The Boreal Owl Murder

by Jan Dunlap

  “Poor baby,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder and hugging her close. “No wonder you don’t like moose.”

  Luce started laughing. “My mom was so furious with my dad that she hardly spoke to him the rest of the day. She was afraid I’d need therapy to get over my fright.”

  “Did you?”

  “Heck, no. I just learned to stay away from moose. Although I suppose it might have contributed to my obsessive habit of immediately scanning my surroundings wherever I go so I don’t get taken by surprise.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “I’ve seen you do that scanning thing every time we go somewhere new. You did it last night at the Splashing Rock, didn’t you?”

  “Yup. No moose.”

  I gave her shoulder another squeeze.

  “But I bet I noticed something there that you didn’t,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Thompson’s jacket hanging on the back of his chair. When I was motioning to you to come back to our table, I noticed the lettering on the right shoulder of his jacket.”

  “What did it say? ‘VNT’?”

  “Nope. It said ‘DNR.’” She looked up at the sky, looking for stars. “And, Bobby, did you also notice the truck parked in the VNT lot today?”

  I wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but suddenly I got a feeling that I wasn’t going to be happy when she got there.

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “It was an old pick-up like the one I drove for the DNR.”

  Luce laid her gloved hand on my cheek. Even in the dark, I could see the lines of concern on her face. “You told me that yesterday, when you and Knott drove up here, an old DNR truck flew past you, and you saw the DNR patch on the driver’s jacket shoulder. His right shoulder. Bobby, you and I both know that the DNR doesn’t use that emblem on the right shoulder; it’s on the left. We also know, thanks to Eddie, that Thompson tried to pass himself off as an agency employee while he was poaching trees.”

  I waited for her to spell it out.

  “I think Thompson was sitting in that truck waiting for you to go by, then when you did, he raced ahead of you and got himself into position to watch that cleared area.” Her eyes glimmered in the night. “He had a trophy for marksmanship in his office, Bobby. It was sitting behind his desk. He shot at you to keep both you and Knott out of his poaching territory.”

  “And all he had to do to identify me was watch for my license plate,” I filled in for her. “Which means that Thompson knew I was going up there yesterday afternoon, and that I was someone he needed to keep out.” I shrugged in my parka. “But I didn’t even meet the man until last night, Luce. So how could he plan to get rid of me before he knew me?”

  In the distance, an owl hooted. A moment later, another owl answered.

  “Great Horned,” I said automatically.

  Luce hugged me tight. “I think there’s someone else involved, Bobby. You said yourself that both Ellis and Alice heard you say you were on your way up there.”

  “It’s not Ellis,” I said. “He wants the study. And because of that, I can’t imagine that he’d be mixed up with someone who was destroying the habitat. So that leaves Alice.” I patted Luce’s back and held her away from me so I could look in her eyes. “I honestly don’t have a clue what Alice is capable of, Luce. But I want to think that if she were really dangerous, Stan would have done something about his sister before now.”

  “All right, let’s think that, Bobby,” Luce agreed. “But let’s also remember that someone in the cities delivered a note and a dead owl to your deck. Maybe that someone also knew you were coming up here to owl and contacted Thompson to keep an eye out for you and make sure you stayed out of the Boreal sites.”

  “You think Thompson has a partner in the cities?”

  She nodded. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” came a voice from behind me. “It does.”

  I rubbed my hand over my eyes. “I swear, you’re going to give me a heart attack.” I turned to peer into the camouflaged face. “What took you so long, Stan?”

  Luce pointed to the crossbow slung across his back. “What are you doing with that? It’s not bow-hunting season.”

  “I’m not bow-hunting.”

  Luce and I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  Instead, I heard another sound. But it wasn’t an owl.

  It was the sound of machinery, off in the distance. Machinery grinding. Like gears.

  The sound I’d heard last Saturday after finding Rahr’s body.

  I tried to visualize the maps I’d studied when I was trying to locate Rahr’s sites. Where was a road close enough that I could hear a vehicle from here? On the maps, there hadn’t been any roads marked at all, for the simple reason that Boreal Owls don’t nest anywhere near places where there might be traffic. They liked their seclusion. Like Eddie, they wanted distance from the rest of the world, but no matter what, it seemed like the rest of the world was determined to come after them.

  Including me.

  Damn.

  The last puzzle pieces fell into place.

  The grinding engine I was hearing wasn’t on any road. It was on an abandoned logging trail. A logging trail that cut right through the owls’ habitat. And given the sloppy thawing conditions this year, the vehicle had to be mired in mud—hence, the sound of grinding gears. Last week, when I’d found Rahr, someone had also been trying to move a vehicle somewhere nearby. That was the sound I’d heard. And who would be so desperate to attempt to gun a big vehicle out of the forest in March mud?

  Someone who was using it to poach trees.

  Someone who had to remove evidence of illegal harvesting before some birders came looking for Boreals on their own private owl tours and stumbled across said poaching operation.

  Someone like Thompson who had told Luce and me he had two trucks stuck up in the forest.

  Someone like Thompson, who’d been captured on Eddie’s tape heading into the woods on both last Friday and Saturday.

