The Killdeer Connection

by Tom Swyers

The knob recoiled a third time. David grabbed it and twisted it to help open the door. There stood Ben, unshaven and wearing a blue T-shirt. They used to call him Big Ben on the docks, but that was before the incident. He was skinny as a rail now, having dropped fifty pounds. Depression had curbed his appetite. His black hair was greasy and disheveled. He had bags under his eyes.

  “It’s these . . . gloves. They’re too thick. I’m sorry. I can’t open the door.” Ben was wearing black neoprene gloves almost up to his elbows. He tried to pull up his work pants, which sagged on him now. David knew enough not to offer to shake Ben’s hand. It would only call attention to his injury. “Come in, David.”

  David entered slowly, expecting to see something like Harold Salar’s apartment. Not so. While it was crowded, the room wasn’t packed and overflowing like Harold’s place.

  “Well, how do you like it?” Ben asked.

  David didn’t know what to say. Ben and his son had lived in a new colonial home with half an acre of land in Indigo Valley, in a neighborhood where all the houses looked alike. They both knew the apartment was a big step down from that green, leafy haven. It was another adjustment that Ben had had to make—as if he needed one more change in his life. David felt bad. He wanted to help Ben out with some money. But his cash flow wasn’t exactly surging. What extra he did have was tied up in Ben’s case. He wasn’t going to file a life-insurance claim to try to access that money if it would put him in jail. The best David could do for Ben now was to pursue the case.

  “You’ve certainly made the most of it, Ben. That much is for sure.”

  “Yeah, I tell people I live a few blocks from the governor’s mansion. They’re mighty impressed. They don’t know there’s open-air drug dealing on the next street down the hill. Everything gets worse as you go down the hill, toward the port. But then I figure if I live in the ghetto, then so does the governor. So I’ve got good company.”

  David managed a smile. He knew perfectly well that the governor didn’t live at the mansion, preferring to commute from the home of his girlfriend in Westchester. If the fiction of sharing the governor’s air gave Ben comfort, he’d let it be.

  The ancient, scarred wood floor creaked as he followed Ben into the living room. Ben picked up the open family Bible from the sofa and set it on the end table before sitting down. Ben and Mark were devout Baptists.

  The curtains were open, and the sunlight framed itself on the scratched and faded wide pine boards. The room was painted pale green, the kitchen in canary yellow. David could see into one of the two bedrooms. It was painted cherry red. The curtain fluttered in the breeze from an open window.

  “Have a seat,” Ben said.

  “The place sure is bright,” David said, sitting down.

  “Yeah, it has all the colors of a pack of Fruit Stripe gum. Mark picked them out. We painted it ourselves.”

  “I like it. How’s Mark doing?”

  “Good. He’s still able to go to Indigo Valley Schools, even though we live here. The superintendent made an exception.”

  “Yeah, Christy tells me he has a few classes with him. Glad to hear he’s doing well. What’s the doctor say about your progress?”

  Ben sighed and didn’t answer for a few seconds. “He . . . he doesn’t think they’ll have to be amputated. That’s the good news, so they tell me. I’m going to have to have several rounds of plastic surgery. Don’t know if I’ll ever get full use of my hands again.” Ben crossed his hands on his knees, dropped his head toward his thighs, and stared at the floor. He tried to speak, but his voice quivered and he stopped. His head jerked in rapid succession as if he was crying, but no sound emerged, like he was trying to suppress it.

  Suddenly, he looked up at David. His face was red, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I’m a mess.” He shook his hands in front of David. “I can’t get these . . . out of my mind. I try and keep them where I can’t see them, but they always find me. I sometimes think I’d be better off if they cut them off. Then I wouldn’t have to see them. They wouldn’t remind me . . . of what happened. I can’t sleep . . . When I do, I have nightmares about my hands melting, the smell of oil and my flesh burning, watching my hands disintegrate in front of me. I’m living in a horror movie, David, a film that’s looped and playing in my head all the time. I’m always on edge . . . The craziest things set me off . . . I get this rush of adrenaline and anxiety all at once . . . I think I’m going to hurt someone, David. I’m not a good person.”

  Ben lifted his hands up to wipe his tears, to cover his face, but then he quickly threw them down, slightly to his rear, just out of sight. David pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped the tears with one hand while patting him on the shoulder with the other. In the back of his mind, he knew Ben was lucky to be alive. The Bakken-oil fields were a serial killer. One oil worker had died every six weeks drilling for Bakken, in the last decade, and countless limbs had been sacrificed. All for lower prices at the pump.

  “You’re a good man, Ben. I’ve known you long enough to know that—long before this. You’re just dealing with some stuff that’s too big to handle right now. It would be too much for me or any other person to handle. I talked to your doctor in prep for the trial. I’m sure he told you that you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Didn’t he?”

  Ben’s eyes hit the floor as he slowly nodded.

  “Do you understand that you have this disorder?”

  “Yes. I’m in therapy for it.”

  “Well, that’s an important first step. There’s a bunch of men and women who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, or even other wars, and they don’t know or accept that they might have this problem.”

