Flight of the Sparrows

by Annie Jones

Kate nodded in understanding. “And you feel obligated to gather them up because you don’t want them scared or even hurt when the area is overrun with birders, is that it? Plus, Joanie’s Ark is so busy that they can’t take in the usual strays, so you’re taking them in for now?”

  “Yes, of course.” Dot nodded her head. “I’m a cat lover. I couldn’t just stand by and not give them food and shelter. What else would it be?”

  “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What else is going on around Best Acres?” Kate gathered up the materials from Bonnie’s event packet as she asked, “Dot, I hate to ask this, but I have to. Have you set any other kind of trap or snare or warning device using that heavy fishing line?”

  “No.” Dot leaned forward in the chair, frustrating Ronda, who had almost finished styling the soft waves of her gray hair. “Why do you ask?”

  “Bonnie hurt her ankle when she tripped over some fishing line, just like the kind you used, that was tied between two trees. You didn’t happen to see anything like that when you were setting up your drop traps, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone lurking around when you were manning your traps either?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t spend much time manning them, really. Most of the feral cats who’d have fallen for that kind of thing were already coming to my place to eat, anyway. That’s why I got the inspiration to try cream, to tempt the wilder ones to the traps. But they’re wilder for a reason, I guess, and all that sitting around outside was ruining my hair.” She sat up and peered into the mirror, then patted the side of her head. She beamed at the results. “Besides, those traps were a real bother. They fell down all the time, and I think animals got ahold of the sticks and dragged them off a time or two.”

  That got Kate’s attention. Whoever had set the booby trap that Bonnie tripped over might just as easily have been using material readily available, versus having a well-thought-out plan using his or her own materials. “Then how did you get Bonnie’s scarf?”

  “Bonnie’s...” Dot looked at the blonde-haired woman in the chair beside her. “Heavens, I didn’t know that was your scarf. It blew into my yard. The hem was already unraveled, and it had thread hanging everywhere, and a big rip like a stick had been poked through it.”

  “Interesting.” Kate cocked her head. They had found the first threads on the snapped sapling. The scarf could have gotten snagged there when Bonnie fell. Or it could have been placed there, then blown away, leaving only threads.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Dot said. “And sorry I accused you of turning me in. I just thought it had to be you because nobody else knew about it. Please, let me make it up to you by buying you and Bonnie lunch at the Country Diner.”

  “MORE NEW HAIRDOS?” LuAnne Matthews took a moment to step back and admire Bonnie and then Dot as the women came through the door of the diner.

  Kate helped Bonnie get situated in the booth, paying special attention to protecting her still-bandaged ankle.

  Kate took her seat and smiled up at LuAnne, who took their orders. With her glasses and the polyester waitressing uniform, LuAnne could easily have inspired a character in a children’s book. That was one of the things Kate loved so much about life in Copper Mill. Everyone who lived there added so much color and interest to daily life.

  LuAnne took their orders and promised to be back shortly.

  “All right, as we wait for our food, let’s look through some of this mater—” Kate stopped short as Charlene Howell, who must have gotten up on her knees the way children do when they want to stare at people in other booths, stuck her head right between Bonnie and Kate’s. “Hey, Bonnie! Hey, Kate! Fancy seeing you two here! I’d say it’s a small world, but that’s usually an expression people use when they really don’t live in a small world and keep running into people.”

  “Hello, Charlene.” Kate twisted around in the booth. For a couple who had come so far to go out birding, they certainly seemed to spend a lot of time in town or around Artie’s house. Kate gave a little wave to the man in the booth behind them and said, “Nice to see you again, Dud.”

  He nodded between the last two bites of his pie and offered a friendly, “Ma’am.”

  Charlene held out her hand to Dot and said, “You look awfully familiar. I think we’ve crossed paths a time or two since Dud and I came to these parts. My name’s Charlene Howell.”

  Dot took the woman’s hand and gave it a shake. “Dot Bagley. Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Dot Bagley,” Charlene echoed in a soft intense voice. “Dot Bagley? Where do I know that name from, Dud?”

