Flight of the Sparrows

by Annie Jones

  Kate shook her head. “I’m sure he thumbed through it, but that’s not his handiwork.”

  “Of course not. The truth is that this is one of the books I’ve had on display. It’s been sitting out over there the whole month.” She pointed to a table with books arranged on it next to a small glass case containing some feathers and a nest resting in a piece of a tree branch. “I think every time I looked over there, someone had this particular book in his or her hands.”

  Then she closed the book and turned it over. “Yes, everyone has had their hands on this book, and it shows. Will you look at that?”

  Livvy held out the book to show grayish smudges, perhaps smeared handprints or fingerprints, all along the bottom and near the spine on the back cover of the white book. Whoever had made the mess had actually had to make an effort, Kate noticed, or more likely was exceptionally careless as he or she had torn the clear plastic protecting the large paperback book.

  “We’ve had that book in our house for three days, and I never noticed the state it was in.” Kate crinkled her nose.

  “Kate, you?” Livvy’s eyes sparkled with humor as she teased. “You’re usually more observant than that.”

  “I admit I’ve been a bit preoccupied, Livvy.” She exhaled slowly and stared at the book. She flipped it over and thumbed through the pages. Kate glanced at the page with the corner turned down and noticed the title of the essay: “Football Fowl-Up.”

  Kate shut the book and tried to fit together the puzzle pieces shifting around in the back of her head. “Of all the people who have checked out or looked at the bird books, one of them didn’t happen to be Artie Best, did it?”

  “Kate, if you ask me something like that, I know you must have a good reason. But you also understand I can’t reveal to anyone the reading or research habits of my patrons.”

  “I understand. It was a stab in the dark anyway. Someone tried to convince me that Artie was up to something. Seeing how this book has been manhandled, I thought if you knew that Artie had checked out a certain book, I could look it over and maybe find a clue. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I can see where a person might put manhandling and Artie Best together,” Livvy said in a low tone. “I suppose I can tell you, since it was in the paper and a part of the archived lists of library activities, that Artie did give a talk about a month ago on respecting the environment while bird-watching.”

  Kate smiled. “Thanks. I actually remember you telling me about that. I only wish I could say that told me what I needed to know.”

  “Hmm.” Livvy set the smudged and dog-eared book on the metal “repair, restore, replace” cart. “How about you tell me what I need to know to help you?”

  They took a seat, and Kate filled her in on Bonnie and the birds. She laid out all the steps they took to verify the reduced number of birds near Best Acres. She recounted their meeting with Artie, and Charlene’s effort to point a finger at the man without any real evidence. And she even mentioned finding Dot out in the area collecting a cat after acting oddly in the diner a few days earlier.

  “What do you think, Livvy?”

  “I think...” She frowned. “I think I’m in no way qualified to make a judgment about this kind of thing.”

  “Welcome to the club.” Kate laughed.

  Livvy joined her, then stood. “But I do know this. If I had a question about anything regarding birds in this area, but more especially near Best Acres, I’d seek out the one man who could give me some answers.”

  “Artie Best.”

  “Artie Best.” Livvy nodded.

  “I just think I need to try to talk to him again. I also can’t totally disregard Charlene’s uneasiness about him. She just seems like such a natural people person, the sort who makes friends wherever she goes.”

  “In other words, not the type to assume the worst in a stranger?” Livvy put it in concise perspective.

  “Exactly.” Kate rose from her chair.

  “I don’t know, Kate. Artie has been a staple in Copper Mill and Pine Ridge for years. That has to count for something.”

  They walked together to the exit and paused by the love seat.

  Kate looked out the window at the pleasant little town. “Did you know Artie put up a sign saying his place is now open by appointment only?”

  “That could just be an act of common sense. If I were him, I’d have had a sign like that years ago.”

  “You’re right. I know a lot of people out in the country don’t mind drop-ins, but—” The soft purr of Kate’s vibrating cell phone drew her attention away. She pulled out the phone, checked the screen, and said, “That’s Bonnie. I ought to take this.”

