by Jan Dunlap
“I said to get down on the ground!”
Cynnie propped her hands on her hips and yelled back, “Ricky, for crying out loud, you know me!”
I glanced from the slowly advancing man to Cynnie.
“You sure?” I asked her. I was ready to drop if the man’s hand wandered anywhere near the gun. I’d have to tackle Luce down with me and cover her body with my own.
I know, I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy with an outdated perspective on women.
So sue me.
But I’m still protecting my wife.
“Yes,” Cynnie said, rolling her eyes, making me feel marginally relieved. “He’s Border Patrol. He stops me about once a week when I bird near the river. I’m not hitting the ground, Ricky!” she shouted at him.
“Oh, come on, Cynnie,” Ricky responded as he approached. “It’s a slow day. Give me something to do.” He stopped a few feet away and nodded at me and Luce. “Birding with Cynnie, right?”
“Yes,” Luce told him, holding her hands up at shoulder level in mock surrender. “You caught us red-handed, I’m afraid.”
“This is Bob White. His wife, Luce,” Cynnie introduced us to the officer. “They’re here from Minnesota.”
“Lucy?” The man’s face lit up. “I’m Ricky! Ricky Ricardo! ‘Lucy, I’m home!’” he said, doing a pretty decent imitation of Desi Arnaz from the classic I Love Lucy television series. “I grew up watching that show,” he enthused. “My mom loved Lucille Ball, and she had all those shows on tapes. You’d have to get them on DVDs now.”
I checked out his name tag.
It really was Ricardo.
“It’s Luce,” my wife corrected him. “But I watched all those shows, too. I loved the chocolate factory episode.”
“What are you doing here, Ricky?” Cynnie asked. “I usually see you on the other side of the park.”
Ricky propped his own hands on his hips.
“We had a tip there might be an attempted river crossing sometime today,” he told us. “If it’s a boatload of mothers and children, like it usually has been lately, we want to be sure they get turned over to the right authorities. So far, nothing’s going on,” he finished. “Except for a couple birders who walked by here about ten minutes ago.”
“That’s who we’re looking for,” Cynnie said. “They spotted a rarity.”
“Have at it,” Ricky said. He gave us a short salute and went back into the thicket.
“He stops you once a week?” I asked Cynnie as we headed towards the shoreline.
“Yes,” she answered. “Because I know the area so well, and I’ve been birding here for so long, I tend to sometimes go where I want when I probably shouldn’t.”
“Meaning?” Luce asked.
“Meaning this is a sensitive area and issue for the Border Patrol because of drug, weapons, or human smuggling, and I don’t always put their concerns ahead of mine when I’m looking for a bird. Which is probably pretty dumb,” she added, “since the patrol just wants to keep everyone safe and secure, including the illegals who cross the border. I’ve never been arrested, though, so I keep going where I want.”
I suddenly recalled a story I’d heard years ago from a birder I know. At the time, I thought he was exaggerating, but now, I had no doubt Joe had been telling me the truth. He’d gone to bird around Falcon Dam, which is farther north along the Rio Grande, on the Texas side. After a full day at the dam, Joe got in the car to leave, only to find that the battery was dead. By then, it was dark. Out of nowhere, several heavily armed border guards dressed in dark combat uniforms appeared in the parking lot and confronted Joe. Fortunately for my friend, the guards accepted his birding story (I’m sure the binoculars and birding guides in the car helped) and didn’t arrest him for smuggling. They did help him restart his car, however, and sent him on his way.
It made me very glad that we’d run into Ricky Ricardo during full daylight.
Besides, I really didn’t want to add an arrest in Texas to my permanent record. A multitude of Minnesota speeding tickets, I could manage. Getting booked and a mug shot in Texas would be another story.
A story I’d rather not have to explain to my boss back at Savage High School.
Being a murder suspect in the past has been bad enough, but having to explain being mistaken for a drug smuggler might be even worse.
Can you say “goodbye state pension”?
We turned a bend along the shore and spotted a trio of birders Cynnie recognized. They all had binoculars up.
I followed the direction of their sight lines into the river and put my own binos to my eyes.
An Eared Grebe.
“Yes!” Cynnie said as she studied the bird in her sights. “And I’ve got confirmation with other birders. Take that, Buzz Davis!”
Luce murmured something, and I lowered my binoculars to see what she was doing.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to a log that was pinned against the shore of the Rio Grande on the American side of the border. It was a marshy area, almost tucked back out of sight from where we stood. I could see two long-legged birds perched on the log.
“Baby White Ibis,” Luce said.
I focused on the birds. They were cleaning their feathers and soaking up the warm Texas sunshine, their long bills slivers of light. Framed by the river and the shore, the birds were the picture of tranquility. Watching them, it was hard to imagine that the same river was the setting for the border conflicts that humans continued to wage.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Cynnie commented.
Yes, yet another woman could read my thoughts. Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to speak out loud.
“It’s hard to reconcile all this natural beauty with the nasty human complications around here,” Luce responded.
See what I mean? My mind is an open book for women, apparently.
