by Jan Dunlap
Chapter Thirty-One
You think we’ll arrive alive?” I took a quick glance at Alan in my passenger’s seat. His right hand held a death grip on the bar that sat just above his side window. I checked my speedometer and eased up on the gas. “Sorry,” I told him. “I forget you don’t drive with me often.”
“And there’s a reason for that, White-man. You scare the crap out of me when you drive on county roads.”
“I’m a good driver, Alan,” I assured him. “I just speed a little when I’m focusing on other things.”
“Such as?”
“Catching a killer.”
“You think it’s the mayor, don’t you? That he offed his old friend to cinch a deal for himself.”
“It looks that way to me,” I said. “I think Billy called up Ben after he followed Jack to Kami’s at Shana’s request. Ben figured it was a perfect opportunity to ambush Jack and knock the eco-community group out of the picture, so he somehow got him to meet him at Green Hills.”
“Where he shot him in the wee hours of the morning.”
“Yes.” Alan’s recap of my reasoning only made me more certain I had Jack’s murder solved. Big Ben had been playing the ATV and eco-community group against each other, secretly funneling Chuck’s money to the lobbyists so it looked like he favored the ATV crowd, even while he wouldn’t publicly support them. While the zoning council floundered, trying to make a decision, Ben had added fuel to the fire by tampering with Kami’s fences to use Nigel as both a public relations nightmare and a choice bait: for the eco-community, Nigel’s lack of containment was a serious problem, while for the ATV enthusiasts, he was a selling point for their playground. All along, though, Ben had just wanted the land to be ruled useless so its selling price would drop, at which point, he’d step in and snap it up, hoping to make his fortune from selling the fossils he knew were buried beneath it.
“What about Billy?” Alan asked.
“I think Billy knew too much about what Ben was really after, so Big Ben promised him a payoff at Mystery Cave, and instead, killed him, and then planted the gun that he used to shoot Jack in Billy’s car.”
“Too many loose strings in your theory, Sherlock,” Alan said after a moment of silence. “For one thing—maybe the most important thing—Ben didn’t need to knock the eco people out of the picture at all. In fact, he wanted the opposite. He wanted the group to keep butting heads with the ATV crowd so the whole mess would stay deadlocked while the land kept deteriorating and falling in value to anyone, except him. So killing Jack would have been a stupid move, since it might have caused the eco group to give up and pull out, leaving the property wide open for the ATV manufacturer.”
Ahead of me, a Cliff Swallow dove across the road, then arced back up into the sky, where two more swallows were swooping through the air. Alan was right, Ben really didn’t want a resolution to the zoning conflict for either party, so eliminating Jack would have been detrimental to Ben’s grand scheme to acquire the land and its hidden fortune of fossils. To win the game he was secretly playing, Ben needed both Jack and the ATVers to stay up in the air.
“Loose string number two,” Alan continued. “How could Ben convince Jack to meet him at an isolated spot in the middle of the night? Even if they were old friends, that’s pushing it. And it’s not like Ben could say, ‘Hey, Jack, I know you’re awake and driving out in the country at 3:00 a.m., so how about we split a really early beer at Green Hills?’ Ben couldn’t let Jack know he was tracking him through Billy.”
Okay, that part bothered me, too. Especially if, as Shana had said, Jack had any reasons to suspect some dirty work from the ATV crowd. If he were being even remotely cautious, the last thing he would do was meet someone—best friend or not—alone in the middle of the night in an isolated birding spot.
But that’s exactly what he had done.
“And as for killing Billy, because he knew Ben’s big picture, that would be plain stupid, too” Alan concluded. “Billy worked for Ben. You’ve got to assume that he knew a lot of his boss’s plans, in which case Ben trusted Billy not to betray him. Ben Graham isn’t stupid, Bob,” Alan said. “He’d be very careful about who was on his payroll. He’d make sure they were absolutely loyal to him one way or another.”
“A bullet dead center ensures loyalty,” I pointed out.