  “I don’t know, Charlene, baby. We’ve met so many people since we got here, I can’t keep ’em all straight.” He rubbed his fisted hand over his furrowed forehead, his eyes shut so tight that deep wrinkles fanned down onto his cheeks from the corners of his eyes.

  Kate noticed that despite having plenty of places to pick up some warmer clothes for the man, Dud was still wearing the pair of overalls he’d borrowed from Artie.

  “Now, come on. I know you know how I know that name.” Charlene prodded him to no avail. Then she sighed and turned to Dot again. “This is my husband, Dud. He really is usually a regular helpmate to me, but we’ve been away from home for so long now that he’s worn down a bit. He’ll brighten up again as soon as we start home later today.”

  Bonnie looked surprised. “But the big sparrow watch is Saturday. You said you came all the way from South Carolina for the event, and you’re not going to stay for the actual day of bird-watching?” Bonnie wormed her way around in the seat so that she could look at both Dud and Charlene for confirmation.

  Neither gave it.

  Kate wondered what was up with that. It didn’t make sense but then much of what the Howells had done had seemed odd but not outright suspicious.

  LuAnne came swaying up to them with a tray loaded with iced teas and sodas and deposited one in front of Bonnie.

  “Well, I give up. I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night and remember it like that.” Charlene snapped her fingers. “I’ll sit up in bed and say, ‘Dot Bagley, she’s the one who—’”

  “Collected cats,” Kate said softly before she put her head in her hands. “I did tell someone about what you were doing, Dot.”

  “You did?” Dot held her soda up to her lips but didn’t take a sip.

  “But only because Charlene saw you creeping around in a field,” Kate explained.

  “Is that a problem?” Charlene asked, her eyes wide.

  “No.” The word came out of Dot’s mouth sharp and sure. It seemed to take even her by surprise. She looked at the glass in her hands, set it down firmly, and reiterated her instinctual response. “No, not at all. If you saw me, then I can only blame myself for being careless. I’m sure Kate never thought you’d go to the authorities and turn me in for not having the proper permits.”

  “Turn you in?” Charlene pressed her hands to her chest. Her face went pale despite her tan. She shook her head with such veracity that the ends of her dark hair flicked back and forth as if keeping time with her individually emphasized, single-syllable words. “Oh no. No. I would never do that.”

  Kate found it a bit of a dramatic display given the circumstances.

  Charlene sank down in her seat a few inches, though she kept her face turned toward the women in the other booth. “I mean, I wouldn’t even begin to know whether anyone had any permits at all or that having one or not having one would matter.”

  “Wouldn’t be none of our business either way,” Dud muttered.

  “Exactly so, Dud.” Charlene smiled at the weary man in borrowed overalls, who seemed to have slipped into the role of helpmate again. “Wouldn’t be any of our business. We aren’t the types to go mixing in on things that aren’t our business.”

  A sinking feeling filled the pit of Kate’s stomach as she asked, “Did you tell anyone about Dot’s activities?”

  “No, nobody,
” Charlene exclaimed.

  “Not a soul,” Dud concurred, then, after a pause to allow LuAnne to slip the bill for their meal onto the table, added in a deep, resigned voice, “Nobody except Artie Best.”

  “Then that has to be it,” Dot murmured, shaking her head. “Artie Best turned me in.”

  “Now, you don’t know that for sure,” Kate said softly.

  “I’m sorry we got tangled up in this, ladies.” Dud took the bill and reached for his wallet. As he pulled it out of his pocket, something dropped to the floor. He picked it up and tossed it onto his plate, then pulled out some bills and started shuffling through them as he said, “Charlene, baby, let them eat in peace.”

  Charlene gave them a wincing smile, then turned around in her seat and gathered her purse to leave.

  Kate thought it was interesting that a man given all those honors and gifts for his efforts to help wildlife would have turned in another person trying to do the same. “Do you have any other reason to think that Artie Best would do something like that to you, Dot? The two of you haven’t had some kind of run-in, have you?”