“You know, I’ve lived here my whole life,” Cynnie continued. “Growing up, my family went back and forth across the border with ease. We loved going to Reynosa for shopping and the food. No one ever worried about safety.”
I took a final look at the ibis youngsters. Ignorance can be bliss… but it can also get you arrested on the Rio Grande if you land on the wrong shore.
“Hey, you guys!” Cynnie called to the birders further up the shore. “Thanks for the text. We saw the grebe. Did you see the two ibis?”
“We did,” one of the trio shouted back, waving a farewell to us. “Good birding!”
The threesome walked off onto a wooded trail, leaving us alone on the shore of the Rio Grande. Cynnie turned around and led us back to where we’d left the park cart.
“Of course, when I was a kid,” Cynnie resumed her reminiscing as we climbed back into the cart, “there were a lot more farm fields and citrus orchards around. A lot of them have become housing areas now as the cities have grown. I miss all the cotton fields, but you should see the sorghum fields after they’re harvested—the farmers burn the fields, and it’s an excellent time to watch for raptors hunting the exposed rodents. When the fields are burning, you can see flakes of burned plants floating down like black snow in neighborhoods even miles away.”
I tried to imagine what black snow would look like and decided it would make a long winter even bleaker.
“I’ll stick with the white kind we get at home,” I told our impromptu birding guide. “It may be cold, but at least it’s bright when the sun comes out. Black yards sound really depressing.”
Cynnie laughed. “Yes, I guess it is kind of ghoulish. It sure makes it easy to spot white birds, though.”
She pulled into the gravel area where we’d found the park cart. “You guys done here for the morning?”
“Let’s see—a Gray Hawk, Plain Chachalacas, Green Jays, Great Kiskadee, Altamira Oriole, Eared Gre
be, and White Ibis,” I listed. “No esta bad, as Rosalie would say. Yeah, I think we’re done.”
As I helped Luce climb out of the cart’s front passenger seat, Cynnie caught my eye for a final word.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Buzz about what I told you regarding his feelings for Rosalie,” she said. “He’s got more than enough on his plate right now with Birdy’s murder.”
“Who said it was murder?” I asked her. Hadn’t Chief Pacheco said his people were keeping that information from the public?
Cynnie looked at me in surprise. “Of course it’s a murder case. There was a canoe turned over Birdy to hide his body. People who die of natural causes don’t pull a canoe over themselves before they gasp their last breath.”
“Good conclusion,” I conceded. “So, who do you think killed Birdy Johnson?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to find out,” Cynnie said.
“Why do you say that?” Luce asked her.
“Because I’m afraid it might be someone associated with the MOB,” she confided, “and I know these people. At least, I thought I did. The idea that someone you know could be someone else entirely is very disturbing, not to mention frightening. It makes you wonder how much of what you think is a lie.”
“Why do you think it’s a MOBster?” I asked her.
“What?” Cynnie looked confused.
“A MOBster—one of the MOB members,” I clarified for her. “Why are you suspicious of your club members?”
Cynnie blew out a breath of air. “Because they all knew Birdy. Isn’t that the conventional wisdom—that murder victims are typically killed by someone they know? Well, we’ve got a whole flock of birders with personal connections to Birdy, so I suspect Chief Pacheco is at this very moment sifting through everything he can find out about every one of the MOB members. Including me.”
I had a very strong hunch the most important part of that little speech was the very last word out of Cynnie’s mouth: me.
I put my hands on the side of the cart and leaned toward the woman. “What are you really afraid of, Cynnie?”
She gave me a look that was part defiance and part resignation.
“I’m afraid Chief Pacheco is going to arrest me for Birdy’s murder, because at a public hearing last month about SpaceX, I told Birdy he’d better watch his back if he continued to support the sale of Buzz’s land for the project.”
“You threatened him? Publicly?”
Cynnie shut her eyes and laid her forehead on the cart’s steering wheel.
“Yes,” she confessed. “I was furious with Birdy. I couldn’t understand how he could support a project that was going to do so much damage to our bird populations. It was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
She lightly banged her head on the wheel. Her silver ponytail bounced on her back.
“Make that the second most stupid thing I’ve ever done,” she said into the wheel.
“I’m afraid to ask,” I said, “but what did you do that was worse than making a public threat against Birdy Johnson?”
A strangled laugh came up from the wheel.
“I fell in love with Buzz Davis.”
Chapter Twenty
Why can’t any of these people control themselves?” I asked Luce as we walked back to the Birds Nest after getting lunch at a nearby taqueria.
Knowing that it was our last full day in McAllen, we’d decided to walk the few blocks to the small taco shop in order to soak up as much sun and warmth as we could before we had to head home to Minnesota’s cold tomorrow. We had chosen wisely, too, since the handmade chicken tacos, homemade tortilla chips and salsa bar had been so amazingly good that lunch had totally driven all thoughts of MOBsters from my mind while we’d feasted.
Now, though, the crazy web of relationships and possible motives behind Birdy’s murder had regained its spotlight in my head. Not for the first time, I mentally cursed my counseling instinct to set things right, which seemed, more often than not, just to make matters worse.
“Because they’re normal human beings?” Luce suggested, looping her hand around my arm.
