As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  Dinah smiled at her, extended a hand and put it on her shoulder. “Better yet, why don’t you take us to him?”

  Gloria Harden conducted them down a short hall lined with photos, drawings, and paintings of animals. Segal pointed out photos to Dinah, stalling for time, checking the images out as they moved toward a set of double doors. The pictures had a peculiar quality of mood in common. It seemed to Segal as if the animals had all posed with a degree of self-awareness, much as people do. He couldn’t decide if it was creepy or funny or what, but it made an impression. Segal saw Dinah raise an eyebrow. She was seeing it, too. Gloria glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

  No doubt, Segal thought, she’s seen this kind of reaction before.

  She rapped softly with her knuckles before pushing the thick oak doors open. As she did, she said in a hushed tone, “This is the central lab room.”

  Segal stopped in the doorway. His hand dropped to the paperback book sticking out of his coat pocket. His thumb ruffled the pages in an unconscious movement as he took in the room.

  It was a large space, well-lit by a wall of windows and a glass door on the opposite wall. There were a number of lab benches and a few cages for mice and other small animals. Most were empty, but Segal made out an owl, a couple of chipmunks, and a small primate of some kind. There were devices that Segal did not recognize with dials, gauges, and digital displays, piles of books, and the occasional hand tool, as well as microscopes and magnifying glasses.

  At a large desk to one side, a black man, hair graying at the temples, probably in his late thirties or early forties, worked at a computer keyboard with several monitors.

  “Lewis, it’s the police,” Gloria said in a tone that bordered on apologetic. She wiped her hands off on the sides of her checkered blue skirt.

  “Are you here about Francis?” he asked, still not looking up from the computer screens.

  Segal shot a glance at Dinah.

  “I’m afraid we’re here because we have some bad news concerning one of your colleagues, Charles Atley,” Segal said. Lewis looked up. His eyes were dark and clear. His complexion smooth and unlined.

  There was nothing that Segal could immediately see that indicated Lewis had any knowledge of what had happened to his associate. But you never knew.

  “He was found dead this morning.” There it was, blunt-force news. Segal had never found any gentle way to convey that message. Perhaps no such way existed.

  Gloria opened her mouth and covered it with both hands. Lewis’s jowl quivered. His rib cage compressed. He blew out a long, slow breath. “You’re sure it was Atley?” he asked.

  Segal nodded and gave him time to process the information. Lewis turned slowly in his chair to face away from them, to face out the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked onto a wooded lot behind the building.

  After a moment, he said in a far-off tone, “I’m just the computer guy. What am I supposed to do now?”

  Before Segal could ask what he meant, a large crow glided to the ground outside the window. It pecked on the glass twice, then made an odd movement with its head, first up and down, then a motion as if it were sharpening its beak against its right wing. Lewis looked up from his reverie, and the bird repeated the window pecking and the movements exactly as before.

  “Fuck you, Richard,” Lewis said to the bird, getting out of his chair. “This is all I need right now.”

  Segal looked on, amazed. Dinah glanced at Gloria.

  “That’s Francis’s bird, Richard,” she said, as though that explained everything. “Richard says he’s hungry. He’s asking us to give him some food. That’s what those signals mean.”

  “Only he’s bullshitting. Aren’t you, Richard?” Lewis said. Whatever emotional stress their visit had stirred up seemed now to resolve itself into anger at the crow. Lewis went on to explain that he happened to know Richard had feasted on a road kill rabbit less than an hour ago. “I was driving in, coming through the pass up on the ridge top, and I saw him drag it off the road. Him and his latest girlfriend started tearing into it,” he said. “He can’t possibly be hungry. He’s up to something.”

  “How do you know it was the same crow?” Segal asked.

  “Oh, it was Richard, all right,” Lewis said. “Being big bird on campus with the young females. See, by normal crow society standards, Richard should have called in the rest of the flock, a feast like that, but like I said, he’s got to impress the girls.”

