As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  “I don’t like him either.”

  Dinah bopped him on the arm. “Since when did you get so judgmental? Usually, you give everyone a pass.”

  “For him, I’ll make an exception. He sure does have nice shoes, though.”

  “Pretty much perfect.”

  Segal sat at the table and Dinah followed suit. Through the window, he saw their boss walking down the hall, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and the ever-present sheaf of papers in the other. When he got to the door of the conference room, he looked down the hall, presumably watching the ONI guy exit stage left.

  He came in and said, “Well?”

  “I think he wants to find Francis Elah even more than we do,” Segal said. “Other than that, he didn’t say much.”

  “We liked his shoes,” Dinah added.

  The boss crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I’m glad you liked his shoes. I guess that’s something to build on because you have to work with him on this.”

  “Copy that,” Dinah said.

  Segal’s phone rang. He answered and listened. “That was one of the security guards over at the Grove Arcade. He sounded kind of shaken up, and there was a strange noise in the background.”

  “Like what?” their boss asked.

  “Like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Aerial Combat

  Dinah drove. Segal watched the landscape and the skies above. She parked on Grove Street and called in their location to dispatch. He got out and winced a little. A shiver ran through him. Bum hip.

  A crowd huddled on the sidewalk, looking up at the roof of the Grove Arcade. Some stood across the street for a better vantage. Several dining at the sidewalk tables around the arcade stood and shielded their eyes with their hands or their menus.

  They’re wondering if they should run, Segal thought. He didn’t know what to tell them.

  The scene reminded him of his days growing up in the country. Crows sometimes ganged up on an owl or a hawk. You heard the noise before you saw anything. The sky would fill with angry, loud cries and black shapes darting back and forth. He remembered one such scene centered on a great oak tree. When he came upon it, the crows were still gathering, several of them sitting in the highest branches, sending out the call to arms. More and more arrived until they had critical mass, and attack ensued. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in twos or threes, the attack birds darted in, while the others in the branches kept up the alarming and confusing din.

  It was like that at the Grove Arcade. Dinah hurried across the street, her hand high with the video on her phone recording. Segal moved to the entrance where he saw the guard who had called him. His first concern was for Emily and Suzie Elah.

  The guard wiped sweat off his face. “They’re okay,” he said. “They’re in their apartment, and I asked one of our guys to stay outside their door.”

  “When did this start?” Segal asked.

  “They came home a little while ago. Emily… mean Mrs. Elah, called me ’cause she was spooked out. When she came in on the street level, she looked up and saw a man she didn’t recognize near her apartment. When she and the girl got off the elevator, he was gone, and the door to the steps was closing. She was scared to go into the apartment. I came up and checked it out. No one was there. She checked around. Didn’t see anything out of place or missing. I came down. We checked the surveillance video, didn’t see anyone come out of the stairs on ground level. That’s when all hell broke loose on the roof.”

  Segal scanned the top of the arcade. The crows were even more agitated than before. “That stairway you mentioned. If you go up from the apartment level instead of going down, does it lead to the roof?”

  “Yeah, there’s a service door up there.”

  Segal called to Dinah, who continued to film as she came over. The three of them pushed open the brass-plated doors into the arcade. Although the sound was not as sharp as outside, the calls of the crows echoed off the tile walls and glass windows in an eerie reverberation. People ran by, bug-eyed, staring up at the glass ceiling where dark shapes could be seen darting back and forth. The birds also cast shadows on the walls and floor of the arcade vault.

  A horror movie for sure. “Where are the stairs?” he asked.

  The security guard led them to a stairway entrance on the other side of the arcade. He reached for his keys, fumbled them. Dinah pushed with both hands and the gate swung free. She ran through and started taking stairs two at a time. Segal was close behind with the security guard in the rear. Dinah touched the gun on her belt and thumbed open the restraining straps. Segal followed suit.

