A Birder's Guide to Murder

by J. R. Ripley

  “Aw, Esther.” Floyd had only shown an interest in going because he expected Esther to be going.

  “Who knows what we might learn at the Expo, Esther,” I found myself saying. “The contacts we might make. Maybe get some new ideas for the store. I could really use you there.” I didn’t know why, but the more she resisted the idea, the more I was determined to drag her along.

  “Philadelphia is for the birds,” Esther said.

  There was a joke in there someplace—I mean, we were talking about the American Birding Expo—but nobody laughed.

  I was about to give up and suggest we head for home when Kim spoke up.

  “You know, if it was me and I was going…” Kim’s voice trailed off as she waited for everyone to give her their undivided attention.

  “Yes?”

  Kim glanced quickly at Esther then winked at me. “I’d hit the casinos after hours.”

  “Casinos?” Karl leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table.

  Esther stilled.

  Did Kim know something about Esther that I didn’t?

  “There are casinos in Philly?” Derek said. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Gambling casinos?” I asked, as if there could be any other kind.

  “Several big ones have opened there in the last ten years or so. Mom and I have been a couple of times.” I knew that Kim’s mother had a fondness for games of chance. That explained her many marriages.

  “I’d never gamble.” Mother folded her hands in her lap. “I like to keep my money safe, not chance it to a pair of dice, a spinning wheel or a deck of playing cards.”

  “I’m with you, Mom. Nobody here cares about gambling away their hard-earned money, Kim.”

  “It was just a thought,” Kim replied.

  “I’ve got a few bucks lying around burning a hole in my pocket,” Karl retorted. “I might visit one of those casinos and take a chance.” He turned to me. “If the chief gives us any time off.”

  “We’ll see, Karl. We’ll see. Like they say,” I teased, “time off is for good behavior.”

  Floyd held his breath and glanced furtively towards Esther.

  Esther jumped to her feet, pocketbook in one hand and knitting bag in the other. She started purposefully to the exit.

  We looked at one another.

  At the door, Esther paused and snapped her neck around. “What are you all sitting there like lumps for? We’ve got a load of work to do and very little time to get it done in.”

  Esther pointed a knobby finger at Karl and Floyd and we hushed. “I expect to see you two buzzards at Birds and Bees bright and early.”

  She shifted her bag. “And by bright and early, I mean 8 a.m., not 10 a.m., not 9 a.m., not 8:30.”

  Karl nudged Floyd in the ribs. “Tough old bird, ain’t she?”

  Floyd barely noticed. He was wearing the biggest smile I had seen in ages.

  2

  Improbable as it seemed, Wednesday morning we were ready to roll. We hit the road at daybreak. After a grueling twelve hour plus drive, we reached the outskirts of Philadelphia.

  “Man.” Floyd pressed his nose against the glass. “That’s what I call the big city.”

  “She’s big all right.” Karl squeezed his face next to Floyd’s.

  “Took us long enough to get here.” Esther’s knitting needles gnashed almost as loudly as her teeth.

  “We could have shaved down our trip time if only some of us would have thought to go to the bathroom at the same time we were stopping for gas,” I noted.

  We were going to have to work out a better system for the return voyage of the damned.

  “Don’t worry, guys.” Derek studied his cell phone screen. “According to the GPS, we’ve only got a few miles to go. We’ll be there soon enough.”

  “I hope so.” I put my foot on the brake pedal as traffic on I-95 morphed into bumper to bumper gridlock. “I hope so.”

  A few miles and an hour later, we pulled up on a quaint, very narrow street in Philadelphia’s popular Historic District.

  I double parked next to a white and yellow taxi outside the Eagle Inn’s main entrance, out of which spilled a man and woman in baggy clothes. A green and blue banner with a golden eagle hung suspended from the inn’s chocolate brown brick façade.

  I turned off the engine. “I’ll check us in. Be right back.”

  Derek craned his neck looking up and down the crowded little street. “Any idea where we are supposed to park?”