  “I thought birds like that were supposed to mate for life and be monogamous,” Dinah said.

  Lewis and Gloria reacted with half a laugh.

  “That might be true of most crows,” Lewis said, “but Richard is special. Bird gets more tail feather than James Bond.” He looked at Gloria and they laughed again. Segal viewed it as two friends sharing an inside joke about a colleague. Then the gravity of the moment reasserted itself.

  Richard, still outside the window, kept looking in at them. He hopped from foot to foot. Segal saw something in the eyes of the bird he had not noticed before. It was like the pictures in the hall. Maybe it was the influence of what he just learned from Lewis, but Segal felt he saw an intelligence permeating from the crow’s dark brown eyes, and into his own. Segal recoiled and shifted his weight, but did not break eye contact with the bird.

  “So how did Richard get so special?” Segal asked. “Does it have anything to do with the work here at Creatures 2.0?” He wanted to talk about the murder victim, but he had learned that sometimes it was useful to allow these conversations room to assume their own shape.

  “It has everything to do with what Creatures 2.0 is about,” Lewis said, appearing to deflate in his chair. “Richard here is our latest and greatest project—or, really, the latest and greatest of our boss, Francis Elah. Selection, breeding, training—Richard is what is possible with someone like Francis.” Lewis cradled his forehead in his hand.

  “But Francis Elah isn’t here right now,” Segal said.

  Lewis shook his head and closed his eyes.

  “When do you expect him to return?” Segal asked.

  Lewis shifted in his chair and then with a slight frown, glanced in the direction of Dinah and Gloria. Segal sensed he was reluctant to talk in front of the receptionist.

  “Gloria, I wonder if you could show Sergeant Rudisill around the building, and especially Mr. Atley’s office. Would that be all right?” Segal asked.

  She seemed relieved to have something to do, and Segal nodded to Dinah as the two women left the room. The desk chair squeaked as Lewis got up.

  “Given what has happened, we’re going to have to talk to Francis Elah. You understand,” Segal said, giving no room for interpretation. He turned to Lewis, who now sat on the edge of his desk.

  Lewis crossed his arms and shook his head. “That’s going to be a problem. You see, I don’t know where he is, and I don’t have a way to get in touch with him.”

  Baloney, Segal thought.

  Lewis continued. “A while ago some men from the government approached Francis. I don’t know what branch. I always thought military, just from the way they acted. That’s not too unusual. We’ve done government projects before, along with our work for the movies and other things. But these guys always met with Francis alone. Francis showed them some things Richard could do, but that’s about all I know. Everything was very top secret. Everything moved fast, not how Francis usually operates. Then there came a time when Francis told us there was a job he needed to do. He would take Richard with him. He was not allowed to talk about it, and he would be back as soon as he could. He told us he would probably be gone at least a week, maybe two.”

  “And when did he leave?” Segal asked.

  Lewis turned to the calendar on his desk. “Five weeks now.”

  “And while he was gone, Charles Atley was in charge?” he prompted.

  “Yeah, Chickey,” Lewis said. “He was the only one, I think, who could be left in charge, even though he and Francis had been having some arguments.�
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  “Atley didn’t like Francis?” Segal said.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, Chickey pretty much idolized Francis, even copied the way he dressed and wore his hair and beard. He was like a little brother. But they argued about what to do with the technology. Chickey wanted to publicize more, to expand the whole operation. Francis was not so sure. He was holding back, taking it slow, making sure we understood what we were creating. That was the way he put it.”

  “And what exactly is the technology?” Segal asked. He looked at the window, where Richard the crow still stood watching them, his beak moving like a person watching a tennis match as they talked.

  “I don’t know how much detail you want to get into, but it’s all about selecting, breeding, and training animals. Actually, selecting and breeding are minor parts of the program. It’s mostly training and what Francis calls ‘reordering.’ That’s where our name comes from, Creatures 2.0, like a whole new and improved version of the animals.”

