A Bobwhite Killing (12 page)

I jerked on my emergency brake, sending the car into a spin. The tires screeched as they skidded across the pavement and into the turn-out. Gravel sprayed up around our windows and with a lurch, my SUV came to a bone-jarring stop, facing the direction we’d just traveled.

“Go, Bo,” Bernie managed to say just before the air bags deployed and smacked us both square in the chest.

“Bernie!”

I released my seat belt and turned to help Bernie, who was looking dazed and frazzled behind her air bag, but all in one piece. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Is this the part where I jump out of the car window? You know I’m not exactly Daisy Duke material anymore,” she added weakly.

I smiled at her reply. Not even faulty brakes were going to throw Bernie off her game. “You can be my Daisy anytime. Here, let me help you.” I pushed her air bag out of the way and released her seatbelt.

“What the hell happened?” Mac shouted outside my window.

“Are you all right?” Renee was beside Bernie’s door.

“My brakes quit on me,” I told them. “But I think we’re okay.”

Renee carefully helped Bernie down from the SUV, while I stepped out on my side. Mac was bending down, hands on his knees, examining the wheel well of my left front tire.

A puddle of liquid was sitting under it.

“Brake fluid,” Mac announced. “Somebody cut your brake line.”

I looked at him in stunned silence.

“Somebody cut my brake line?” I repeated, doing my best idiot imitation.

“Yes, Bob, that’s what I said,” Mac grimly assured me.

“Why would someone do that?” I looked back at the roadside edge of the turn-out where Mac had left his own SUV. I could see the Nybergs in Mac’s back seat, staring open-mouthed at our little accident scene. “I guess this means that Bernie and I are done birding for the morning. I’ll call for a tow. You guys know where you’re headed?”

Mac nodded. “Yeah, Renee knows the area. She’s birded it with Jack a few times the last couple years.”

From the other side of the car, Renee called out to me. “Bob, I think you’d better get an ambulance for Bernie. I think the air bag might have cracked one of her ribs.”

I hustled around the back end of the SUV and found Bernie sitting on the ground, leaning against Renee and holding her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. Her face was drained of color and she was trying hard not to grimace with pain. “I’m on it,” I told the women and pulled out my cell phone.

“Sorry, Bob,” Bernie gritted out after I finished talking with the dispatcher.

“Hey, no problem, Daisy.” I sat on my haunches beside her. “We’ll get you fixed right up, Bernie. Don’t you worry.”

She reached out with one hand and grabbed my shirt to pull me down into her face. “I heard what Mac said,” she whispered, almost nose-to-nose with me. “Someone’s trying to hurt you, Bob.” Her eyes filled with concern.

“Yeah,” I said. “I got that.”

“What are you going to do?”

I lifted a hand and gently patted her lined cheek. “I’m going to find out who, Daisy, and then I’m going to chase him down and make him apologize for hurting you. Nobody messes with a Duke and gets away with it.”

She let go of my shirt, worry still clouding her eyes. “This isn’t funny, Bob.”

I leaned back and studied her. “No, it’s not,” I agreed. “I’m pretty sure my car insurance just went through the roof.”

An hour later, I was back in the lobby of the hotel waiting for Shana and Tom to return from the sheriff’s office. Bernie was on her way to the nearest medical facility for x-rays and a thorough physical examination, and my SUV was sitting in the parking lot of the local auto repair shop. Since it was Sunday, my SUV was down for the count until at least tomorrow morning, which meant I was going to be enjoying all of Spring Valley’s ambiance and birding hotspots for another twenty-four hours or so. At least, I wanted to assume that I would be doing that.

After mulling over the fact that someone had deliberately sabotaged my car, and that Shana had a pesky little note in her possession that indicated Jack had asked Ben about killing me, however, I wasn’t sure I should be assuming anything about my immediate, or long-range, future.

Maybe not setting up that IRA at work yet wasn’t such a tragedy after all. If the next twenty-four hours were anything like the last, chances looked good that I wasn’t going to have to do any worrying about funding my retirement, because I wasn’t going to be around long enough to retire. Okay, I thought, mark that little task off the summer to-do list. One less thing to stress over, right?

Of course, stressing over getting killed wasn’t going to improve my longevity, either. I needed some answers, and I needed them now.

Who cut my brake line and why?

