A Bobwhite Killing (18 page)

Too bad he was wasting it on me.

“No comment,” I told him.

“How did you find us?” Alan asked.

Yeah, that was a good question. I gave Skip a stern glance. “Are you stalking me?”

“No!” he cried in alarm, raising his hands to his shoulders.

“You can put your hands down, Skip. This isn’t a stick-up.”

The boy blushed a bright crimson and dropped his hands. “I know that,” he mumbled.

I couldn’t help myself. I was starting to like Skip. He may have been intruding into my life, but he was doing it so awkwardly that it made me smile. “So how did you know I would be here?”

He glanced up at me from under a long fringe of blond hair. He had that bowl cut thing going on with his mop of hair, like his mom had simply placed a bowl over his head and trimmed right around it. I guessed that Skip was definitely not the school GQ icon.

“This morning I drove over to the hotel to see if I could talk with you, and just when I got there, I saw you getting in the car with your friend.” Skip pointed to Alan. “Then I followed you guys here, but I didn’t turn in to the parking lot right behind you. I didn’t want you to ‘make’ me, you know?”

“Make you?” Alan asked.

“Yeah, like on the cop shows. Identify the car following you. I wanted to see where you were going, then I doubled back and parked here after you had gone. I figured I’d catch you when you got back.”

“Good thinking,” I said. I glanced at Alan. “We didn’t ‘make’ you at all, Skip.”

He seemed to puff up a little again.

“So what kind of interview were you thinking about?”

Skip’s face lit up. “Oh, man, that would be so great if you would let me ask you a few questions! I’ve even got a minicam in my car to film you.”

“Bob,” Alan warned.

“It’s all right,” I reassured him. I nodded at Skip. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Jimmy Olsen.”

“It’s Skip,” he corrected me. “Skip Swenson.”

“I know. I was making a joke,” I explained. “Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, like with Superman and Lois Lane? Mr. White, the editor of the
Daily Planet
?

Skip just stared at me. He didn’t get it.

“Never mind. Get the camera.”

Alan snickered beside me.

Our eager journalist-to-be pulled his car door open and grabbed a small video camera off the passenger seat. “Could you hold it for me while I interview Mr. White?” he asked Alan.

“Sure. Show me how to run it. My name’s Alan Thunderhawk, by the way.” He paused for a beat. “Jimmy.”

“It’s Skip,” he said again. I noted a hint of irritation in his voice. He was probably thinking that not only were Alan and I old guys, but hard-of-hearing as well. He gave Alan a few brief instructions, then came to stand next to me. A little more puffing, and he was ready to go. “Roll it,” he told Alan.

“I’m here with Bob White, the mystery man who’s been at the side of Shana O’Keefe since her husband’s murder yesterday morning. Can you tell us, Mr. White, what your involvement is with Mrs. O’Keefe?”

“We’re old friends, Skip,” I told him, feeling relieved to have the chance to set the record straight. “Mrs. O’Keefe and I used to go birding together almost twenty years ago when I was about your age. I’m here this weekend because I was birding with her husband Jack’s weekend birding group. In the light of what’s happened, I know she appreciates having friends around her during this awful ordeal.”

Skip brushed his bangs out of his eyes and crossed his arms over his thin chest. “And how is she reacting to the very real possibility that not only her husband has met his death this weekend, but that Bobwhite might also be killed in the process?”

Say what?

Actually, for a moment or two, or three, I couldn’t say a thing. My heart felt like it had slammed into my chest.

“What did you say?” Alan asked, lowering the camera.

“Keep it rolling, Mr. Thunderhawk,” Skip motioned with his hand for Alan to raise the camera back up again.

I put my hand on Skip’s shoulder and locked my eyes on his. “What are you talking about?” I carefully enunciated each word.

Skip looked confused, and his eyes darted from mine to Alan’s face and back again to mine. “The eco-community,” he said. “I’m asking if Mrs. O’Keefe is upset that the eco-community might lose its battle with the zoning council because of Mr. O’Keefe’s murder.”

“No,” Alan corrected him. “You said something about killing Bob White.”

“That’s right,” Skip agreed. “Bobwhite is the name of the eco-community.” He paused for a minute, checking out the dumbfounded expressions on Alan’s and my faces. “You didn’t know that?”