  “So, it’s a little more than teaching your dog to roll over,” Segal said.

  “More like teaching your dog to roll over and do calculus,” Lewis said. Segal raised his eyebrows and Lewis smiled. “Well, not really that extreme, but pretty extreme.” He paused. “Let me show you an example.”

  He got up and went over to a large cage where a rhesus monkey napped. He opened the cage and the monkey woke up, though with little apparent enthusiasm. “Come here, Hollander,” he said, and the monkey climbed onto his arm. “Francis doesn’t really like to work with primates, but Hollander here is an orphan, and Francis took him in.” Then he said, “Hey, Hollander, you want to show the lieutenant here a trick?”

  Segal narrowed his eyes, impatient to get on with the investigation.

  Lewis removed a small deck of playing cards from a drawer by the cage and brought the cards and the monkey to a lab bench by Segal. The monkey climbed down onto the lab bench, picked up the deck, and began to shuffle it.

  Segal could not help smiling. “That’s pretty impressive,” he said.

  When the deck was shuffled to his satisfaction, the monkey deftly fanned out the cards face down on the bench, then looked up at Segal and made a motion with his delicate brown little hand. The curled tail straightened a little along with this gesture.

  “He wants you to pick a card,” Lewis explained.

  Segal did so. It was the jack of diamonds.

  The monkey picked up the deck, did a little more shuffling, then fanned it again and held it out to Segal. Segal caught on. He replaced the card near the middle of the deck, then stood with his arms crossed.

  The monkey collapsed the cards together and shuffled some more. Finally, he placed the deck on the bench, cut the cards, and nodded for Segal to pick up the top card.

  It was, of course, the jack of diamonds.

  Segal stood for a moment while Lewis gave Hollander a treat and returned him to the cage. “How did you teach him that?” Segal had never understood how human magicians did that trick, much less a monkey.

  “Not so much me,” Lewis said. “I’m an engineer. I’m on board for the computer stuff and statistics and monitoring equipment. In fact, before Francis took off, I didn’t have all that much to do with the animals. To tell you the truth, I don’t have the patience. They tend to piss me off. But it’s a small company, and in a small company, everyone does what needs to be done. That was one of Francis’s mantras.” He looked out the window at the crow. The crow made a motion with his head and left wing. Lewis pressed a button by the window and spoke into a mic. “Forget about it, Richard. Fly away now and come back later. We’ll talk.”

  “He understands when you talk to him like that?” Segal asked. After all, people talked to animals all the time. Didn’t mean the animals understood what they were saying.

  “He understands, all right,” Lewis said, rubbing his forearms, the light in his eyes slowly draining.

  It seemed to Segal to be actions that had more to do with disgust than pride.

  Out the window, the bird did not move right away but continued watching Lewis. Then he moved his beak without making any sound, turned around, flicked his tail up and down, and flew out of sight.

  Segal massaged his temples. “Let’s focus on Francis Elah. Francis and Atley are having arguments, Francis disappears, Atley is killed near a place where you guys hang out.”

  Lewis shook his head. “I see how you’re thinking, but no. No way does Francis do something to hurt Chickey or anyone else.”

  “Did you go to 12 Bones with them last night?”

  “Yeah, I was there. It was really kind of a meeting Chickey called. Like, what’s the game plan if Francis doesn’t return soon?”

  “And did you come up with a game plan?”

  “Everyone argued, ate some barbecue, drank a couple beers, and left. To be honest, it felt disloyal to Francis to even be having that discussion.”

  “And Chickey was still there when you left?”

  “He went out back when everyone else left out the front. Said he was going to take a leak in the weeds cause there was a line at the men’s room. He was feeling bad about the meeting. I guess he tried to do the right thing, but he just didn’t get any traction with the staff.”

  Segal took a moment to absorb this then returned to the main point. “We really need to talk to Francis. There must be some way to get a message to him.”

