A Bobwhite Killing (25 page)

“The Worm-eating Warbler,” I said, remembering how the deputies at the police station had complained about all the birders around Mystery Cave State Park a few years back. “You know all the birding spots.”

I couldn’t connect with her eyes through her sunglasses, but I didn’t need to see the truth there as I realized she’d shot Billy, too.

“Why Billy?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“Why Billy?” she echoed. “Why aren’t you asking ‘why Jack,’ or do you think that you’ve already figured that out?”

I could feel Alan shift slightly beside me.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned him. “I’ll put a bullet through both of your hearts before you even draw another breath. Conversation closed, boys. Find the cave.”

I slowly turned back around and walked along the edge of the forest, wondering how long we had till Stan showed up. At the same time, I was beginning to question whether Stan’s arrival was going to bail us out, since no matter which direction he approached us from, there was open meadow, which meant the sheriff would see him coming. Not even Scary Stan could cross that much open space without making a sound. Maybe instead of three bodies to stuff in the cave entrance, Paulsen would make it four.

And then I heard it. An almost imperceptible padding sound coming from the other side of the old fence.

Nigel was stalking us through the cover of trees.

My mind raced with possibility.

I quickly scanned the fence ahead, looking for the spot where the wire fence had been ripped out yesterday morning. Sure enough, the cut edges still framed a wide open gap from the meadow into the forest. The sheriff obviously knew about Kami’s new electronic invisible fence on the far side of her property, but did she know there was a new invisible fence operating on this side as well? I had to assume she didn’t, since she’d been cutting the old flimsy wire one early Saturday morning in hopes of wrecking more havoc around Kami’s land. So the question was: if I could get Paulsen near enough to the gap, could I bluff her into believing the big cat had her in his sights long enough for Alan and I to disarm her?

Was this a pathetic plan or what?

Definitely pathetic.

But pathetic or not, it was all I had.

I edged closer to the gaping hole in the fence, pretending to study the ground for traces of a cave-in like the one Alan had fallen in earlier at the ATV wasteland, all the while trying to catch a glimpse of Nigel as he moved silently through the woods parallel to our path. I saw a glimmer of orange fur, which blended in perfectly with a shaft of sunlight cutting down through the trees.

“Look at this!” I said, especially loudly. I grabbed Alan’s arm and pulled him next to me, pointing to a noticeable depression in the ground. Sheriff Paulsen kept her distance, her gun still trained on us. I kicked hard at the ground with my heel.

“It’s loose! I bet the entrance is right around here. Alan, walk around this,” I directed him with my hand. “You don’t want to fall in like you did earlier today in that other spot. Sometimes these old entrances get covered with a thin coat of soil.”

“You can both walk around to the other side,” Paulsen said, pointing her gun to the place I’d indicated about fifteen feet from where we stood. “Let me take a look at this.”

Alan and I slowly skirted the depression in the ground, walking in an arc away from the forest edge, while the sheriff came to stand in our place, her back practically framed by the gap in the wire fence. She kicked at the ground.

Nothing happened.

“I thought you said this soil was loose,” she said to me. “It feels like solid rock.”

Behind her, Nigel slunk out of the tree cover and silently positioned himself to leap at where she stood.

Poor cat. He was going to get a nasty shock when he crossed the line of the electronic fence. I guessed that Nigel wasn’t a fast learner.

I opened my mouth to call the sheriff’s attention to the tiger poised behind her, but Nigel beat me to the punch.

He let out a low growl.

Even from twenty feet away, I felt the hairs on my arm stand up from the sound.

The sheriff froze in place, and six hundred and fifty pounds of tiger launched itself into the air.

Screaming in terror, Paulsen dove into the depression face first, her gun spinning off towards the forest.

Nigel, stunned by the electronic fence, landed in an unconscious heap right behind her. The momentum of his big body had carried him past the old wire fence line and into the meadow.

“Holy crap,” I heard Alan breathe beside me.

“Go get Kami and bring her over here to take care of Nigel,” I told him, hustling over to where Paulsen’s gun had landed. “He’ll be out for a little while, but I’d much rather she was right here when he does wake up.” I snatched up the gun and aimed it at Paulsen, who seemed equally unconscious in the dirt.

