by Jan Dunlap
“Isn’t that like feeding birds at a birdfeeder?” Boo asked. “Tons of people do that.”
“I know,” I said. “I have a bunch of feeders on my own back porch, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I get to enjoy the birds, and the birds get to eat. But not everyone agrees. Some opponents of bird-baiting say that by supplying the birds with a contrived food source, you’re teaching them to rely on humans, which is, in the natural world … well … unnatural. Usually, though, when people are debating bird-baiting, they’re talking about birders or photographers who deliberately look for a specific species—generally out in the wild—that they want to attract with food.”
“So you’ve got birders who think baiting is okay, and birders who think it’s unnatural.”
I nodded in agreement. “Not just unnatural, Boo. Many people consider it unethical, and even a harmful way of interacting with wildlife. It’s like any ecological issue. Humans need to consider the intricate relationships that make up nature and try to figure out where they should, or shouldn’t, intervene.”
Of course, there was another category of bird-baiting, but that was the clearly illegal kind. Poachers baited birds for live capture for smuggling sales or to kill them for their feathers. It may not sound like a lucrative business, but the amounts of money involved in the illegal bird trade was unbelievable. For instance, I knew that white Gyrfalcons, which are native to the arctic areas of Russia, are worth upwards of one hundred thousand dollars on the black market to falconers in Arab countries. A perfect tail feather from a Golden Eagle could sell for more than $250. I’ve heard from more than one Fish & Wildlife Service officer that as recently as a few years ago, smugglers sold tiny songbirds from Vietnam for $400 a bird.
Of course, that was dependent on the smuggler successfully getting the birds to the United States, which didn’t always happen. In the last three years alone, airport customs officials had rescued falcons wrapped in towels in luggage, small parrots inside socks taped to a traveler’s thighs and chest, and hummingbirds stuffed in underwear.
Oh, and the underwear was on the wearer at the time.
Poor birds.
“Well, I’m sure those platforms weren’t out there the last time I drove home on this route,” Boo said as we neared the exit to his dad’s farm. “This is new.”
I felt a tingle of awareness ripple down my spine, as I suddenly remembered there was a fourth reason someone might bait birds.
“How new?” I asked.
Boo pressed himself back in the passenger seat and stretched his arms out in front of him. The movement didn’t seem to give him any more room than he already had. The guy really was a giant. If he truly hadn’t been the Bonecrusher, he might have missed a promising career option.
“The last time I came this way was back in August,” he said. “I came up here to do some aerial surveys for my dad to present to the energy company to prove we didn’t have those sparrows colonizing the farm.”
“Because Sonny Delite said you did,” I added.
“Right.”
“So these platforms weren’t here? Wait a minute—you did the aerial surveys?”
“Take this next left,” Boo directed me. “I’ve been flying planes since I was sixteen,” he added. “I thought I’d launch a cropdusting company at one point, but there weren’t enough customers in the county to keep me in business. So I flew jets for the Air Force instead, until I decided I wanted to teach high school.”
The SUV rocked a little as the pavement became a hard-packed dirt road.
“You were in New Mexico teaching last year, right?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“So you didn’t hear about the big showdown in Goodhue County about the proposed wind farm there,” I said.
“My dad mentioned it to me once,” Boo recalled, “Because of that summer I’d worked on the wind farm, I think he was hoping I’d become a mechanical engineer and make a pile of money. Cash reserves are pretty hard to come by for a lot of farmers, you know.”
I remembered our conversation in my office earlier in the week. Boo had said his dad was too proud to take any financial help from his son and was depending on that leasing contract to come through. That was the reason Boo was so angry that Sonny was misleading the energy company with his false reports about nesting birds.
“There was a group of local people fighting the project tooth and claw,” Boo continued, “farmers, environmentalists, tax opponents. I think Dad said it was a Texas billionaire pushing to build the wind farm with federal wind subsidy money—a subsidy that Congress was thinking about shutting down, which meant the longer it took to get started on construction of the farm, the less likely it was that the government money would still be around to go into the company’s coffers.”
“That’s right,” I told him. “And it’s funny you should say ‘tooth and claw,’ because as it turned out, the presence of Golden Eagles in the area became a huge controversy, with both sides accusing the other of falsifying evidence.”
“Eagles,” Boo said. “Aren’t they protected by federal law?”
“Bingo,” I responded. “If you mess with the eagles, you don’t get to put up turbines.”
Boo pointed out the window to a white-sided farmhouse.
“This is the place,” he said. “Metternick Manor.”
I pulled the SUV into the long gravel drive leading up to the house and remembered the latest developments I’d read in the news about the Goodhue wind farm proposal.
“But here’s the hitch: not even eagles can escape a loophole in the law,” I continued. “A lot of people don’t know that back in 2009, the federal government came up with a compromise to appease conservationists while still supporting clean energy proponents. Since some birds—including protected species like eagles—will inevitably be killed by the blades of wind turbines, the government devised a permit to allow companies what they call ‘incidental take’ of wildlife.”
“Incidental?” he repeated. “Is that like collateral damage?”