I walked over to lean against Alan’s car. I rubbed my hand over my chin, aware of a huge wave of relief washing over me even as I was busy mentally reassembling what had happened since I’d found Jack’s body yesterday morning. Jack’s note wasn’t about me. It was about the eco-community’s possible fate if the zoning didn’t get approved. I wasn’t on somebody’s hit list.

Good to know.

Really good to know.

But before I could enjoy the full range of that feeling, a little fact jumped front and center into my consciousness to spoil the moment.

Someone had still cut my brake line and put Bernie into the hospital. Not what I would call a random act of the universe.

Around me, birds were singing. Automatically, I began to list their names in my head: Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Blue Jay, Eastern Phoebe.

“You didn’t know that,” Skip said, only this time it was a statement of fact, not a question. “Oh, I get it! You thought I was saying that you were getting killed, Mr. White. Bobwhite. Bob White. Got it. What I was talking about was the eco-community. The project’s called ‘Bobwhite Acres.’ And the trail park the ATV lobby wants to build instead is called ‘Ride on the Wild Side.’ It’s supposed to be huge and generate a whole lot of income for the county.”

“Yeah, I think I heard that,” I responded half-heartedly. “I’m just having a … moment … of … mental reconfiguration here, Skip.”

Our cub reporter brushed his bangs out of his eyes again and gave me a careful once-over.

“Is there something else going on here?” he asked.

“Hey, Skip, I think we’re done filming for now,” Alan piped up. “Maybe we can do some more later.” He handed the camera back to the boy and then came to lean against the car next to me.

“The news is both good and bad, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Can I talk to you later, Mr. White?” Skip asked. “Maybe I can do a written interview and email it to a station?”

“Sounds like a plan, Skip,” I said, but without much enthusiasm.

He climbed into his car and left the lot.

“What are you thinking?” Alan asked.

I looked up into the trees that rimmed the parking area. “Oh, that I’m glad Jack and Ben weren’t plotting my murder. Wondering who is. And why.”

Alan took off his hat and wiped his arm across his forehead. “We’re going to find out, Bob. You and me. And then we’ll put the son-of-a-bitch in jail.”

Alan suddenly went tense beside me.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“What?”

“That bird call. It sounded like ‘
pee-oo-wee
.’ Is that what a Pewee sounds like?”

I stared at Alan, then tuned my ears to listen for the bird.

I didn’t hear anything.

“Funny, Alan,” I said, shaking my head. “Nice try, but no cigar.”

“No, wait. Just be quiet,” Alan insisted.

I listened again.

And then it came. The clear song of the Eastern Wood-Pewee.

“I’ll be damned,” I said in total amazement. “You got the bird, Alan.”

He grinned at me.

“And you’re going to get a fiancée.”

I looked at him blankly.

“Our bet? You said if I found the Pewee, you’d ask Luce to marry you.”

I felt the blood drain from my head.

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, White-man, you did.”

Holy crap.

“Which gives us one more reason to find your car saboteur and get him put away as quickly as possible,” Alan continued. “We don’t want to keep Luce waiting any longer than she has to for you to put that diamond on her finger now, do we, White-man? Hey, maybe we could have a quadruple-ring ceremony. You know, we could all get married at the same time? Two-for-one? I bet it would save us a bundle on the reception, at least.”

I could barely hear what Alan was saying over the roaring in my ears.

No, not roaring. Ringing.

Quadruple-ring.

Something clicked together in my head then, and I forgot all about proposing to Luce.

“Not a quadruple-ring, Alan,” I said, the words tumbling out almost as rapidly as they were falling into place in my head. “A three-ring! A three-ring circus!”

“Please don’t even suggest that phrase to Lily,” Alan sternly warned me. “She’ll never forgive you if you refer to her wedding as a three-ring circus. Even if you’re right,” he added.

“I’m not talking about the wedding!” I almost shouted at him. “I just realized why the ATV lobby might want that particular piece of land desperately enough to kill the opposition,” I told Alan, pulling open the passenger door to his Camry. “Get in and drive. There’s another birding spot we’ve got to look at.”

