by Jan Dunlap
I looked at each of the men in turn.
“What do we have to do?”
Paddy Mac leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“We’re members of the MOB, and we’ve got a job for you, Minnesota.”
Chapter Four
I pulled back to look at Paddy Mac. Without his Sox ball cap on, Paddy’s bald head looked pale and fragile, but his scruffy beard had hints of dull red mixed in with an iron gray. Though we’d spoken a few times earlier in the morning, I only now noticed the flesh-colored plastic piece of a hearing aid peeking around the top edge of his right ear.
“You can’t fool me,” I said, being sure to speak a bit more loudly than my normal volume. “You’re Irish, not Italian.” I pointed at Schooner. “And my guess is you’ve got some Norseman in you seeing as you’re from Duluth.”
I turned to Gunnar.
“Which leaves you. I could believe you’re a grandfather, but a Godfather?” I tapped the side of my head and nodded at his own bandana-wrapped skull. “For some reason, I don’t think so.”
The three men chuckled.
“You got us pegged, Minnesota,” Gunnar said. “Not an Italian in the bunch. We’re talking MOB—as in McAllen’s Older Birders. It’s the name of the birding club down here. The local senior citizens hold the fort down through the summers, but once it’s winter, we snowbirds show up to pick up the slack. It’s a big group. Your buddy Eddie signed on with us a couple weeks ago. He’s part of the family now.”
“So what’s the job you want me to do?”
Paddy Mac gripped my shoulder. “We got a float to finish for the Citrus Parade, and without Birdy—may he rest in peace—and maybe Eddie, if he’s in jail, we need all the help we can get to have that float ready to roll day after tomorrow. Can you help us out?”
He looked pleadingly at me, then at Luce. “You’re too young for the MOB, but we could sure use the help.”
Luce ripped a paper towel from the roll on the table and wiped a smear of barbeque sauce from her chin. “What do you think, Minnesota?” she asked me, emphasizing my new nickname. “Want to roll in some citrus?”
I could feel her toe nudging my shin underneath the table as I regarded her mischievous grin. I had the clear impression she wasn’t thinking about a parade entry at all.
I returned her invitation with a grin of my own. “Love to,” I challenged her.
I turned to our three magpies. “Tell us where and when, and we’ll be there.”
Paddy Mac ripped off a corner of paper towel from our roll and jotted down an address for me, just as our waitress appeared behind Gunnar to take the men to their table on the opposite side of the enclosed porch. I pocketed the address with a pledge to see them later, and Luce and I returned to our meals.
“Schooner was right,” Luce said as we waited for our check a half-hour later. “This barbeque is to die for.”
I was about to agree with her assessment of our lunch when my cell phone chirped in my pocket. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was Eddie.
“Do you mind if I answer?” I asked Luce. We’d agreed on our drive south to Texas to avoid using our cell phones during meals, but I thought this warranted an exception. “It’s our perhaps-in-jail bird.”
“Take it,” she said. “I’m going to go use the ladies’ room.”
I accepted the call and watched Luce wind her way through the crowded tables to the restrooms located near the front door. I saw more than one Guardsman’s head turn her way as she passed. Amid the sea of dark-haired women lunching at Fat Daddy’s, my wife’s blonde hair stood out like a beacon. Coupled with her own six feet of height, I didn’t doubt her Scandinavian looks were a novelty to many of the soldiers enjoying their sandwiches at the restaurant.
In fact, I was sure the young Guardsmen we’d met while waiting for our table had been more than a little awed by Luce, even though their conversation focused on the Citrus Queen girlfriend of one of the men.
Pacheco, I remembered. He was related to the chief who’d taken Eddie into the station.
“Eddie,” I said into my phone. “Please tell me this isn’t the one phone call you’re allowed when you get arrested.”
At the other end of the connection Eddie laughed.
“No, Bob. I’m not in the slammer yet.” He paused a moment and his voice lost some of its usual joviality. “But I also don’t know if I’m completely absolved of any wrongdoing, either. My Aquavit showing up beside Birdy is… problematic… for lack of a better word.”
I waited for him to continue, but the phone was quiet in my hand.
“What can I do, Eddie?” I asked him. “You need a ride back to Estero Llano?”
“No, I’m good. The chief is giving me a lift back. He’s got more work to do out there. Where are you and Luce headed? Maybe we could meet up for dinner later.”
My eyes roamed over the room still filled with diners, and I happened to catch a glimpse of the soldier named Pacheco as he and his pals paid their bill at the cashier’s desk.
“We’re going to visit the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco,” I told him. “It’s not too far from here, and I heard they have a nice little sanctuary that attracts some great birds. Hey, Eddie,” I said, “tell the chief we met his second or third or something cousin at Fat Daddy’s—a young Guardsman whose girlfriend is the Citrus Queen. Apparently the chief was in the National Guard himself at some point.”
I saw Luce emerge from the hallway that led to the restrooms. As she passed by the cashier’s desk, she turned her head to say something to the departing Guardsmen and they responded with smiles and waves as they went out the door.