I put the car in park and turned to Boo. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess it is.”
Boo shook his head. “So now the government is saying it’s okay to kill eagles.”
“No, not really.” I tried to make sense of it, too. As usual, the twists and turns of government red tape was a confusing trail to follow.
“No one is accusing wind farm developers of wanting to kill wildlife,” I pointed out. “Their intentions are good: to provide clean energy. And engineers are working all the time to make the turbine blades and the placement of wind towers less deadly to birds and those bats you talked about the other day. But there are always costs when population needs and nature collide.”
“So someone who opposed the Goodhue wind farm was deliberately baiting eagles to make a case that the ‘incidental take’ of the birds would exceed any permit limits?” Boo asked.
“Actually, no,” I told him. “The state investigators couldn’t find any evidence that baiting was happening. But I’m wondering if someone out here took that idea and put it into play—not to defeat the wind farm project, but to manipulate exactly where it was sited … and who got the lease with the energy developers.”
Boo gathered up his backpack and stepped out of the car.
“All I know for sure is that those feeding platforms weren’t in those fields two months ago,” he repeated. “I’ve got the aerial surveys in the house. You can see them for yourself if you want. Come on in.”
I debated for only a moment. Since I’d seen the Ferruginous Hawk, my primary birding objective for the day had been accomplished. There were a few areas outside Morris that I still wanted to go check for any late shorebirds, but it wouldn’t take long to make those stops, and I wasn’t expecting to find anything unusual anyway.
On the other hand, the idea that I might be able to find some leads in Boo’s surveys for Sonny’s murder investigation was a tempting alternative. During last night’s dinner, I h
ad promised Rick that I would keep my ears and eyes open on this trip to Stevens County in case I ran across any information that could help him shake his suspect status.
So far, what I had—Boo’s admission that he and Gina and her brother were all at the Arb on Sunday morning—couldn’t prove that Rick wasn’t involved in Sonny’s death, but at least it might provide the police with some other people to consider as serious suspects.
And yes, I would feel awful going to the police and saying “Hey, guys, if you think Rick had a reason to kill Sonny, maybe you should be taking a closer look at Boo Metternick, Gina Knorsen, and her brother, who, I happen to know, were all within walking distance of where Sonny was killed on Sunday morning. Not to mention that they might have had reasons just as good as—if not better than—Rick’s supposed reasons to poison Sonny.”
Oh, yeah, that was a great way to build new friendships and create loyalty at the workplace. Savage High School—where suspicion and suspects ran rampant. Mr. Lenzen would be so proud.
Not.
But if I could dig up some evidence in the surveys that Sonny’s involvement with the wind project might somehow account for a motive for murder, then I’d have a chance at getting Rick off the hot seat.
And if I could get Rick off, then I’d think it would have to help Gina, too.
As for Boo, given his father’s high financial stakes in the wind project, he might unfortunately become the best candidate to take the same hot seat that Rick would vacate.
Nice choice for me: help out my old buddy by zinging my new one.
Which was all the more reason I needed to learn everything I could about what had been going on in Stevens County before Sonny Delite turned up as a dead scarecrow in the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. After my morning drive with Boo Metternick, I was convinced he hadn’t killed anyone. Evidence that proved it would be almost as good a find for the day as the Ferruginous Hawk had been.
“Thanks, Boo,” I said, stepping out of the car. “I’d like to see those surveys.”
I followed him towards the house’s front porch and came to a dead stop.
A white-haired fellow was standing on the top step, his eyes squinted at me.
The squinting part didn’t bother me at all.
The rocket launcher he had balanced on his shoulder and aimed right at my head, however, did.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hey, Dad,” Boo called to his father from the front walk. “Is that a new one?”
He turned to me and winked. “Don’t worry. He won’t hit you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Oh, good. He wouldn’t hit me.
Did that mean he was still going to fire it?
Before I could get the question out of my mouth, though, I got the answer.
Boom!
Something streaked over my head and a split-second later, I heard a loud splat somewhere behind me.
Splat?
“Just potatoes,” Boo explained. “Although sometimes Dad uses zucchini or tomatoes if he’s got a surplus from harvesting. He’s not picky when it comes to vegetables.”
“And he likes to shoot vegetables because … ?”
“They don’t hurt anyone when they explode. Dad was an ordnance officer in World War II,” Boo explained, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “He still likes to fire rockets.”
“I was a damn good one, too,” Boo’s dad called from the porch. He removed the bazooka from his shoulder and leaned it against the house wall, then held his two hands up in the air, ten fingers wiggling.
“I still got ’em all,” he announced.
We stepped up onto the porch and Boo made introductions.
“Dad, this is Bob White. He’s a counselor at Savage High School. Bob, this is my dad, Vern Metternick.”
I clasped the old man’s hand in a greeting. His grip was sure and strong.
“So what do you think of my new toy?” he asked us. “I picked it up at a military collectables show last weekend. It’s an M1A1 from late 1942. I had to clean it up a bit, but it’s working pretty good with the spuds.”
