A Bobwhite Killing

by Jan Dunlap

  It took a second for me to follow what Shana and Stan were saying. For a second there, I thought maybe Billy Mason was the name of some rot gut liquor, and Stan had found a broken crate of it stinking up the clearing. Now that I understood, my stomach started north. I put my hand out to lean against the tree next to me, waiting for my head to clear and my gut to settle. “Who’s Billy Mason?” I asked Shana.

  Her eyes were bleak. “He’s Jack’s administrative assistant.”

  “Not any more,” Stan noted.

  I threw a glare at Stan. “Thanks for the employment update,” I told him. “Did you call this in?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Ten minutes ago. Before I heard you two.”

  I swiped a line of sweat off my forehead and my feeling of nausea passed. “Any ideas what happened?”

  “Shot. Single round. Dead center.”

  I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in my life, Scary Stan gave me more information than I wanted to hear. “Thanks, I think.”

  Stan shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Shana, meanwhile, had lumbered her bulk back around the tree pile to sit on a rock near me. I studied her profile. I could feel two questions bubbling up inside me, and though I tried, I couldn’t keep the stupid one from slipping out first.

  “How come you don’t throw up?”

  She shifted on the rock to look at me.

  “I thought pregnant women threw up,” I tried to explain myself, as if stupid really had a logical explanation. “I mean, you see two dead bodies today and you hardly miss a beat. I’m not pregnant, and I can barely keep food down.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Stan said.

  “He’s not an idiot,” Shana corrected him. “Misinformed, maybe, but not an idiot.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I said again.

  “It’s just the first trimester, Bob,” Shana continued. “A lot of women have nausea then. I did then, too, but not after that. I honestly don’t know why I’m handling this as well as I am. Either I’m in deep shock or I saw enough grisly animal—and other—remains when I worked in the jungles for the Nature Conservancy. I guess I developed a really strong stomach.”

  “Other … remains?” I choked.

  “Don’t ask,” Stan warned me.

  It suddenly occurred to me that Shana and Stan seemed to know each other better than just as birders passing in the woods. I shelved it for later, though, since my second question was already halfway out of my mouth.

  “You don’t seem surprised to see Jack’s assistant, Shana. Why is that?”

  She briefly turned away from me and glanced at Stan. Her eyes dropped to the leaf debris that littered the ground. “He was at the Spring Valley Inn last night with the rest of us. Jack had invited him to come along for the weekend. Then, last night, about one o’clock in the morning, when I realized Jack was still gone, I asked Billy to drive up to Kami’s to see if Jack’s car was there.”

  She looked back towards me then. “I had to know, Bob. Then, this morning, when Billy didn’t show up for coffee, I figured that Jack had caught him snooping around at Kami’s and sent him home to Minneapolis. I never imagined that … something … had happened … to Billy.”

  And then she broke down into sobs.

  “Smooth move, White,” Stan said in his usual flat tone. “Make the woman cry.” He took a step towards the forest.

  “Hold it right there, buddy,” I told him. Don’t you dare disappear on me. If you leave me holding the bag on this one, I swear to God I’ll sic Lily on you.”

  Stan visibly flinched, and I rolled on.

  “If you thought she was merciless when she gave you the boot back in March, you have no idea what misery a bride-to-be can bring down on anyone who threatens to steal her spotlight, deliberately or not. I need to be so far below the radar on this one,” I nodded in the direction of Billy’s body, “that I’m underground. Got it?”

  Apparently, he did. Stan’s relationship with my sister hadn’t lasted long, but Lily had obviously made a lasting impression on him. Or at least, the caliber of her anger had.

  He returned my glare for only a moment.

  “Go,” he told me. “You were never here.”

  I pulled Shana to her feet and headed back to the trail.

  Two bodies in one day.

  Great.

  Whoever thinks birding is dull has never been birding with me.

