The Night Falconer (11 page)

“You sure you’re all right?” She must have detected a note apprehension in my voice. A little scary to think she knew me so well.

“Sure, everything’s fine.”

“When you get back, I’d like to talk with you about dates for the wedding. Have you thought about any of the details yet? Are you planning to ask Jake to be your best man?”

Okay, scratch the justice of the peace idea. The reality hit me then that I was about to me married for the second time in my life. It gave me something of a warm glow all over. I guess that’s what it was, at any rate.

“Uh, yeah. I was planning on asking him when I give him the news.”

“Good,” she said. “I miss you, Frank. I’m praying for you.”

“Thank you. I miss you too.”

“You didn’t say anything to Nicky, did you, about our big plans?”

“Not yet.”

“I think it’s best.

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m looking at the ring right now on my finger,” she said. “I was afraid to wear it earlier for fear I’d have to explain it to my friends, but I did have a talk with my pastor. He said he’d be happy to perform the ceremony as soon as we’re ready, as long as we wanted to keep things informal.”

“Perfect.”

“You sure you’re ready for this, Frank?”

“I gave you the ring, didn’t I?”

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t having second thoughts.”

“I’ve never been so free of second thoughts in my life.”

“Good,” she said.

We said goodbye and hung up.

* * * * *

Although it was late, I decided to give Jackson Miller a call. It might lead to nothing, but like Nicole said, the similarities between Obadiah Robertson’s story and the mystery facing us were too much to pass up without at least checking into it further.

Miller’s gruff voice answered the phone after three or four rings.

“Who is this again?” he asked after I’d identified myself.

“Pavlicek. Frank Pavlicek.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Frank, good to hear from you. What are you calling me at this time of night for?”

“It’s about a book.”

“A book, huh. What kind of book?”

“An old one. Written before the Civil War.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

I told him the story of The Book of the Mews.

“I never heard of this book,” he said when I was finished. “But I bet I know someone up there who has. Why don’t you give me your cell phone number and I’ll see what I can find out in the next day or two. It’s a holiday weekend, you know. May not be too easy getting hold of people.”

“I appreciate it, whatever you can do,” I said, and gave him my number before ending the call.

* * * * *

The next morning Nicole decided to sleep in, according to the note she left outside the door to my room, having stayed up too late for nothing, as she put it. I got on the horn and talked Darla into picking me up in the van to go meet someone I’d long wanted to meet.

It was a long shot, but Nixon Deebee was as near a legend as you got, at least in the sport of falconry. A retired game warden, he lived on a small farm near West Point and kept anywhere from five to ten hawks and falcons, depending on the year and the results of his captive breeding operation. From what I’d heard, Deebee had a contract with New York City to help rid the parks of pigeons by bringing his hawk in to fly to the lure. He wasn’t the only person performing such services. A much bigger outfit used falcons as part of a comprehensive program to keep the runways at Kennedy Airport clear of migrating birds. And around the world, dozens of other falconers had been hired by various municipalities to deal with similar problems.

Darla was outfitted for battle this morning. She wore a white Polo shirt tucked into blue jeans, which served to reinforce her bulk. Handcuffs and pepper spray hung from her belt, and her Glock was tucked neatly into its holster beneath her seat where she could easily reach it. She had a line on a bail jumper in White Plains, and she was hoping we could take a run at him on the way back from the farm. Not her usual line of work, especially on a holiday, but the call had come in on her service the day before, her kids were gone to her sister’s, and money was money.

“You hear any more from Marbush about what they found at the murder scene last night?” I asked as we cruised up the Saw Mill River Parkway.

She shook her head. “Nada.”

“Probably keeping us out of the loop.”

“Probably.”

“You ever work with any PIs back when you were on the force?”

“Never.”

“Me neither.”

She said nothing.

“After we finish with Deebee,” I said, “since we’re up in the area anyway, I thought you might want to take a swing by and show me Watisi’s manor.”

