Sacrifice of Buntings

by Goff, Christine

  “But if Knapp has it on film, why not just come out with it?” Cecilia asked.

  “Maybe he’s waiting until Saturday night,” Lark said.

  “Or maybe he doesn’t have it,” Rachel said.

  The others looked at her quizzically.

  “You heard him say he shoots film,” Rachel explained. “He would have to send it out for processing. Any shop on this island would have to ship it out to a lab.”

  “If that’s the case, he won’t even know what kind of pictures he has until the film comes back,” Lark said. “That would explain his caution. Right now he can’t even prove they ever saw the bird.”

  “I’ll bet Guy knows where the bird is,” Dorothy said.

  They had reached the car, and Rachel stared at her over the top of the rental. Had Saxby confided in her?

  “You sound awfully sure,” Lark said, voicing Rachel’s thoughts.

  “He didn’t say anything to me, if that’s what you’re thinking. He just seems so confident that one of the teams will find something great tomorrow, it makes me believe.”

  “Just because he or Becker or Knapp saw the bird doesn’t mean we will,” Cecilia said.

  “Unless Guy found a breeding pair,” Lark said.

  Rachel’s eyes never left Dorothy. If Saxby had told her as much, she didn’t react.

  “If they’re nesting,” Lark continued, “they’ll stay in the same area. Of course, I have no idea what their range is.”

  A lightbulb went off in Rachel’s head. “You realize that either way, regardless of where Becker stood on the trade, if there’s an endangered bird on their land, the Andersons’ chances of selling goes right out the window. It becomes the land trade or nothing.”

  “Which plays in their favor for a land swap,” Lark said. “The developers would have to jump through legal hoops to ensure that they aren’t harming any endangered species, or to at least prove they are rebuilding any habitat they do harm, and the state would really want control of the land.”

  “I wonder what it means for the Carters?” Rachel mused. So far they hadn’t eliminated any suspects from their list, except for Beau and Reggie. If there was an endangered species living on Swamper’s Island, would the state need the Carters’ land for access? The original plan was to build a visitor’s center on the Carters’ acreage or provide the developers access.

  Rachel knew one thing for certain: the more she learned, the more she was convinced that Becker’s murder had something to do with turf.

  Upon reaching their suite, Lark jumped into the shower and Rachel logged on to the Internet. She checked for a message from Kirk and came up empty-handed. At least she had something to tell him:

  The plot thickens. Guy Saxby’s secret is out. He signed with a major network to do a reality-based TV show called “Extreme Birding.” The first episode stars yours truly. Filming commences tomorrow. I trust this is what you were looking for? But there’s more. Chuck Knapp has a competing program called “Avian Adventures.” It appears he and Becker discovered another ivory-billed woodpecker. Don’t you wish you were here? I do.

  She paused, and then added:

  Love, Rachel

  With a few mouse clicks, she sent the message and opened to the Web page discussing the stealing of Becker’s ideas. As she’d suspected, Saxby was named as the culprit. There was no proof, only Becker’s rantings and his threats to sue.

  But he hadn’t. Nor, apparently, had he worked with Saxby on anything since.

  Rachel suspected they might have been working at cross-purposes on the same project. Or Becker might actively have been out to get Saxby fired. Either one of those could provide Saxby with a motive for killing Becker, albeit a pretty lame one. If it was true that Saxby had stolen Becker’s research, Rachel could see why Becker might have wanted to kill his department head, but Saxby had already weathered the accusations of his graduate student. And if the ivory-billed woodpecker was on Swamper’s Island, Saxby would have his footage tomorrow, and his coup d’état.

  Dorothy would be happy to learn Saxby appeared to be in the clear. Less happy to hear how many people believed he had plagiarized his book. Still, it was only hearsay.

  Now I’m making excuses for him.

  Regardless, Dorothy needed to know, Rachel decided. She knocked on the door connecting their suites and then opened it. Cecilia sat on one bed reading. Dorothy was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is she?” Rachel asked, nodding toward Dorothy’s bed.

