Death Takes a Gander

by Goff, Christine

  Praise for the Birdwatcher’s Mystery series by Christine Goff

  “Very entertaining. Birders and nature lovers alike will enjoy this new twist on the cozy mystery.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “You don’t have to be a bird lover to fall in love with Christine Goff’s charming Birdwatcher’s Mysteries.”

  —Tony Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author of the Navajo Mystery series.

  “The birds of the Rocky Mountains will warm the binoculars of birders who have waited a lifetime to see real stories about birds in a popular novel.”

  —Birding Business Magazine

  “Christine Goff’s Birdwatcher’s mysteries are engaging.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “A wonderfully clever, charming, and addictive series.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art.

  DEATH OF A SONGBIRD

  “A most absorbing mystery.”

  —Virginia H. Kingsolver, Birding Magazine

  A RANT OF RAVENS

  “Everything you expect from a good mystery—a smart detective and a plot that takes some surprising twists… a terrific debut!”

  —Margaret Coel, New York Times best-selling author of the Wind River Mystery series.

  “A Rant of Ravens is a deft and marvelous debut mystery set in the complex and colorful world of bird-watching.”

  —Earlene Fowler, national bestselling author of Seven Sisters

  “A Rant of Ravens stars a gutsy heroine in fast-paced action with a chill-a-minute finale… A fine-feathered debut.”

  —Carolyn Hart, award-winning author of the Death on Demand and Henrie O mysteries.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel

  are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  DEATH TAKES A GANDER

  Astor + Blue Editions

  Copyright © 2014 by Christine Goff

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form under the International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. Published in the United States by:

  Astor + Blue Editions

  New York, NY 10036

  www.astorandblue.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  GOFF, CHRISTINE. DEATH TAKES A GANDER.—2nd ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-941286-28-9 (epdf)

  ISBN: 978-1-941286-27-2 (epub)

  1. Mystery—Thriller—Fiction. 2. Park mystery—Fiction 3. Cozy mystery—Fiction 4. Mid-life—Mystery—

  Fiction 5. Birdwatchers—Fiction 6. Women & Family—Fiction 7. Colorado I. Title

  Jacket Cover Design: Didier Meresse

  Printing History

  2004 Berkeley Prime Crime

  The Berkeley Publishing Group New York, NY

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  To my mother, Mardee McKinlay Birchfield, whose spirit lives on in me. I love you.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Christine Goff

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author’s Notes

  About the author

  Acknowledgments

  DEATH

  TAKES A GANDER

  Christine Goff

  CHAPTER 1

  Wild animals are creatures of habit and environment, with anticipated behaviors. None crave human contact, but when it comes, there are rules of engagement.

  People, on the other hand, are unpredictable. They come in all different shapes, sizes, and temperaments, and with multiple agendas. In twenty-four years, Angela had learned to be cautious.

  “Will you repeat the message?”

  “Your partner is requesting backup at Barr Lake,” dispatch replied. “He was hard to hear. Said something about a sick bird.”

  Angela wondered if this was Ian’s idea of a joke.

  “What’s your ten-twenty?” dispatch asked.

  “Fort Collins.”

  “And your E.T.A.?”

  Angela glanced at her watch. It was seven thirty, and Barr Lake was a good forty minutes away.

  “Twenty thirty,” she said, tacking on ten minutes so she could change out of her dress. It was New Year’s Eve, and she’d been headed over to her parents’house for dinner. “Is anyone else en route?”

  “Negative. He requested we relay the message to you.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Angela hung up the phone, called her mother and canceled dinner, then changed into her uniform—a pair of chocolate brown pants and a light-green, long-sleeved shirt. Tugging on her boots, she grabbed a pair of gloves, a wool hat, her insulated coat, and her duty belt. She locked the door, tossed the armload of clothes and her belt on the passenger’s seat, and fired up her truck. After backing slowly out of the driveway, she took it easy past the lake, then gunned it on Harmony Road.

  Home was a three-room cabin near Boyd Lake. She had moved in her senior year of college, scraping together the rent through odd jobs fitted around her school schedule. Private, tucked in among the cottonwoods, it suited her perfectly. Now that she’d accepted the job with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, she figured she’d have to move. She wasn’t required to be in the office that much, but on the days she was, she faced over an hour commute.

  Turning onto I-25, Angela pointed the truck toward Denver and wondered what had prompted Ian’s call. Ian Ogburn was her field supervisor. Set to retire in a matter of months, he was responsible for training her as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent. Her dream job—investigating and apprehending persons suspected of offenses against the criminal laws of the United States, specifically those protecting wildlife.

  Unfortunately, Ian was less than a dream to work for. This was the second time in two months he’d called her out unexpectedly, both times centered on reports of a “sick” bird. The first incident had turned out to be a wild goose chase. Someone had reported seeing several dead geese at the edge of Horsetooth Reservoir, but by the time they had arrived on scene, the birds were gone. She and Ian had scoured the shoreline for hours and turned up nothing.