  “You don’t understand how secret they were about this. I’m telling you, he left nothing,” Lewis said, shaking his head. “I asked him if it was a need-to-know kind of thing, and he told me it was more than that. He said we needed not to know.”

  “Who else can we talk to? Family?” Segal asked.

  “You can try. He’s got a wife and daughter. Emily is the wife’s name, lives in the Grove Arcade.” Lewis walked back to his computer keyboard, retrieved the wife’s phone number and address, and jotted them on a slip of paper. He seemed glad to be wheeling and dealing in the comfortable realm of data retrieval and transfer.

  Lewis walked him to the lobby, where they found Dinah and Gloria. Gloria was crying softly, seated again behind her desk, her head down and a soaked tissue to her eyes.

  “Thanks again for your help,” Segal said. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” It was a simple and inadequate statement he had to use from time to time, always aware of how far it fell from making things okay.

  Dinah’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out and checked the number. It was their boss. She showed it to Segal who frowned and shook his head. She returned the phone to her pocket unanswered.

  In the old days, this would have been exactly the kind of case they called him in on. It was looking complex, nuanced, hard to read, at least for anyone else. Now, he had to decide whether or not to hand it off, and he was not ready and thus didn’t want to talk to the boss yet.

  As they walked down the steps toward the car, he heard the caw of a crow. He craned his neck to see Richard high in a poplar tree, watching them go and cocking his head to one side. Segal felt again a sense of intelligence about the bird. He suppressed the urge to wave goodbye.

  CHAPTER 4

  Eggs and Bacon

  Downtown Asheville had a scrubbed-clean feel about it in the early morning. The air held a freshness and a coolness typical there even in late summer. The city tended to be a late-rising kind of place, so early risers like the man in the green jacket had the place more or less to themselves, which perfectly suited his mood that day. It was to be a day of relaxation, of catching up on little things he had denied himself for the last couple of weeks while he was busy with what they euphemistically called “the Project.” This breakfast, at a nice place out on the sidewalk at a table with a linen cloth and glasses of orange juice and ice water, was one such little thing. Soon enough he would feel the pressure of the next phase of the project, but for now, a little pause.

  A waitress with straight, dark hair and a tattoo on her arm and a short black skirt put a plate of eggs and
bacon and buttered sourdough toast in front of him when his phone, lying on the table, buzzed. At first, he thought to ignore it, but ignoring phones was simply not in his makeup. Either you were the kind of person who could ignore a buzzing phone or you weren’t. He picked up the phone, saw the number, and touched the screen with irritation as he put it to his ear. He listened for a second.

  “What do you mean, wrong man?” He realized he said this too loudly and checked to see if he had been overheard. He regained his composure and listened to a lengthy monologue from the other end. As he did so, he plucked the napkin from his lap and laid it beside his silverware. As he listened more, speaking only single words from time to time to let the caller know he was still there, he slowly folded and shaped the napkin, one corner at a time. By the time he said “I understand” and hung up, the napkin was in the shape of a flower. The lightness of mood was gone. The irritation with the interruption was gone. He was all business, planning and breaking down the next steps in his course of action. Either you were the kind of person who got to have a nice breakfast at a sidewalk café or you weren’t.

  His phone dinged announcing a text message. He picked it up and saw the photo attached to the text. He was looking at a thin man in a gray sport coat and a much smaller woman with an enormous shock of curly brown hair standing by a car at the site of the shooting. All he knew of them was what the text told him: Local complications. Deal with them. Appropriate action.

  The man snorted. Appropriate action. Living in the world of euphemism.

  He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket and made a sandwich of the toast and eggs and bacon. After he put a couple of bills on the table, he slugged down the glass of orange juice, stood, got his jacket on, and walked away, taking his first bite of the sandwich when he had gone half a block. Checking behind him as he strode away, the waitress with the short skirt came out as he neared the corner, then smiled when she saw the money and the flower.