  Cecilia dropped her reading glasses onto her chest. “I thought she was in your room. Of all the sneaky… She must have gone out.”

  “She wouldn’t have gone alone,” Rachel said, keeping her voice steady while her mind was racing.

  “Sure she would have. She’s in love. She’s like a teenager.” Cecilia paused to let the meaning sink in. “Oh my, I think we ought to mount a search party.” She slid out of bed in one smooth motion, pulled on a pair of blue pedal pushers, and tucked in her blue nightshirt. Then she reconsidered and pulled it out. The result looked strangely fashionable—probably because the two items were an identical shade of blue.

  Rachel hovered between amusement and alarm.

  Then the door clicked and opened, and Dorothy peered around the edge of it.

  “Good, you’re awake,” she said, waving a handful of papers. “Look what I’ve got. Releases! All we have to do is sign these and we’re in like Flynn!”

  “What are you talking about?” Cecilia crossed her arms and sat down hard on her bed. “You had us worried to death.”

  “We have to sign these to appear on television,” Dorothy replied, ignoring her sister’s admonishment. “There are only three camera teams, and one will be with us all the way.”

  Rachel’s heart sank. Extreme Binding carried too much pressure. All she wanted to do was relax and enjoy the scenery, especially now that she knew Saxby’s big secret. They could leave it to the police to figure out who murdered Becker. It didn’t affect them now.

  “And guess who the other teams are that will have camera crews? Some really big names! But we’ll have Guy,” she added confidently.

  Rachel’s mouth went dry. “Guy’s competing?”

  “Of course. He’s the ultimate extreme birder.”

  “Dorothy, I have to tell you something about Guy.” Without waiting to see her reaction, Rachel forged ahead. “I went back on that message board on my computer. The department head who stole Becker’s research… it was Guy.”

  Dorothy’s face contorted into an angry mask.

  “The good news is I didn’t find any reason that Guy would want to kill Becker. But Becker sure had it in for Guy. It was the same story I got from Sonja Becker.”

  “Pishposh, as my mother used to say,” Dorothy said.

  Cecilia frowned. “I don’t recall her ever saying that.”

  Dorothy ignored her. “You know how things are. Younger teaching assistants are used as research associates all the time. That’s how one learns the ropes. In that job, you have to expect that your advisors are going to use your findings in their own publications. It’s part of academia.”

  Rachel started to argue, but maybe she had it wrong. At any rate, no doubt Dorothy would be impossible to convince.

  Proving Rachel correct, Dorothy charged on. “Think of all the things Guy Saxby’s done in his career.” She waved the release forms in the air. “He can talk about anything bird-related. Does he sound like somebody who had to steal someone else’s research to publish?”

  When neither of them answered, she answered for them. “No. Becker was jealous, that’s all.”

  “Maybe,” Rachel said.

  “Oh my, she has love blinders on.”

  Dorothy faltered. “It doesn’t matter. Guy has promised that we’ll be on camera tomorrow. We are going to win that money for Raptor House. You’ll see that you’re wrong about him. He is going to prove his mettle.” She handed Rachel two releases. “Here’s one for you and one for Lark. Now
we should all get to bed so we can be extra sharp tomorrow.”

  Cecilia scoffed. “Or so somebody can get her much-needed beauty sleep.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Rachel didn’t. She tried to sleep, but she tossed and turned and then finally got up. The clock dial read eleven p.m. They had to be up in six hours.

  Lark snored softly in the next bed, so Rachel pulled on her shorts in a beam of moonlight and then headed downstairs in search of hot chocolate. A small coffee bar had been tucked into a corner for guests, and Rachel helped herself to a packet of Swiss Miss. Three carafes labeled “decaf,” “coffee,” and “water” sat next to the tray of mugs. Dumping the chocolate into the mug, she pushed the pump on the water, and the carafe sputtered. She pushed again, and it spit a burble of water before it finally gave up.

  Darn.

  There was no clerk at the desk, so Rachel picked up the carafe and ducked her head into the bar. There was no bartender either. Who needed staff with all the birders in bed?