  Inside the stairwell, light and sound muted for Segal. His injured leg was stiff at first, and after he had run up three flights the pain set in for real. He willed himself not to limp or slow down. He had declared himself back in the game, and he was sticking with it. It felt good to be more worried for the safety of the people around him than for himself.

  At the top, the security guard pushed past and reached for the lever to open the door. Dinah laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered for him to wait. Segal took cues from Dinah. She, then Segal would go through the door first. She got into place. Segal nodded, the guard swung open the heavy door and Segal ran after Dinah out into the blinding light of the roof.

  Dinah pointed for them to break off slightly. She would go east. Segal west.

  He found he was on a catwalk that encircled the central tower of the building, situated several feet above the roof of the arcade proper. Some crows flew around, but the noise and intensity of motion had diminished. No signs of blood or attack. Segal told the guard to stay put and watch the door.

  Segal motioned to Dinah to move along the catwalk. She walked forward in a well-balanced crouch while he moved the other way. As he advanced, he looked around the roof but saw no sign of Mrs. Elah’s intruder, if indeed he had come up this way, nor any sign of anything special that would have triggered a crow battle. He turned the corner and moved up the side of the tower parallel to Page Avenue. The view over the city was great, and likewise the mountains to the east. One day, he thought, he would hike those mountains again.

  When he rounded the next corner, he saw Dinah at the opposite one. She was walking slow, breathing easy. They met in the middle and scanned over the roof with the glass skylight in the center. Segal realized he could see the entrance to the Elahs’ apartment. Nothing fishy there.

  Dinah put a hand on his arm. “Look,” she said, pointing to the parapet on the far end of the building.

  There, Segal spotted a man climbing over. His hands grasped the lip of the parapet, his cold eyes looked right at them as if in challenge. The man held there for a second, lowered his head, and after another second released his hands and was gone.

  Immediately, two loud caws made Segal jump.

  Dinah yelled, “Duck!”

  A large crow swooped down; Segal ducked but not fast enough. The crow grazed his cheek. It was followed by an even larger crow in hot pursuit. Segal felt a trickle of blood. The pair of crows kept close to the central structure. The lead crow appeared to use the structure as cover to shake its tormentor, without success. The first crow dove toward the roof of the arcade as if it might land and instead, pulled up. The move, obviously intended to fake the larger bird into crashing, backfired. The one in pursuit struck the lead bird with beak and claws at the same time. It rode the other bird down. Together, they glanced off the skylight and landed like a bundle of black rags on the gravel of the roof. The crow riding on top struck once, then twice, hard into the back of the other bird’s head.

  Before it could finish off its adversary, two smaller crows swooped in to the rescue. They were no match for the larger bird, yet were able to force it to leave their comrade and focus on them. The first crow got unsteadily to its feet, hopped a couple of times, and managed to flap its wings and get airborne. Segal watched it rise to the roof of the central structure above them. The crow spread its wings for a landing,
soon disappearing over the roof. By the time Segal slowly turned one eighty to the arcade, the big crow had chased off the rescuers and got airborne. It rose quickly with powerful thrusts, circled the building, searching, it seemed, for its prey.

  It took no time for the big crow to spot the other bird on top of the central tower and make a dive. Soon the two crows reappeared in violent struggle.

  The crows then separated and disappeared from sight.

  Segal waited. He stood tense, his mouth open, breathing hard. Dinah came to his side and put a hand on his arm. He relaxed his stance and started to speak, but just as he did, he heard a scuffle above. He leaned back only to see the head of the large crow spying down at them. When the head withdrew, they heard more scuffling, then saw an object being pushed over the edge. The object hurtled toward them and fell like a heavy bundle at their feet.

  It was the body of the murdered crow.

  Segal could only stare. The dead crow was crumpled, the back of its head wet with oozing blood. There was a small plastic band around one of the legs.

  “The band,” Segal said. His hip was killing him.

  Dinah reholstered. “Somebody’s pet or science project.” She fished in her jacket pocket and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The gloves were difficult. She pulled on the latex fingers and struggled.

