Mesozoic Murder

by Christine Gentry

  McKenzie nodded. “I’ll expedite things at the lab.” He reached for the phone.

  “There’s a problem.”

  He withdrew his hand. “What now?”

  “The lab isn’t set up to give us the detailed DNA analysis we need. We’ve got to match that feather to the exact bird it came from. That requires a special lab.”

  McKenzie tapped the pencil against his front teeth. “What kind of lab?”

  “A wildlife forensics lab or a research facility dealing with bird DNA. I’m trying to track one down right now. I’ll have to hand carry the feather to the lab and hang around until the tests are completed in order to speed things up. It’s going to require departmental funds.”

  “I can’t commit to that.” McKenzie threw the pencil down on his desk.

  Dorbandt expected this response. “You want to cheap out on this, Captain? There’s a crazy running around poisoning people with tranquilizer darts like they’re animals.”

  McKenzie’s face darkened. “Don’t bulldoze me with my own conscience. You know I want this freak just as much as you. I’ve already got bite marks on my ass from the press.”

  Dorbandt reached down and picked the sheets off the desk. “Wonder how Sheriff Combs and the media will feel about your reluctance to close this case as fast as possible. We need to move on leads like this feather when they pop up.” He turned and headed for the door.

  “Hold it, Dorbandt,” McKenzie sputtered. “You hit me cold with this idea of a trip. Money doesn’t grow on hat trees around here. Can’t you give a man time to think?”

  You’re not a man, you’re an ambulatory turd, Dorbandt thought nastily. He stopped halfway through the door and pivoted on his heels. “Time is crucial. Can I go to another lab or not?”

  “Come back and see me when you know where you’re going,” McKenzie acquiesced with a glare. “We’ll discuss how to fund it then.”

  “Great.”

  “And Dorbandt,” McKenzie added, “You’d better solve this case, or you’ll be kicked out of Homicide so fast, your ass will break the sound barrier.”

  Dorbandt grinned. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”

  Chapter 28

  “Tirawa, The One Above, sent certain animals to tell men that he showed himself through the beasts, and that from them…should man learn.”

  Eagle Chief, Pawnee

  Ansel dreamed of buzz saw blades. All around her hundreds of serrated blades flew through the air like twirling Frisbees, felling colossal redwoods and threatening to cut her. The trees oozed and dripped with a viscous, golden sap, and every time she jumped away from a deadly blade, her feet landed in ankle-deep mires of amber syrup. A spinning blade approached. She would be sliced in half, flattened by a tree trunk, or drowned in the ever-rising pool of sticky goo. She screamed.

  Ansel jerked awake as a moan of terror gurgled in her throat. Disoriented, she didn’t recognize her own trailer bedroom, expecting to see the Arrowhead furniture. Then she remembered that she’d returned home the night before, collapsing after a stressful twelve-hour day on the road. Only Godzilla intruded into her personal space, not bloodthirsty, serrated disks and suffocating resin.

  The clock on the nightstand read eleven. She rubbed her hands across her sweaty face and through her damp hair. God, what a dream. Or was it? She still heard an incessant buzzing. She looked toward the window. Yes, the sound was coming from outside.

  Ansel rose and went to the sill. She pulled back the curtain, squinting through dusty glass. The noise droned louder. She didn’t see anything unusual: gas grill, overgrown lawn, peachtree willow. And then she saw the bees.

  “What the hell?”

  Wearing only a tee shirt and satin boxer shorts, Ansel plodded out of the room. She ached all over, and her stomach rumbled with hunger. That’s what I get for being thrown into a limousine and not eating solid food for a day, she reasoned as she went to the front door. Blue sky and temperate breezes greeted her.

  She bounded down the porch steps and toward the west side of the trailer, stopping abruptly when the angry hum became unnaturally loud. Ansel peeked around the corner. A two-foot-long, undulating mass of honeybees hung from a low, weight-burdened tree branch. Hundreds of other insects dive-bombed the area in excited loops. True to Feltus Pitt’s prediction, her field colony had swarmed.