Why did Jack write a note to Ben about killing me?

Could I get my deposit back on that tux I was going to rent for Lily’s wedding?

A moment later, I saw Tom’s car pass by the lobby doors, and then a minute after that, he and Shana walked into the lobby. They both looked grim.

“It’s over,” Tom announced. “They found the gun used to shoot Jack in the glove compartment of Billy’s car. Sheriff Paulsen sent the bullets and gun to some lab to verify the match, but she’s satisfied she can close the case.”

Shana lowered herself to sit beside me on the lobby’s sofa.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, taking her hands in mine. “I know you told me Billy was Jack’s assistant, but you must have known him pretty well, too.”

She nodded, her gaze on our joined hands. “I thought I did,” she slowly said. “I can’t believe he shot Jack. And I’m the one who sent him after Jack Friday night.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “If I’d just left things alone, maybe Jack …”

“Don’t do that to yourself, Shana,” Tom warned, sitting down on her other side. It suddenly occurred to me that we could have been matching bookends with Shana playing the part of the Encyclopedia Britannica. All thirty-two volumes of it. “You can’t play ‘what ifs’ here,” he told her. “It’ll eat you up, and I can’t believe Jack would want that for you.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his and I caught a weak smile flitter across her face. “Thanks for going with me, Tom. I really appreciate it.”

To my astonishment, I watched a pink blush creep over Tom’s cheeks.

What the heck?

“What about Billy, though?” I asked, all at once feeling self-conscious about holding Shana’s hands with Tom pressed against her other side. I released her fingers and leaned back against the sofa cushion. “Does the sheriff have any leads on who shot him?”

I saw Tom and Shana exchange a look.

“What?”

“This is where it gets weird, Bob,” Tom said, his cheeks having resumed their natural coloring. “The medical examiner found a dart wound in Billy’s back, up near the neck. The sheriff told us it was exactly like the puncture mark you’d expect to find in a large animal that had been shot with a dart from a tranquilizer gun. Apparently his killer shot him with the dart, then dragged him to the woodpile, where he finished him off with the bullet.”

Yeah, bullets have a way of doing that. Especially when they end up in your chest. Dead center.

“Geez,” I said. “Guess the killer didn’t want to leave anything to chance, like maybe Billy waking up and walking away before he was really dead.” I shook my head. “But if that was the case, why bother with the dart? Why not just shoot the guy with the bullet to begin with?”

A dart.

From a tranquilizer gun.

I realized what Shana and Tom hadn’t told me yet.

“It’s Kami, isn’t it? She’s got to have tranquilizer darts to use on Nigel if he gets out of her compound. Sheriff Paulsen has to know that.”

Shana nodded. “The sheriff was going up to Kami’s place when we left to bring her in for questioning. But I don’t know that Kami killed Billy, Bob. Tom says that Kami was here yesterday afternoon with your friend Eddie when he stopped by the hotel to leave you his note. I’m sure that’s one thing the sheriff needs to talk to Kami about: where she was and with whom early yesterday morning. If Eddie can back her up, then Kami has an alibi.”

“But if Kami didn’t kill Billy, then whoever did sure left a trail that leads straight to her door because of the dart.” I drummed my fingers on my knee. “If you ask me, it sounds like somebody wants to frame Kami.”

“And Billy,” Shana suddenly added, her face lighting up with excitement. “I knew there was something wrong when the sheriff said that Billy shot Jack.”

She pushed herself up from the couch and turned to face Tom and me, rubbing her hands along the sides of her extended belly. I could have sworn she looked even bigger this morning than she had yesterday.

“Billy hated guns,” she explained. “He didn’t even know how to shoot one. I know, because one day last month, Jack and I went to a shooting range, and Billy came along to brief Jack on some legislation while we drove to the range. Once we got there, Billy stayed in the lounge while we did some shooting. He told us that a good friend of his was killed in a gun accident when he was just a kid, and, because of that, Billy had sworn that he himself would never touch a gun, let alone learn to shoot one.”

Shana paced away to the front desk, then back again to stand in front of us. “I’d bet the farm that Billy didn’t kill Jack.”

“So who did?” Tom asked her.

Shana threw her arms in the air. “I don’t know!” Then her eyes locked on mine, like she suddenly saw me very clearly, and that surprised her. “What are you doing here? I thought you were taking the group birding this morning.”

