Free Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) by Diane Kelly

said to Eddie. “That song from The Lion King is running through your head.”
    “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight.’”
    “Even better,” I said. “I actually know the lyrics to that one.” Much to his chagrin, I began to sing the nonsensical part of the chorus. “Wee-ee-EE-ee, ee-ee-ee-EE-ee, wee-ah-bomba-way!”
    At the sound of the truck pulling up, the lion stopped and looked our way, probably hoping we were bringing him something for lunch. He began to pant, his mouth falling slightly open, revealing what appeared to be a full set of secondary teeth but only three large fangs. His lower left fang was missing.
    As Kevin stopped the truck, I gestured at the lion. “What happened to his tooth?”
    “Got no idea,” Kevin said. “Simba’s like that when we got him.”
    With the information gleaned from the bank records, I’d been able to do some snooping on the Internet and determined that Kevin and Quent had acquired the lion from a roadside zoo outside Tupelo, Mississippi. The zoo had closed down after its black bear had taken a swipe at a child through the bars of its cage and come away with enough flesh that it took doctors thirty-eight stitches to piece the kid’s face back together. The kid’s parents sued, of course. According to an online news report, the zoo operator carried no insurance and was forced to sell off the animals to pay the $300,000 damage award. Too bad Simba hadn’t ended up in a better place.
    I nudged Eddie and motioned for him to let me out of the truck. When he did, I eased slowly toward the cage.
    “Careful now,” Quent called from his place in the bed of the pickup. “That ol’ cat can be a little moody.”
    I would be, too, if I were stuck in a shoe box. I snapped a quick photo of the lion with my cell phone and turned to return to the truck, when—“Aaaaah! Rattlesnake!”
    I leaped backward instinctively as a long, thick, brown snake slithered by in front of me. My new aviator sunglasses flew off my face and landed somewhere in the thick grass. I wasn’t about to search for the damn things and risk my hand being bitten by a rattler. I bolted back to the truck and hopped in.
    Kevin sniggered. “Forgot to mention there’s quite a few diamondbacks and other snakes out here. Gotta be careful.”
    Now he tells me.
    Ass.
    Kevin started off again, driving to a similar set of enclosures where the bears were kept. The bears, too, appeared frustrated, bored, and miserable, their eyes dull and hopeless as they lay curled up on their sides on the bare dirt of their pens. It was sad and cruel. These bears should be running free in the Canadian wilderness or stealing pic-a-nic baskets in Jellystone Park.
    Our final stop was at a pair of four to five-acre pastures enclosed on the sides with twelve-foot chain-link fencing. Chicken wire spanned the top. Wild vines had grown up the sides of the fence and across the chicken wire, providing shade across much of the space. Water troughs and feeders filled with deer corn were spaced throughout the pastures.
    Inside the first corral milled two dozen or so hoofed beasts with expansive antlers, some kind of antelope or deer, though their legs and bodies seemed much longer than the typical white-tailed deer common in Texas. The animals ranged in size from small babies no bigger than the average dog to enormous stags nearly six feet in length and topping the scales at over five hundred pounds by my best estimate.
    “What are those?” I asked, gesturing to the beasts.
    “Barasingha deer,” Kevin replied.
    I pointed into the second corral, which contained another long-legged, hoofed species, though these were primarily white instead of brown. Rather than antlers, however, these animals bore two long, relatively thin, backward-angled horns on their heads. Like the deer in the first corral, these animals ranged greatly in size. “What about those?”
    “Scimitar-horned oryx,” he said. “Beauties,