The Killdeer Connection

by Tom Swyers

  Technically, he hadn’t been there when it happened because he was unconscious. But the pistol-whipping wasn’t something to mention to Annie. Maybe another day, but not now.

  “Yes, I was in the city when it happened.”

  “Did you see it?” Christy asked. He had picked up a handset to the cordless phone.

  “Hi, Christy,” David said. “It’s good to hear both of your voices.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, too,” Annie said. “We miss you. It’s been crazy around here. We need you.”

  David didn’t know what to say in response. “I’m so sorry,” was the best he could come up with. “You don’t know how sorry I am,” he added. It was a blanket apology meant to cover everything. He was sorry about how things had spun out of control, about being stuck in the middle of nowhere, away from his family. He was sorry that he’d ever met Harold Salar. He was sorry for keeping secrets from her, and sorry for everything else in between.

  “Did you see the train explode, Dad?”

  “I did see one explosion when I was on the highway, leaving Valley City. But I didn’t see all of them.”

  “I saw a report on it on CNN,” Annie said. “I feel so bad for those people that were hurt and killed. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. No need to worry about me.” But David knew now that he was not okay. The past few hours had taught him that. He was trying to fight off the symptoms of post-concussion syndrome: sensitivity to light and sound, dizziness, and headaches that at times felt like his head was going to explode.

  “Where are you now?” Annie asked.

  “A little town called Rothsay, Minnesota.”

  “When are you coming home?” Christy asked.

  “Tomorrow morning. I got lucky and found a direct flight out of Minneapolis at eight fifteen a.m. my time. Can you guys pick me up at the airport at noon your time?”

  For a second, all David could hear was the crackle of static.

  “I’d love to,” Annie said, “but aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What?” David asked. But he knew what was coming.

  “Tomorrow is Wednesday, a school day. I have to go to work. I don’t get out until three p.m.”

  David had his response all planned out. “Why don’t you take a day off or try to get out early? I haven’t seen you for days, and we could all spend some time together. Christy, what time do you get out of school?”

  “I don’t have school tomorrow. It’s a teacher-conference day or something. I’m scheduled to work the ambulance the entire day.”

  “Why don’t you guys change your plans? We can all meet at the airport before going out for lunch. How does that sound?”

  “David, you know I just started work at Corning. It’s not as if I have a lot of time off.”

  “Can you get someone to cover for you?”

  “Maybe. No promises.”

  What David really wanted to tell Annie and Christy was that three cities where trains had just exploded were the same locations where three Killdeer Society members had been killed, and that Albany was linked to Harold Salar in much the same way as the other victims were linked to Sandpoint, Valley City, and Moorhead. He didn’t know why these people were linked to the explosions, but he believed his family was in danger. He thought Albany was next.

  But David wasn’t confident in this conclusion. He knew it was hard to concentrate and process his thoughts because of the concussion. So he bit his tongue to halt the explanations that surged into his mind. Besides, if he told them the reasons behind his concern, it would take all night to explain himself and justify his thinking. The more he told them, the more he’d risk scaring them; they might even think he’d lost his marbles. He couldn’t handle that feedback loop right now.

  So he decided to skip the details and go for keeping them out of Albany the next day with the lunch invitation. He’d warn them about the dangers in downtown Albany when he saw them. Then he’d let them know what was going on about everything. No more secrets.

  Annie said, “I’ll text you in the morning and let you know how I make out.”

  “If you need to take a sick day, Annie, do it. It’s really important that we get together and spend some time with one another.”

  “Okay.”

  “How about you, Christy? Can you get out of your shift?”

  “I can try to get out of it, Dad, but no guarantees here, either.”

  “But Christy,” David said, “it’s volunteer work. You should be able to take a day off.”

  “I need to find myself a replacement, and I don’t know if I can do that on short notice.”

  “Do your best, Christy.”

  “Always, Dad.”

  “I know you will. So do your best to listen to what I have to say to you now. Do you remember our talk about your exercising your independent judgment when it came to taking certain ambulance calls?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You know that I rode in an ambulance the other day, right?”

  “Yeah, you texted me that, and I told Mom.”

  “Well, the victim in the ambulance was a first responder—a firefighter. He got too close to a fire, and it triggered a series of events that caused him to have a heart attack and die later that day.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” Annie said. “That’s awful.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. What happened?”

  “They’re not sure. But one thing is for certain. If he’d stayed far enough away from the blast, he wouldn’t be dead. That’s the point. These oil fires can turn deadly in a heartbeat. Trying to extinguish them is a fool’s game. These firefighters have never seen anything like them before. They think they can handle them, only to learn that it’s impossible. The government recommendation is to stay away and to let these fires burn out. But somehow, the message isn’t getting through to first responders before it’s too late. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

  “I think so . . .”

  “Stay away, Christy. Promise me you’ll stay away if you ever find yourself in such a situation.”

  There was silence.

  “Christy, did you hear me?” David could hear his son sigh on the other end.

  “Yes, I heard you. All of what you said . . . it’s good to know. I’ll definitely have to keep it in mind. But you’ll have to trust me to make the right decision. I can’t make any blanket promises.”