  “Of course.” Livvy held the door open for her friend and gave a wave as Kate stepped outside the door to take the call.

  “Hello, Bonnie,” Kate answered in a cheery tone.

  “Oh good, you answered. I didn’t...want to get...your voice mail.”

  “You sound breathless. Is something wrong?” Kate picked up her pace, walking briskly to her car in case she needed to go help Bonnie.

  “Very wrong.” Before Kate could respond to that, Bonnie rushed on. “I’m all right, though. Or I will be, as soon as the ambulance arrives.”

  Kate pulled up short, even as her heart rate kicked into high gear. “Ambulance?”

  “My ankle. I think I sprained it, but I managed to hobble back to my car. Don’t worry. The EMTs should be here any minute. Hang on, I’m going to sit down.”

  “Bonnie, I’m confused. What’s happened?” Kate hurried to the driver’s side of her car and got in. “Where are you? I’m in my car and can be there—”

  “No need. The ambulance is here now. Keep your phone close, I’ll call you back as soon as I know what’s what.”

  “But Bonnie—” The line went silent, and the message on the screen said the call had ended. Kate sat there a moment, trying to decide what to do. Bonnie was hurt, and she had said something was “very wrong.” Kate couldn’t just sit and wait.

  She started the car, then paused a moment. Where was she going? The ambulance crew would be taking Bonnie to the hospital in Pine Ridge. She’d meet them there.

  Before she could pull out of her parking space, her cell phone vibrated. Kate put the car back in park before she answered. “Bonnie! What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “I think so. They’re taking me to the hospital in Pine Ridge for X-rays.”

  “X-rays? For your ankle? Bonnie, I’m still not exactly sure what happened. Did you fall?”

  “Hello?” A deep male voice came on the line.

  “I was just about to tell my friend—” Bonnie’s voice sounded as if she were getting farther away from the phone.

  “Hello? Hello?” Kate could hear clattering and people talking.

  “Yeah, hello. This is the EMT. We’re loading your friend in the back of the ambulance now. If you want to, you can come to the ER and see her there. I don’t think they’ll keep her there long, but I don’t make those kinds of decisions.”

  “Okay.” Kate sighed. She sat there a moment, trying to take it all in. “So, she’s not hurt badly. That’s good.”

  “She’ll be fine. Good-bye,” the EMT said. Kate could hear rustling—perhaps the phone was dropped?—but the call didn’t end. She could vaguely hear conversation in the background.

  The EMT’s voice said, “I tell you what, though, if this was a taste of what’s to come, I sure don’t look forward to that sparrow deal. I think we have other things to do than run after bird-watchers who fall out of trees.”

  Kate grasped the phone more tightly. “Bonnie fell out of a tree?”

  “I did not fall out of any tree,” Bonnie’s voice grew louder as Kate heard the phone bump and rustle.

  “Hello?” Kate called out.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate all you’re doing for me, young man, but I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t go around spreading that story.” Bonnie’s irritation sounded more like a teacherl
y reprimand than a real scolding. “I did not fall out of a tree.”

  “Bonnie? Can you hear me? I don’t think the EMT hung up the phone. Hello?”

  More scuffling and the sound of the ambulance gearing up and bumping along on its way.

  Above that, Kate could hear Bonnie still talking to the EMT. “I tripped.”

  Tripped? That put Kate’s mind at ease a little. She lowered the cell phone from her ear and moved her thumb over the button that would end the call, at least on her end. But before she pressed it down, she heard one last remark from Bonnie that gave her a chill.

  “And don’t go telling people that it happened because I’m too old to be hiking around all over the countryside. I want to make this perfectly clear: I did not just stumble over a rock or stick my toe in a hole. I fell over a booby trap. Set by a human being. One who clearly wanted to do somebody harm.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  With that troubling news, Kate called Paul immediately to tell him what she had heard and that she intended to go to the hospital to meet Bonnie.

  “I’m at the church,” he said. “Swing by and let me take you.” Kate thought that was a good plan, since the church wasn’t out of the way. They both got into Paul’s truck to make the short drive.