“I’m beginning to doubt that,” I said. “I’m to the point where I actually think I’m going to wake up any minute now and say, ‘wow—it was all a dream.’”
Luce patted my arm and yawned. “Speaking of dreamtime, I really need to lie down for a while this afternoon. Do you mind?”
I kissed her cheek. “Of course not. You sleep, and I’ll sit out on the back porch and envy Rhonda for all the birds that come to her feeders. I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be seeing any Great Kiskadees or Golden-fronted Woodpeckers in our yard when we get back.”
After an hour of watching the parade of Texas birds that frequented Rhonda’s urban bird heaven, I was nodding off myself, lulled into total relaxation in the hammock strung up on the edge of the porch. I almost didn’t hear my cell phone’s distinctive chirping ring tone through my post-lunch siesta. By the time I fumbled it out of my pocket, I’d missed the call. A quick check at the phone’s log told me that it had been Eddie.
I called him back.
“You’re still with us,” I said. “Good. Nobody shooting at you today, huh?”
Eddie’s voice boomed through the phone. “Nope. Just me and my bodyguard buddy, who still hasn’t developed a sense of humor. I think everyone else has forgotten I exist, except for the chief,” he said. “Pacheco was here this morning to tell me the investigation into Birdy’s death and my shooting has stalled out. No new leads and no evidence.”
If that were the case, Cynnie Scott didn’t have anything to worry about. I was certain that, if Pacheco could turn up any reason to question her further, he would have done so by now. I thought briefly of trying to call Cynnie to let her off the hook of her fear of arrest, but I didn’t have her contact information. What would I say, anyway?
Hey, Cynnie—that second most stupid thing you’ve ever done? Not to worry. Chief Pacheco knows it was just a stupid thing and not a reason to arrest you. But about that most stupid thing? Sorry, can’t help you there.
“Pacheco says he’s totally stumped,” Eddie continued over the phone. “He even ran background checks on all the MOB, hoping something interesting might pop up, but he came up with nothing. He said he’s beginning to think it might be a random shooting after all.”
“Except for your bottle of Aquavit showing up near Birdy’s body,” I reminded him. “That can’t be random.”
“You wouldn’t think so, would you?” Eddie agreed with me. “I still think someone tried to frame me, but who knows? Maybe whoever picked it up when I lost it helping with the float was meaning to return it to me, but they lost it while birding.”
“In the same vicinity as where Birdy was killed?” I asked. “I don’t think so, Eddie.”
“Well, Bob, if you have any miraculous revelations about who killed Birdy, and why, I’m sure Chief Pacheco would be happy to hear about it,” Eddie said. “Judging from his comments, I think the chief is about ready to throw in the towel on this one.”
We talked a few more minutes about his progress on the drone, and I told him Luce and I were going to be leaving for home after tomorrow’s Citrus Festival Parade. I went back to dozing in the hammock, but not before I turned my cell phone off.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I decided.
Hello, naptime.
And just before I fell asleep, I finally knew what it was that had struck me about Eddie’s recording at the Estero Llano parking lot. Aside from Birdy, Poppy Mac was the only one with a knapsack. Buzz had carried his impressive walking stick, binoculars tucked in a case attached to his belt, and Gunnar, Schooner, and Paddy had binoculars hanging on their chests.
Their Hawaiian shirt-covered chests.
>
But unless they had interior pockets on those shirts, none of the MOB magpies were bringing along a bottle of Aquavit.
Paddy’s wife, though… she could easily have a small liquor bottle stashed in that bag.
Heck, she could have had a hammer in there for all I knew.
It occurred to me then that Buzz had had a backpack when we’d first encountered him on the deck on Wednesday morning. I wondered where he had picked it up, since Crazy Eddie’s recording plainly showed him backpack-less when he’d arrived. Had there been some kind of hand-off in the park?
I had a bad feeling that if a hand-off was happening in Estero Llano early in the morning in secluded areas, it probably wasn’t a cookie exchange.
When Poppy had mentioned the other day that the area had long been known for drug smuggling and illegal immigration, I’d passed it off as a local reputation that might or might not be accurate, sort of like how almost every college in America says it’s the biggest party school in the nation. After our own encounter with Border Patrol at Bentsen-Rio Grande, though, I had personal proof that illegal activity along the Mexican-American border was a fact of life.
Crap.
I’d already crossed Buzz Davis off my suspect list, and now I was going to have to put him back on, because I didn’t know where he’d gotten a backpack, or what was in it. On top of that, when I added what I’d learned that morning about the former astronaut’s sharpshooting ability along with his unrequited love for Rosalie, I figured I’d better promote the man to the number one suspect position. Why Buzz might want to hurt Eddie was beyond me, but the man clearly had the skills to do it. As for motive to kill his best friend, long-simmering resentment and revenge could rank right up there with passionate competition.
Gee, whoever thinks that age can slow a man down could learn a thing or two from Buzz Davis.
I wasn’t sure if they would necessarily be good things to learn, however.
And then I realized I had a question for Chief Pacheco that might finally help him get closer to identifying Birdy’s killer.