Death Takes a Gander

by Goff, Christine

  Inside, the rehab center bustled with activity. In the main room, EPOCH volunteers cleaned bedding, filled water dishes, and fed the geese. Muted sunlight crept through the windows, and dust particles swirled in the air in perfect rhythm with the honking of the geese. Winding her way through the room, she nodded to several people, who stopped what they were doing and stared. Surely they weren’t upset with her too.

  “Has anyone seen Eric?”

  The volunteers exchanged worried glances.

  “Never mind, I’ll check the office.”

  Lark barged through the building before anyone could stop her, half-annoyed by the reception—or lack thereof—and half-relieved not to have to discuss the food poisoning issue with anyone. Instead of Eric, she found Angela in the office, sitting in the desk chair and making a list. Lark tried keeping her annoyance at bay.

  “Have you seen Eric?” she asked.

  Angela’s head snapped up, and she paled, bringing all of her freckles to the surface. “Bernie Crandall didn’t find you?”

  “No. Why?” Angela’s voice sounded strange and Lark began to worry. “Is something wrong?” Maybe Bernie was coming to arrest her. Wouldn’t that be just her luck?

  Angela stood. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  She stepped from behind the desk and reached for Lark’s arm. Lark sidestepped her and frowned, a sick feeling rooting itself in the pit of her stomach. “Why?”

  “I have some bad news.”

  Just like in the movies, when they tell someone somebody died, the tone of Angela’s voice caused Lark’s shoulders to seize. She grabbed for the back of a chair and saw Eric’s face bob in front of her eyes. Angela’s hand, warm and strong, stroked her back.

  “He was the man at the lake?”

  Angela nodded, and her hand stilled. “He’s alive, but—”

  Lark’s legs buckled, and she struggled to stand. “But what?”

  “I’m not going to deny it. He’s been hurt pretty bad,” Angela said, shoving a chair under Lark’s knees.

  Lark sat down hard. “What happened?”

  “There was an accident and he ended up in the water. Crandall was supposed to find you.”

  Lark groped for Angela’s fingers. She squeezed them tightly, signaling her to go on.

  “The firemen revived him and then took him to the hospital.”

  Hot tears welled up in Lark’s eyes, and she allowed them to flow down her cheeks unchecked. Eric was her soulmate. They had just found each other. “How long ago?”

  “An hour, maybe.”

  Lark doubled over and braced herself for the worst. “Is he going to be okay?”

  When the woman didn’t answer, Lark sat up. “Tell me, Angela. I have a right to know.”

  “It’s too soon to tell.”

  Lark rocked back and forth in the chair, forcing herself to breathe. Finally, she stopped and got to her feet. Her knees quaked, and she grabbed the arms of the chairs. “I have to go down there.”

  Nothing else mattered. Not the geese. Not the Drummond. She needed to see Eric and hear the doctor say he would be alright.

  She reached up and clutched Angela’s arm. “Take me down there. Now!”

  The hospital was a two-story, white building situated on the west side of town, with beds for ten. In the reception area, cushioned chairs rimmed the outer walls, then formed two rows down the middle of the carpet. A long desk was carved out of the wall across from the entrance, and a collage of brightly tabbed medical files decorated the bookcase beyond.

  The chairs were full of fishermen and, upon spying Lark, several booed.

  Angela glared. Lark didn’t seem to notice.

  After depositing her friend into a chair, Angela banged on the bell at the desk. “Hello?”

  “Hold your horses, I’m coming.” A heavyset receptionist bustled into view. “Be patient. Can’t you see there’s a line in front of you?”

  “We’re here to see, Eric, Betty,” Lark whispered from the front row.

  “Oh, you poor girl, come around this way.” While Betty squeezed passed the desk to let them into the inner sanctum, Angela helped Lark to the door.

  “Hey, what’s the big deal?” said a man wearing flannel. “I’ve been waiting here for an hour. Why does she get to go in?”