“I’d say it was a shortcut to mashed potatoes,” I noted. “Maybe you should put together an infomercial and sell reconditioned bazookas as a time-saving kitchen tool. ‘It smashes. It mashes. For all your rocket-propelled needs.’”
Mr. Metternick clapped his hand on my shoulder and turned to his son. “I like this guy, Boo. You say he works with you?”
“I’m a counselor at the high school,” I said. “I was coming up here to do some birding, and Boo asked if he could get a ride up here to see you. It was nice having the company. It’s a long drive.”
“Bob wants to see those aerial surveys I took, Dad,” Boo told his father. “We just saw all those platforms out in the fields and thought we’d give my surveys another look. I’m sure they weren’t there, but maybe the poles were already up, and I just didn’t know what I was looking at.”
“Be my guest,” Mr. Metternick said. “Come on in, and we’ll pull them out of the cupboard. Your mother’s got a coffee cake in the oven, you know,” he informed Boo. “You’re going to have to eat it, or I’ll be having it all week.”
I followed Boo and his dad up the front steps and into the farmhouse. As soon as we got inside, Vern let out a yell.
“Tillie! Boo’s brought a friend home.” He turned to me in apology. “Sorry for the yelling, but my wife is a little hard of hearing these days. You’d think that I would have been the one to lose my hearing thanks to all those years working with explosives, but I can still hear a pin drop in the next room.”
A tiny white-haired woman came from the back of the house, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and smiling broadly. She threw her arms around Boo as he leaned down—way down—to give her a hug, then aimed a big smile at me.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Tillie. Would you like some crumb cake?”
“We’d love some, Ma,” Boo answered for us. “I’ll grab the coffee.” He gently took his mother’s arm and steered her back in the direction from which she’d appeared.
“Tillie’s too old to have to take care of this place anymore,” Vern confided. “If we can just get that energy outfit to lease our land for their wind farm, I’m moving us into town into a senior housing community. Did Boo tell you about all that?”
I nodded. “He did. That’s why I wanted to see his surveys. I’m curious to see why the energy company is hesitant to use your land. I’ve birded out here for years, and there’s never been any significant or threatened population of birds out here that a wind farm might disturb.”
“I know that,” he agreed with me, “and so do our neighbors.”
He walked into the dining room to a heavy antique china cupboard and began to rifle through papers in its top drawer.
“But the energy folks don’t,” he continued, “and they’re going to listen to the environmental consultant they’re paying good money to before they listen to me. That’s why we did the aerial survey. Pictures speak louder than words, so we thought the aerial surveys would prove we didn’t have some plague of rare birds on the farm, and we’d get that lease approved right quick.”
From the kitchen, I could hear Boo and his mother laughing, and the sound of coffee cups being set on a tray.
Vern drew a sheaf of papers and photos from the cupboard’s drawer.
“But the local utilities commission said our photos weren’t worth anything, since you can’t see nesting sites at the end of summer,” he said. “Now, either the company has to wait for spring and for us to do another survey, or they just go with their consultant’s advice and give the lease to my neighbors so they can get started putting up the turbines.”
I could easily guess the choice the energy company would make. If they were anything like the development group that had wanted to build in Goodhue County, they wouldn’t want to risk any more delay in breaking ground for the new wind farm. Federal subsidies had a bad habit of drying up if you waited to
o long to grab them.
And that meant that Boo’s parents would lose out on the lease and the income they needed to make a change in their living situation.
I took the papers Vern handed me and sat down at the big oak table that nearly filled the room. Boo’s mother placed a cup of coffee in front of me, then sat down in the chair beside me. Boo laid a plate full of crumb cake on the far side of the photos I had spread across the table, and I immediately breathed in the warm scent of baked apples and cinnamon.
“Just took it out of the oven,” Tillie told me. “It’s an old family favorite recipe.”
“Those are the best kind,” I said, beginning to salivate. I felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs, but without the bell. Give me a whiff of something freshly baked and my mouth was watering like a faucet. Since Luce and I had gotten married, I swear my mouth was salivating almost 24/7 thanks to her cooking. I was going to have to start wearing bibs.
“My wife’s a chef,” I said to Tillie, “and she collects recipes. She says that the new recipes can’t compare to the handed-down ones when it comes to pure comfort level.”
“I’d agree with that,” Vern said, using his fork to lift a square of the cake onto his plate. “Homemade beats store-bought hands down. In fact, that’s what I thought was going on when our neighbors put up those poles. I thought maybe they were going to line up rows for a vineyard or some new crop project—try to diversify. Then when I saw the feeding platforms I wondered what in the heck they thought they were doing, because the hawks around here don’t need any help finding food, believe me. We’ve got plenty of little-bitty field critters for them to pick off.”
I swallowed a bite of the cake. I’d thought the same thing. If the owners next door really did put up the platforms to try to lure in birds—like Ferruginous Hawks, for example—they needed to get their avian facts straight. Even if the hawks picked up a few free meals as they passed through the county, it was completely unlikely they’d relocate their nesting grounds because of it. Not to mention that Ferruginous Hawks weren’t any kind of protected species.