Darla chuckled. “I figured you might have an ulterior motive in this little wild goose chase. Like I told you, it’ll probably be a waste of time. But we can take a run by there, if you want, on the way to track down my claim jumper.”

“What did Lonigan say when you told her about the shootings in the park?”

“She said it makes her more worried than ever about Watisi.”

“Obviously something strange is going on here. When we get back to the city, Nicky and I will head uptown, see what we more can find out about Los Miembros and any ties they might have to Watisi. Nothing to stop us from trying to find out whatever we can about the dead men too.”

“Just try to stay out of Marbush’s way,” she said.

“Will do.”

“Tell me some more about this bird guy we’re going to see and this raptor fascination you all are into,” she said. “You guys all obsessed with eagles, or knights and lords and ladies or something?”

“Not quite,” I said.

“So it’s a big bird. You take the thing and what, you train it to kill stuff for you?”

“Sort of. More often than not the bird trains you.”

“The bird trains you?”

“Birds already have the instinct to chase and hunt game when they come out of the egg.”

“No kidding.”

“Most birds of prey know more about hunting and survival than any idiot with a rifle will ever know.”

“So you’re against hunting with a gun? Is that what you’ve got against Watisi?”

“Not at all. I’m just saying, why have the artificial experience when you can get up close and personal with the real thing?”

She shook her head. “You people are out there, I’ll give you that. You think this Deebee character knows anything about our falconer in the park?”

“I have no idea, but he knows more about the parks and falconry than anyone else in the region and he might have heard something that can help us.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

We drove on in silence. Half an hour later our tires crunched onto a rock strewn dirt road that led off the state highway into the woods, the nose of the van bobbing through potholes like the prow of a ship. After a few hundred yards of stomach lurching, Darla was beginning to look at me like I’d lost my mind. The trees finally broke to reveal a quaint nineteenth-century farmhouse with a front porch swing, an old windmill next to a barn, and roses climbing up arbors. There was also a second barn, this one a long, low slung structure lined with individual stalls framed by barred windows. Deebee’s hawk house, no doubt.

A gray Dodge pickup and a dark red Chevy Suburban were parked on a pad between the house and the main barn. The hood of the pickup was raised, and a man was bent over the engine with a wrench in hand. His head popped up when we came into view. Two small dogs, a beagle and a mixed breed that looked like it was part schnauzer, came racing around the side of the barn, barking.

Nixon Deebee looked for all the world like a grizzled sea captain, complete with white hair and full white beard. Even bent over the truck, he had a commanding presence. When he stood to his full height, he looked to be about six-foot-five.

“I guess this is our guy,” Darla said. She stopped the van a few feet behind the parking pad.

I’d seen pictures of Deebee in a falconry magazine. “Looks like it,” I said.

The air was still and already thick with humidity. Deebee, with sweat running down the sides of his face, checked us out for a moment, then put his tool down and called off the dogs. He began wiping his hands on a rag as we climbed from the van. “Help you folks?”

“Nixon Deebee?”

“You’re talking to him.”

“My name’s Frank Pavlicek. I’m a falconer from Virginia.”

Deebee’s face relaxed a little. “You don’t say?” He came forward, extending his newly cleaned hand. We shook. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“This is Darla Barnes,” I said.

Deebee shook hands with her too. “Happy Fourth of July to you both.”

“Same to you.

“How long you been a falconer?”

“This’ll be my fifth season,” I said.

“From Virginia.”

“Yes.”

“Who was your sponsor?”

“Jake Toronto.”

“Toronto? Wait a minute, I know you guys. The two of you used to be cops, didn’t you?”

“You got it.”

“Aren’t you a private investigator or something?”

“That’s right, I am. Darla here is one too,” I said.

The expression on his face hardened a little. “I heard about what happened with Chester Carew last year down in West Virginia.”

“It’s a long story,” I told Darla.

“So how can I help you people this morning?” Deebee asked. “You here to see some birds?”

“Actually, we’re here on business.”

“No kidding? Must be important to bring you all the way up here on the Fourth of July.”