  “I’ll ask inside.” I nodded to the burgundy and gold-liveried doorman as he toted a pair of large green and yellow-striped shopping bags for the taxi couple.

  The best thing about the foyer was the black and white photo taken of a long-ago Philadelphia. The Eagle Inn might have been historic but the lobby floor looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in ages. Rich green and blue wall paper hung limply on the walls.

  A slouching woman with a pair of oversized tortoiseshell glasses on her nose straightened her back and positioned a smile on her face as I approached the front desk. “Good evening,” she said with a brilliant flash of teeth. “How can I help you?” Her accent said New Jersey.

  I placed my purse on the counter. “Amy Simms.” I glanced out toward the van. “And company. We’re checking in.”

  “Wonderful.” The woman’s manicured fingers began clicking away at a black keyboard. “How many nights will you be with us?”

  I did the mental math, which was harder to do than you might think given my state of mental fatigue. “Uh, four?”

  Peggy, or the woman who’d pinched Peggy’s silver and black nametag, replied with more keyboard clicking. “And how many are in your party?”

  “Believe me, we’re anything but a party.”

  Eyebrows went up, followed by a blank stare. “Excuse me?”

  I did some more mental math. This was getting tiresome. I needed food and I needed sleep. Not necessarily in that order. I’d take them as I could get them. “Uh, five?”

  “Five. I see. How many rooms will you be needing?”

  “Actually, I guess I should have started with this. We’re here for the American Birding Expo. Ms. Gates, Phoebe Gates,” I added when Peggy or wannabe Peggy blinked without a sign of recognition, “she said that there were rooms reserved here for us.”

  Peggy frowned as she searched her reservations list.

  “They might be under the name Hikers and Bikers Tours.”

  “Hmm.” Her blue eyes scanned a computer screen that only she could see as her finger tapped out a measured beat on her lower lip. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.”

  I sighed. “Whatever. Okay, give me four rooms. The cheapest you’ve got.” Floyd and Karl had already agreed to share a room.

  “No can do.”

  “No can do?”

  She wagged her head at me and clicked her very pink tongue. “I’ve got two rooms, double beds, fourth floor. Deluxe view.”

  “Two rooms?” I looked at her bleakly.

  She held up two fingers, either to announce victory or demonstrate the math. Either way, I was stuck. It was too late to go driving around Philadelphia looking for better lodgings. Even then, we might not find any.

  “There are five of us,” I reminded the desk clerk.

  “But you’re related, right?”

  “Well, sort of. It’s not like we’re family.” The couple from the taxi disappeared behind the doors of a brass-faced elevator.

  “But they aren’t strangers,” Peggy countered.

  The woman was right. Some of them were strange but they were not strangers. Still, I couldn’t see two of the guys snuggling up in one narrow, double bed. “Is there a convertible sofa in the rooms perchance?”

  “Nope.” She lit up. “I can have houseke
eping send up a cot though. Although it is an extra twenty-five dollars per night.” The phone beside her rang. I waited for her to pick up but she ignored it. She darted her eyes briefly at the phone. “That could be someone calling for a room.”

  “I’ll take them,” I said quickly. “And the cot.” Derek, Floyd and Karl could work out their own sleeping arrangements.

  “Great.”

  Sure, great for her. I handed over a credit card with a smidgen of space below its max threshold and couldn’t help wincing as she named the price. And that wasn’t counting the taxes. I couldn’t ask the others to pay their own way. They were only in Philadelphia to help me.

  So much for Mom’s assurance that this trip was going to be cheap.

  “Can you tell me where your parking garage is?”

  “Sorry. The inn does not have a garage of its own. There is a public parking facility a mere two blocks from here.”

  “A mere two blocks? I guess that will have to do.”

  Shoulders sagging, feet dragging, I returned to the van. I waited until we’d unloaded everything necessary from the van and had piled everything onto a luggage trolley, and ridden the elevator to the fourth floor, before announcing our room assignments.