  Dot squinted her eyes in thought for a moment before she said, “No. In fact, I don’t think I’ve spoken to the man more than a half-dozen times since...Well, I was pretty good friends with Joanie Capshaw, and I did look forward to having her as a neighbor, so I haven’t spoken to him hardly at all since Joanie left.”

  “O Romeo, Romeo,” Bonnie whispered to Kate before asking outright, “Do you think he might have turned you in because he thought your cat collecting might pose a threat to the birds he loves? A cat lover and a bird wrangler—that’s not a good recipe for a peaceful existence.”

  At that moment, Charlene and Dud got up. Remembering that it would be their last day in the area, Kate slid from the booth and extended her hand. “It was lovely to meet you both. Have a safe trip home.”

  Charlene and Dud shook her hand, then Bonnie’s and Dot’s, and said good-bye.

  LuAnne brought three plates of delicious-smelling food. “Let’s see. I have a grilled cheese on rye for Kate. A cheeseburger for Bonnie. And a broiled chicken breast on lettuce with extra mashed potatoes for Dot. Did I forget anything?”

  The women assured her she hadn’t. Then Dot, never one to let a juicy bit of news about a neighbor just fade away, whispered in a way that seemed to imply she knew something more about the subject than the average onlooker, “You know, when Artie did all that fixing up and updating, he said it was good stewardship. But everyone knew he was hoping she’d come back.”

  “Too little too late,” LuAnne summed up with a deep sigh that made her comment come off more wistful and romantic in that bittersweet way people often thought of lost loves.

  LuAnne made a quick check to see if they needed refills, then told them to holler if they needed anything else. She then set to work clearing the table Charlene and Dud had just vacated.

  “But he made the effort,” Kate said. “He made the compromise. He’s a gentle man who may seem grumpy but has a good heart and would change his ways even considering things like Joanie’s cats in his house remodel. That doesn’t sound like a man who would want to make trouble for you, does it, Dot?”

  Dot poked at her chicken breast with her fork, then at the small mountain of mashed potatoes. “Maybe it wasn’t me he wanted to make trouble for.”

  “Who does he want to make trouble for, then?” Bonnie leaned in over her cheeseburger.

  “Joanie’s Ark,” LuAnne and Dot said at the same time.

  “How would turning Dot in hurt Joanie’s Ark?” The man Kate had spent time with seemed lonely, cantankerous, and a little sad, but not particularly vindictive.

  “Because Dot would be planning to take the strays to Joanie’s and that connection would mean authorities would have to make sure Dot wasn’t doing something that broke the county codes on behalf of Joanie’s Ark,” Kate explained.

  “He might be trying to send a message to them,” Bonnie concluded. “The same message he gave us when we went out to see him. That he didn’t have any use for a bunch of people tramping up and down on his property.”

  “I believe that’s what they call a motive,” LuAnne observed.

  “Only it’s not a motive, because”—Kate fished the trifold brochure from Bonnie’s folder and opened it up for all to see—“the organizers of Sparrowpalooza Weekend have made it perfectly clear that registered participants are not to trespass on, harass, or in any way disturb the owner or the natural residents of Best Acres. They even included a map of the places people aren’t allowed to go.”

  Dot and Bonnie leaned over to study the simplistic outline of Artie’s land on the opened page.

  “This is a little better version than the one I printed off the Internet.” Bonnie traced her finger along the boundaries of the land, then along the stretch of Best Acres Line Road. Pausing to tap her nail on the spot where she had tripped over the fishing line, she said, “He’s certainly kept the most beautiful and bountiful stretch of property for himself, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh yeah, if it’s one thing the Best family knows the value of, it’s land,” LuAnne observed. As she bent forward to get a better look at the map, a crumpled-up bright green foil packet fell from one of the plates onto the table.

  Kate reached for the packet. “LuAnne, do you mind if I take a closer look at this?”

  “Sure. This is the second time that Dud fella left one of these on the table.” Kate picked up the crushed packet. “Kind of a nasty habit, if you ask me, eating seeds like that.”