  His mother cut in. “But why can’t you make that promise to your father?”

  “It’s okay, Annie,” David said. But it wasn’t okay. Sure, he understood Christy: blanket promises were like hard boundaries to someone headstrong who is dead-set on trying to become independent. Still, he wanted to hear that blanket promise from Christy’s lips. He needed to hear it, needed to take a load off his mind. One less thing to worry about would help clear the cobwebs from his head. But he wasn’t going to get into an argument with Christy over the phone. He simply didn’t have the energy. He had made his point, and he hoped Christy could figure it out. But if he couldn’t, he knew Annie was on his side. He knew she’d badger their son on this after he signed off. If anyone could break Christy and extract a blanket promise, it was Annie.

  “Annie, did Pete find my clothing?”

  “Yes, he thinks he did. He took it with him for testing. Did you know we are under some sort of surveillance? Every time I look outside, there’s a car parked nearby with someone watching our house from behind the wheel.”

  “Must be one of Pete’s people.” David said.

  “I don’t know. It’s unmarked. It’s one of those big, black SUVs.”

  Oh, God. Is it them? The same guys who pistol-whipped me? David’s first thought was to tell Annie to run from the house before it was too late. His sensed his family was in danger, and he had to protect them. But something didn’t add up. David knew that it took more than a day of straight driving to get from Albany to Williston. He had calculated this when he’d first thought about getting to North
Dakota by car. So he figured it was probably about a day’s drive from Valley City to Albany. Yet it had been only about twelve hours since they’d found him in the park.

  “How long has it been parked out there?”

  “Off and on for the past few days,” Annie said.

  It couldn’t be them. Good. David was relieved, but that feeling didn’t last. It’s not them, but maybe they’re part of a gang terrorizing the country in black SUVs.

  “Christy, what’s the make of the SUV?” David asked. At age sixteen, Christy knew his vehicles. He couldn’t wait to get his first one, so he was always shopping. He could name an oncoming vehicle’s make and model by looking at its grille and front profile. He’d do it all the time when he and David drove around in the Mustang.

  “Chevy Suburban. Late model,” Christy said.

  David’s heart raced, and his head pounded with every beat. It was the same make and model as the SUV that had chased David throughout North Dakota.

  “Did either of you see the driver?”

  “No,” they both chimed in.

  “Tinted glass,” Christy said.

  David froze. He didn’t know what to do or say. He thought it could have been the FBI. They didn’t only drive Crown Vics, as Julius Moore had on the day they’d first met. They drove Chevy Suburbans, too. David recalled seeing one parked next to the FBI mobile command center when he’d met Moore a second time down by Amber Remington’s office, though he wasn’t sure if it had tinted glass.

  Why would the terrorists stake out my house? They know I’m not home. Why would they go after my family instead of me? They had their chance to take me out in Valley City, and they didn’t.

  “David, are you there?” Annie asked.

  “Yeah, sorry, just thinking.”

  David decided that terrorists were not staking out his house because they’d been there for a few days and nothing had happened. They hadn’t attacked his family, and there was every opportunity for them to do so. But this conclusion sickened him. He felt awful that he wasn’t home to protect his family, even though he’d felt compelled to be in North Dakota. His head was spinning and throbbing at the same time.

  “Who do you think is in the SUV, Dad?”

  “Probably one of Pete’s officers working undercover,” David said. Yet David knew it could have been the FBI as well. But he wasn’t going to tell them about their involvement until he got home. “Is he parked outside now?”

  “I don’t see him,” Christy said.

  “Good,” David said. “I’ll be home tomorrow and will look into it then. You’re going to have to let me go. I’ve got to get to Minneapolis to rest before my flight tomorrow.”

  “Can you text me when you get there?” Annie asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Please be careful, David.”

  “I will.”

  “We love you.”

  “I love you guys, too.”

  “See you, Dad.”

  “Good night,” David said before hanging up.

  David sat in the parking lot and tried to assess his condition. There was still a three-hour drive ahead to reach Minneapolis. The rumbling sound of the tractor-trailer diesels idling and the glare from their bright LED lights were not helping his headache. When he drove into the truck stop, he had seen a park across the street. It was unlit. David decided to grab a twenty-minute power nap there before he set out on the road again.

  When he pulled into the park’s parking lot, it was empty. No surprise there—it was 8:00 p.m. in November, and the rain had turned into sleet. But seeing no cars didn’t mean that David was alone. The fastest setting on the wipers couldn’t keep up with the falling precipitation. So, when he pulled into the parking lot and peered into the park before turning off his headlights, he thought he was imagining things. Momentarily, he was convinced that the crazy killdeers in Valley City had gotten to him, just like in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. That movie had scared the crap out of him as a kid. David had forgotten all about that before it bubbled to the surface in Valley City. If he didn’t have a fear of birds before, he did now.

  In the blink of an eye before his headlights shut off, David thought he had spotted a giant bird in the park. All he’d wanted to do was sleep for a few minutes. So he told himself it was a hallucination, a result of the traumatic experience he’d had that morning, along with the concussion. But the bird’s large, canary-yellow feet and claws kept racing through his mind. He imagined they were each about two feet long, maybe longer.