  Dinah crouched and put the bird on the ground. She spread the wings, and the head fell limp to one side. “Big crow pecked this one’s brains out.”

  Segal heard a sound above. The larger crow was at the edge of the roof. It opened its beak and shook its head as if to fluff its rumpled battle feathers. It seemed to Segal that its eyes glowed with intelligence and something else. Vengeance? The crow picked up something with its beak, then with a hop launched into the air and began to fly, it seemed to Segal, a little uncertainly.

  The large crow was joined by one other, and somehow Segal could tell this was support, not pursuit. The birds headed northeast.

  “I think that was Richard,” Dinah said.

  “I think that was Richard, too,” Segal said. He remembered what Elah’s wife had said about the bird not being far from Francis. “If it is Richard…”

  “…Creatures 2.0,” Dinah said.

  The birds flew off into the sunlight. At that point, Segal heard another sound to his right. It was more crows, presumably the remnants of the opposing flock. They were perched on the parapet and on a wire and antenna mounted to the roof. They all seemed to be watching Dinah hold their fallen comrade, Segal thought.

  “Weird,” Dinah said.

  Segal agreed. There was something unusual about a couple of them. Something was attached to their heads. They reminded Segal of those stupid headset mics that singers sometimes wore. The crow on the highest part of the wire gave a loud call, and they all, bounding into the air, rose up, then paused in midair and began to plummet toward them.

  Segal yelled to Dinah, “Run!”

  The crows were a wall of black missiles. The sky screamed.

  She took off with the dead crow.

  Segal did his best, gaining speed even as the crow screams threatened to overtake him. He felt wings bash his head and the threat of more stabs from beaks and feet. He almost went down, stumbled and righted himself.

  The door to the rooftop was suddenly near. Dinah and the security guard reached out and pulled him through. He ran his hands over his shoulders and head to make sure no birds were clinging to him, then collapsed against the wall. They slammed the door shut and for a moment Segal could hear banging and scratching against it. When the sound stopped Dinah opened the door a crack and held her phone, videoing the entire flock of crows as they rose and flew southwest, directly opposite the direction the first two crows had headed.

  “What the hell is going on here?” It was the security guard, whom Segal had left guarding the door. He was sweating bullets, pale as a plastic dinner plate. “Are you guys okay?”

  Segal nodded and caught his breath. “Dammit,” he said, checking his head for more wounds. He led the way outside. It was quiet, like the feeling after the passing of a storm. “Jeez, look at this,” the guard said. He ran his hand over the exterior of the steel door, fingering the deep dents and gouges. “I didn’t know birds could do this kind of damage.”

  Dinah called in for backup.

  “Richard,” Segal huffed. “I’m going to the lab. See if Richard shows up there.”

  Dinah tossed the bag with the dead crow. He caught it one-handed.

  She went for the stairs, then turned. “You’re okay to split up?”

  Segal knew her orders from their boss were to back him up. He staunched the blood on his forehead with his hand. Motioned for her to go.

  Segal drove downtown, bending and craning his neck from time to time, never seeing any sign of the birds. He’d tossed the bag containing the dead crow onto the passenger seat. Bloody-pink smears coated the inside of the bag.

  When he entered the Creatures 2.0 building, Gloria, the receptionist was there. She wore an even shorter skirt than the first time he met her. This one was red.

  “Is Richard here?” Segal asked.

  If Gloria was surprised to hear him ask for the crow by name, she showed no sign of it. If she was surprised at the fresh cut on his forehead, she showed no sign of that either. She only nodded.

  “Take me to him,” he said. Gloria led him across the lobby toward the back of the building and into the large laboratory they had visited before. She pushed open the door, and he saw Lewis and another man; one-twenty, six-foot, brown hair, brown eyes, Segal thought. Richard the crow was on a lab bench, allowing the tall man to examine him while Lewis gently held the crow’s feet.