  Ansel retreated to the front door. She had to call Pitt and solicit his beekeeping services. Once inside, she dialed his number, and he answered right away.

  “Pitt’s Pigs.”

  “Hello, Mister Pitt. This is Ansel Phoenix.”

  “Howdy, ma’am. You doing all right after all the hubbub here?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry for what happened at your farm. I hope you won’t let it interfere in your relationship with the Pangaea Society.” She crossed her fingers.

  “Don’t worry. My business wasn’t hurt. In fact, more people are coming out to buy pigs for barbecues than ever before just to get a gander at the ranch. And my pigs haven’t complained. You can come out any time and look for big lizards. I’m sorry about that Capos fella though, him being a friend of yours and all.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pitt. I called for another reason, too. My bees swarmed, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “When did the brood split?”

  “Huh?”

  Pitt laughed, more cough then chuckle. “Guess I’d better talk English instead of bee-speak. When did the colony swarm?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been gone and just found them in my willow tree.”

  “Bees usually swarm in the midmorning hours. The scouts are looking for a new nest. You’ve got to hurry and hive them before they take off again. You got a new apiary set up?”

  “No. Just the old one in the field.”

  Pitt exhaled. “You’ll need another apiary to move this swarm into. And you’ll need to check the old hive. Some of the original colony is still in it.”

  “Can you set everything up for me? I’ll pay you, Mr. Pitt.”

  “Sure. Always wanted to try my hand at hiving a feral swarm. A new apiary will cost around a hundred fifty dollars, plus my gas and time hiving them. Then I still have to check the old colony.”

  “No problem. Just take care of it for me,” Ansel said with relief. She didn’t like the idea of feral bees looking for a home outside her bedroom window.

  “I’ll be there in a bit. Got to get some things together. Don’t go near them. Bees get testy when they’ve swarmed and haven’t eaten.”

  “I’ll keep my distance. Thanks, Mr. Pitt.”

  This task taken care of, Ansel went out to the back porch. Last night she had set towels on a folding card table and laid out the contents of her ruined black purse to dry. Dorbandt’s business card was there. Taking the yellowed card with her, she went inside and dialed his number. With a missing amber inclusion containing a dinosaur fossil and two million dollars in cash unaccounted for, Dorbandt had to take Nick’s involvement with Dr. Athanasios Stouraitis seriously.

  The phone rang several times before a male voice responded. “Detective Division. Fiskar.”

  “Lieutenant Dorbandt, please.”

  “He’s not here. Who’s calling?”

  Ansel frowned. She could never reach Dorbandt when she needed him. “This is Ansel Phoenix. I need to speak with him regarding the Capos case. When will he be back?”

  “Is this an emergency?”

  “No, but he’ll find this information very helpful.”

  “Give me your number, and I’ll pass the message on to him,” Fiskar said politely.

  She told him and added, “I need to speak with him regarding Dr. Anthanasios Stouraitis.”

  “Spell that name, please.”

  “When will he return?” she asked after complying.

  “He’s out of town for a few days. I assure you, I’ll get this message to him, and he’ll return your call, Miss Phoenix. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “No. Thank you.”

&
nbsp; Ansel felt stymied. Why had Dorbandt gone out of town when the action was happening here?

  She ate a bowl of cereal, wrote checks for her bills, and got them ready to mail. She spent almost another two hours cleaning out her truck cab, which had de-evolved from a place of transport into a rolling dirt museum. Months of fossil hunting and society functions had filled the cab with accumulated junk.

  She placed fossil-hunting tools into the Delta truck box on the flatbed, including Nick’s orange pick hammer. Papers went into the trailer. She disposed of trash and began vacuuming the interior to get the truck as presentable as possible for the Beastly Buffet. Next came the outside wash with soap and water. As she was polishing the truck with car wax, a dusty postal service truck sped up the drive and a young, blond-haired man got out. It was her postman, Barry.

  “Hey, Miss Phoenix. Got a certified envelope for you. I need you to sign for it. He held up a small red, white and blue postal packet.

