Belinda Blake and the Birds of a Feather

by Heather Day Gilbert

  Dad shook his head as he helped himself to a slice of store-bought pumpkin pie Mom had picked up for him. He was the only reason my mom kept sweets in the house. “My old friend Ross owns the bar, and I can’t see him over-serving alcohol to someone who’s barely drinking age. Ross has a reputation for refusing more drinks when he sees a customer is getting sloshed. It doesn’t really make sense, although I guess if the kid was tipsy enough, he could’ve stumbled out into the road. But why’d he go into the alley in the first place? He’d have had to walk around the building.”

  “Maybe he had to go around to get to his car,” I suggested.

  Mom walked in and gave Dad’s shoulders a rub. “I don’t know the Hait family—they’re not in Larches Corner. I think they’re a couple towns over…maybe from Vera?”

  Dad nodded. “Sounds about right from what people were saying.” He gave me a sharp look. “Why’re you so interested in this young man’s death, Belinda?”

  I shrugged, hoping my dad wouldn’t see through my casual façade. “Jonas mentioned it.”

  Mom cleared Dad’s plate. “Poor Jonas has seen enough death for one week. How’s he holding up, sugar? Is Levi helping out? Did they like the meal?”

  “Levi’s leaving soon, and yes, they liked the meal. As for Jonas…you know how he is.”

  Dad placed his hand over mine. “Jonas is a strong man, but I’m sure he appreciates your support right now. Even though I doubt he’ll vocalize it.”

  I stood up, trying to compose myself. After taking a small plate from the cabinet, I dished myself up a slice of pie. Dad had always had just as much respect for Jonas as he did for any of his veterinarian peers. No one in town liked to see Jonas Hawthorne suffering.

  Least of all me.

  * * * *

  First thing in the morning, I touched base with Chloe through Facebook. We set up a brunch meeting at Literary Lattes. I’d decided to knock out my homing pigeon chores over at Jonas’s before showering and gearing up to meet Chloe.

  After watching several YouTube videos and reading up on how to care for homing pigeons, I figured I was as prepared as I’d ever be to step in with Naomi’s birds. I texted Jonas to let him know I’d drive on over on my four-wheeler, and he texted back a simple Ok, which told me he was probably already out on his tractor.

  Mom traipsed into the kitchen just as I was pulling on my heavy work boots. Her long, curly blonde hair had puffed into a large cloud, and she wore coral-colored hemp pajamas that seriously resembled prison garb. Her eyes were barely open. You’d think these things would make her look older, but when she beamed her brilliant smile at me, anyone would swear she could be my older sister.

  “You heading to Jonas’s again?” She sloshed coffee into her mug and took a long slurp.

  “Feeding the pigeons,” I said.

  She perked up. “Naomi showed them to me once. Such a relaxing thing, sitting there and watching them fly around and make their burbly tweets. They fly really low, you know?”

  I didn’t know, but I was about to find out. “Did Naomi give you any tips on taking care of them?”

  Mom took another sip and pondered. “I remember her saying she had to watch for hawks, but the pigeons would see them flying even before she did and they would hide in their coop. Seems like she let her birds loose in the afternoons? She said all hers were ‘hard flyers’ now, so they’d go pretty high and it might take them a little while to return.”

  “That sounds about right,” I said.

  “I’m sure she’ll have plenty of feed ordered—Naomi was always so good at being prepared for things.” Sadness washed over Mom’s face.

  I turned away, fighting tears because Naomi had even had to prepare for her own death. I pulled a knit cap down over my ears. “See you soon.”

  * * * *

  The pigeons turned out to be almost as friendly and accepting as dogs. They started flocking around my feet the moment I opened their coop—or “loft,” as the blogs called it. The loft itself was beautiful—the wood floor had been scraped clean of pigeon dung, and the pigeons happily roosted on various perches that had been painstakingly hand-crafted, no doubt by Jonas. It was quite dry and warm, two necessities for an Upstate New York winter. A few sat in nesting boxes lined with pine straw.