“I’m staying at the Alamo Inn in Alamo,” Eddie said in my ear. “Swing that way after you see the nature center, and we’ll get an early dinner.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I replied, watching my wife approach our table. “Hey, Eddie,” I said again, “looks like Luce and I are going to be joining you for some float-building tonight, too. We got recruited by the MOB.”
“You did?” He sounded surprised. “Well, that should make for an interesting evening, then. I’ll have a chance to introduce you to all the usual suspects. Literally,” he added.
Something about his tone chilled me despite the filled room of noisy diners and the heat I could feel emanating from the heaped plates of food as the waitresses continued to distribute hot baskets of barbeque around me. Luce pulled out her chair and sat down again, her eyes on my face.
“Still Eddie?” she quietly asked.
I nodded. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me something?” I said to Eddie, probing for the reason for his particular choice of those last words. “Did the chief tell you not to leave town?”
“Not exactly,” Eddie admitted. “In fact, he hinted that he might want me to help him out with his investigation.”
I briefly considered what Eddie was saying. Based on my own experience of working with police, a death was only an ‘investigation’ when there were questions about its cause. And that meant there had to be some clear evidence from the get-go to indicate that the death was not a result of natural causes. Seeing a dead body lying partially covered by a canoe wasn’t, as far as I knew, conclusive proof foul play was involved.
Although, I have to admit, the idea that someone in the throes of a heart attack or lung failure or massive spontaneous stroke would have the strength or inclination to flip a big canoe over on top of himself didn’t strike me as a common reaction to imminent death.
Actually, it didn’t strike me as a common reaction to anything. Canoes are heavy. Awkward. No one I knew used canoes as make-shift housing, especially if alligators were in the vicinity.
Which really made me wonder what the chief had found when he and the park maintenance guy had rowed across the lake to check out the overturned canoe
and dead body.
Besides the bottle of Eddie’s Aquavit he recovered, that is.
Eddie’s voice broke into my sidetracked train of thought.
“I said ‘usual suspects,’ Bob, because Birdy Johnson’s death was not an accident,” Eddie confirmed in answer to my unasked question. “And Chief Pacheco thinks there’s a good chance the killer might be a member of the MOB.”
The faces of the three magpies appeared in my head. They didn’t strike me as murderers. A comedy troupe, maybe, but cold-blooded killers?
Not a chance.
“So what’s the chief got for a lead in that direction, Eddie?”
He told me and ended the call.
“What is it?” Luce asked, a trace of alarm in her voice.
Her question surprised me. Like I already mentioned, Luce is a mind reader; she knows what I’m thinking almost as soon as I do, a talent she seemed to develop from the first day we met, crammed into the back of a tiny car during a birding group weekend in northwestern Minnesota. Since then, she’s sharpened that skill to the point where now, I sometimes think she knows what I’m going to be thinking before I even think it.
“You’re slipping,” I said. “Must be because you’re on vacation, right?”
She gave me a light kick in my left shin under the table.
“Ow.”
Lunch was turning out a lot rougher than I had expected. Texas must have been bringing out my wife’s feisty side.
I reached down and rubbed my leg. Luce tried to hide the smirk on her face, but I caught it.
“I take it back,” I apologized. “It must have been a momentary lapse… on my part,” I added. “Chief Pacheco found a few things besides Eddie’s Aquavit near Birdy’s body,” I answered her question. “One was a cracked skull, which belonged to Birdy.”
Luce grimaced.
“And the other was a bird checklist from Estero Llano, with an address scrawled on it, but it wasn’t in Birdy’s handwriting, apparently.”
I pulled from my pocket the scrap of paper that Paddy Mac had handed me.
“This address,” I said. “I guess that means there’s a chance we might be nailing grapefruit and oranges to a parade float tonight with a killer beside us.”
Luce locked her blue eyes on mine.
“Then I get dibs on the nail gun,” she said. “I know you don’t like guns, but I don’t have that problem, and I’m not going in unarmed.”
Feisty?
Make that dangerous. Luce grew up hunting with her dad in the woods every year during deer hunting season in Minnesota. Believe me, the woman was an eagle-eye with a rifle. I reminded myself not to tease her if I saw a nail gun in her hands later on in the day. I really didn’t need to know how far it could shoot. Two “ows” were plenty for the day.
I picked up the check our waitress had left on the table and ushered my sharp-shooter wife to the cashier’s desk, which was mobbed with exiting diners paying their bills.
As I stood in line, I saw on the wall near the cash register another framed news clipping with “SpaceX” in the headline. The article was a reprint from an Internet site called rt.com, and it featured a photo of a sleek spacecraft. I read aloud what I could see.
“‘SpaceX has announced it will build the world’s first commercial launch pad for orbital rockets in the south of Texas. The facility, which is expected to drag the area out of an economic hole, might become operational in 2016.’”
“Man, would I love to get a ride on that bird,” said a voice behind me.
I turned to see another group of uniformed National Guardsmen behind me in the check-out line. The one who had spoken gave me a nod of acknowledgment.