  Lewis didn’t seem surprised to see Segal. “Richard here got his ass kicked, lieutenant,” he said by way of greeting.

  “You should see the other guy,” Segal said. “In fact, you can see the other guy.”

  Segal held up the evidence bag containing the dead crow. He tossed it on the lab bench. Lewis and the tall man didn’t flinch. Studied the bag, studied Segal.

  Is that normal or not for them, Segal wondered. What’s going on?

  Gloria was still at the door. “You saw Richard do this?” She seemed more upset by this than when he had told her about Chickey.

  Lewis sighed. “I told Francis stuff like this would happen,” he said. “Pump up the intelligence in these animals and you don’t know what they’re going to do.” He softened his face toward Richard and resumed dressing the crow’s wounds. “Give us a minute, lieutenant, while the doctor here finishes up.”

  Segal obliged. Soon, the doctor seemed satisfied with the condition of his patient. He pulled his hands away, smoothed the feathers at the back of Richard’s neck, then pulled off his surgical gloves and tossed them in the waste can by the bench.

  “Gloria, why don’t you show the doctor out,” Lewis said.

  The room emptied.

  Segal wondered about Lewis. Richard was another matter entirely.

  “So, you saw this going down?” Lewis asked.

  Segal told him about the clash of birds above the Grove Arcade, culminating in the fight to the death that Richard won. Then the crow attack on Segal and Dinah. Lewis sat on a stool and put an elbow on the lab bench. He fingered the evidence bag with the dead bird. Segal opened the bag and gently pulled the body out far enough for Lewis to see where Richard had done his damage.

  “Is this normal crow behavior?” Segal asked. “I mean, I’ve seen crows attack other birds, but I never saw one attack another crow.”

  “It happens,” Lewis said. “Not a lot, but it happens. Could be a squabble over a female, or over territory or a food source. Thing is, the fights are not usually to the death. One crow chases another one away. I don’t think this was a natural fight. Seems more like it was staged.”

  “Staged?” Segal asked. “You say this because Richard actually killed the other crow?”

  Lewis paused, then seemed to come to a conclusion. “I�
��m saying so because it’s Richard, and because Richard brought this with him when he came.” Lewis opened a drawer in the lab bench and withdrew a plastic bag of his own. He opened it and slid the contents onto the bench. It was a small black device with a wire loop and a tiny lens.

  Segal picked up the device and cupped it in his hands. He thought immediately of the irregularity he had noticed about the heads of the other flock and he remembered seeing something in Richard’s beak when he flew away. “What is this, exactly?”

  Lewis shifted his feet while seated. He glanced right and left before he leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “This is getting me into a real touchy area here. I mean, I know I got to help you find out who killed Chickey, but this is some stuff I was sworn to secrecy on. Government stuff.”

  Segal nodded. “I understand. I won’t share this with anyone who doesn’t need to know about it.”

  Lewis rubbed his throat and seemed to be working up the courage to speak. “Okay, when the government guy first came to talk to Francis, he brought one of these with him. It’s a little video camera and transmitter and recorder. It’s meant to fit on the head of a bird, a crow in this case. It transmits more or less what the bird sees. Obviously, it had something to do with the project they wanted Francis to work on. That’s when Francis pulled me in on it. He decided to do the project, but he wanted to modify the device so it worked better for the bird. Like I told you, I’m more of a computer and electronics guy than an animal trainer.”

  “What were they trying to do?” Segal asked.

  Lewis shook his head. “They never told me. Francis said I didn’t want to know. Thing was, Francis didn’t like the way this thing fit on the bird. It bothered the crows—probably too tight on their heads or distorted their balance sense—and they would try to lose it. Richard is definitely intelligent enough that he would have ditched it.”

  Segal picked up the device again, truly feeling the weight of it in his hand. Light, compact. He held it up and studied the scale against Richard’s head, trying to gauge how the thing would fit. Richard gave him a squawk and took a sideways step, as if to say, Don’t even think about trying to put that thing on me.