  This had better be for real, Ian.

  It was New Year’s Eve, and she’d taken the afternoon off. After making a last-minute charitable contribution at Goodwill, she had planned on dinner with her folks and a late-night date with the DVD.

  Even Ian had scheduled the weekend off. According to him, he planned on meeting someone regarding an open case, then heading home for the weekend. She wondered what had prompted the change in plans.

  Forty minutes later, and no closer to an answer, she turned off the main highway onto Bromley Lane. Snapping off the radio, she forced herself to focus on the present. Ian had called for backup but hadn’t specified what he needed, only that it had something to do with a sick bird. More than likely, she faced a lesson in field evaluation and transportation of a sick animal. But there was always the possibility he had stumbled into trouble.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as she parked beside Ian’s truck. It stood empty, with a half-inch of powder
accumulated on its hood. Directly ahead, the Barr Lake State Park Visitors Center appeared to be all locked up.

  So where was Ian?

  She checked her watch. He had called in the request for backup over an hour ago. Had he struck out alone?

  Law Enforcement 101: if you call for help, you should wait for it to get there.

  Angela killed the engine, then cracked open the driver’s side window and listened.

  Nothing except the faint whisper of snow striking glass.

  Dousing the headlights, she stared into the inky-black night. It stretched in all directions, broken only to the west and southwest, where the city lights from Brighton, Commerce City, and Denver lit the underbelly of the clouds. Cornfields and prairie meandered in black shadows to the east and north. To the south lay the boundaries of Denver International Airport.

  Somewhere toward the glow, past the road to the banding station and behind the trees, lay Barr Lake.

  She had done some research on the area as part of a college project. Created in the 1880s, the reservoir provided an oasis for wildlife between the edge of the city and farming country. Located in what was shortgrass prairie, Barr Lake State Park now offered a unique combination of grassland, forest, lake, and marsh. Birders and wildlife enthusiasts flocked to the area, and field records dated back to the beginning.

  Angela pulled on her hat and tamped down her guilt for not getting there quicker. Once she’d gotten on the road, she had tried setting a land-speed record. Still, Ian was nowhere in sight. If something had gone wrong… like Tonto to the Lone Ranger or Halle Berry to Pierce Brosnan’s 007, she was Ian’s backup. The GS-9 to his GS-11. She should have made better time.

  Pushing open the driver’s-side door, Angela heard the bird as soon as her feet struck ground. Its brassy, trumpet-like voice broke through the trees, past the moan of the pine branches overhead, and drove straight to the core of her bones.

  She shivered. There was no mistaking the bird’s distress, no mistaking its resonant call. Somewhere on the lake, a trumpeter swan was in trouble.

  She’d only seen one once before, in college. She and her college sweetheart, Nathan Sobul, had been assigned to document a pair of trumpeter swans spotted on Long Pond. Nate had bagged out after the first day, but Angela had spent three days observing the birds. She’d determined that on a northern migration the male had been forced down because of ice buildup on his wings. She’d made her report and gotten an A in the class.

  Come to think of it, so had Nathan.

  Angela leaned forward and pulled the keys from the ignition. After donning her belt, she checked her gun, then secured it in its holster. It was her duty to check out the bird. She’d lay odds that’s where Ian was.

  She turned up the collar of her insulated coat, tugged on her gloves and grabbed a flashlight from under the passenger’s seat. Maybe she could follow Ian’s tracks.

  The wind struck as she closed the driver’s-side door, kicking up the loose snow and blowing it into her face. She bowed her head. The swan called out again.

  The Barr Lake Visitors Center stood between her and the lake. A one-story building comprised of wood, stone, and glass, it hunkered at the edge of the parking lot. Keeping one eye on the structure, she headed for the sidewalk, quickening her pace as she neared the center. Buildings were people habitat. And dark, empty buildings, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, scared the bejesus out of her. Maybe it was the essence of humanity clinging to the granite. Or maybe it was the mirrored windows reflecting the faint city glow and masking the building’s guts. Either way, she felt uneasy.

  Once out of the building’s shadow, she breathed. The cold air flash-froze the moisture in her lungs. She coughed, scaring a small rabbit into the bushes.

  A quarter mile past the Visitors Center, the trees and darkness closed in. Underfoot, the snowpack squeaked, adding to the strange symphony composed of wind overhead, snapping branches, and the blues-horn wail of the swan. Angela breathed into her gloves and warmed her nose.

  Breaking through to the marshland, she stared out over the basin. Three years of extreme drought had shrunk the lake to a puddle, leaving the surrounding area barren and dry. Fish skeletons littered the ground, creating flattened pockets in waist-high grasses that were originally underwater.

