a wuss.” I wheeled the truck around. “That’s one stubborn bird.”

  “Got ’em,” Dad hollered.

  I slowed the truck to a stop.

  The emu made a booming grunting noise and kicked the crap out of the door.

  Dad jumped on the bird and in thirty seconds flat had it blindfolded and hog tied.

  I grinned. Dad had tried his hand at calf roping in the 4th of July rodeo last year and had come in second. The kids had loved his cowboy Santa costume. “You still got it Dad.” I got out of the truck in case Dad needed
help.

  He glared at Harry. “Who’s paying for the damage?”

  “Ah, let me call my boss.” Harry pulled out his cellphone.

  Goosebumps crawled over my body when I noticed crushed human skulls and weird broken pottery dolls scattered around the field. I must have run over them when I was chasing the emu. Had they been blocking my psychic abilities?

  The image of a woman with blood red dreadlocks and wearing creepy skull makeup popped into my mind. “You have destroyed my sacred symbols. Now you die,” the woman cackled.

  “Ya know, your Halloween costume is kinda pitiful. What are you supposed to be? A ghoul or a zombie?”

  The woman spat, “Tigris huyuk ninkilm teccas!”

  “Abracadabra sim sala bin,” I retorted and blocked her repeated attempts to mentally attack me. “Take a hike bitch.” I threw her out of my mind.

  The woman’s guttural cry of rage seemed to echo around the field.

  Harry looked around. “What the fuck was that?”

  “It wasn’t the wind.” I blew out a long breath. That woman had the scariest aura I had ever seen. “Harry do you know an old, possibly gypsy woman with blood-red hair who laughs like a hyena?”

  “Fuck. Gotta be Leonora Azikiwe, she’s as crazy as a June bug and claims to be an African Voodoo priestess. I have an open investigation on her for animal cruelty.”

  “I think Leonora has graduated to killing humans.” Wrapping my hand around the crystal amulet my mentor, Miranda, had gifted me with, I opened my psychic senses and cautiously reached out. Three spirits wailed in despair and I flinched as their ghastly murders played out in my mind. “There are three dead guys buried in this field along with about a dozen animals. I need to help them cross over.”

  “I’ll call 9-1-1,” Harry said.

  Dad pulled a Sig Sauer P226 from his boot holster. “Do your thing. I’ll keep an eye out for the Voodoo priestess.”

  I focused my power on the crystal and drew heavily on its energy. “Miraculin sepulcrum ibidem solus novum.” The air shimmered over the field as a portal formed in the void between heaven and hell. “Go! Go to the light.”

  The doorway’s iridescent glow drew the lost souls like a magnet. I smiled as the men and animals crossed over. My psychic connection with the esoteric plane snapped abruptly when Dad tackled me. “Hey!”

  “We’re being shot at,” Dad snapped.

  Christmas music suddenly blared from the truck. When the going got tough, mom played Jiggle Bells.

  Tinkerbell howled in protest.

  A volley of bullets struck the truck.

  Thank God my paranoid dad had armored all his vehicles.

  I looked around. “Where’s Harry?”

  “In the backseat trying to keep the emu from destroying my truck.”

  “Good luck with that.” I peered around the back tire. Where was the bitch?

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  An elderly woman dressed in an orange caftan stepped out of the bushes with an AK-47 rifle pointed at us. With the skull makeup and red dreadlocks, I knew it was Leonora. The bone through her nose was a bit of an overkill as were the fake eyeballs hanging around her neck.

  “I have every right to shoot trespassers,” Leonora stated happily.

  One look at Voodoo priestess’s deadly aura and I knew we were in trouble. My gaze fell on the beehives in the neighboring field. The bitch wanted to play hard ball? Game on. Drawing on my Doolittle powers, I formed a mental shield around the truck and gleefully summoned the bees.

  Another volley of slugs struck the truck. Thwap! Ping! Ping! Thwap! Ping! Thwap! Ping! Ping! Unfortunately, my mental shield didn’t stop bullets, just critters.

  The hum of three thousand bees finally drew Leonora attention. She glanced over her shoulder and laughing like a hyena, started firing at them.

  Yeah, like that was going to work.

  Dad shot the rifle out of Leonora’s hands.

  Screaming blue bloody murder, Leonora swatted wildly at the attacking bees and fled into the barn. The pissed-off bees followed. Leonora’s shrieks grew louder and louder.

  Jingle Bells increased in volume until you could no longer hear Leonora’s screams.

  To save Tinkerbell’s sanity, I called the bees off and projected peace, “Calm. Return to your hives. Enemy gone. Hive safe.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, the bees flew out of the barn.

  Leonora’s cries stopped.

  I watched the swarm return to their hives.

  Several patrol cars kicked up a boiling vortex of dust as they raced down the narrow dirt road.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” I said and stood.

  Dad growled, “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “She got herself a rocket launcher,” Dad said.

  I turned to look. Leonora stood in front of the open barn doors with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. “Do we make a run for it?”