  Derek was going down later to move the van.

  I had put off the bad news as long as I could. “Karl, you and Floyd will be in 401. Derek…”

  “Yes?” Derek floundered from foot to foot as he manhandled a pair of suitcases that hadn’t fit on the trolley.

  “You are with Karl and Floyd.”

  “You mean we are on the same floor?” Derek asked.

  “I mean you are all in the same room.”

  Esther cackled.

  “Oh?” Though he tried to mask it, the look on Derek’s face was not a happy one.

  “I could only get the two rooms.”

  “But—” Karl began.

  “There’s no sense standing around out here talking about this.” A guest shouldered past us in the narrow hallway. “It’s late and we’re all tired. Two rooms is what we’ve got.”

  With a muffled groan, I turned to Esther, who had backed up to the wall. Her eyes were mere slits. “Esther, it looks like we are roomies.”

  There was nothing muffled about Esther’s return groan.

  * * * *

  Thursday morning came too soon.

  It took us forty-five minutes to reach the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center where the American Birding Expo was being held.

  “Why on earth did the people that booked that hotel we’re in pick a place so far away?” griped Esther, who insisted on riding shotgun that morning.

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t.

  “Look on the bright side,” Derek said from the backseat. “We’ll be in the heart of the city after hours every day.”

  “Sure,” said Floyd. “Restaurants, bars, shopping, sightseeing.”

  “Works for me,” I said.

  “Gambling.” Karl rubbed his hands together greedily. “Where are those casinos Kim was telling us about?”

  “We’ll get some tourist information when we return to the inn later. I saw a bunch of racks filled with brochures off the lobby,” I replied as we approached the sprawling exposition center.

  Inside, a volunteer, Maury Bland, greeted us. I explained who we were and he showed us to our booth.

  A number of folks moved about the exhibit hall making last minute preparations, others mingled in small groups chatting.

  Most of the booths looked ready to go. The Expo started tomorrow. We had our work cut out for us.

  Maury stopped at a smallish booth. “This is it.” He picked up a tented cardboard sign bearing the name of the tour group.

  “It says Hikers and Bikers Tours International.” Karl pointed to the light blue at the rear of the booth. Similarly colored half curtains defined the sides of our space.

  I dug my hands into my back pockets. “I suppose we can hang our store banner over it.”

  Our booth was positioned near the end of a long row. There was another row behind us and more vendors across the way. Most along this aisle seemed to be tour operators. Not surprising, considering we were taking over the spot of Hikers and Bikers, a tour outfit.

  The space stage right of ours was completely empty. The booth stage left was the same size as ours. It held several TV displays and a long table covered with a black cloth. A sign on an easel stated that the booth represented a nonprofit bird sanctuary in Ecuador.

  It took us several trips to unload the van with Maury pitching in.

  Floyd and Karl got busy hanging the Birds & Bees sign using a roll of duct tape we had brought along for jobs such as that.

  “Is Phoebe around?” I inquired.

  The walkie-talkie attached to Maury’s hip squawked and he answered. “Be right there,” he said after listening a moment. He clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt once more and turned to me. “I gotta go. Ms. Gates’ office is through that big set of doors, down the hall and then first door on your left.”

  Leaving my crew to finish setting up, I went around to the offices. Moving down a gray carpeted hall along which there were a number of doors, I slowed at the sound of a man’s angry voice.

  “I don’t care.” A paunchy, purple-faced man in a yellow polo shirt and khaki pants stepped out of a door on my left. He latched onto the doorframe as if he intended to rip it from the wall. “Keep away from Lorna or I walk.”

  He spun on his heels. I squawked as he barreled into me.

  “Can’t you watch where you’re going?” Furious black eyes looked up at me. The sixtyish man was several inches smaller than me and that was in hiking boots.