“What do you mean? I got the Pewee, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. But you didn’t get a Bobwhite, and that’s the reason I came to Fillmore this weekend in the first place. Jack promised us a Bobwhite, and I think I just figured out where at least one is. Drive, Alan.”

Alan’s hybrid quietly came to life and rolled silently out of the Green Hills parking area. After about ten minutes, I noticed he kept looking in his rear-view mirror every few seconds. Since traffic was pretty non-existent on the county road, I finally craned my neck around to see what he was watching behind us.

Skip Swenson waved to me from behind the wheel of his car.

“Jimmy Olsen has us tagged,” Alan announced.

“I see that,” I said. “The kid is persistent, I have to give him credit for that.”

“And he’s obviously not worried about us ‘making’ him, either,” Alan added, sticking his hand out the window to wave back at Skip. “He must have been pulled off into one of those driveways I passed right when I exited the camp, and because there was so much forest and winding roads, I didn’t see him until now. He thinks you’re going to give him his shot at that internship, Bob.”

I leaned my arm on the open window frame and watched the forest turn into rolling hills. “Maybe I’ll do just that.”

“Uh oh,” he said. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. You know something I don’t?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. That’s why I want to see the ATV track again.”

“I thought we were going Bobwhite hunting.”

“We are,” I assured him. “Turn left at the next road.”

While Alan drove, I reviewed the pieces of information that had just assembled themselves into a partial picture in my head. The land that Chuck owned abutted Kami’s land, making a big piece of real estate when combined—certainly large enough to accommodate both a manufacturing plant and a testing ground for ATVs. For whatever reasons—personal or professional—Chuck opposed the eco-community’s bid for his land, and was secretly funding the recreational lobbyists to block the development. Ben, the middle man for the funds, had, meanwhile, pressured Kami to withdraw her support for the eco-community project, which would presumably remove an obstacle for the lobbyists. Failing to get Kami’s compliance, though, Ben had—according to Kami—plotted to get control of her land by marrying her.

Yet that ploy hadn’t worked for Ben, either, nor did it explain why he would be so quick to identify Kami as a leading suspect in Jack’s death.

Unless he wanted Kami herself removed from the property and into a jail cell, leaving behind a choice piece of real estate already eyed by an ATV company, who would be happy to build next to a tract of land that was already popular with ATV riders.

And as for Nigel … that’s where the three-ring circus came in.

“Ride on the Wild Side,” Skip had said.

Couldn’t get much wilder than a full-grown tiger, could it? I happened to know from very recent experience what a rush of adrenaline one got when face to face with a cat that big. Combine that up-close thrill with a challenging trail, and I bet you’d have the entire American population of ATV riders flocking into town.

Talk about a cash cow.

Or cash tiger.

That was what Ben really wanted from Kami—her property
and
Nigel. For all I knew, maybe the mayor was even planning to bring in some other exotic animals to place along the ATV trail. If, as I suspected, Kami’s land sat next to the wasted prairie Tom and I had seen yesterday while looking for Bobwhites, then it would be a simple job for Ben to run that same ATV trail right along Kami’s property line. Nigel would hear the noise of the ATVs, come to investigate, and pace behind the electronic fence. Maybe he’d do some roaring, or sprint along the fence. I could imagine how that would play in marketing the ATV park—“Race with the tiger at Ride on the Wild Side!”

Poor Nigel. All Kami wanted to do was give the big cat a sanctuary, but Big Ben was ready to turn him into an ATV side-show.

For a price, of course. And according to Stan’s snooping, it was a pretty nice price sitting in that off-shore account that belonged to Big Ben. My guess was that the mayor had a back-room deal going with the ATV manufacturer to deliver both Kami’s property and Nigel for use in developing the biggest ATV manufacturing facility/recreational park imaginable.

“Pull in over there,” I instructed Alan as we approached the turn-off by the ruined grassland.

He put the car into park and stared out the front windshield. “There are Bobwhites here? You’re kidding me, right? This looks like the setting for a post-apocalypse movie, not a birdie heaven.”

I popped open the door and pointed towards some wire fencing stretched between trees about two hundred yards away on the edge of what was left of the prairie. “I saw that fencing yesterday when Tom and I were here, but it didn’t mean anything to me at the time. I want to see if it’s electrified.”