  Outside the loft, there was a mesh enclosure a few pigeons could walk around in. I wondered if that was where the young pigeons were trained. I’d read that you shouldn’t let the fledglings fly for a while, so they could get acclimated to their home base.

  From the way these pigeons acted, it was clear they already considered Jonas’s farm their home. Although a few fluttered out and roosted in the surrounding spruce trees, most lingered near their feeding area or pecked around on the ground outside the loft. They were all entirely white, and their legs had been banded. I supposed that was to tell them apart or to help locate them if they didn’t return.

  As I examined the loft further, one pigeon flapped up onto the ledge and seemed to fix its large black pupil on me. Hesitantly, I extended a finger toward its wings, and to my surprise, it let me stroke its fine feathers.

  I’d never considered myself a bird person, but these friendly fowl might just change my mind.

  I sat down on a wooden chair—one Naomi had probably relaxed in many times. Too late, I realized I should’ve taken a head count before releasing the pigeons.

  As if mocking my troubled state of mind, the white bird on the ledge launched into flight. With a loud rustling, the others followed.

  The birds swirled in circles low to the ground, shooting past me again and again. They rose higher and higher until they topped the tree line. My stomach sank.

  Would they fly out of sight? If so, when would they come back? I couldn’t sit and wait for their return, and neither could Jonas.

  Some pet-sitter I was!

  Having a brainstorm, I grabbed the bag of food. As I shook it, I gave a loud whistle. The birds tightened their circle and dropped a bit lower, but continued their track around the tops of the spruce grove.

  It seemed like they were just getting exercise, not flying off somewhere, so I decided to give them another thirty minutes, then try again. I didn’t want to have to text Jonas, but that would be my last-ditch effort if everything hit the fan. The videos had said pigeons could fly for an hour or more, but I was hoping these didn’t need that kind of time in the air.

  I repeated my whistling, food-shaking rain dance thirty minutes later, and the pigeons finally gave a sudden drop in altitude and started flocking to the loft’s metal roof. When I was fairly sure I had all of them back, I shook some seed onto the loft floor and kept up my whistling.

  For three solid minutes, I tried to cajole the birds into the open loft door. Finally, they all edged inside. They really did do everything as a group.

  I hoped against hope all the pigeons had returned, but I knew Jonas wouldn’t fault me if they hadn’t. I did a head count once they were back in—there were twelve. After closing the loft door, I lingered a bit longer, in case any stragglers appeared. Thankfully, none did, so I must have gotten them all.

  As I climbed on my four-wheeler, I ran through today’s pigeon feeding scenario and thought of ways to streamline my next visit. The homing pigeons weren’t like any other animal I’d watched. With their herd mentality, they reminded me of sheep. I had worked with a couple of wolf packs, but wolves were far more defined as individual members and didn’t have so much follow-the-leader going on. There was a stark difference between how predator and prey animals behaved.

  By the time I raced home and got out of the shower, I was running late. I called Chloe, who said she was already seated at Literary Lattes, so she’d go ahead and order something for me. She didn’t even ask me what I liked before she hung up. I could tell Chloe hadn’t changed much—she’d always known what she wanted and would steamroll anyone to get it. She wa
sn’t the kind of girl who asked permission. And yet I liked that about her, that she was so bold and decisive on things. It reminded me a lot of my sister Katrina.

  Mom gave me a quick peck on the cheek, saying she was driving over to Chenango County to look at some alpacas, so she’d be home later. She explained that she’d talked with a woman in her Bible study group who ran an all-natural shop on the internet. The woman was hoping to use hypo-allergenic alpaca fleece for the knit items in her shop. Mom considered it, then offered to go in with the woman on a couple of alpacas that she would house and care for, mostly because she’d never had alpacas before.

  Although my dad was the vet in the family, I was pretty sure my mom was closing in on holding the record of having raised nearly every type of farm animal at one point or another. No wonder I’d been drawn to exotic pet-sitting, with a mom who bought animals just to experience owning them.

  I grabbed my purse and jogged out to Bluebell. Although the old Volvo had a little rattle to it, I was thankful that it still looked pretty spiffy and hadn’t given up the ghost yet.