  David sighed and knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep without facing this fear. His hand reached out to turn the headlights on, just to confirm nothing was there. But something was there. Through the sleet he could still see its feet and the lower half of the bird. He wondered what kind of drugs the hospital had injected into his body, because it sure looked real. The creature was about thirty yards away and facing him. It was huge, almost twenty feet long. He turned on his high beams and saw the bird’s face about fifteen feet off the ground, its black eyes looking straight at him.

  He sat in the rental car trembling and sweating buckets. Terrified, he wanted out of that park and tried to start his car, but it wouldn’t turn over on the first try. Disgusted, he slammed the steering wheel with his fist. He was convinced now that the bird was going to attack him in his Spark. All it had to do was to jump on the car, which would crush both it and him. He cranked the ignition repeatedly to get his Spark to turn over. All it did was scream like a killdeer. He slammed the steering wheel again and hit the horn. It occurred to him that honking the horn might scare the bird away, so he didn’t let up. But the bird didn’t move. It kept staring at David.

  After pushing the horn for twenty seconds straight, David lifted his hand off. It didn’t matter if he was blowing the horn or sitting on his hands: the bird didn’t flinch. He tried his car again, and this time it turned over.

  It occurred to David then that the bird wasn’t alive. Not that it was dead. It wasn’t either one of those things.

  David got out of the idling car and walked toward the bird. His headlights illuminated it like a Hollywood spotlight. It wasn’t a killdeer. He spotted a large plaque at its base and drew close enough to read it with his cell’s flashlight app. The bird was a statue. It weighed 9,000 pounds and had been erected in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial Celebration after Rothsay was recognized as “Prairie Chicken Capital of Minnesota.” David stood there in the sleet, reading the plaque as he came to grips with one unalterable fact: he had been fooled by a roadside attraction in plain view of Interstate 94. The plaque said it was the largest statue of a “booming” prairie chicken anywhere.

  At that point, David felt he was the largest human chicken alive. He skipped the power nap; the chicken encounter left him more wired than tired. He drove straight through to Minneapolis.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The first thing David did when he checked into the Grand Nordic Hotel late that night was arrange for the front desk to ship Harold Salar’s laptop home to his business post-office box. David still thought the laptop was the key to finding Harold’s killer. It also might hold some information that would help him litigate Ben Prior’s case.

  But the laptop took on a whole new dimension with each train explosion. Not only did David think that the laptop had the answers to Harold’s death, but he also now believed it contained clues to what was happening with the bomb trains. He didn’t want to take it through airport security, and he sure didn’t want to be walking around with it when he got home. Any day now, the Indigo Valley police or the FBI could show up at his front door with another search warrant. So his plan was to tuck it away at the post office until the coast was clear. At some point, he thought he’d hand over the laptop to the authorities, but that wasn’t going to happen before he used it to clear his name, or at least copied the hard drive for future reference.

  Shipping the laptop was the only thing that went right at the Grand Nordic. The hotel was a sprawling complex. It ha
d a maze of hallways that David could not solve, even with a detailed hotel map. Luck led David past the empty pizza boxes and discarded service trays along the hallway to his room. He inserted his room key into the door and opened it into a well-kept space shaped like a coffin. It was almost as small as one, too. He threw himself on the rock-hard bed with a sigh.

  The room would have been okay if the walls were coffin-solid, but they were paper thin. He could hear the usual flushing and coughing from adjoining rooms. In the halls, the Mall of America shoppers rustled by with bulging bags, bragging about cool rides and great buys. When everything quieted down, he went to sleep. But that turned out to be a mistake.

  There never was a wake-up call from the front desk the next morning. David’s cell-phone alarm didn’t go off, either; the outlet he’d plugged into for a recharge was dead. The blaring television in the room next door woke him up. He could make out the words disaster, train, and explosions through the wall near his head.

  After he checked his watch, adrenaline kicked in, and he jumped out of bed. Fearing he would be late to catch his plane, he gave his beard a lick and a promise with the shaver. Then he showered off yesterday’s hospital sweat as fast as the pitiful dribble in the hotel tub allowed.

  Storming out of the room, David longed for a GPS device to lead him out of the hallway maze. Fortunately, he recognized a large stain on the carpeting. He knew it served as a trail marker to the exit door he had passed the night before. Thus began the sprint to his escape.

  At the parking lot, he found his Spark covered with rock-salt dust and bathing in the sunrise. Temps had risen to the forties, and—Thank you, Lord—the engine turned over on the first try. David plugged his cell into the Spark’s USB port to charge it. There wasn’t much time before his flight. Good thing he’d chosen a hotel that was a five-minute drive to Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, his gateway to home.

  On the road from Rothsay to Minneapolis last night, he’d come to a decision. David was going to make a phone call. He had vacillated about it all the way to the Grand Nordic. But when David woke up that morning even after just a few hours of sleep, his head wasn’t pounding as much. That made his thoughts a bit clearer. He didn’t see any choice but to make the call. On top of it, his conscience said, It’s the right thing to do.