“Or at least silence,” Alan added.
I watched the three swallows wheeling in the sky. Suddenly a Red-tailed Hawk sped past the swallows, making a steep dive at its next meal of some unfortunate rabbit or rodent scurrying across a field of young grasses. The three swallows quit their acrobatics, and peeled off in separate directions. Watching them gave me an idea.
“What if someone else got into the picture?” I wondered aloud. “Someone who wanted to force the zoning council into a decision for his own reasons and thought the way to do that would be to kill Jack?” I thought about the scattered swallows. “That would ruin Ben’s plans, but it might be the solution to someone else’s problem.”
Alan let out a low whistle. “Someone who wanted the ATV project to get started.”
“Maybe.” I suddenly recalled seeing the back of Renee’s sweatsuit last night as she returned to her room and realized what A-Man stood for. I thumped on the steering wheel.
“Ackerman! That’s it! Secure A-Man is Ackerman!”
“Come again?”
My foot fell a little more heavily on the gas pedal. “I think the Ackermans own a company called Secure A-Man. A-Man: Ackerman.” I threw Alan a quick glance to make sure he was following my train of thought. “Their company is the one that worked with Eddie last week to install Kami Marsden’s new invisible fencing. Eddie said the owner was an old friend of Kami’s, and Renee and Kami went to school together.”
“So Kami gave a job to an old friend.”
“Yes! And so guess who knows the security system that mysteriously keeps going down and letting Nigel out?”
“The same man who’s the chief lobbyist for the ATV group,” Alan replied.
“Yes! Also the same man who knew exactly what was wrong with my brakes.”
“So you think Mac Ack killed Jack in hopes that the eco group would pack up and go home, leaving the ATV manufacturer he supported as the last man standing in the zoning dispute?”
“It fits,” I insisted. “For all we know, Mac Ack might have a big juicy contract waiting with the ATV company to do all their security for the new facility and the park they want to build. If that’s the case, Mac had a motive for killing Jack in order to speed up the project approval and get the construction started, so he could get some dollars pouring into his security company.”
Up ahead along the road, I saw a mailbox marked “Marsden.” I made a quick left, spinning my tires into the gravel that lined the driveway to Kami’s place. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alan grab the window bar.
“But that doesn’t give Mac a motive for killing you,” Alan pointed out. “Unless he knew what a maniac you are behind the wheel and decided to do the rest of us a favor by getting you off the road permanently.”
I hit a rut hard and we both bounced off our seats.
“I know, I know,” I cut Alan off before he could say anything. “I’m slowing down. Really.”
Once again, though, I had to admit Alan was right. Mac had no reason to want me dead. Now that I knew the note was about the eco-community’s proposed Bobwhite Acres, I had no reason to think that Mac was in cahoots with Ben to murder me.
Someone else had wanted me out of the picture.
“And,” Alan was saying, “Mac Ack has no motive to kill Billy that we can see. Not to mention that he was birding with you guys Saturday morning when the sheriff says Billy was killed. We’re still missing something important, Bob.”
I had to agree, which meant that Alan was right for a third time.
“Three strikes and I’m out,” I muttered. “This is why I’m a counselor and not a detective.”
“I thought it
was because of the stellar pay we get at Savage High,” Alan laughed. “That and the adoration of all the females in the student body.”
“Please,” I said. “I’m on vacation. Don’t even think ‘drama queen’ around me.”
The dirt driveway led to a paved apron in front of a small garage, which sat beside an old brick farmhouse. I parked the car behind a red pick-up truck. “I hope this means Kami is home,” I said, nodding at the truck. “I want to see those surveillance tapes.”
Just as I was going to push open my car door, though, Alan grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back against the seat.
“You don’t want to do that right now,” he warned me, pointing past me to a spot where trees edged the parking apron about fifteen feet from my side of the car. I followed his finger and saw the reason why.