“It is. We may be looking for someone from the area who’s a falconer.”

“Okay. Why don’t you two come on into the kitchen. I’ll put on a pot of coffee and we can talk about it.”

Ten minutes later, we were seated in the cool of Deebee’s kitchen in front of our mugs. While making the coffee, Deebee told us that his wife of thirty years had passed away the year before from brain cancer.

“Now what would you like to know?” he asked. The Beagle, named Rosie, jumped up on the chair next to him and watched us expectantly while Deebee scratched her neck and ears.

“I figured you must know a lot about falconry in the greater New York area,” I said.

“I’ve been a member of the New York State falconry association since it started—was one of the founders, in fact. So yes, while I might not know everything, I’d say I know pretty much everyone involved with birds of prey in the region,” he said.

“You’re the man I want to talk to then. Tell me, what are the chances someone has decided to start taking up night time poaching down in Central Park?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “In the city? Zip, as far as I’m concerned.”

“What if someone were paying them a lot of money?” Darla said.

He shrugged. “I still wouldn’t believe it.”

We told him our story. About Lonigan, about the missing pets, the threats, and the shooting in the park with the discovery of the lure the night before.

“That’s one of the nuttiest things I’ve ever heard. You can start calling every member of the association if you want. I can give you the list, but I doubt it’s going to get you anywhere.”

“What are there, a couple of hundred members?” I asked.

“Something like that. And then there is New Jersey too. “But you’d be wasting your time. I used to be a game warden. Somebody with a hawk or an owl wants to go poaching after dark, they’re not going to be registering with the state or the feds. They’re in violation of several different state and federal regs.”

“But somebody might know somebody,” I said. “Maybe a hanger on or a wannabe. Someone who’s shown up at the meets before or gone out hunting with a legal falconer.”

He scratched his chin and rubbed his dog’s ears some more. “Could be,” he said.

Something in his demeanor shifted, as if an unpleasant memory had worked its way to the surface.

“You know anybody like that, Mr. Deebee?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, maybe marshalling his thoughts. “Now that you bring it up, there is one person I can think of who might bear looking into.”

We waited.

“I don’t even know if he’s still in the city.”

Darla took out her pad and pen.

“Anything that might be of help,” I said. “You never know.”

Deebee took a long sip from his mug of coffee. “I guess it’s been maybe six, seven years since I saw the guy. His name is Raines, Cato Raines.”

Darla wrote it down.

“He had a falconry license for a while, but then he stopped showing up at meets and I heard he gave away his last bird.”

“It happens,” I said.

“Yeah, but this was different. The guy lost it or something. Lost his job, had to declare bankruptcy, divorced his wife. I heard he might even be an addict, hopped up on speed or whatever it is people get juiced on these days.”

“Okay.”

“You know what? I might even have an old picture of the guy. He was flying a Cooper’s hawk for a while. I used to be editor of the newsletter. Someone snapped a photo of him and his bird at one of the meets. Not the best picture so I never used it, but I think I’ve still got it somewhere. Hang on.”

He pushed away from the table and stepped into a small alcove off the kitchen. A beat-up filing cabinet in the corner was covered with various photos of people and birds, families and friends. I wasn’t sure where any of this might be going, so I just sat there with Darla and we sipped our coffee for a few minutes while Deebee rummaged through the drawers.

“Here it is,” he finally said. He came back into the kitchen and sat down across from us, holding a Polaroid in his hand. “I thought I remembered keeping it.” He handed the smudged photo to me. “That’s Cato Raines.”

The image was of a smiling, round-faced young man with a bird on his glove, standing in a parking lot full of other falconers and birds. The lighting in the photo was poor.

“So if it’s been so long since you’ve seen him, what makes you bring Raines up now?” I asked.

“Okay, here’s the thing. I was in the city week before last with a couple of my birds when I ran into Raines.”

“Where?”

“North end of Central Park.”

I glanced up at Darla, who said nothing.

“What was Raines doing?”