  The dining room was closed, but yellow light leaked out from beneath the swinging doors into the kitchen. Maybe she could find someone in there.

  Pushing open the swinging door, she stepped into a large room with metal counters and racks. A dishwasher crammed full of dinner dishes churned in the corner, its water spray visible. A woman’s voice screeched from deeper inside.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Rachel stopped in mid-stride. It sounded like Patricia Anderson. Was she talking to her?

  Rachel’s free hand flew to her chest, and she peered around the corner of the nearest dish rack. Patricia stood sideways, center aisle, her hands on her hips. A snarl marred her lips. “You are seventeen years old.”

  I’m in the clear. Rachel leaned farther around the dish rack. Katie Anderson stood facing her mother. Her black hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she wore a thin, low-cut tank top which pushed out in a small bump over her low-rise jeans. Her hands flew to her face, and she rubbed one of her eyes.

  The little-girl gesture in a woman’s body touched Rachel’s heart. There was something about the way the girl acted that reminded Rachel of herself not so long ago. There had been times, during her divorce, that she had felt so vulnerable she had wanted to curl up in the fetal position and die. Watching Katie, Rachel sensed the same despair.

  “How could you be so stupid?”

  Tears spilled over and tumbled down Katie’s face. She snatched up a tissue and blotted her eyes. “I’m not stupid.”

  “Wait until your father gets back from Brunswick and I tell him what you’ve been up to. What could you possibly think you’d achieve by visiting Sonja Becker? How could you possibly think she would welcome you and your bastard child with open arms?”

  Katie was pregnant? With Paul Becker’s child? Sonja Becker said her husband cheated and that he liked them young.

  “This baby is entitled to a decent upbringing. I expected she might help us. It was worth a try. It’s better than I can expect from you.”

  “Why you little…” Patricia raised her hand as though to strike Katie, and then changed her mind, balling her hand into a fist by her side. “Your daddy and I plan to see this child placed in a loving home. In the meantime, you better pray this land trade goes through so we have the money to pay for it.”

  Did that mean the developer had backed out?

  “I’m not giving up my baby.” Katie, the young woman-child, stood her ground. “That’s why I went to see Mrs. Becker. I figured she might understand.”

  The theme song from The Graduate started playing in Rachel’s head.

  Katie’s voice rose in timbre. “You and Daddy can’t tell me what to do with my baby.” Her hand gently stroked her belly. “Now get out of my way. I’m leaving.”

  With that, Katie pushed past her mother and headed in Rachel’s direction. Rachel drew back against the dish rack. If she tried to leave, Katie would see her. If she stepped into the open, it would be obvious she was eavesdropping. Where could she hide?

  “Katie Jo Anderson, you get back here,” ordered Patricia.

  Rachel heard Katie stop. Had she turned back around? If that was the case, Patricia would be the one facing the door.

  Patricia’s voice edged toward hysterical. “You do understand that we’re ruined if the land trade doesn’t go through.”

  “That has nothing to do with me. I’m not the one who overextended myself buying this stupid hotel.”

  She heard Patricia draw a ragged breath.

  “Katie Jo, we need your help,” she said, her voice softened. “Did Sonja Becker admit there was a film?”

  Rachel felt her stomach twist. Did this woman have no scruples? Was she going to use her pregnant daughter to try and get her hands on the film?

  “Yeah.” Katie sounded petulant. Rachel could see her stance through the dish rack, her arms crossed tightly across the tip of her abdomen, one knee cocked.

  “Daddy and I need it, honey. That’s the only proof that the bird exists. If that film is made public, the developer will back out, and the state can force us to protect the swampland. There will be no reason for them to trade acreages. We’ll be ruined.”

  Katie didn’t respond.

  Rachel listened carefully for footsteps.

  “Katie Jo, did Sonja tell you where it was?”

  “You disgust me, Mother. All you’ve ever cared about is money and status.”

  “Please, Katie Jo.”

  “She told me to ask Chuck Knapp. He’s the one who shot the footage.”