  Kate recalled LuAnne mentioning that before, but she’d been thinking of another place she had seen the distinct packaging: in the cabinet where Artie Best kept the food for his parrots. She’d seen him tuck that packet into his pocket. And Dud was wearing borrowed overalls from Artie.

  LuAnne continued. “Worst part is the shells leave this funny oil-and-dust residue on your hands. Dud seems to be real careful about it, but I wished he’d have warned me. The first time they came in here, I stuffed that packet in my pocket, and I still haven’t gotten the stain out.” LuAnne reached into her side pocket and tugged the lining out for the three of them to see.

  Seeing the stains suddenly triggered Kate’s memory. “I’ve seen that kind of smudging before,” she said as she peered at the mark. It looked remarkably similar to the smudges she’d seen on the library book. “Dot, I’m afraid Bonnie and I have to eat and run.”

  “I think running might be more than I can do on this ankle, Kate,” Bonnie gave her former student a good-humored grin. “But I’m game. It sounds like you’re on to something.”

  “Then let’s go to the library, as planned,” Kate said as she raised her sandwich to take a bite. Just before she sank her teeth into the toasted bread and creamy cheese, she added, “I think I’ve finally found the common thread connecting all the strange things going on around here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kate and Bonnie left Dot with good wishes on resolving the cat issue, and they headed to the library.

  This time, when they went inside, Bonnie used the cane, knowing she’d be on her feet for a while. It was an aluminum quad-cane they had rented at the hospital. Kate knew Bonnie didn’t like the cane, but it did help steady her—and it protected her from further injuring her ankle, which she asserted with confidence would be “ready for those cartwheels” by Saturday.

  Kate held the door and waited as her friend took a step, placed the cane, and took another step, an endeavor prolonged by Bonnie’s reaction to the quaint, amiable library. “Isn’t this just beautiful?”

  “I love this place. I come here so often, Paul’s joked that one day they’ll hang a plaque upstairs that reads: Kate Hanlon Research Department Headquarters.”

  Bonnie moved on, and Kate let the door fall shut. As it did, fresh autumn air whistled through the closing door and swirled around them, making them snuggle more deeply into their sweaters and jackets.

  “Go. Poke around and ex
plore. Have fun. I want to talk to Livvy for a minute and then do a little research.” Kate pointed toward the door behind the counter with the name Olivia Jenner on it. “I’ll be on the computers upstairs. When you’ve looked everything over, come back. I’m sure Livvy would love to chat with you again and I’ll meet you here.”

  As Kate passed the counter on the way to the librarian’s office, she spotted the metal cart she had seen Livvy put the manhandled bird book onto on Monday. The book was no longer there.

  Kate took a minute to make a quick sweep of the books set on top of shelves and in a small table display. She saw the picture books and guides she’d seen before, plus she recognized some of the books she had returned for Paul, but the small collection of folklore was nowhere in sight.

  She wondered if Livvy had deemed it too damaged to save. She hoped not; she couldn’t help thinking she’d find some answers in those pages. She hurried to take the last few steps to get to the office, then raised her hand to knock. Before her knuckles met the wood, the door swung open.

  “Well, hello there.” Livvy’s face lit with a warm smile. “I was wondering if you were going to drop back by before the big weekend. How is Bonnie doing?”

  “Terrific. She’s stalking knowledge among the stacks even as we speak.” Kate angled one shoulder back to give Livvy a view.

  Bonnie walked reverently, something made more pronounced by her cane and slight limp, along the length of a bookshelf, her nose close to the spines. She seemed completely unaware of the two of them, content to be off in her own little world.

  Kate moved to put her head close to her friend’s as she whispered, “Which gives me a few minutes to talk to you in private.”

  “Do we need to go into my office?”

  “No. Actually what I need is out here. At least that’s where I, and you, left it when I was here on Monday.”

  “Kate, I know you love to sink your teeth into a good mystery, but that goes a little far when you start speaking in riddles.” Livvy gave her a nudge with her shoulder.

  “Okay, then, I’ll get right to the point.” She turned and walked to the now-empty metal cart. “Tell me that you didn’t discard the book on bird folklore that was dog-eared and smudged.”