  Location, location, location.

  And what was the one thing that had tied all those poaching sites together? The owl tours, of course. Before Rahr conducted the tours last spring, who else knew how to find those particular places? Ellis, perhaps, though it had been a long time since he’d been working with Rahr, and Alice, probably, though I expected her knowledge of the sites as Rahr’s longtime secretary was more clerical than first-hand. So, basically, the owls had had the forest to themselves.

  Until Thompson, the unemployed logger, signed on to take the tour and noted the isolated locations, at which point he recognized an untapped gold mine of lumber and native plants, both of which could command high prices as building supplies and landscaping stock. And though the locations were remote, they were perfect—because since no one knew exactly where the owls were, the whole territory had been placed under the protection of the DNR. As long as a poacher cut trees in November, no one would even know he’d been there, because no one—not even Rahr—was in these woods then. Rahr only did his research in March and April when the owls were mating. S.O.B. had made sure people stayed away thanks to all the publicity about preserving the integrity of the Boreal Owls’ habitat. And because the DNR had banned any logging, there wouldn’t be any timber people nosing around, either. So an enterprising poacher could have the place to himself—a protected, virtually unlimited supply of Very Nice Trees, and, come spring, ladyslippers—that could yield him a very nice profit.

  Rahr, then, must have discovered the topped trees on his first foray back to his research sites earlier this month, figured someone was cutting the trees and decided to put a stop to it before it scattered the owls. He spiked the trees, not realizing that the tree topping was a seasonal thing for Christmas and that his sites were no longer in danger of cutting. At least not during the owl mating season.

  “So you think Thompson killed Rahr to protect his poaching business?” Luce asked after I laid out my theory to her and Stan.<
br />
  “Either that, or hired someone else to do it,” I said, sliding a glance at Stan, wondering exactly what his stint as a CIA field agent had entailed.

  “Not me,” he said. “I don’t do that. Anymore.”

  “Good to know,” I told him. “Not that it helps.”

  “Your threats,” he added. “It’s all about the vehicle. They didn’t want you to find it.”

  “If it’s Thompson,” Luce said, “he must have heard that you were the one who found Rahr’s body, Bobby. And then he heard about your reputation for finding birds, and he was afraid you’d be back for the Boreal and find his stuck truck instead. It was never about identifying Rahr’s killer or protecting the owls at all—he was afraid you were going to destroy his business.”

  We all stood there for a minute or two, trying to process our conclusions. If we were right, Thompson was a murderer, and I’d almost been his second victim. Luce and I had sat in his office just hours ago.

  “I’ve got to sit down,” I said, and dropped to the ground.

  “Near death does that to you,” Stan said.

  I looked up at him, a dark ghost in the night. “What the hell are you doing here, Stan?”

  “Birding.”

  “No!” I shook my head and caught his eyes. “I mean really. What is this ‘contract’ you’re working on? Because every time I turn around, there you are. What’s the connection, Stan? Even though that’s not really your name, is it?”

  He blinked. “Knott.”

  “I know it’s not!” I almost shouted.

  “No,” Stan said. “Knott. The detective. He told you about me.”

  “We had a video recording,” Luce explained. “You were on a surveillance tape from a road.”

  Stan nodded. “Crazy Eddie’s place. I smiled at the camera.”

  “Stan!” I was losing what little patience I had left after a very long, very frustrating day. “What is the contract?”

  He nodded in the direction of the grinding gears, which were now silent. “VNT. Tax fraud. Lily’s books tipped me off. I really am an accountant,” he added. “A forensic accountant. For the government.”

  “So now what do we do?” Luce asked.

  I looked at Stan and then at Luce.

  “Find the Boreal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We crept through the forest, stopping every few yards to listen. Twice I thought I heard part of the Boreal Owl’s flute call, but each time, it broke up before it finished. We were getting close to where I’d found Rahr’s body, and little shivers were racing up my spine as I remembered the arm popping up in front of me. Then, from out of nowhere, something Thompson had said popped into my head.

  “What about Montgomery?”

  Luce turned to look at me. “What about her?”

  “Thompson said she gave him the idea to start his own business. We know they went on the owl tour together. Maybe she’s the one who came up with the poaching idea. I don’t know—maybe it was her revenge against owls in general after she lost her job with the lumber companies in the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Bobby,” Luce said. She stared me straight in the eye. “I love you, honey, but get a grip.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “Momentary insanity.”

  “Maybe not,” Stan’s voice floated behind me. I’d followed Knott’s advice and asked Stan to bring up the rear of our little march. No reason to deny the man’s expertise. An ounce of prevention, you know.

  “From the sparse financial data I’ve managed to obtain on VNT, there’s obviously another partner involved. Just like you suggested earlier, Luce.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said, my voice tinged with awe. “That was a pretty complex sentence for you, Stan. Are you all right?”

  “Eat dirt, White.”

  “No thanks,” I replied. “Been there, done that yesterday.”

  “So you think Montgomery might be the partner, Stan?” Luce tried to continue the conversation.

  “Good probability. She has access to money. Some I can’t trace. And she and Thompson seem pretty tight.”