  As I pulled alongside the curb on Main Street, I wondered how candid Chloe could be about Jackson Hait’s death. She’d always loved talking for hours on end, but maybe she had to be more close-lipped now that she was a reporter.

  Striding past an artfully-arranged row of pumpkins, I pushed open the door to Literary Lattes. Chloe left her table and rushed to meet me. “I’m so thrilled to see you again, Belinda! Come on over and let’s get all caught up!”

  This was going to be an enlightening brunch.

  4

  Chloe was as outgoing as ever. She asked about my parents, my sister, and finally, about Jonas (with a wistful sigh). I filled her in as I ate the shockingly delicious BLT she’d ordered for me. Good thing I wasn’t a vegetarian.

  She flipped her straight brown hair over a shoulder and fixed me with her brown eyes. “Belinda, I swear you look great! I already have white hairs, girl! You’re going to age like your gorgeous mom.” She flagged down the waitress, which highlighted her unique profile—Chloe had one of the best Roman noses I’d ever seen.

  After asking for a refill on her house coffee, Chloe got down to business. “What’s up? I mean I’m glad you’re in town, but it sounded like you had some secret motive for our meeting?”

  I laughed. “Nothing secret. I was just curious as to how that poor Jackson Hait died. My dad mentioned that the bar owner doesn’t give his customers too much alcohol, so the whole thing seems a little fishy.”

  Chloe grinned. “Fishy, is it? What are you, Nancy Drew?” Her grin faded as she stirred four packets of sugar into her coffee. “Your dad’s right, though. From all I’ve been able to dig up, Ross Franklin is a model bar owner. But I think we have to look at who Jackson Hait is. I’ve interviewed some of his friends, and it sounds like he was a real party animal. I figure he was already drunk when he hit the bar and just hid it well, so Ross went ahead and served him.”

  That made sense, but I pressed further. “But for someone to kill him, they would’ve had to be going pretty fast, right? I thought the paper said they were probably going 35? So they definitely would’ve had to build up speed to manage that in town.”

  Chloe shrugged. “You know the police. They’re always assuming evil intent. They’re the ones who told me the car must’ve been going 35. But that seems really unlikely, given that the driver would’ve had to either back up onto the sidewalk to get that kind of speed up, or they’d have had to gun it once they hit the alley, which you’d think Jackson would’ve noticed.”

  “Not if he was drunk enough,” I said. “Maybe his reaction time was really impaired.”

  “It’s possible, but I still come back to the theory that he stumbled into the alley and someone accidentally careened into him. That alley’s dark, Belinda—the only street lamp is at the far end. The back door light was off at the time. It’d be easy to hit someone who was really drunk and not paying attention. And they said he was wearing dark clothing. He would’ve just blended into the night.” She leaned forward. “Why are you so interested in this guy? Did you know him?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “It’s just that Jonas read the article and felt things didn’t add up.”

  Chloe arched an eyebrow. “Well, he’s been through a lot lately. Maybe he’s just seeing things.”

  I ignored her subtle slam on Jonas’s mental state and retrenched. “What about Jackson’s friends? He wasn’t from Larches Corner, right?”

  She popped a large bite of salmon omelet into her mouth and chewed. After washing it down with coffee, she finally spoke. “He wasn’t. He grew up in Vera and was renting an apartment not far from his parents. I figure they were paying for it, because he wasn’t the most ambitious guy and his parents are well off. He was in his senior year—I think his major was something kind of obscure like Philosophy?”

  I gave Chloe another prod. “And his friends?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, oddly enough, one of his friends died young, too. Do you remember when Claire van Dusen died, three years ago?”

  “No, but I wasn’t living here at that time.”

  “Oh, right. Were you in Manhattan then?”

  I nodded as I munched on a bite of my sandwich.

  Chloe continued. “Claire also came from a well-to-do family—one of the founding families of Larches Corner, in fact. She was hit by a train one night when she stumbled onto the tracks. She was drunk, too, but they ruled her death an accident.”