  Chapter Nine

  Not a single media van was in sight when I pulled into the parking lot at the hotel just before six o’clock. After hightailing it out of Mystery Cave State Park, I offered to go back to the motel, but Shana didn’t want to. Not yet. Instead, we’d driven southwest to Beaver Creek Wildlife Management Area, hoping to scope out the area where I suspected there might still be some wild Bobwhites. Unfortunately, though, despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find any of the little quail, which was no great surprise, since Northern Bobwhites in the wild were notorious for their shyness. Shana and I did spot a few of the sparrows we wanted—we saw Vesper and Savannah Sparrows in the young hay fields lining the road, along with Field Sparrows in the taller grasses near stands of trees. In Beaver Creek, we also picked out a Willow Flycatcher and an Indigo Bunting, so the afternoon had produced decent results for us.

  Decent as far as birds went, that is.

  As far as bodies … not so good.

  I was pretty sure, however, that the reason the media vans were gone had less to do with our earlier vanishing act than it had to do with the radio reports we’d listened to on our way back to the hotel. Not only had the announcement of Stan’s discovery of Billy’s body interrupted a Minnesota Twins ballgame broadcast, but somebody else was now topping the news: exotic animal sanctuary owner Kami Marsden.

  According to the radio report, Kami had been brought into the local police station for questioning in relation to Jack’s murder … and Billy’s.

  “Sources inside the sheriff’s office tell us that no arrest has been made at this point, and that it is still too early in the investigation to name suspects,” the reporter on the radio commented. “Yet the confirmed presence early this morning on Marsden’s property of vehicles belonging to both murder victims is a clear indication that she will continue to be a prime subject in this investigation.”

  “How can anyone possibly know for a fact that Jack and Billy were there?” Shana argued, confusion and disbelief in her voice. “Does she have cameras mounted on her garage? An orbiting satellite transmitting surveillance? What?”

  Eddie’s face popped into my head.

  Damn.

  Eddie had gotten it all on tape.

  Or disk.

  Or whatever technology he was using these days to perform his electronics magic.

  He’d said he had monitors tracking Nigel. I bet some of those monitors were motion sensors, and they’d triggered cameras that must have caught the cars on Kami’s land.

  “The lady was having some issues with her tiger,” I told Shana. “When Tom and I were out there birding today, I ran into a good friend of mine who’s a surveillance expert. He’s helping her find the bugs in her perimeter fence. Apparently Nigel’s been getting some free passes off the sanctuary without her knowledge, and she’s literally trying to close the gap.”

  Shana’s green eyes caught mine when I glanced over at her in the passenger seat.

  “Who’s Nigel? Your friend?”

  I shook my head as I turned into the hotel parking lot. “Nigel’s the tiger. Eddie Edvarg is my friend. I call him Crazy Eddie because he’s independently wealthy, but he still likes to work. We met one summer on a DNR job. Me and Eddie, that is, not me and Nigel. I had that pleasure this afternoon.” I pulled into a parking space. “Eddie’s an ace at tracking anything that moves.”

  “I should have sent him after Jack, then. Not Billy,” Shana said, her voice filled with misery.

  Not again, I groaned inwardly. I could practically hear the waterworks cranking
up. I was going to have to start carrying a sponge with Shana around. Maybe a bucket.

  Maybe a shopvac.

  “Where have you two been?”

  Yes! Saved by the Bernie.

  She must have been watching for us from just inside the hotel doors because I swear I had barely turned off the ignition before she was pulling Shana’s car door open and wrapping her in an ample-bosomed hug. “I’ve been so worried about you, honey!”

  “I’m all right, really, Bernie,” Shana insisted, wheezing a little from Bernie’s mothering embrace. “I needed to get away for a little bit, and Bob obliged me.”

  “Got some birds, too,” I added, walking into the hotel.

  “Well, you missed a ton of excitement around here,” Bernie said, releasing Shana, only to hold her at arm’s length for inspection. “You need some sleep and a good meal. But not in that order. We’re all going to dinner across the street in five minutes.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I told her.