  “Hush up,” said Betty, not unkindly. “This is a different matter. We’ll get to you next, Clyde.”

  Angela slipped through behind Lark, and Betty closed the door in Clyde’s face. “Big babies, all of them.”

  “Where is he?” Lark asked.

  The floors beyond the doors were covered in white linoleum. The squares gleamed, giving the illusion they were slippery wet. Blue handrails, dividing whitewashed walls, ran the length of the corridor on either side, and the air smelled of antiseptic.

  “I’ll have to check with the doctor to see if you can go in,” said Betty, depositing them into two chairs in the hallway. “You wait here.”

  Lark plopped down, dropping her head between her knees and extending her hands to the floor.

  After what seemed an eternity, a door across from them burst open, and a white-coated doctor bustled out into the hall. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lark’s face drained of all color, and the doctor backpedaled. “No, no, not sorry like that. I didn’t mean to scare you. I meant, I’m sorry about what’s happened to Eric. He’s fine. I mean, he’s still alive. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “We need to locate his family,” the doctor said.

  “His mother lives in Norway.” Lark’s voice sounded flat, and Angela worried she was giving up hope.

  “Does he have anyone in the States?” she asked.

  Lark shook her head.

  “That poses a problem,” the doctor said.

  “Can’t Lark serve as the next of kin? She’s the closest to him.”

  “By law, it might have to be his supervisor, Nora. She’s the one who… ”

  Lark’s expression caused him to trail off. Whoever Nora was, Angela could see the suggestion didn’t sit well.

  “I’ll make any decisions that need to be made,” Lark said. “Now, is he going to be okay?”

  The doctor wrung his hands. “The water was cold.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Angela pointed out.

  “She’s right,” the doctor agreed. “On top of everything else, he took a blow to the head. The cold water kept his brain from swelling.”

  Angela perked up. “Did the blow come before or after he went through the ice?”

  “It’s hard to tell from my vantage point. But, you realize, he was clinically dead when they found him,” said the doctor.

  Lark reached for Angela’s hand and squeezed until Angela’s fingers hurt.

  The doctor toyed with the end of his stethoscope. “The firemen revived him, but we want to warm him up slowly. The slower the better. We’ll have a better idea of his injuries once he starts coming around.”

  “Have you seen other cases like this, Doctor?” Angela asked, hoping for reassurance.

  “Personally? No. But I did some calling around. There was a similar case in Denver involving a man about Eric’s age a few years ago. He remained in a coma for three weeks. He suffered a few mental and physical impairments from the accident, but he survived.”

  “Eric’s going to be fine,” Lark said. Her tone challenged either of them to argue.

  The doctor dropped his bedside manner. “I’m not sure you understand the severity of his injuries.”

  Lark squeezed down on Angela’s fingers again.

  “Can she see him?” Angela asked.

  “Of course.” The doctor looked relieved not to have to say anything more and turned back down the hall. “Follow me.”

  Eric’s room was three doors down on the left. The doctor gestured for them to enter, instructed them to keep their visit short, then excused himself. Lark entered first and Angela followed. Inside, white walls met a white floor, and
white bedding covered Eric from head to toe. Tubes snaked from his arms up to an IV pole dangling fluid bags, and a row of machines overhead monitored his vital signs.

  Lark rushed to the bed. Angela stood off to the side.

  He looked better than he had the last time she’d seen him. His face still held a blue tinge, but there was a smidgen of color in his cheeks, and his chest gently rose and fell beneath the blankets.

  Angela watched him breathe in and out, matching her own breathing to the rhythm. Then her breath caught in her throat. Getting in here to see him had been way too easy. Someone had tried to silence him earlier. What if the same person wanted to finish him off?

  CHAPTER 12

  Angela left Lark at the hospital, standing guard, and went in search of Bernie Crandall. She found him at the Drummond questioning Velof.

  “What’s up, Angela?” he asked, clearly annoyed by her interruption.