I debated how much to tell her. If she was already feeling guilty about sending Billy after Jack and finding them both dead the next day, she wasn’t going to be too happy to hear about my close call and Bernie’s injury.

“A change in plans,” I finally said.

She narrowed her eyes at me, her hands massaging the top of her belly. “Where’s Bernie?” she asked suspiciously.

“Where’s your car?” Tom added. “I didn’t see your BRRDMAN plates in the parking lot.”

“Neither did I, White-man.”

I looked over my shoulder towards the lobby doors. My best friend and soon-to-be brother-in-law was taking off his battered cowboy hat, mid-morning sunshine streaming in behind him.

I put my head in my hands and groaned.

“Take me now, Lord,” I prayed.

Alan walked over to our little tableau and offered his hand to Shana.

“You must be Shana O’Keefe,” he smiled at her warmly. “Alan Thunderhawk. I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. O’Keefe. Your husband was a good man doing good things for Minnesota.”

Shana shook his hand briefly and thanked him for his sympathy. By then, Tom was on his feet, too, moving to stand beside Shana. He introduced himself to Alan.

“I know that name,” Alan grinned. “You’re the guy who calls Bob to get birdcall IDs over the phone. That’s crazy, man. Kind of like remote bird watching, you know?”

“Alan,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

He smacked his hat against his leg. “What, a man can’t go for a drive on a beautiful Sunday morning without having a reason other than to enjoy God’s good handiwork?”

I rolled my eyes. “Fillmore County isn’t exactly in your neighborhood, Alan. Not when you live in Scott County, two hours away. And especially not before noon on a Sunday. Hell, I don’t think you’ve seen a Sunday morning since we roomed together at Southwest State back in the nineties.”

He inspected the band around his hat, carefully avoiding my eyes. “Not true. I saw a sunrise just last weekend. Of course, I’d been up all night, but, hey, I did see that sun come up. And it was pretty, too.”

He smiled like a goof.

I groaned again, and then it hit me.

“Lily put you up to it, didn’t she? I didn’t call her back last night, so she sent you to ream me. Geez, Alan, I can take care of myself.”

“You’re the groom-to-be,” Shana deduced. “You’re marrying Bob’s sister.”

Alan turned his smile back on Shana. “Yes, ma’am, I am. And while I love that woman to distraction, I’m not letting her get away with firing my best man, here.”

He faced me again. “Sorry, Bob, but you’re not getting out of the biggest show on earth that easily.”

“Ah,” I replied, leaning back into the sofa cushion. “Now I get it. She’s making you crazy with the wedding plans, too, isn’t she? What did you do, volunteer out of the goodness of your heart to come track me down and drag me home just so she wouldn’t have to worry about me instead of the color of the place cards at the rehearsal dinner?”

He tossed his hat down on the couch next to me. “Close. Very close. Let’s just say the thought occurred to me that a little absence this morning might make the heart a whole lot fonder, not to mention restore some of my natural equanimity which has been sorely depleted as of late.” He threw a glance at Shana, his eyes measuring her girth. “Do you need to sit down?” he politely asked her.

“No, I’m fine,” she answered. “Thanks. So you’re here to keep an eye on Bob for his sister?”

Alan nodded. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

“You know, Bob, you don’t have to stay on here in Spring Valley,” Tom said. “Since Sheriff Paulsen says she’s closing Jack’s case, she said we can all go home.”

“But I think she’s wrong,” Shana reminded him. “Billy didn’t kill Jack.”

“Then hire an investigator, Shana,” Tom pressed. “A professional. Let him pursue it. You’re not helping yourself or your babies hanging around here, wearing yourself out trying to make sense of this.”

“Babies?”

“I’m expecting twins, Alan,” Shana explained, then resumed her argument with Tom. “If I leave now, believe me, I’m going to be more miserable at home doing nothing and wondering what’s happening than if I stayed here. Just another day or two. That’s all. Then I promise I’ll go back to the Cities.”

“Actually, I can’t go home today, anyway,” I announced. “My car … well … it needs work. It’s at the garage in town. Hopefully they can fix it first thing in the morning. But in the meantime, I’m stuck here in Spring Valley.”

“What happened to your car? It was driving fine last night,” Tom pointed out.