  We stopped for a moment and listened again. The air was colder now, the night completely black. We caught a glimpse of stars through the pines, and the trail was easy traveling since so much more of the snow had melted since I had walked last weekend. I stuck my hand in my parka pocket and pulled out a little gadget Eddie had pressed on me.

  “To be honest, I’d wondered if perhaps Montgomery might be afraid of Thompson,” I said. “After seeing that tape, I wondered if she might have seen her pal meeting with Rahr’s killer, and she was afraid of what he might do if she went to the police. ”

  “What’s that?” Stan pointed to the tiny recorder in my hand.

  “A toy from Crazy Eddie,” I said, turning it over in my palm. “He said it’s the highest resolution recording device on the planet Earth. I don’t know if that’s true, but he’s pretty skilled with this stuff, so it’s probably better than most. He said I should record the Boreal when I hear it. Kind of like a trophy, he said.” I put it back in my pocket. “We’ll see.”

  We walked for another ten minutes in quiet. Great Horned Owls continued to hoot, and once more, I thought I heard the Boreal, but again it didn’t complete the call. Luce thought she saw movement in the trees off to our left and raised her night vision binos to her eyes. She didn’t move for a full two minutes, so I lifted my binos, too. I didn’t see anything nearby, so I adjusted the focal distance out.

  “I’ll be damned,” I breathed.

  “Yup,” Luce breathed back.

  “Money in the bank,” Stan said, his binos up, too.

  We were looking at a cherry-picker.

  Standing on the hillside across a ravine, the picker looked like part of an oversized preying mantis, partially draped in camouflage cloth. Covered in snow from last weekend, the machine would have disappeared into the forest because no one would have been able to distinguish it from the landscape around it. It tilted at an odd angle.

  “It’s stuck,” Luce said. “I bet it was on its way to the Boreal site to do some harvesting and got stuck in the snow back in December. That must be one of the old logging trails it’s sitting on.”

  “Which Thompson knew about because he used to log up here,” Stan added.

  “And if it was sitting there when Rahr made his first trip up here earlier this month, he would have been convinced he needed to do something to protect the habitat.” I thought again of Eddie’s comments. “Eddie said Rahr told him he was going to do some preventative maintenance. I guess he was referring to the tree spikes.”

  We crossed down and through the ravine, then slogged back up the hill to take a closer look at the stranded cherry-picker. Definitely sitting at a tilt and definitely stuck, it was splattered with freshly churned earth along its sides. I put my hand on the hood over the engine.

  Still warm.

  This was what we’d heard less than an hour ago. Someone had been here, trying to move the truck.

  Behind me, I felt, rather than heard, Stan melt away into the night.

  “Luce,” I whispered. I reached out for her hand and pulled her next to me. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”

  “Because. Humor me. Give it to me, please.”

  She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and handed it to me. I looked around us, but I didn’t see anything moving. Stan was gone. I glanced into the cab of the cherry picker to make sure no one was hiding on the floor of the cab. Nobody there.

  I pulled out my flashlight and aimed it at the seat. A parka, heavy gloves, and a wool cap were laying on the bench. Clothing you’d wear in the woods on a frigid day. Clothing that would keep you from freezing.

  Clothing that Rahr’s body hadn’t been covered in.

  I punched in Knott’s phone number.

  “Knott here.”

  I let out the breath I hadn�
��t realized I was holding. “John,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

  “Really, I’m not here,” the recorded message ran. “I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave a message at the sound of the tone, I’ll get back to you.”

  This is why I hate answering machines.

  “Allow me,” Margaret Montgomery said, stepping out of the darkness from behind the machine. She reached up to take the phone from my fingers. At the same time, she raised her other hand. In it, she held a gun.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  This was not what I wanted to see.

  For a second, I had that same feeling I had when the deer materialized in front of my car that night and I swerved to miss it: like I had been instantaneously transported into another universe where things just randomly appeared out of nowhere and completely altered your experience.

  Except that the deer hadn’t been holding a gun.

  Nor had it looked like my mother.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, I told myself. If I hadn’t been so intent on finding the owl, I would’ve realized that the gears we’d heard earlier was not a good sign—that someone else was in the vicinity. Someone who might not be totally thrilled to see us traipsing down the trail. But somehow I’d convinced myself we were safe: the grinding had stopped, the forest was silent and there were three of us. Safety in numbers. I gave myself a mental kick in the head. There were two of us yesterday and somebody still took a shot at me. Obviously, safety in numbers failed to kick in until you got past three.

  At least.

  “Step away from the truck,” Montgomery said, waving the gun slightly to my right, indicating to Luce and me where she wanted us to move. “Further.”

  Obediently, we moved together, practically joined at our hips. As we shuffled, I felt Eddie’s recorder that I had dropped back in my pocket dig against my leg. I carefully slipped my hand in and hit the record button. Someday, I reasoned, inquiring minds might want to know.

  Like maybe the police when they found our bodies.

  Montgomery walked us further away from the vehicle, then she slowly backed up to the cab, holding the gun on us all the while. She took a quick glance into the cab.