Claws by Dan Greenburg

Author:Dan Greenburg [Greenburg, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48301-0
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2006-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

When the detectives finished questioning Sunny, they drove away. Deke went in to talk to her. When he came out of the house, Cody stopped him.

“How is she?” Cody asked.

“They put her under house arrest,” said Deke. “She can't leave the ranch without written permission from the cops. She looks like she's been rode hard and put away wet.”

“Is there anything I can do for her?” Cody asked. Deke shook his head.

“I'm hirin' her a good defense lawyer I know. Fella in Dallas by the name of Clive Butterworth. He'll know just how to handle this.”

“They haven't charged her with anything yet, though?” said Cody.

“No,” said Deke. “Not yet.” Cody didn't want to believe that Sunny was a murderer, but it was starting to look bad. If she'd already gone to prison for attacking Wayland, wasn't she also capable of killing him?

“These are tough times, son,” said Deke. “I ain't gonna blow smoke in your ear. Sunny is in this thing up to her ears. But Clive Butterworth is gonna do his best for her, and he's a mighty fine lawyer.”

When Deke left, Cody went into the main house to look for Sunny. At first he couldn't find her, although he called her name several times. She wasn't in the living room or the dining room or the family room or the kitchen. He didn't want to invade her privacy by looking in the bedrooms, but when he passed by her door, he saw her sitting on the bed.

“Sunny?” said Cody softly.

“Yeah?”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

She shook her head. She looked pretty depressed.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, Sunny, see you later.”

He left and went back to work.

He threw a shovel, a rake, and two packages of raw chicken parts into a wheelbarrow and walked to the pens to continue shoveling crap. Randy was dragging part of a rotting cow carcass out of a pen and getting ready to load it into the Mule.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” said Cody.

He left the wheelbarrow and helped lift the heavy, slimy carcass off the ground and into the bed of the mini-truck.

“Thanks,” said Randy.

In the lockdown area two grown tigers, Tina and Tony, were growling and tearing apart two packages of thawed chicken parts. Tony was limping, apparently in pain.

“What's wrong with him?” Cody asked.

“When he was a cub, his owner thought he'd be a better pet without his claws.”

“So?”

“So to remove a tiger's claws, you gotta cut the bone out of the toes, back to the first joint. When the cat weighs twelve pounds, that's no big deal. When the cat weighs six hundred pounds, it's too painful to walk on.”

Cody looked at Tony and shook his head. Randy started up the Mule.

“So how's Sunny doin'?” Randy asked.

“Not too good,” said Cody. “I wish there was something I could do for her.”

“Like what?” said Randy.

“I don't know. Poke around, see what I can find.”

“You don't think she killed him?”

“I don't think so, no,” said Cody.

“Yeah, well, just don't dig up more snakes than you can kill,” said Randy.

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