“A pathetic plan, huh?” I congratulated myself, then studied the sleeping tiger. “Thanks, buddy. Anytime you want to take a flying leap, it’s okay with me.”

A moment later, Paulsen stirred as Alan and Kami came running back to meet me, Kami’s hands still cuffed together. I handed the gun to Alan. “You cover her, Hawk. You know I hate guns.”

Alan expertly drew a bead on the base of Paulsen’s skull. “Sit up with your hands on your head,” he told her. “I grew up shooting snakes on the reservation, and I’m not about to miss one now.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Pretty intimidating for a high school history teacher, don’t you think?”

He threw me a grin. “Man, I could get used to birding with you, Bob. It sure beats the hell out of watching C-SPAN.”

Great. Alan the Six-shooting Birdwatcher.

“I’m positively underwhelmed,” I told him, pulling out my cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” Kami asked, kneeling beside Nigel. I noticed her hands resting on the tiger’s flank, rising and falling with his deep breathing.

“Stan Miller,” I said, just as he picked up at his end. “Where are you? And why aren’t you already here?”

“Flat. Had to fix it.”

“You got a flat tire?” I almost laughed out loud. I’d always assumed real life didn’t apply to Scary Stan.

He ignored my question and my tone, too. “Be there in five.”

“No rush,” I said. “We have the situation under control. But I don’t know who to call when the sheriff is the one we want to arrest.”

He let out a soft whistle. “In four,” he replied. The phone went dead in my hand.

“Stan will know what to do,” I told Kami and Alan, who had raised the gun to keep it level with Paulsen’s head as she had lifted herself into a sitting position on the ground. She kept her back towards us, but took a look over her shoulder, probably just to make sure Alan really did have a gun on her.

“Why Billy?” I asked her again.

“Why Jack?” Kami added, her voice crackling with anger. “If it was Ben’s idea, I swear to God I’ll kill him myself.”

Paulsen didn’t say a word.

“I think it was the sheriff’s idea,” I explained to Kami. “A spur-of-the-moment one. I’m guessing Jack caught her tearing down the fence right over there on Friday night, and somehow she forced him over to Green Hills before she shot him. Then she figured she’d frame you for it, thereby eliminating you as an obstacle to what she thought Ben wanted: the ATV project. She killed Jack at the youth camp because she knew he’d be found faster there than here in this seepage meadow that only a few birders know about.” I took a look at Paulsen’s back, still stiffly erect. “Have I got it right, Sheriff?”

She didn’t answer.

Not that I really expected her to.

But it would have been nice to have some affirmation of my guesswork.

Kami, however, began to fit together a few more pieces of the murder puzzle.

“Wait a minute,” she whispered. “Remember I told you that Eddie and I started tracking Billy’s car on Friday? Eddie told me on Saturday morning that Billy’s car had made a brief stop not far from the turn-off to the meadow here after he left my place following Jack, but neither of us could figure out why Billy would do that. But he was following Jack, so he must have stopped because Jack stopped. And Jack must have stopped because he saw a car turning back onto the road from the meadow’s turn-off and thought that was odd.”

Kami’s fists clenched on Nigel’s fur. “Jack knew there was nothing down that road but the seepage meadow, so why would anyone be out there at two or three in the morning?”

“Unless that someone was messing with your fence?” Alan suggested.

“So Jack followed the car,” Kami continued, conviction coloring her voice. “He had to have recognized it as the sheriff’s patrol car and wanted to know what was going on in the seepage meadow that had caused her to come out there.”

“Let me guess,” I interrupted her, and looked at the sheriff, who still kept her back towards us. “You led him to Green Hills, because you knew it was deserted and a popular birding spot, pulled a gun on him when he got out of the car, walked him down the slope and shot him.”

“And Billy, who was following far enough behind not to give himself away to Jack, showed up at Green Hills just in time to hear the gunshots,” Alan concluded. “So Billy knew who killed Jack. Then, a few hours later, Billy, theoretically on his way to Mystery Cave, ends up with a dart in his neck and a bullet in his head.”

Kami suddenly smacked her forehead with her shackled palms. “Of course! The county sheriff has access to tranquilizer darts to manage wildlife problems—Paulsen must have picked one up to use on Billy, which would also implicate me. But why Mystery Cave?”