  Bernie pretended to slug me in the shoulder. “It’s a good thing you’re so handsome, or I’d toss you to the wolves in a minute,” she said. “But since I happen to need a young man to escort me to dinner tonight, you’re in luck. Now go clean up. I’m starving.”

  And with that, she steered Shana through the lobby and down the hall to her hotel room, leaving me at the registration desk. I checked for messages—there was one—and then went to my own room to do as I had been told.

  I’d no sooner unlocked my door, though, than my cell phone rang.

  “I swear, I let you out of my sight for twenty-four hours and you’re in trouble. What am I going to do with you?”

  It was Luce, and even though she was trying to joke with me, I could hear the concern in her voice. Obviously, bad news had traveled at its usual warp speed and found its way straight to my girlfriend.

  “Hello to you, too. I’m assuming you’re talking about Jack O’Keefe’s murder.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t find his body this morning. The radio reports are saying he was found by the group of birders he was leading, and I know that a group is more than one, but I have a really bad feeling that, if there was a body found, you were the one in the group to find it first.”

  “What can I say? You know I’m really good at finding things.”

  “Birds, yes! Bodies … that’s not so much a skill as … really creepy!” Luce’s voice came out of the cell phone loud and clear. “Okay, the first time I can understand—it was a fluke. You stumbled on a scam that was tied up with Boreal Owls. A totally random chance. And the second time? You were taking your mother birding. Not your fault that a homicide victim floats up in the marsh. But Bobby, this time you’re with a bunch of talented birders. Why do you have to be the one person to find the body? Why couldn’t someone else do it for a change?”

  I looked at the phone in my hand. For the first time in the years I’d known Luce, I thought she sounded distraught, if not on the verge of actual hysteria. But Luce Nilsson never got distraught.

  And then I realized what was going on.

  “It’s Lily, isn’t it? She’s getting to you,” I concluded. “I told you it was a mistake to agree to be her maid of honor. What has she got you doing now? Looking at dinner mints stamped with their silhouettes?”

  “Dinner mints I could handle,” Luce said, some of the tension leaving her voice. “It’s the horrible DJs I helped her audition this afternoon for the wedding reception. If I hear one more oily ‘This one’s for you, baby,’ I’m going to lock myself in a closet and never come out.”

  “It’s just another month, Luce. You can hang in there.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re out of town. And you don’t have to be a part of the show until the wedding day.” She paused a moment. “I wish I were the best man.”

  “No, you don’t. Believe me, you don’t want to go to the stag party I’m planning for Alan. Heck, I don’t want to go to the stag party I’m planning for Alan,” I laughed.

  “So what’s going on?” Luce asked, abruptly changing the subject. “Do you have to stick around in Spring Valley a few days, or are you coming home tomorrow?”

  It dawned on me I hadn’t thought ahead to the next day yet. In reality, there was no reason I couldn’t go back to my townhouse in Savage after breakfast in the morning. For that matter, I could probably check in with the sheriff and leave right now, since I didn’t have anything more to contribute to the investigation than the statement I’d given after I’d found Jack’s body.

  But for some reason, I found myself hedging with Luce.

  “I’m not sure,” I told her. “I think I need to stick around another day, maybe two. You know, see if there’s anything I can help with. Birding-related stuff. I mean, Jack was here for birding, and now there’s a group of birders here with no leader, so maybe I can help out.”

  There was a beat of silence in our conversation.

  I noticed I hadn’t mentioned Shana.

  Luce sighed. “Okay. I suppose I can manage a few more days of wedding madness without you. I’ve got a full night at work tonight with the conference, anyway, so maybe tomorrow I’ll just turn off my cell phone, barricade the door, and pretend I’m nobody’s maid of honor.”

  “That’s the woman I know and love,” I assured her. “You were scaring me there with that panicky bit.”

  Luce laughed. “Yeah, it scared me too. Look, gorgeous, do me a favor. Don’t find any bodies tomorrow when you’re birding, okay? I want you back home where I can keep an eye on you and you can keep me from killing your sister before she gets married.”

  “Roger on that,” I told her. “No bodies tomorrow, I promise.”