“They’ve already got the first passenger flight booked,” the man commented, raising his voice to carry to me over the din of the restaurant, “and there’s a waiting list to get on it, if you can afford the price. Can you imagine? Riding on the first commercial rocket to go for a spin in space. That would be something to write home about.”
One of the soldier’s companions jostled against his shoulder. “What? Fat Daddy’s isn’t enough for you to write home about? We are talking good barbeque here. You’re not going to find that in outer space.”
The men laughed together, and I turned back to find myself facing the cashier. I paid our bill and joined Luce where she was waiting by the door that led out to the parking lot.
“That solves the SpaceX mystery,” I told her. “It’s a commercial space launch base that’s going to be built somewhere around here. Makes sense then that Buzz Davis was involved with it, I guess. He was an astronaut. A space base would probably be right up his alley. Or maybe I should say up his quadrant—isn’t that how they locate places in space?”
Luce shook her head and ignored my question. “I wonder what Birdy’s connection was? Since he and Buzz were friends, and they were both in that parade picture from last year, they must have been working together on SpaceX.”
We got into the car, which was warm and toasty from the Texas sun.
“Oh, man,” I breathed as I put the key in the ignition. “This is the way I want to spend January. Warm and birding in a t-shirt. Really, I think I could live happily ever after without ever again putting on another down parka and thermal underwear.”
Luce didn’t say anything in reply, so I gave her a curious glance. She was gazing out the front windshield. I followed her line of sight to a stand of trees just beyond the parking lot.
“It’s the one-eyed Great Kiskadee,” she said.
I watched it for a moment before it spread its wings and flew away. At the same moment, our friends from the MOB walked out of Fat Daddy’s and headed for their own vehicle in the lot.
A murderer in the McAllen Older Birders club?
I was having a hard time picturing any senior citizen cracking someone’s skull, but I had to admit, I was no stranger to finding the unusual. In fact, I’d made my birding reputation in Minnesota by finding uncommon birds all over the place, sometimes by sheer determination and patience alone.
But a seventy-something murderer?
I figured that was about as likely as…
My eyes drifted back to where the one-eyed Great Kiskadee had perched on the edge of the lot.
Now that I thought about it, the unusual could just as easily be sitting right in front of our faces, couldn’t it?
Chapter Five
About an hour later, I was counting Plain Chachalacas as they roamed around on the ground in front of us in the bird feeding viewing area of the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco, Texas. As members of the Galliformes order of birds, a crowd of Chachalacas might remind you of a farmyard flock of fowl with their noisy socializing and lack of concern about humans lurking nearby. If you watched the classic adventure film Jurassic Park when you were a kid, like I did, however, a flock of Chachalacas might also remind you of a pack of little velociraptors.
But without the suspenseful soundtrack in the background or the digitally-enhanced murderous gleam in their eyes.
Really, we’re talking hens here, not flesh-rending dinosaurs.
Their common name is actually a rough approximation of their call—four notes that sound like cha-cha-lac-a. Not exactly terrifying, but certainly distinctive enough to catch your attention. After another moment or two of watching the birds, I spotted the individual in the flock that the nature center’s greeter had told us about: a piebald Plain Chachalaca. Typically, the birds are brown in color, but this one was the exception, making it stand out among its peers.
“Oops,” I commented to Luce. “I bet that one’s mama had some explaining to do to its daddy.”
“You are such an idiot,” she said, giving me the evil eye.
I laughed and pulled her close for a kiss. “But you love me for it, don’t you?”
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br /> “Ah, excuse me, sir?”
A pretty young woman seemed to materialize out of the scrub along one side of the bird viewing area. Dressed in an olive green shirt and pants, she had blended right into the scenery. Unlike the piebald Chachalaca, her coloration had hidden her well.
I released my wife and gave the young woman my attention instead.
“Yes?”
She stepped over a pile of branches and came closer to where we stood. Now that I could see her better, I guessed she was in her late teens or maybe early twenties. Her dark hair was pulled back into a sleek braid that disappeared down her back and the nature center’s logo was on her shirt. I read her nametag: Pearl Garcia.
“Color abnormalities can happen in any species,” she informed me. “Albinos, for example, are probably the color abnormality most familiar to people. The fact is that there are three main types of pigments found in feathers, and some birds have one kind of pigment, and others have another kind. Then, when an individual bird has one of those pigments missing or too dominant, you get a color variation from the norm.”
She pointed in the direction the piebald bird had scurried.
“Like that Chachalaca,” she said.
“Very good,” I complimented her. “Are you a birder, or is that just information all the employees here are required to know?”
The young woman smiled. “I’m a volunteer here and a birder,” she told me. “My grandmother made sure I memorized the names of the birds in her garden when I was a little girl. Before long, I was memorizing their vocalizations, too. I teach a class here to help people learn to bird by ear.”
Luce put her arm around my shoulder. “That’s one of this guy’s many charms,” she told Pearl. “He’s an expert at birding by ear.”
Pearl’s cheekbones reddened slightly. “And here I’m lecturing you about birds. I’m sorry. I meet so many people here at the center who are just beginning to take an interest in birds, I just assumed when you made the comment about the piebald…” she shrugged her shoulders in apology.