“Ben,” Stan said, suddenly materializing behind me.

I swear the man is half ghost.

“Where’d you come from?” Alan demanded, obviously rattled by Stan’s silent approach. I, at least, was getting somewhat more accustomed to his sneaking up on me. Then again, I wasn’t holding a gun on a murderer who happened to be an officer of the law, either. No wonder Alan was jumpy.

“Thief River Falls,” Stan replied, his voice flat.

Alan looked even more confused. Thief River Falls was more than halfway across the state from Fillmore County.

“He means where did you come from right now, Stan,” I clarified, “not where you grew up.”

Stan gave me his usual empty-eye look. “Oh.”

“What’s Ben got to do with Billy’s death?” Kami asked him, picking up on what Stan had said when he appeared.

“Traced Billy’s phone calls. Ben was last.” He held his hand out to Alan. “Gun.”

Alan passed the gun to Stan, who slipped it into the back of his camouflage pants. “Friends are on the way,” he added.

“Care to elaborate?” I asked him.

He gave me another empty-eye look.

I shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.”

He turned his attention to Kami. “Billy called Ben yesterday morning. We’re going to talk to Ben about it. My guess is that they set up a meeting for something, but only Ben walked away.”

“The sheriff was the one who walked away,” I corrected him.

“That right? Guess she took the meeting, then. Not Ben.” He studied Paulsen’s back. “We’ll see.” He glanced again at Kami and focused on her cuffed hands. “Let me get you out of those.” He took two steps toward her, then froze as Nigel stirred beside her.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “He’s going to be unconscious a little bit yet.” She held out her hands for Stan to release. He slipped a thin wire from one of his pants pockets and slid it into the cuffs, which sprang open. “Thanks,” Kami smiled, watching Stan’s fingers remove the cuffs from her wrists. He stuck them in the back of his camo pants, too.

“Are you always this well prepared?” I asked him.

“Apparently not,” he replied, his voice a dull monotone. “Didn’t expect a flat.”

I looked over at Paulsen, who still wouldn’t face us. “I didn’t expect a crooked sheriff.”

For a moment or two, we were all quiet, and then Kami spoke up. “I wonder where that cave entrance is,” she mused. “If it’s the real motive behind everything here, it’s got to exist.”

She pointed to the far side of the meadow that seemed to crest abruptly. “If I were hunting for a sinkhole or cave entrance in a hidden bluff, it might be over there. It looks like old karst territory.”

I looked in the direction she pointed. It was beyond the area Alan and I had searched earlier and seemed to form a natural border to the seepage meadow’s wetlands.

“Let’s take a look,” I said to Alan, striking off towards the opposite side of the meadow. At the same time, I heard cars approaching on the road. Stan’s friends were about to show up. “Give him the whole story, Kami,” I shouted back to her. “He really is one of the good guys.”

Ten minutes later, Alan and I were bending over, inspecting a wide dark mouth of a cave in the underside of the meadow’s far crest.

“What do you think, Professor?” I asked Alan.

“A definite possibility,” he replied. “It’s big enough for a person to crawl into, and though I can’t see very far into it, I don’t see a back wall, either.” He straightened up. “You want to go in and investigate?”

I took another look into the black maw. “Nah. I think I’ll let the experts get swallowed into the depths of darkness where they are helpless prey to the whims of unstable geological formations.”

Alan laughed. “I guess caves rate right up there for you where bats rate for me.”

“You got that right.”

We both looked into the cave entrance again. Near my feet a small wet trickle of water soaked into the ground. I looked at the brush and empty fields that spread away from the cave; it was actually a good habitat, sheltered and quiet, and chances were good there were some other hidden springs of water rising up through the karst land.

Someone whistled my name.

BobWHITE!

I grabbed Alan’s arm and put my finger to my lips, cautioning him to be quiet and listen.

Very slowly I turned in the direction of the call.

A Northern Bobwhite was perched in a low branch of a sturdy shrub maybe twenty-four feet away on my right. It was a male, its white throat and eye line almost startling bright in the sunshine. Just below it, two more round reddish-brown quails foraged on the ground.