A Murder of Crows (16 page)

To my relief, Red sounded … like Red. Boo and I took a small table next to the big front window while Prudence headed back to talk with Red.

“Sorry about the wrestling slip,” I said to Boo.

“No problem,” he said. “I just would have been surprised if she’d known me from wrestling. That was a long time ago. I mean, we were state champs for two years running, but usually the only people who recognize high school wrestlers are the ones whose own kids were in the sport.”

“I thought you said you played basketball in high school,” I reminded him.

Boo grinned. “I did … my freshman and sophomore years. But then I got so big I was afraid I’d hurt my teammates in practice, so I switched to wrestling as a junior. It worked out pretty well for me, all things considered.”

I would say so. According to what Alan and I had dug up on the Internet about the Bonecrusher, the man had become a legend on the professional circuit for the five years he’d headlined matches. Based on the product endorsements he’d done, he’d probably banked a couple million before he mysteriously dropped out of the ring. Knowing what teachers got paid, he’d probably been really glad he’d built up a healthy nest egg before he disappeared to become anonymous.

“So what’ll it be this morning?”

Red was standing at the end of our little table, handing us both a menu, her smile as broad and genuine as ever. “Do you guys need a few minutes to look over the menu?”

Since I always ordered the same thing on weekday mornings at Millie’s, I glanced at Boo to see if he was ready, but his head was bent as he studied the possibilities.

“Give us a couple minutes, Red,” I said, then added, “I’m glad to see you’re up and about. I heard about the fall downstairs.”

Red rolled her eyes.

“What a klutz! It’s not like I haven’t gone down those stairs a million times to get supplies. But boy! Did I see stars when I sat up again. I told Prudence I was fine, but she and Chef Tom insisted I get checked over at the ER, then they kept me overnight for observation.”

She laughed and winked.

“Between you and me, I think they wanted to observe me making a klutz of myself again.”

She pulled out her order pad.

“But you’re okay now, right?” I asked her. “You’ve got your memory back?”

“I never lost it! I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that.” Red looked me in the eye. “So what’ll it be this morning? Do you guys need a few minutes to look over the menu?”

“Yes,” I said, getting a distinct feeling of déjà vu as Red repeated the very words she’d said when she’d arrived at our table a minute ago.

“Hokey-dokey,” she said and sailed away.

“She just repeated herself, word for word,” Boo commented, looking up from his menu. “I got the feeling she didn’t realize she’d already asked us.”

“I got the same feeling,” I told him. “Which makes me wonder: if you lost your memory, how would you know you lost it? Red said everyone keeps telling her she lost her memory, but she says she didn’t, but how would she know it if she couldn’t remember what she forgot?”

“Is that a rhetorical or literal question?” Boo asked.

“Does it matter?” I replied, still trying to untangle my own twists of logic. “All I really want to know is if Red can remember who she saw here in Millie’s on Saturday at lunch, and if any of those folks may have held enough of a grudge to plot Sonny Delite’s murder.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the local police department handling that investigation?” Boo noted. “Why do you want to get involved?”

Aha! So Boo and Rick’s umbilical cord of communication wasn’t open 24/7 as I had imagined: Boo didn’t know that Rick was a suspect in Sonny’s death. As I opened my mouth to fill the Crusher in, though, something stopped me.

Why wouldn’t Rick have let Boo know of his predicament? Was it because of Gina? If Rick had to spell out all the reasons he was considered a suspect, he’d have to include the fact that he’d been at Gina’s place very early on Sunday morning.

Okay then. I could definitely see Rick might not want to share that with Boo. Not only would he be betraying Gina’s privacy, but maybe Rick had decided he didn’t need to wave any more red flags in the face of a jealous Norse giant. Rick might have the biggest mouth in the state’s law enforcement community, but he wasn’t a total idiot.

Nor was I.

Most of the time.

I kept my own mouth shut.

“I thought I recognized you!”

Red had returned to our table to take our order, but she was staring wide-eyed at Boo.