  She pulled him aside and asked him why there wasn’t an officer watching Eric’s room. “If anything happens… ”

  The sentence dangled, then Crandall keyed his radio and barked an order to the officer who answered. “Done. Now, do you have anything else for me, or can I get back to Velof?”

  That was her cue to leave. “Thanks.”

  Velof wasn’t so anxious to be abandoned. “He’s grilling me about the phone call from Frakus, Angela.”

  And your point is? What did he expect her to do about it?

  “I told him what I told you. Frakus, or someone claiming to be Frakus, called and asked to speak to you. When I told the caller you were out, he asked me to relay a message. Which I did.”

  “Velof did track me down to tell me Frakus called.”

  Crandall glanced between them, then his gaze settled on Angela. “Do you know why someone might have pretended to be Frakus?”

  “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be him.”

  “And I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Eric.” Crandall scuffed the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “Any chance someone was after you?”

  The question caught her off guard.

  Velof’s eyes opened wide. “Are you suggesting the phone call was a ruse?”

  Crandall seemed to take to the notion and consulted his notes. “You said the call came in around five thirty a.m., right?”

  Velof nodded.

  “Frakus says he was meeting Donald Tauer and Nathan Sobul at the time. Could you hear the caller clearly?”

  “No.” Velof shook his head. “It sounded like he was standing outside. The wind howled through the receiver.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I thought I heard talking in the background, but it sounded from a distance.”

  “Like someone passing by?” Angela asked. If the caller had used the Visitors Center’s pay phone, it could have picked up voices from campers using the public bathrooms. There had been a few lights on, and she remembered passing someone on the path. The grandpa of the boy who’d caught the undersized fish the first day of the tournament. Had he seen something?

  Angela mentioned the camper to Crandall, who jotted the information down. “I’ll ask him what he saw. In the meantime, don’t either of you plan on going anywhere too quick.”

  “Thanks,” Angela said. She felt good about Crandall’s posting a guard to Eric’s room and relieved there were still avenues of investigation left unexplored. Velof just seemed relieved to get everyone out of his office.

  She collected her things from her room, stood through a line at checkout, then headed to the lake. She had a commitment to oversee the fishing until noon—the official end of the Elk Park First Annual Ice Fishing Jamboree.

  By afternoon, Angela was dragging. Packing her gear into her truck, she headed back to the hospital and was relieved to find a policeman posted at the door, with Lark still sitting beside Eric’s bed.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Lark stroked his arm. “I feel so helpless.”

  “You’re doing what you can.” It wasn’t much of a reassurance, but it was the best Angela could muster. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” Lark’s eyes lingered on Eric’s face. “Why is there a guard at the door?”

  Angela avoided eye contact, but there was no point in lying. Lark was going to find out sooner or later, and Angela figured she might as well be the one to tell her the truth. “Because there’s a chance that someone tried to kill Eric.”

  Lark’s eyes widened. “That’s insane.”

  “Maybe, but the fishing hut was locked from the outside, and there were obvious signs of a struggle. I had to break down the door to get to him.”

  “Why would anyone want to hurt Eric?”

  Crandall’s question rang in her head. Any chance someone was after you?

  “Maybe they didn’t,” Angela said. “But let’s face it. What happened this morning wasn’t an accident. I think it had something to do with the poisoned geese.” She told Lark about Ian and the swan. “My guess is there’s a correlation.”

  Worry lines creased Lark’s brow. “Did Eric tell you he and Ian talked a day or two before the accident?”

  Angela’s pulse quickened. “No.”

  “Ian called. He wanted to know if Eric had been seeing an unusual number of sick birds coming in.”

  “Had he?”

  “No.”

  Feeling deflated, Angela sat down on the radiator. She realized she’d been holding her breath, hoping that Ian had left Eric a clue to his case. “Did Eric say anything to you about going down on the ice?”

  “No. After he left my house last night, he said he was going to stop by and see George Covyduck. That was around ten.”

  It took a moment for Lark’s words to sink in, then the two of them registered at the same time.