  Now covered in a skiff of snow, she spotted a narrow trail recently blazed through the brown, brittle grass. Following the path, she crackled her way through the tall vegetation toward the water’s existing edge. The closer she drew, the louder the swan’s call, the blare of its trumpeting now joined by the honking of geese.

  This was where the action was. So where was her partner? There was no sign of him anywhere. No flashlight beam cut the night. No one shouted a greeting.

  “Ian?” she called out. The wind stripped away her voice, and she cupped her hands around her mouth in an attempt to hold the words together. “Ian?”

  She skimmed her light across the surface of the lake. Several yards out, resting on the ice, was a flock of Canada geese. Panning the light back along the shoreline, the beam danced over the swan.

  Half-submerged in the water, the large, white bird pounded its wings and bobbed its head up and down. When the animal strained its neck toward the sky, Angela sucked in a breath.

  This bird could barely walk. There was no way it could fly.

  Exhausted from its effort to be airborne, the swan flopped to the ground, its wings splayed out on either side of its body. Its black bill hammered the earth. After a few moments, it became clear the bird wasn’t going to get up.

  What now?

  From where she stood, the swan looked healthy enough. It carried plenty of fat for migration. So what the heck was wrong with it? Not that it mattered. There was no way she was leaving the bird here to die.

  She eased herself closer, and the swan bugled again, its voice pounding in rhythm with the wind. From the lake, the geese honked a warning.

  “Stay still, sweetheart,” Angela crooned, focusing her attention on the swan. “I’m coming to help.”

  The words, soothing to her, agitated the bird. It lifted its head and struggled to regain its footing. Flapping its wings, it lurched sideways, beating clouds of snow particles into the air. The swan craned its neck and blared its horn into the wind.

  As the swan’s voice rose, the honking increased until the noise became unbearable. Angela pressed her hands to her ears.

  Casting about with her light, the flashlight beam hooked on a set of footprints leading toward the banding station in the distance. Had Ian given up trying to help the swan and doubled back to the truck to wait for her?

  “Ian?” she yelled.

  Still no answer.

  The swan collapsed to the ground again, and Angela edged closer. The bird was spent.

  Time for a plan.

  An adult trumpeter swan weighed anywhere from twenty to thirty pounds, a fifth of her own weight. She could lift the animal, provided it held still. Then, once she got her arms around it, she could follow Ian’s footsteps and carry it back to the truck.

  Dropping the flashlight into an empty loop on her belt, Angela knelt beside the bird. “Hey there, baby.” Gingerly, she folded the swan’s wings into its body. “I’m just going to pick you up, okay?”

  The bird writhed as she hefted it off the ground, nearly knocking her onto her butt.

  “Easy.”

  Angela gripped the bird more tightly and struggled to stand. Because of its length, she was forced to cradle the bird in her arms like a toddler, its neck draped over her shoulder. For control, she wrapped her other arm around the bird’s body and gripped both of its legs in one hand.

  The wind surged. Sand mixed with snow pummeled her back. Tucking her chin, she headed for the banding station.

  Anchored by a platform with benches and a table, the banding station covered a small area of woodland at the edge of the dried-up marsh. Throughout the spring and fall, volunteers came out in the morning and put up mist nets—fine pi
eces of webbing designed to snag migrating passerines. Part of a catch-and-release program, the volunteers measured, weighed, banded, and otherwise documented each bird captured before sending it on its way.

  On a busy day, mist nets filled the lower woods. They were accessed from a maze of paths that wound through the trees then came out onto a flat roadbed, visible from the Visitors Center. That’s where she hoped to come out.

  Lugging the swan made using her flashlight impossible. Unable to see where to place her feet, she headed toward the woods, keeping her eyes focused on Ian’s path. The trampled grass was littered with pitfalls—a fish skeleton here, a piece of driftwood there. Snow slicked the surface of the dead reeds, and she struggled to stay on her feet.

  Once out of the marsh, the wind fizzled and the honking of the geese faded. The swan breathed softly in her arms. Angela slowed her pace. With no moon and no residual light from the cities, blackness engulfed her. She felt like Helen Keller, feeling her way toward the banding station, one step at a time. Cold seeped through her denim jeans. Her knees ached.

  “We’re almost there, sweetheart,” she said, reassuring herself as much as the bird.

  Angela paused and rested, allowing her eyes to adjust to this new level of darkness, then scrambled up a small incline to a wide, flat terrace above the old lake bed. The first mist net site.

  “Two more and we’re home free.”

  The path forked, and she stayed right, taking the more direct—if not the easiest—route to the road. Her arms burned from exertion. If she didn’t know better, she would swear the swan was packing on pounds.

  Beyond the clearing, the trees pressed in on both sides, making her claustrophobic. Wind whistled in the tops of the branches, and the swan blasted a low note in her ear.

  “It’s just a little farther now.”

  The path jogged left and up another small embankment to the second mist net area. Cresting the incline, she felt something brush her face.