  “But I get angry so easily . . . I start screaming at cars that do stupid things when I’m riding with Mark . . . I want to follow them home and go at it with them . . . Sometimes I get angry at nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  Just then, David twitched when a cat’s scream came out of nowhere from the backyard and culminated in a yowl that could make the paint peel on Ben’s house. Then it growled louder and louder before letting out the hiss of the century.

  “If I were a cat,” Ben said, “I would be him.”

  “I think that’s part of the disorder.”

  “But I’m afraid, David. I’m afraid I might hurt someone. I mean, really hurt someone. I’m afraid I might lash out at Mark.”

  “Ben, I really don’t—”

  “Stop right there,” Ben said, raising his voice. “You’re damn right you ‘don’t.’” Ben’s expression distorted his face now. “How could you begin to understand what I’m going through? How can anyone begin to understand who hasn’t gone through it?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  “You see, there I go again. I felt this rage toward you for a second. I wanted to beat you silly. How could I think that? I mean, you’re the closest thing I’ve got to having family outside of Mark. You’re a great friend. God, how I miss Gloria. I wish she were here.” Gloria was his wife and Mark’s mom. She had died in a two-car crash three years ago. The other driver was driving while intoxicated and uninsured. He survived and went to prison. Ben needed help, but he had no family. He was an only child. His parents had died within one year of each other before Gloria’s accident.

  “Yeah, I miss her, too.”

  “It’s just that I can’t get a break. First Mom and Dad, then Gloria, and then . . . this. Why? What did I do to deserve this?”

  David had wondered the same thing. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if Ben just wanted him to listen or to help him find some answers. He came up with something to break the silence. “I don’t pretend to have any answers. I do know that Mark is growing into quite a young man and a great player. I’ve enjoyed coaching him the past few years. He’s such a positive, even-keeled guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s everything I’m not.”

  David’s effort to turn Ben’s focus toward the one thing he had going for him hadn’t worked. The
y were right back to talking about Ben again. It was understandable but still frustrating for David. He was doing his best to help. “Mark became the person he is today because of you, Ben. He’s your son, and it shows.”

  Ben nodded.

  The sound of fast-approaching feet pounded by on the sidewalk outside. Through the windows, David saw two men run past the apartment heading downhill, looking over their shoulders. He continued to talk as if that hadn’t happened. “One reason I wanted to talk to you today is to relay an offer from Helmsley Oil. Now, as your attorney, it’s my duty to tell you these things. I’ll tell you right up-front that it’s not a good offer in my opinion. But I wanted to share it. They want to settle the case with you for fifty thousand dollars.”

  “How about Mark? Did they offer anything for him?”

  “They don’t break it down that way. It’s one amount. Do with it what you will.”

  “You have to understand that this lawsuit is all about Mark. I think I’m drowning in rotten luck, and I’m circling the drain. But Mark still has his entire life in front of him. If something happens to me, I want you to promise me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to look after my son. I want you to care for Mark. Will you promise me that?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  “I feel really awful about what happened to Harold Salar. Now I can’t get his face out of my mind. I feel responsible. Death just seems to follow me around. I feel like I may have killed him, David.”

  “Please stop right there. You’re not responsible for Harold’s death. Trust me, he had some crazy things going on in his life long before he met you.”

  “Did he leave any family behind?”

  “No, he was an only child. Both of his parents died, too.”

  “He was a little strange but still a nice man. I’m so sorry about what happened. I wish I could do something. It’s too late . . . for him, too.” Ben started to sob. David handed him a tissue.

  “Ben, Harold wrote me a letter before he died. I can share with you one thing. He wants you to continue with your case against Helmsley Oil and expose the dangers of Bakken crude.”

  “Really? He wrote that?”

  “Yes, he did. Don’t worry about getting another expert. We’ll find one. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of the Killdeer Society?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

  David saw a police cruiser speed by the windows, heading downhill, with lights flashing but no siren. He looked over at Ben, who didn’t seem to notice. David saw that his eyes were fixated on a few clipped newspaper articles on the coffee table concerning the ongoing investigation into the death of Harold Salar. David had read them that morning while having breakfast. It had been ten days since his death. The press had been told it was a homicide. The autopsy results hadn’t been released yet, and David hadn’t been publicly identified as a suspect.

  David had not fully processed his predicament and all of its ramifications. It occurred to David right there and then that maybe he had an ethical obligation to tell Ben about his status as a suspect. After all, this was Ben’s case and Ben’s expert witness. He had an interest in knowing that his lawyer was suspected of killing a crucial witness in his case.

  But David hadn’t been arrested, and Ben had just said that he regarded David as a great friend, the closest thing he had to a family member, the man who would take care of his son should anything happen to him. David realized that he might be the glue that was holding Ben Prior together. Why would he disclose something that might never materialize into anything and could end up being the last straw for Ben?

  But if he didn’t disclose it, what would happen to Ben if he learned of David’s situation for the first time through the media and not through David himself? Wouldn’t that also serve as the last straw for Ben?