  Kate wished the whole way that they could get there faster. When they turned down the tree-lined street that led to the hospital, Paul had to slow down to accommodate the speed bumps along the way, and she couldn’t keep from fidgeting. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on praying and giving Bonnie’s health to the Lord.

  Paul glanced her way and said, “I’ll drop you off at the ER, so you can go on inside to see Bonnie while I park the truck.”

  Kate hurried inside. People dressed in scrubs were hustling around as if they had a full house of patients, though the nurse had told her that Bonnie was the only one there and she could go on back. Kate didn’t see any EMTs in the hallway, just two areas partitioned off by tan curtains hanging from the ceiling.

  “No doubt about it. The best way to have a child who is a reader is to be a parent who is a reader.” Bonnie’s voice, in her cheery but firm teacher-knows-best tone sounded out through the curtains.

  “Yes, ma’am,” came a soft voice in reply.

  Kate sighed, laughed to herself, then peeked around the edge of the curtain. There sat Bonnie on a wheeled hospital bed with pillows propped behind her back and more under her right leg. She appeared to be giving advice to a young woman with a stethoscope around her neck and a name tag indicating she was an RN.

  Relieved, Kate stepped up, cocked her head, and folded her arms. “I should have known. Not even an injury could come between you and the chance to share a little practical wisdom.”

  “Kate!” Bonnie stretched both arms out wide, her hands open. The RN patted Bonnie’s good leg and headed for the door.

  Kate hurried in and gave her friend a big heartfelt hug.

  “I’m so sorry you had to rush over here. It’s just a sprain.” Bonnie started to lift her leg, then winced and shook her head.

  “Careful,” Kate cautioned. She ventured a look at her friend’s propped-up leg.

  Bonnie’s muddy jeans were rolled up to her knee. Despite more than one ice pack covering the worst of the injury, Kate could see the beginning of bruising extending down Bonnie’s bare foot and various small scrapes and cuts on her shin.

  Kate frowned. “Are you in much pain?”

  “No, they gave me something for that.” Bonnie hung on to Kate’s hand with chilly fingers and a determined grip. “I tried to find my cell phone, but I think I may have dropped it after I spoke to you. I wanted to tell you not to hurry over here.”

  “You couldn’t have convinced me not to come right over, Bonnie.” She gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. “And the EMT who took your phone didn’t hang up. I heard you talking in the ambulance, so I’ll check with them later to see if your phone got left in there.”

  “You could hear us talking in the ambulance?”

  “Not everything, but enough to make me want to get to you as soon as possible.” Kate looked around, then leaned in close to look Bonnie directly in the eyes as she asked, “You tripped over a booby trap?”

  “I think so,” Bonnie responded with quiet intensity. “Fishing line strung between two small trees about six inches off the ground.”

  “High enough to trip anyone walking by.” Kate lowered her gaze as she imagined something six inches above the ground.

  “And low enough to be hidden by the leaves and grass,” Bonnie concluded.

  “I wish I’d had the presence of mind to have taken some of that line.” Bonnie rubbed her thumb and forefinger together as though she could practically feel the nearly invisible thread between them. “To be truthful, I thought I’d just sit down and rest and then get up and be fine. But when I tried to stand, I realized I was in big trouble. I fell again. I’m not sure if I bumped my head then or with the first fall.”

  Kate took a closer look at her friend’s head. She winced at the sight of the bump and the matted blood in her pale blonde hair. “Have you seen the doctor or had your X-rays yet?”

  “I’ve had a quick once-over, and they’ve decided they want to run a few tests.” Bonnie gave a slow, deep sigh. “So you see you didn’t have to rush over. Oh, but you and Paul probably should go get my car, if you would. I had to leave it by the side of the road.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.” Kate busied herself smoothing down the rumpled linens and tidying Bonnie’s disheveled shirt.

  She felt so bad seeing her dear friend sitting there looking so helpless. She didn’t think she’d earnestly feel better again until Bonnie was out of there, recuperating under Kate’s—

  “Kate, I’m not going anywhere.” Bonnie’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “What?”