I quickly checked around the restaurant to see who else was within hearing, but only Prudence and another customer were seated in the dining area. Prudence turned to see what Red had to say, but the other customer was engrossed in reading the newspaper. If Boo was finally going to be publicly unmasked as the Bonecrusher, he couldn’t have asked for a smaller audience.

Red studied Boo’s face as a bright pink flush crept over his cheeks. The man really had an aversion to getting caught in the spotlight. Was that why he’d always been masked? To cover his blushing embarrassment? I supposed that wouldn’t have helped his image if his fans had seen their big, tough, no-holds-barred, wrestling idol blushing like a Disney princess.

“You were in here for lunch on Saturday,” Red announced. “I never forget a face. And you weren’t alone, either. There was somebody with you who got really upset when I was talking to Sonny about his windmills.”

She turned towards Prudence. “Where is Sonny, anyway? I got that loose leaf tea he likes so much already brewing.”

Red focused her attention back on Boo. “So what’ll it be this morning? Do you guys need a few minutes to look over the menu?”

Chapter Sixteen

I stood at the side of the county road, my binoculars to my eyes, trying to make out the field identification marks of the grayish bird slowly making its way along the far side of the shallow wetlands. Mixed in with a small flock of Sanderlings, the bird in my binos was grayish overall with a white belly, along with orange-yellow coloring at the base of its thin bill. Since it was also in approximately the same location north of Appleton in Swift County where the Purple Sandpiper had been reported earlier in the week, I was fairly confident that’s what I was seeing.

The wind had picked up considerably since Boo and I left Millie’s, and my car thermometer was showing a rapid drop in temperature as well. Despite signs of incoming inclement weather, though, I figured the twenty-minute detour from our more direct route to Morris would be worth it if I found the sandpiper. More typically found on the East Coast of the United States, the Purple Sandpiper nested farther north than most shorebirds. The only time it’d been found in Minnesota was during migration. Even then, those sightings were all in the northeastern quadrant of the state. To find a Purple Sandpiper this far south was unusual, to say the least, which is one reason the MOU list serve had been buzzing with it earlier in the week.

While Boo stayed in the car, I watched the bird for another minute, enjoying its intense scrutiny of the wetland as it searched for food. I almost envied the sandpiper’s simple lifestyle: seek and eat, fly and sleep. No delinquents to counsel, no murders to solve. Birds even knew who their natural enemies were and where to expect danger, which was more than I could say for humans at the moment.

Especially the humans I knew. Sonny had taken poisoned tea from someone he trusted. Rick had sprained an ankle in a freak court collision. Red had tripped down the stairs she climbed every day. My tires had been someone’s target, and now I wondered exactly what the man beside me in my SUV might be capable of, besides herding chickens and wrestling steers.

For the last two hours, I’d had that same “down-the-rabbit-hole” sensation I’d previously experienced in the course of being involved in a murder investigation: just when you think you know exactly what’s going to happen, something totally different occurs, and you’re so disoriented that, for a while, nothing makes sense at all. You don’t know who to trust. You don’t know what to believe. You’re not sure which end is up.

I looked at the Sanderlings around the Purple Sandpiper. Several tipped their heads down into the water to snatch a snack from the wetland, their bills completely submerged.

No mistaking which end is up with shorebirds, that was for sure. Ducks and geese were even easier—they stuck their rear ends clear up above the water line when they feed. Too bad people weren’t as transparent. Interpreting human behavior would be a breeze then, although it might be a little awkward …

Whoa! See that guy bending over? He’s clearly being an a…

Anyway, head over heels and vice-versa was kind of the way I’d been feeling since Red insisted that Boo had been a customer on Saturday. I’d been one hundred percent certain she was going to say he was the Bonecrusher. Instead, she said he’d been at Millie’s at the same time as Sonny.

Which meant that Boo Metternick knew exactly who Sonny was, along with the fact that my old birding pal had been in town for the sustainable sources conference at the Arboretum. And given that Boo Metternick had known—and loved?—Gina since they were teens, Boo also had to know about the scandal that had resulted in Gina leaving her job in Henderson, which I was sure hadn’t endeared Sonny to Boo … any more than Sonny’s lies about his father’s land had put Sonny on Boo’s list of favorite people.