  Now an ambulance flew by the window, lights and sirens blazing. David wondered if Christy was riding along on it. He didn’t like the idea of him working in an ambulance in a crime-infested neighborhood. But then it hit him. If he told Ben about his predicament, he would have to tell Annie and Christy. The last thing he needed was his home life spinning out of control. That wouldn’t help him, and that wouldn’t help Ben Prior, either. There was only one choice: shut up and hope for the best. Hope won’t catch bullets, but maybe it will help me catch a break.

  ELEVEN

  It was late afternoon when David opened the door and made his daily dash through Harold Salar’s apartment while holding his breath. He opened the windows, inserted the two fans, and turned them up high until it sounded like a twin-engine piston plane ready for takeoff. Welcome to Salar Airlines, where cockroaches and mice fly for free.

  But the roach-coach section was nearly empty on Salar Airlines these days. David had removed any standing water and fixed the leaks in the apartment after he’d learned that roaches can’t live more than a week without water. Rafts of them died in the bathtub while waiting to be served from the leaky faucet they had come to love. The fountain was gone now, and David’s Dustbuster swallowed their shriveled carcasses, clickety-clack, just like that.

  As for the mice, David had employed Ritz & Oreo Pest Removal Services. They worked for free, enjoyed the job, and kept David company as he sorted through the apartment. They only complained about the commute. Neither of David’s cats enjoyed the car trip from home, yowling like dying sirens all the way. But on arrival, those cats thought Harold’s apartment was like Disney World—so many places to hide, so many mice to play floor hockey with.

  David sat on the folding chair by Harold’s desk while he pondered where to look next. He had worked on Harold’s computer at home. It couldn’t come back to Salar’s apartment. The apartment was the priority target for more search warrants from either the Indigo Valley police or the FBI now.

  When David first opened the laptop he’d found under Salar’s desk, he’d found a large index card pressed between the keyboard and the screen. It held a series of cryptic combinations of words and letters. He put the card aside and fired up the computer. The system wanted a password, so David tried the first listing on the card: killdeer5. It worked. The PC booted up, displaying the usual icons for the Microsoft programs.

  He had clicked on the Microsoft Word program to review Harold’s document list. He hoped to find his expert’s report, or at least a draft of it, but he didn’t see anything. It showed a number of documents with a bunch of research citations about Bakken oil, but that was it.

  The most intriguing find was a file in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. The grid listed major cities: Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Newark, New Orleans, Portland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Sacramento. But there were smaller cities and towns, too. The columns recorded weekly killdeer sightings for each city or town since 2008 and had broken them down into three columns: males, females, and newborns.

  Harold’s Microsoft Outlook e-mail program received forwarded e-mails from a Gmail address: ColonelKilldeer@gmail.com. The e-mails came from various people around the United States who had reported the sightings. The e-mails were brief and factual. They covered the sightings for the week and broke the numbers down, listing the males, females, and newborns. None of the e-mails were signed or had any return e-mail address that could be linked to a name. They looked like anonymous, single-use e-mail addresses.

  David thought now that it was quite possible these e-mails came from members of the Killdeer Society. However, neither the spreadsheet nor the e-mails carried any identifying marks or notations that would definitively link these activities directly to the society. He hadn’t lied to Moore about his knowledge of the Killdeer Society during the questioning. He had never heard of it before then. But sitting at Harold’s computer, David saw the potential link between the activities he’d uncovered and the Killdeer Society. It was like the board game Clue: Colonel Killdeer was counting killdeers
while working for the Killdeer Society.

  Except David hadn’t located any mention of the Killdeer Society in any of Harold Salar’s papers. Counting birds, as David learned doing research in his basement office, is not a unique activity. There are numerous bird-watching associations scattered across the country. What was unusual was that this bird-watching group focused strictly on killdeers. There were no other counts reported for any other species of bird. Almost all bird-watching organizations cover every bird in their vicinity. David took his cell phone out and Googled the Killdeer Society. There was no website for this entity, nor was there any mention on the entire Internet about it. The Killdeer Society was a either a big secret or a big lie.

  If Moore had been able to develop probable cause to arrest him, David would be behind bars now. But Moore apparently hadn’t developed enough on his own. He needed David’s help. So he waylaid David on the street and fed him enough rope to let David hang himself during the interview. During the course of questioning, it’s not unusual for law enforcement to use deceptive tactics to secure a confession. Deception by law enforcement is not alone sufficient to render a confession inadmissible as evidence. For all David knew at the time, Julius Moore might have fabricated the Killdeer Society to lure David into saying something incriminating.

  Julius Moore was conducting an investigation of some kind, and David didn’t know if he was being totally up-front about it. The entire hate-crime pretext for the Salar homicide investigation seemed far-fetched. But things aren’t often as they first seem. That led David to Google the FBI’s history with hate crimes. Aided by the bureau, the US Attorney’s office had reportedly obtained more than forty-eight convictions for federal bias crimes against Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, or South Asians since the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. So his suspicions were not totally out of left field.

  David set his phone on Harold’s desk. Slowly, he perused the killdeers on Salar’s bedroom wall. He felt like their piercing eyes were mocking him. To avoid their merciless scrutiny, he tossed out any food left in the cupboards. Then David surveyed the contents of the apartment. He probed into the piles and stacks of stuff, looking for a place to start. But he didn’t have a clue where to begin.