  We said our good-byes and I closed the phone. I hadn’t lied to Luce: if at all humanly possible, I was not going to find a body tomorrow. Then again, I hadn’t been completely honest with her, either.

  I hadn’t told her that my dead body tally for today had already risen to two.

  Nor had I told her about a certain emerald-eyed woman who was not only a blast from my past, but also a suddenly betrayed and beleaguered widow I just couldn’t walk away from.

  At least not tonight.

  I shook my head in self-disgust. What was I doing? I loved Luce, and she deserved the whole truth. She trusted me.

  So why did I have the distinct impression that if I had told Luce both of those things, the body tally would have risen to three?

  Jack.

  Billy.

  Bob.

  It sounded like the name of a country & western artist.

  Throw in a truck, a broken heart, and a good bird dog and we’d have a hit on our hands.

  Instead of a murder case.

  Chapter Ten

  I was back in the lobby, waiting for Shana and Bernie, when I remembered that I’d picked up a message at the front desk earlier. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and unfolded the note. Scanning the paper, I saw that it was signed by Eddie. Since the Spring Valley Inn & Suites was the only hotel in town, he’d apparently deduced where I was staying for the weekend. Like I said, the man can track anything that moves.

  “Bob,” the note read. “You should have told me about Jack. He was a good friend of Kami’s. The sheriff was out asking questions, and I gave her the tapes. They don’t help Kami at all. I’m going home. You know how I feel about the media.”

  I did know. Eddie was independently wealthy because he had won the lottery years ago. The resulting media glare had forced him and his wife to retreat to some far north woods property where they could live quietly and anonymously. Ever since, Eddie has avoided the press like the plague. I could definitely understand his heading home if Kami suddenly found herself in the bright eye of a media storm. I also knew, though, that Eddie would never leave a job undone, so I had to assume he’d finished mending Kami’s electronic fence, which meant Nigel was safely corralled back home on the ranch.

  In which case, maybe Tom and I could make another run up to that area first thing to
morrow morning, I thought, and try to do a wider search of the area for birds. It still puzzled me why Jack would have said there were Bobwhites up there when it obviously wasn’t the kind of spot the birds preferred. Heck, with all the racket those ATVs made, I couldn’t imagine any kind of creature—human or otherwise—who’d find a happy home there.

  But Jack was way too good of a birder to make that kind of error.

  Which could only mean he knew about a location we hadn’t found yet. A spot where there were wild Northern Bobwhites.

  And if he had found it, I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t, too.

  What’s that old saying? “Pride goeth before a fall?”

  According to my estimate, I’d already done that: taken a fall because of the pride. Okay, yes, technically, Nigel was only one tiger, and lions formed prides, not tigers, but he certainly humbled me when he leaped in my direction. And if it hadn’t been for Eddie’s electronic wizardry, that big cat would have been burping happily. Then, I believe, the proper phrase would be “The cat who got the canary.”

  Or, to be completely accurate, the Bob White.

  Wait a minute.

  Could there possibly be a connection here? Bobwhites and Jack. Jack and Kami. Kami and an exotic animal sanctuary near where Jack said there were Bobwhites.

  Was Kami protecting Bobwhites along with Nigel?

  Would a big cat not eat a canary?

  Only in a Disney film. And since Kami’s cat was far from an animated cartoon character, I had to believe that Nigel would as soon eat a Bobwhite as share sanctuary space with it. My free association technique might work great for helping high school students come up with solutions for relationship and classroom issues, but when it came to helping me locate a birding rarity, it wasn’t exactly burning up the barn.

  But it did make me wonder if Kami might know something about the Bobwhites Jack had mentioned to Tom. After all, Jack had put Bobwhites on our list for this birding weekend, and so far, I’d come up empty-handed in the places I’d looked. There had to be a place I was missing, and Kami surely knew this neck of the woods better than anybody else since she owned a large piece of it. Maybe I could chase her down first thing tomorrow and pick her brain about Bobwhites.