  “Sorry,” I said, taken aback. Unnatural light thrown off from the fluorescent bulbs above reflected off the bald patch atop his gray head. He had wideset eyes, giving plenty of room to his fleshy nose. He needed a shave. And some manners.

  On some men, a five o’clock shadow is sexy. On him, it looked like the Shadow of Death.

  “You should be.” Angry Guy narrowed his eyes and huffed. Did I smell alcohol on his breath? “Were you eavesdropping?” The word dripped out of his mouth like poison.

  “Eavesdropping! What for?” I threw my shoulders back. “A dead sparrow could have heard you from the middle of the expo hall.”

  “You should learn to mind your own business.” He flipped his hand, indicating that I was blocking his path.

  “You should stop behaving like such an anachronistic jerk. If you did, you would see that this was a public hallway and that other people are using it.”

  Angry Guy, whose neck was now the burgundy shade of a Bolivian pompadour cotinga, stuck his arm out, nearly punching me in the chin.

  Not wanting the situation to escalate out of control, I acquiesced, pushing my back up against the wall. He huffed as he surged past me. I watched him stomp off.

  A blond head peeked around the corner of the doorway Angry Guy had vacated. It was Phoebe Gates.

  I peeled myself off the wall and caught my breath. “Wow. Hi, Phoebe.”

  She grinned in recognition. “Hello, Amy. Good to see you again.”

  I moved closer and received a welcoming hug. “Who was that guy and what was his problem?”

  Phoebe laughed and waved me inside. “It was nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  She cupped her right hand to her mouth. “I hear he’s going through a divorce.”

  “My congratulations to his soon-to-be ex,” I replied.

  Phoebe looked smashing in a clingy black dress and matching heels. An American Birding Expo lanyard hung around her neck.

  “I’m so glad you could make it.” Phoebe took a seat at a well-ordered beige metal desk. “How’s your mother?”

  “Mom’s minding the store.” I took a chair opposite her when
she indicated that I should sit. “She decided to stay behind. Health reasons.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is Ms. Pilaster ill as well?”

  “Esther? No, she’s here. She’s helping setup the booth with the others.”

  “Others?” Phoebe was scanning some documents on her desk as we spoke.

  “Derek, Floyd and Karl. They’ll be working the booth along with me.”

  Phoebe explained that I had some paperwork to fill out, which is normally sent out to exhibitors beforehand. I promised I’d get it back to her in good time.

  “Bring it by at your convenience. If I’m not in, just drop it on the desk.”

  I stopped outside her door. “You never did tell me who Angry Guy is. I’d like to know so I can avoid him.” At all costs, I might have added.

  Phoebe’s brow shot up. “You really didn’t recognize him? I thought you were joking.”

  I played the brow game too, squeezing mine hard enough to show I was puzzled but not so hard as to leave permanent wrinkles. I had enough of those already. “Should I have?”

  “That was James Jules Fuller.”

  I gaped. “That was JJ Fuller.” I slapped my forehead. “Of course.”

  Phoebe grinned.

  “It’s just that in all his publicity photos he always looks so-so…”

  “So jovial?”

  I nodded agreement.

  “So happy?”

  My head kept bobbing. I was an Amy Simms bobble head.

  Little wonder I hadn’t recognized him.

  Besides his Angry Guy disguise, I had never seen the man without a ball cap atop his head. The ball cap featured the embroidered image of Campephilus principalis, the ivory-billed woodpecker, a species thought by many to be extinct. An environmental group was offering fifty thousand dollars to the first person to lead one of their scientists to an actual living bird.

  JJ Fuller had been boasting for years that the prize would be his. It was his Holy Grail.

  Phoebe opened her arms. “Like I said, word on the street is marital problems.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t mental problems? Maybe all that birding has made him cuckoo.”

  Phoebe laughed.

  JJ Fuller was one of the rock stars of the birding world. He was a famed bird photographer and bird expert. His face had appeared on countless birding and wildlife magazine covers. He’d written for every major birding magazine.