  A sudden gust of wind almost snatched the mail from her grasp before she read the return address on the letter. Science Quest. The check for the Stegosaurus artwork. Barry passed her a postal receipt card and a pen. She scrawled her name with waxy fingers.

  “Thanks, Barry.”

  The postman was shooting down the road in his SUV in less than a minute. Ansel tore open the top of the cardboard envelope and reached for the letter inside just as a pickup sputtered toward her house.

  No time to read Rodgers’ comments now, but she did notice the mustard yellow rectangle of paper between the paper folds as Feltus Pitt pulled up next to her truck. The check was there. She quickly turned and clipped the envelope to the sun visor above the driver’s seat for safekeeping and closed the door.

  Pitt hopped out of his mud-splattered truck. “Looks like a storm brewing,” he said. “Radio’s talking about a thunderhead coming in from the Rockies. I just brought my suit and one hive box with a rain cover. Won’t have time to set up a whole apiary and check the old hive. Got to get these loose bees boxed and out of the rain.”

  Ansel noticed that to the west a bright summer sky had darkened into a gray, roiling mass of rain clouds. The temperature was dropping, and wind pummeled the trailer. The smell of rain permeated the air. Of course, she’d just washed and waxed the truck and now Mother Nature was going to ruin it all.

  “Show me the swarm,” Feltus said.

  Ansel led Pitt around the trailer. Bees still clung to the tree branch, but the colony looked smaller.

  “Yup, they’re balling up,” Pitt assessed. “They hate it when it rains and the temperature drops. Good sized swarm. About twenty-thousand.”

  Lightning flashed inside approaching thunderclouds. “Will you be able to move them?”

  “Yes, ma’am, if I hurry. Go on inside. I don’t know how the swarm’s going to react.”

  Ansel did as he said. From the living-room window she watched Pitt unload equipment from the topper of his rusted Chevy. He pulled on white coveralls, a boxy mesh helmet and leather gloves, then picked up a hive box with a blue-handled tool on top. These he carried out of her range of vision.

  Moving back to the bedroom window, Ansel observed as Pitt carefully constructed a concrete block base and set the hive box on top of it, along with a ramp of cardboard leading into the hive entrance. He placed the structure directly under the hanging swarm.

  Pitt disappeared and returned carrying a metal can with a spout and bellows attached to the cannister’s sides. Curls of smoke puffed from the container. Ansel’s mind raced when she saw it. This was the same type of cannister she’d found in Nick’s work room. She’d never gotten the chance to research the digital picture she’d taken.

  Pitt took a hand saw and cut off the drooping branch just above the swarm, then firmly shook it two times over the cardboard platform. Most of the bees dropped onto the cardboard as a lethargic clump. Pitt gently laid the branch on top of the fallen bees and directed them toward the hive door with the billowing smoke.

  As Ansel watched, fascinated, her mind still reeled over the discovery that Nick had a bee-keeping tool. Soon lightning flashed and a thunderous boom reverberated in the sky. She turned away, wincing at the storm’s ferocity. A moment later, a knock sounded at the front door. Pitt was there, looking like a space man wearing a safari helmet who was trying not to be blown back to Mars.

  “Gonna be a gully washer,” the farmer said. “I’ve done all I can today, ma’am. Gonna take about half an hour for those bees to go into the box. I got the queen in so they’ll follow. I’ll come back tomorrow and finish up.” Pitt looked up at the black clouds only a few miles away. “Do you mind, ma’am, if I leave my suit and a few supplies here?”

  “Not at all. Bring everything into the trailer.” Ansel helped Pitt store his few supplies in a living-room corner. “Mr. Pitt, what do you call the metal can with the bellows?”

  “That’s a smoker. Bees don’t like the smell of smoke. Reminds them of a forest fire. Smoke makes them roost and start eating. Also makes them real docile. You can do hive work with bees using just a smoker if they’re well fed beforehand. Don’t even need a suit.”

  Pitt reassured her again that if the rains let up, he’d return in the morning, then put pedal to the metal going down her driveway as huge raindrops pattered on her trailer roof.