Hello, Simba.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Part of me wasn’t surprised to see a full-grown lion crouching a few body lengths beyond my car. After all, Kami’s place was an exotic animal sanctuary. It stood to reason that Nigel wasn’t the only exotic animal on the property.
The other part of me, however, was busy wondering if that same full-grown lion could rip my car window out and drag me from my SUV for a late lunch. Suddenly, I could relate to every bunny or mouse that a Red-tailed Hawk had snatched for a meal. No one aspires to being an entrée.
“That is one big cat,” Alan remarked as we both watched the lion approach the car. He ambled over—the lion, not Alan—and plunked himself down right outside my car door. I figured his face was a mere inches away from mine on the other side of the window.
“My, what big eyes you have,” I told the lion. He gazed back at me, his amber eyes hypnotic.
“Nice mane,” Alan added. “He’s really got that natural look going for him.”
“I hope Kami heard us drive up,” I said, my eyes still locked on the lion. “Otherwise we’re going to be sitting here a while, because Simba doesn’t look like he’s in a rush to go anywhere.”
At which point, the lion heaved himself up from the ground and slowly strolled around the back of my SUV towards the farmhouse, where Kami was now standing on the front porch. She walked down the porch steps to meet the lion, who rammed his big nose into her stomach while she rubbed behind his velvety ears. She waved to us to come over.
I looked at Alan in my passenger seat. “What do you think, Hawk? Do you feel lucky?”
“Sure,” he answered. “I’ve always imagined throwing myself to the lions. Besides, it can’t be much worse than planning the wedding of the century, and so far, I’ve survived that, too.”
We got out of the car—although I admit I was moving pretty slowly, just in case the lion didn’t like sudden moves—and carefully approached Kami’s porch.
“He won’t hurt you,” she assured us. “He’s a sweetheart, along with being almost deaf. That’s why he stays close to the house. It’s familiar and safe for him.” She patted the lion’s big head. “He probably felt the vibration in the ground from your SUV and didn’t recognize it—that’s why he came over to check you out. His name is Claudius, by the way.”
The big cat nuzzled Kami’s shoulder. Being as tiny as she was, Kami barely stood a head taller than Claudius and had to brace herself against the step’s railing so he wouldn’t bowl her over. She made a circular motion with her hand and the lion turned around to face me.
“Let him sniff your hands,” she told me and Alan. “Then he’ll know you.”
“You use hand signals with him,” I commented, and she nodded. I reached out a palm for Claudius to smell. The lion’s nose felt soft across my hand and I watched his big nostrils flare as he snuffled. “Yo, Claudius,” I said.
“So what brings you out here?” Kami asked after Alan had likewise made the lion’s acquaintance.
I lifted my eyes from Claudius’s big muscular body and focused on Kami. “I want to see your surveillance tape from this morning to see if it caught whoever messed with your fence. Whoever did it would have had to come here to your farmhouse, wouldn’t he? I’m thinking it might be the same person who killed Jack, someone who’s apparently getting desperate for the eco-community to drop out and the ATV project to dig in.”
Kami cocked her head to one side, apparently considering what I’d said, then pushed Claudius away from her shoulder. “Let’s go take a look.”
She turned on her heel and led us over to a side door into the garage. Claudius walked right behind her, as obedient as a trained dog. Once we were inside, she flipped a switch that lit up the small space outfitted with an array of state-of-the-art monitors and equipment. Various lights blinked while the soft hum of a generator made a soothing sound.
“Very cool,” Alan offered appreciatively.
“Eddie Edvarg was definitely here,” I said to no one in particular. My electronics whiz buddy had, as usual, spared no expense in setting up his client with a superior surveillance system. If anyone had set foot anywhere near Kami’s farmhouse this morning, we were going to find it on a surveillance loop.
I felt a big furry head brush past my back and looked over my shoulder in time to see Kami leading Claudius back outside the small garage.
“Stay,” she told him loudly, parking him next to her red truck. I could just catch her hand signal to the lion through the open garage door. Claudius dropped to the ground and sprawled out on the pavement. “Good Claudius,” she practically shouted at him, patting his flank. The lion blinked and closed his eyes, and Kami rejoined us in front of the monitors.