  Dad grinned. “Not necessary. It’s pointed at the barn, not us.”

  “I’ll be damn, it is. I’m surprised she hasn’t noticed the sights are upside down.”

  Leonora fired. Boom! A gout of flames shot out, catching her caftan on fire and at the same time the missile whizzed into the barn. Kablooey the building blew into a thousand tiny pieces.

  Leonora vanished in the mushrooming fireball.

  “Drop and roll,” I yelled. “Drop and roll.”

  Dad snorted. “Give it a rest. The Voodoo priestess is dead.”

  I opened my psychic eye and watched as a portal to hell gobbled up her soul. “Damn, she went straight to Hades.”

  Thwap! Bap-bap! Thop! Blazing debris rained down, setting several trees on fire. Thick black smoke billowed high into the sky.

  We took cover under the truck until the firestorm stopped.

  Mom switched her music to Let it snow! Let it snow!

  Their sirens wailing, two fire trucks pulled up and the firemen bailed off the truck.

  The music dropped in volume.

  I could hear Tinkerbell scratching frantically at the window. “Easy girl. I’ll get you out.”

  “Kandi,” Dutch yelled.

  Was that a note of fear in his voice? “Down here.”

  Dutch peered under the truck. “Why didn’t you take cover in the truck?”

  “Didn’t want the emu getting loose.”

  His head disappeared. “I’ll be damned. Kinda reminds me of a plucked Big Bird.”

  “Courtesy of the evil Voodoo priestess.” Dad and I crawled out from under the truck.

  Dutch waved a hand around. “This evil Voodoo priestess is responsible for all of this?”

  “Yep. She had herself a rocket launcher but failed to read the instruction manual.” I brushed the dirt off my tee-shirt and jeans.

  “A rocket launcher?” Dutch let out a whistle.

  I nodded. “Big kaboom and one dead priestess.”

  “I have enough homicides to solve without you adding more bodies to my case load.”

  “Hey, there’s only three dead guys buried in the field and the suspect blew herself up. Case closed,” I replied.

  “If only it was that simple,” Dutch said, watching the firemen battle the flames. “Show me where the bodies are.”

  “What did you do before I came along?”

  “When necessary, we used Miranda.”

  “She’s one hell of a medium,” I agreed. Miranda reminded me a lot of my grandmother. She was one tough old lady and I was learning a lot from her. The crystal amulet she had given me was kinda like my Aunt Lily’s medical alert bracelet. I wore it everywhere and it provided me with backup power. Best of all, if I needed help or advice, I had a direct line to her.

  Dad holstered his pistol and pulled down the leg of his jeans.

  Dutch leveled a cold gaze on my dad. “You got a concealed carry permit for that gun?”

  “I do.”

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; “Good.” Dutch surveyed the crushed skulls. “Do they belong to the victims?”

  “Nope. These skulls are about eighty years old and aren’t from around here. From the vibes I’m getting, I’d say Africa. The three men buried here are local and were murdered by the Voodoo priestess.”

  The roof on the barn collapsed with a loud cracking boom.

  “The dead guys told you that?” Dutch flicked a burning ember off his shoulder.

  “They did.” Opening my psychic senses, I walked over to the mass grave. “They’re about eight feet down. There are a bunch of dogs, cats and other critters buried with them.”

  Dutch motioned to his Crime Scene Investigators. “Over here.”

  “I’ll leave you to it. We need to get mom home. She doesn’t deal well with people shooting at her.”

  Dutch shot my dad an inquisitive look. “Want to tell me why your truck is armored?”

  “My daughter tends to attract trouble,” Dad said and walked off.

  The nosey detective grinned. “No doubt about it. Kandi’s a trouble magnet.”

  “Har. Har.” I trotted after my dad.

  “Just telling it like it is,” Dutch called after me.

  I had a flock of pigeons do a fly-by.

  Dutch shouted, “Not funny.”

  My phone dinged. I read the text. Huh? Harry wanted me to meet him at Tom’s house. I hope it wasn’t another one of his crazy plans.

  Chapter Three

  Tom’s white cottage-style house was set in the middle of a two-hundred-acre orange grove. Beehives dotted the orchards. At the back of the property was a large, metal packing shed, kennels and corrals. I drove down the gravel road and parked under a maple tree. I opened the door and grimaced as an oven blast of heat smacked me in the face. It felt like Hell had come to Arizona.

  Harry lounged on patio chair in front of the house with a beer in one hand.

  Arf? Arf?

  “I’m sure he has a treat for you.” I unbuckled my Yorkie and put her on the ground.

  Tinkerbell trotted over to Harry. Woof?

  Harry grinned and handed her a treat.

  I looked around. “Where’s Tom and Dick?”

  “Tom had a bee emergency and Dick is collecting our costumes.”

  “Costumes for what?” I was sorry I asked after Harry told me his plan. I gaped at him in disbelief. “Let me get this straight. You want me to dress up like a clown and help you steal a lion from Kuti, a Nigerian warlord?”