  That seemed way too coincidental to me. “So Claire and Jackson were close friends?”

  “I don’t know. From what I can gather, they were both part of some uppity college literature club. I wasn’t the lead reporter on Claire’s story. If you want more details, you should look up the old articles.” Chloe glanced at her phone. “Oh, no, I’m running behind. I’m supposed to meet Police Chief Ingram for an interview. He’s Jack Ingram’s dad—remember Jack, from our senior class? He had that glossy black hair…”

  After walking down memory lane a little longer, I offered to pay for brunch. Chloe gave me a hug, then rushed off to her interview.

  I rose from the table, but decided to linger and peruse the bookshelves. Recalling that I needed to pick up a copy of this month’s book club read, I wasn’t surprised to find several copies on display in the Classics section, since the club was now meeting here. They’d decided on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, which seemed an appropriate Halloween-month read. I skimmed the back cover description and felt an involuntary chill. While I loved Agatha Christie mysteries, horror wasn’t really my thing. I hoped it wouldn’t give me nightmares, because my overactive imagination could do that all by itself.

  After purchasing the book, I returned to Bluebell and headed toward my dad’s clinic. It was a quaint, blue-shingled building on the edge of town. Dad’s older secretary, Helen, always begged me to drop by when I was visiting, since we’d logged quite a few work hours together over the years. I spoke with her a bit, then waved at Dad, who was petting a sleek Doberman in the hallway.

  “I should be home on time tonight,” he said. “No house calls yet.”

  “Good.” I leaned down and gave Helen a brief hug. “Try not to tear up the Bingo hall,” I joked.

  “I’m not giving up until I win that red KitchenAid mixer,” she retorted.

  I chuckled. “I’d expect no less.”

  On the way out, I realized why I liked Helen—she was tenacious. It was a quality I also happened to possess. And I planned to capitalize on it to find out how Jackson Hait had died.

  * * * *

  Mom wasn’t home yet, so I scavenged the kitchen for ingredients I could use to work up a tasty supper. Cooking always helped me order my thoughts.

  Since it was chilly out, chicken stew with potatoes seemed to be a good option. I’d just leave it to simmer on the stove for when
ever people got hungry. I was adding sage and basil to the broth when Mom came in the door.

  “How were the llamas?” I asked.

  “Alpacas, honey,” she corrected. “I think they’ll be a good option. He’s going to call me when they have some new babies. Correction: crias.” She beamed, proud of her understanding of the inner workings of the alpaca world.

  “Great.” I turned back to the stew, absently pulling up a spoonful to taste.

  “Something up?” Mom asked.

  I dumped another can of tomato sauce in the stew. “Do you remember a girl getting killed by a train a few years ago? Her name was Claire van Dusen.”

  Mom dropped her hand to the table and gave me a quizzical stare. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I’m close with Claire’s mother, Tracy. See, soon after Claire’s death, the van Dusens pulled up stakes at Larches Methodist and switched to our church. Tracy never said why, but I figured they couldn’t stand reminders of their loss. Tracy’s actually in my Bible study.”

  I tried not to sound overly enthusiastic. “What’s she like?”

  Mom shimmied around me, taking the teakettle, filling it with water, then setting it to brew. “She’s no shrinking violet, I can tell you that. She’s been a real asset when it comes to saying what needs to be said, you know? Like when that Danny Edmondson decided he wanted to accompany the choir on his trumpet, only he drowned everyone out. Tracy spoke right up to the choir director about it. She also runs her own home sales business—kitchen things or something like that.” She withdrew a green tea bag out of her tea chest and added it to a mug. “As far as Tracy’s personal life, she hasn’t been asking for any special prayer requests, if that’s what you mean?”

  I cleaned my spoon and dipped it for another taste, then added copious amounts of salt. “I don’t know. I just wondered how someone would cope with losing a child like that.” That wasn’t the only thing I was wondering about, but I did find it hard to fathom how deeply a teen’s death would affect their parents. Both of these college kids had died way too young, and I imagined their families were reeling, well-to-do or not.