The big question was: how really un-favorite did Sonny rank with Boo?

Enough to get himself killed by the Crusher?

I lowered the binos to my chest, but almost immediately raised them back up. One of the Sanderlings swimming in the increasingly choppy water that lined the wetlands didn’t look quite right to me. I focused in on the bird, and realized I wasn’t looking at another Sanderling, but a Red Phalarope already in its winter plumage. As I watched, it swam into deeper water and began its distinctive spinning motion which helped stir up invertebrates to the surface for feeding.

If it was rare to see a Purple Sandpiper in Minnesota, it was slightly less rare to find a Red Phalarope. Both birds were summer natives to the arctic regions of northern Canada. Had the weather brought them inland?

I hustled back to the car through a stand of drying weeds and grasses, and sent a quick text message to a few birders I knew in the area, letting them know I’d seen a Red Phalarope. With any luck, the bird would still be there when they arrived, and they could confirm my sighting, along with adding it to their own life lists. For my part, I had no doubt I’d seen both a Purple Sandpiper and a Red Phalarope in the wetlands. In any community of birders, though, it never hurt to have a rarity spotted—and identified—by more than one person.

“So these other birders would just drop what they’re doing and drive out to see this bird?” Boo asked after I explained to him what I was texting.

“You bet,” I told him. “This bird is a real find. And because it’s so unusual to see it here, there will inevitably be people who doubt what I saw. Heck, if I’d seen a Red Phalarope sighting posted on the list serve, I’d probably question it myself. If I could, I’d sure try to get out to see it.”

“Would a photo help with documentation?”

I tucked my cellphone back into my pocket. “Absolutely, but unfortunately, my camera equipment is back in my townhouse in the front closet. I was so ticked about my car tires last night, I totally forgot to grab it this morning.”

I turned in the seat to face him. “You don’t happen to have a camera in your backpack, do you, Boo?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, you’re out of luck.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I know what I saw, even if it was totally not what I’d expected.”

“You’ve got to keep an open mind to be a birder, huh?” Boo asked.

I put the key back in the ignition and glanced at my passenger. “Yeah, you do. And since we’re on the subject of open minds, would you care to tell my open mind how it happened that you were having lunch at Millie’s deli on Saturday at exactly the same time that the late Sonny Delite was having a conversation with Red about windmills outside Morris?”

Boo shrugged. “Total coincidence, I guess. I met an old friend for lunch, and since he was working at the Arboretum, Millie’s was close enough for him to get away for his lunch break.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I never met Sonny Delite, Bob. I’d heard the name, but I never met the man. Just as well, I guess. Based on what I knew about him because of Gina, I can’t imagine I would have wanted to be buddies. He just seemed to cause trouble wherever he went.”

“What about your dad?”

“What about my dad?”

“Isn’t—I mean, wasn’t—Sonny the consultant who was ruining your dad’s chances to get the contract with the wind energy company?”

Boo blew out a long sigh.

“Yes, he was.”

A few snowflakes landed on the windshield in front of me. The storm front was getting closer.

Boo’s voice dropped to an ominous whisper in the car. “Are you trying to come up with a motive for me to be Sonny Delite’s killer? That would make two motives, then, wouldn’t it—my feelings for Gina and my concern for my dad? What would you say if I told you I was at the Arboretum early Sunday morning, Bob? Would that clinch it for you?”

The fine hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

What kind of an idiot was I?

Here I was in a remote spot, alone with a huge guy who could probably crush my throat with one squeeze, and I was baiting him to confess to a murder?

Yep, I’d say that was all kinds of idiot, actually. Especially since I didn’t even try to get out of the car or whip my car keys in front of me in a futile defense. The truth was, I was operating on pure instinct: I just couldn’t see Boo Metternick killing anyone. He seemed to have iron self-control, and … well … I really liked him, gosh darn it.

So instead of panicking and imagining that I was going to be dead in the next few seconds, I asked him one last question.

“Can you tell me what kind of plant that is?” I said, pointing to the tall stalk just beyond his passenger door. Snowflakes were already frosting its withered leaves.