“We’ll just have to scan back through the tapes to this morning,” she explained, punching a couple buttons on the control board.
“Did Mac Ackerman do your new fencing?” I asked while she continued to program the monitors.
“Yes, he did. I always hire people I know for jobs around the sanctuary, and Renee and I go way back.”
“Yeah, she told me about it,” I replied. “The Four Musketeers—you, Renee, Jack and Ben.”
Kami gave me a confused look. “Only in her dreams.”
My turn. I shot back an equally confused look at Kami. “What?”
“Renee was never close to Jack and Ben and me. She always wished she were, but it didn’t happen. We were in the same class at school, that’s all. In fact, in high school, I’m pretty sure she hated me, because Jack and I were a couple. She was crazy about Jack, and he wouldn’t give her a second glance. Ben was always nice enough to her, but she was only interested in Jack.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. All kinds of comments were rushing back into my head and I needed a moment to sort them all out.
“Renee was making eyes at Jack.”
“All the girls were in love with him, including me.”
“Renee knows the area. She’s birded it with Jack.”
“We waited a good half-hour for her to get back from that twenty-four-hour pharmacy with her allergy prescription. If it hadn’t been for her, we could have gotten an earlier start on our birding. I mean, really, how could the woman forget her allergy medication at home when it’s allergy season? Talk about being unprepared.”
Rene Ackerman had been missing when we gathered to go birding yesterday morning. She’d had a teenage crush on Jack—a crush that may have survived well into adulthood, if Bernie’s observation on Friday evening had been correct. She’d also seemed pleased to pass along the gossip that Jack was cheating on Shana with Kami, which might have explained that smug feeling I detected from her in the diner last night, but now I wondered if that gossip was a vengeful move against Shana and Kami both. Lord knows I’d seen that kind of behavior plenty of times from the teen girls I counseled at Savage High, especially when unrequited crushes came into the picture.
On top of that, Rene knew three things Jack’s killer had to have known: one—Jack was in Fillmore County early Saturday morning (and a quick check of the hotel parking lot would have told her his car was gone); two—she knew the birding areas he knew because they’d bi
rded together; and three—she had access to the plans for Kami’s security system since her company had done the installation.
Had Rene decided to finally get even with Jack for his high school dismissal of her and called him to meet her for an unusual bird sighting at Green Hills, where she shot him? I’d figured that Jack had to know his killer, and Rene certainly fit that bill. And if Rene had also decided to make some long-anticipated payback to Kami for being Jack’s high-school sweetheart, what better way than to sabotage the sanctuary fence and support a suspicion that Kami was a killer?
I watched the monitor as Kami manipulated the images to arrive at this morning’s surveillance.
“Try mid-morning,” I told her. “The time during which you were out at Green Hills.”
She ran the recording further ahead. Now I expected to see Rene, not Mac, Ackerman drive up on the screen at any moment.
But what about Billy? I asked myself, my eyes fixed on Kami’s monitor. How did he fit into a picture of Rene’s plan for vengeance?
“I’m still missing something,” I muttered. I turned to Alan who was hovering behind my left shoulder. “I can’t make Jack’s and Billy’s murders hang together,” I whispered, not wanting Kami to hear my speculation. “I think there’s a chance that Rene killed Jack, but I can’t figure out a connection to Billy.”
Alan studied me for a moment or two. “One bird at a time, Bob, isn’t that what you told me once?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“You know, when you’re on the trail of a specific bird? You told me that you focus on one bird at a time, but if others show up, you’ll be glad to spot them.” He pointed to Kami’s monitor. “Find Jack’s killer first, and if along the way, you can find Billy’s too, then you’re ahead of the game. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding at his advice. “One bird at a time.”
“Here’s a car!” Kami’s voice was laced with excitement.
I looked back at the monitor’s screen as a vehicle approached the surveillance camera.