  Realizing their conversation was coming to an end, Rachel took the cue. Kicking the door open, she swung the empty carafe and acted like she was just walking in. “I thought I heard voices.”

  Patricia’s face hardened into a smile. Katie looked down at the ground and then brushed past Rachel and disappeared through the swinging doors.

  Rachel held up the carafe. “You’re out of water.”

  Drinking hot chocolate on the screened-in porch, Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. Thank heavens neither of them had questioned her entrance. Patricia had filled the carafe and then excused herself to do some work in her office. Katie was gone, and the desk clerk was back with a friendly smile.

  Now, listening to the sounds of the cicadas and to the surf gently pounding the sand, Rachel tried to relax. A small noise startled her, and she couldn’t shake the impression that someone watched her from the shadows of the magnolia trees. Her mind flashed to the golf course, and then conjured an image of Trula, the voodoo lady. Oona mus tek cyear.

  Rachel shivered and pushed out of the chair. Setting the cup on the service table, she nodded to the desk clerk and climbed the stairs to her room. The old floorboards creaked underneath the carpet, and she imagined old Harry frowning down from his portrait.

  Opening her hotel room door, she knocked a piece of paper along the floor. Bending down, she picked it up. Large black letters in block print stared back at her:

  QUIT SNOOPING OR DIE.

  Rachel froze in place. Her whole body tingled. Whipping around, she searched the landing for a sign of anyone in the hallway or on the stairs. Stepping into her room, she slammed the door, turned the deadbolt, and drew the chain.

  Lark sat bolt upright in bed. “Rachel? What’s wrong?”

  Rachel flipped on the light.

  Lark blinked in bed like a great horned owl. Rachel thrust the note into her hand. Lark blanched.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I found it on the floor. Someone must have shoved it under the door.” She told Lark about her trip downstairs for hot chocolate, the conversation she’d overheard, and about feeling someone watching her.

  “We need to call the police,” Lark said.

  Rachel agreed.

  Detective Stone arrived within twenty minutes. By then Dorothy and Cecilia were up as well, disturbed by the urgent whispering of the occupants of their adjoining suite.

  “Tell me again,” the detective said.<
br />
  This time she gladly repeated her story. The detective sat rigid in the chair by the window, while his partner leaned against the doorjamb scribbling notes. The detective held the now-sheathed warning by a corner.

  “We have a suspect list if you want it,” Dorothy said.

  Detective Stone rolled his eyes. “Sure, give it to my partner. Meanwhile, I’ll check this paper for fingerprints.” He didn’t sound optimistic. “Only the two of you touched it?”

  Cecilia raised her hand. “I might have touched it too, Detective.”

  “That figures.” He stood up shaking his head. “Ms. Wilder, Ms. Drummond, and you.” He pointed two fingers and included both sisters. “I want you all to steer clear of my investigation from here on out. No more developing suspect lists, no more eavesdropping. Do you understand?” He shook his head. “It nearly got you killed this afternoon. Let me and my men handle these matters. Is that understood?”

  “Got it,” Rachel said.

  Lark and Cecilia nodded.

  Dorothy just narrowed her eyes.

  The alarm went off a few hours later. The women grabbed coffee and bagels on the way out the door, and the four of them made the bus with time to spare. Rachel was a bit surprised that it wasn’t the colorful Okefenokee Swamp Tours bus they’d ridden on before.

  “There’s been a change,” was all Saxby offered.

  The ride took an hour. Dorothy sat smugly beside Saxby the entire way. Cecilia sat two seats behind, craning her neck around camera equipment to keep an eye on her sister. Rachel and Lark sat on the other side of the bus and enjoyed an excellent view of Saxby showing Dorothy points of interest.

  “I admit it,” Lark said. “I don’t see what she sees in him. To me, he seems kind of smitten with himself. What in the heck do you suppose is going on?”

  “Chemistry,” Rachel said.

  “I disagree. I think he’s using her.”

  “For what?” There certainly wasn’t anything physical going on between them unless she was drugging Cecilia to sneak out at night. For that matter, Cecilia might be a heavy sleeper. Saxby’s room was right above them.