  Ansel wasted no time going to a dinosaur calendar on the kitchen wall. She looked at the first week of the month. Sunday June third, the day Nick was supposed to bring the amber to Stouraitis. Nick had stayed with her Saturday night.

  Burnt honey keeps the bees warm.

  Ansel’s body trembled with anger. Nick had slept with her the day he’d received two million dollars. Had he drugged her wine, assuring she’d be pliable and sleep late the next morning? Had he gone out to her apiary while she slept, opened the hive, and hidden the money and the fossil find of the century?

  But hide them from whom? And if he hid the money, did that mean he had no intention of giving the amber to Stouraitis the next day? How did Nick plan to get everything out of her hive without her knowing it? So many questions with no answers.

  Ansel walked to the sofa and looked out the window. The rain fell in a torrent, and she could barely see the Langstroth hive in the field. She bit her lips, considering what to do very carefully. I can’t do it, she thought. Bees are fine in their place, but I don’t want to be close to thousands of them. Buzzing, flying, and stinging.

  Ansel swallowed back the foul lump of fear in her throat. If ever she needed her lucky Iniskim around her neck, it was now. Too bad. She stared hard at Feltus Pitt’s folded bee suit.

  After the rain stopped, she’d take a look inside the apiary.

  Chapter 29

  “I thought of dozens of ways to die, but came to the conclusion that there is no easy way to die. Dying is hard.”

  Crying Wind, Kickapoo

  Two hours later the thunderstorm had finally passed, dumping water so quickly that the ground couldn’t drink it up fast enough. Ansel trekked across the last few feet in front of the fifty-inch-high hive, her shoes and pants soaked clear through. The few bees flying across the soppy field ignored her.

  Ansel felt as though she was moving in slow motion inside the bee suit. It was baggy and hot. The Velcro straps pinched her ankles, and the vented, white helmet with a circular steel mesh veil was heavy and awkward. Her hands functioned like flippers inside the oversized leather gloves. Her right hand gripped a blue-handled, paint scraper-like tool with a hooked end.

  Ansel licked her lips and stared at the pine board hive. The apiary resembled a square, towering insect condo with one entrance at the bottom. Her mouth had gone dry as she neared the bees. The rain-proof, galvanized metal cover had to be removed first. She carefully aligned the scraper edge into a crack between the cover and the box below it. A large, droning honeybee landed on the veil in front of her. Could bees smell fear?

  Ansel froze. Her eyes crossed as she watched the insect and tried to deal emotionally with this
new dilemma. She shut her eyes and held her breath. The bee’s legs produced little clicking sounds as it walked across the mesh. This was worse. She opened her eyes. Resisting the urge to slap the bee into pulp, Ansel slowly raised her left hand and gently pushed it away. The insect hummed like a light aircraft engine and flew away. She exhaled her relief.

  Jamming the scraper deeper into the box seam, Ansel pried up the cover edge. She pushed the scraper into a suit pocket, grabbed the two-inch-deep lid with both hands, and pulled up.

  She expected a massive swarm to funnel out of the hive and chase her, but nothing happened. Beneath the cover was a solid board panel with an oval center hole. She set the cover frame on the ground, took the hive tool, and pried up the second barrier. More bees landed on her veil and upper body. They strutted along the suit a few paces, then flew away.

  Under this inner board Ansel found a shallow hive box with a few bees inside. This wasn’t right. Even she knew that the box should be filled with slide-in hive frames containing brood chambers. Instead she saw two small bundles tightly wrapped in black plastic and sealed with duct tape. Her pulse pounded.

  Damn you, Nick. You used me.

  The packages were stippled with a sticky, yellow-brown material smelling like decaying flowers. Rather than remove the messy packages, Ansel decided to take the useless hive box back to the trailer. Working the swollen wood joints apart bit by bit, she pried it off before pocketing the scraper.

  As she lifted the hive box and walked away, more bees flitted through the air, landed on her suit and stayed. She was getting used to the noisy insects and went several steps before realizing she’d forgotten to replace the cover top needed to seal the apiary from the elements.