  “That’s right, dear.” Bonnie spoke to Kate, but she kept her eyes trained on a nurse who was filling out a form on a chart as she walked down to the end of the bed. “They’re keeping me overnight.”

  “Overnight?” That took Kate by surprise.

  Paul arrived in time to hear that and said, “If we’d have known, we’d have brought you some things.”

  “Just a precaution,” the nurse assured them as she bent down to put her face level with Bonnie’s swollen ankle. She looked at Kate and Paul, then at Bonnie again. “Are these the friends you listed on your information sheet?”

  Bonnie nodded to the nurse and made a quick introduction, then folded her arms over her chest and sighed as she explained, “I hope you don’t mind, but when they made me fill out the forms to keep me here, I had to list contact people that they could share my information with, and it just made sense to list you two.”

  “Of course we don’t mind,” Kate said.

  The nurse added, “You can wait here with her and even go along when they take Mrs. Mulgrew to her room.” The nurse gave Bonnie a sweet smile, then stepped away, motioning for Kate and Paul to join her. “Let me catch you up on what we know so far.”

  They followed her past the curtains, which the nurse pulled on to make a better divider between them and the patient as she said, “I’ll let you rest, Mrs. Mulgrew, and bring your friends up to speed on your status, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Thank you,” Bonnie said. “You can tell Kate and Paul whatever you need to.” As the nurse led them out of the room, Kate saw Bonnie adjust her foot, then wince.

  The nurse spoke softly. “In addition to her sprained ankle, Mrs. Mulgrew had a pretty bad bump on the head.”

  Kate’s shoulders tensed. “Is it serious?”

  “No. The doctor doesn’t think so, but anytime a person is alone and has a head injury, we have to rule out all possible causes and implications. They’re going to do an MRI just in case.”

  “Just in case what?” Paul asked, placing his hand on Kate’s back to lend his support.

  “Just in case something internal caused the fal
l, like a small stroke or an interruption in blood flow caused by a tumor or her heart stopped or...well, any one of a hundred things. Also, we need to know if the fall caused any internal damage.”

  Kate’s breath snagged in the back of her throat.

  The nurse hurried to reassure them. “We have no reason to suspect that. But since she was alone, we want to run tests and keep her close for observation to be on the safe side.” The nurse held up her hands, then she lowered her voice and added, “I’m afraid she wasn’t making much sense when she got here, talking about foul play and missing flocks.” The nurse crooked her fingers to form invisible quotation marks around the terms she found questionable.

  Paul ran his hand back through his hair and murmured a heartfelt thank you to the Lord.

  The nurse continued. “By the time she’d been jostled around by the ambulance ride, she was in a great deal of pain. When we gave her something for the pain, she kept muttering the word umbie.”

  The tension between Kate’s shoulder blades ebbed, and she and Paul shared a knowing smile.

  “Actually, that makes perfect sense to us,” Paul told her. “Maybe you and I should go have a word with the doctor to let him know she wasn’t talking gibberish.”

  “Thank you,” Kate whispered as her husband went with the nurse to tend to that. She went back to wait beside Bonnie, ready to get the whole story at last.

  After asking Bonnie how she was feeling, Kate finally felt prepared for details. “Okay. Let’s get this squared away. I thought I overheard the EMT say something about falling out of trees, and you mentioned booby traps?”

  Bonnie raised her chin slightly. “I most assuredly did not fall out of any trees.”

  Kate drew the covers up gently, careful to stay clear of the injured leg. “That’s good to hear.”

  Bonnie tucked the sheet under her arms and wriggled, adjusting her position, before she added, “I fell between two trees.”

  “Between?” It troubled Kate to imagine this woman she had admired for so many years hurt and alone in the woods. “Oh, Bonnie. How badly did it hurt?”

  “Well, I suspected almost immediately that I had sprained my ankle fairly badly. At first I worried that perhaps I might even have suffered a fracture, but after a moment or two, I felt sure I hadn’t broken anything and could make it to the car.”