  “The lab results!” Both women shot to their feet.

  “You better stay here, Lark.”

  “No. I’m going with you.”

  “It’s not a good idea.” Ian was dead. Eric was in a coma. What was the sense in making anyone else a target?

  “I’m not doing Eric any good here.”

  The plea struck a chord with Angela, and she felt herself waver. She knew how it felt to be sidelined.

  “I can appreciate how you feel, Lark. Really, I can. But this is an official investigation, and we already have two victims.”

  “How dangerous can it be going to Covy’s office? Wait! Don’t answer that.” Lark circled the foot of the bed. “Look, I can’t sit here any longer waiting for Eric to snap out of it. I have to do something.”

  Against her better judgement, Angela caved in. “Okay, fine. You can come. But only because I need help finding Covyduck’s office.”

  Lark moved to hug her, but Angela stepped back. “There’s one more condition.”

  Now she was sounding like Kramner.

  “Shoot,” Lark said.

  “If this gets the least bit dangerous… ”

  Lark nodded.

  “You’re out.”

  Covyduck’s office was a small A-frame on the north side of Main Street near the library. Ceramic dog and cat bowls in various shapes and sizes filled the window displays of a brightly lit storefront. Inside, gourmet dog food, rhinestone leashes and collars, and a variety of play toys and treats filled multiple display racks.

  “This is a different kind of veterinarian office.”

  “It’s a small town,” explained Lark. “The tourists are where the money is, but don’t let the façade fool you. He’s got a nice setup in back.”

  Lark was right. Past the front counter, double doors opened into a state-of-the-art clinic. Three examination rooms with stainless steel tables for pets were along the left wall of the hallway. The first door on the right opened into a surgical area, and the second into a bathroom. At the end of the hall was Covyduck’s office.

  He sat at his desk. A medium-sized man with gray hair and black glasses, he wore a white lab coat with “George” stitched across the breast pocket.

 
“Lark.” He stood up when he saw her. The lab coat fell open, revealing a plaid shirt. A pair of jeans bumped worn cowboy boots. He hugged Lark, and a number of surgical instruments jingled in his pockets. Then he grinned and shook Angela’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  The women exchanged glances. He hadn’t heard.

  Lark broke the news about Eric. Covyduck sat down and slumped into his chair. “I just saw him last night.”

  “Then he did come by,” Angela said. With luck, maybe Covyduck could shed some light on what happened. He waved them both to chairs.

  “Yeah. We had a few beers. He wanted to know about the lab results.”

  Angela scooted to the edge of her seat. “And?” At the risk of seeming insensitive, she was hungry for answers.

  “And there’s not much to get excited about.” He dug through a pile of papers on his desk and produced a letter typed on stationery from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources’Central Animal Health Laboratory. “Basically, the report confirms what we already know. Based on the shape and condition of the organs, the cause of the poisoning is consistent with lead. I’m still waiting on the toxicology reports. The plant matter in the stomach is a combination of corn and wetland grasses, and there was shot present in the gizzard, most likely the source of the toxic poisoning.”

  “Did you say corn?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What is it?” Lark asked.

  “The closest cornfields around are fifty to one hundred miles east of here. That means the geese picked up the shot somewhere along the Front Range. Maybe we can figure out where.”

  “East covers a lot of territory,” Covyduck said, skimming through the report. Pulling off his glasses, he pitched them on top of the desk and massaged the bridge of his nose.

  Angela pressed. “What do we know about the shot?”

  “Like I said, we’re still waiting on the final shot report. From the prelim? The stuff’s consistent with shot sizes number nine to number nine and a half on the American Standard Shot Scale. Some pellets were magnetic, some type of steel shot. Other pieces weren’t. The nonmagnetic shot appears to be slightly smaller than the nominal diameter, which is consistent with what happens to lead skeet shot when it oxidizes.” He tapped the report. “The only strange thing is the pellets are breaking down faster than lead normally would.”