Death Takes a Gander (21 page)

Then two big, yellow eyes blinked, and the shape of a great horned owl emerged. It hugged the tree, in perfect form. Brown plumage with black barring rose to a white throat. Gold, feathery disks framed its face, and two feathery horns spiked from the top of its head.

Angela lifted her glasses and stared. The owl stared back, capturing her every move.

“That’s rare,” Gertie said, binoculars adhered to her face. “Great catch.”

Angela found herself reluctant to pull away.

“Is that a life bird for you?” Cecilia asked.

“My first in the wild.”

From the meadow behind them, a western meadowlark belted out a congratulatory song. The EPOCH members swiveled in unison, performing the dance of the birders.

It took only a moment for Angela to find the bird. It perched on a fence post, silhouetted by the sun.

The birders expanded the territory to include the meadow, and by the time they reached the banding station, they’d added the dark-eyed junco in gray-headed form, the white-crowned sparrow, and the horned lark to their list.

Cutting down through the woods past the mist nets, the EPOCH members didn’t log any more birds. Angela hadn’t been in this area since the night Ian died, and an uneasy chill crept along her neckline. The banding station looked different in the daylight. The riparian area stood at the edge of a cattail marsh, now dried up from years of drought. Narrow trails wound through an expansive understory of willows, and light dappled off ashen branches. The nets were furled, secured tightly around thin aluminum poles. None appeared large enough to bear the weight of a man. But, that night, the pole had been supported by a nearby tree.

Passing the rock he had stood on, Angela stopped. She climbed up on the rough surface and noticed the top was flat—easy to balance upon. She found it hard to believe an expert climber would have had trouble maintaining his footing, even in a storm. Pretending she was falling, Angela stretched for the pole. She was way too short to reach it. But even if she could have, there was no way the pole would have tipped in the direction of the tree. Someone had to have propped it there.

“Angela.” Lark’s voice jarred her from her thoughts. “Are you coming?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” Lark asked. “This is where Ian died.”

It took every ounce of effort to push her voice past the lump in her throat. “Yes.”

A few minutes later, they broke into the clearing at the east end of the lake. The brittle grasses crackled underfoot, and fish skeletons dotted the land, braised white with snow. Gertie set up a scope.

“Take a look.”

Angela peered through the scope. She spotted a group of northern pintails. The males’solid brown heads with white stripes were clearly visible, along with the long, black feathers protruding from their tails. The females were a drab mottled brown.

To the right was a northern shoveler. With it’s spatulated bill, it looked like a cartoon duck. Angela named it, then added a redhead, a mallard, and a common goldeneye. Reluctantly she relinquished the scope. “There you go.”

She grew antsy as everyone took a turn. “Lark, we need to keep moving.”

“Oh, look, there’s a ring-necked duck,” cried Dorothy. Uncommon on Barr Lake in the winter, everybody took time to look again.

“She’s right,” Gertie said. “You can see the brown neck ring.”

Finally, Angela couldn’t take any more. “I’m going on without you.”

“Oh my,” Cecilia said. “We should go with her. We can bird it on the way back.”

With that solution in mind, the group packed up and headed further east.

“Stay on the trail,” Angela warned. “And keep your eyes open.”

When they’d gone as far as they could as a group, the bird watchers set up their scopes, and Angela struck out alone.

“If I’m not back here in half an hour, head for the banding station. If I’m not back there in an hour, call for help.”

Picking her way through the cattail marshes and wetlands below the dam was more difficult than she’d imagined. More than once she ended up knee-deep in bog. It took her fifteen minutes just to reach the edge of the field.

The harvest had knocked down the corn plants, but half-chopped ears and scattered kernels lay in the ditch along the edge. The sun beat down, glinting off her jacket, and Angela realized she was a sitting duck out in the open.

With any luck, no one would realize she was there. But if they did…

She quickly picked up several half-ears of corn and stuffed them into plastic baggies. Then she broke off pieces of the plants themselves and stuffed them into another bag.

A crack echoed, then a spit of wind parted her hair, followed by another crack.

A gunshot. Hunters?

Angela turned and spotted someone with an orange cap hunkered down in the field to the north.

“Hey,” she shouted. “I’m not a bird.”

A ring-necked pheasant flushed. Taking off in a whir of rich colors, its plump body sailed just above the vegetation. Another gunshot rang out.

This time the bullet thudded into the ground near her feet. The hunter wasn’t shooting at the bird. He was shooting at her.

Angela started running along the edge of the field. Her only hope of cover was in the willows and cottonwoods bordering the Barr Lake Hunt Club property.

With several hundred yards to sprint, she considered serpentining, like Peter Falk in
The In-Laws
. Hitting a moving target was harder than hitting a still one; hitting a zigzagging target was harder still.

Another shot split the air, and Angela poured on the power. Moving right, she quickly switched back and moved left. Digging her cell phone out of her pocket, she dialed 9-1-1 for help.

Twenty feet more
.

She got low to the ground and zigzagged toward the trees. Another shot fired. This one hit its mark.

The bullet burned a
hole into Angela’s right shoulder, and she dropped the phone.
Shit
.

Diving to the ground behind a tree, she bit her lower lip to keep from screaming in pain.

Don’t give away your position
.

She considered reaching for the phone, when another shot pummeled the ground beyond the trees. Were Lark and the others okay? She hoped they had heard the shots and gone for help.

A crackling in the field behind her urged her to move. While she sat there, the shooter was moving into range. She could draw her own weapon and return fire. Or she could conserve her ammunition and go for help.

Pushing herself up with her left arm, she clutched her right arm to her chest and headed for the Barr Lake Hunt Club. There was a phone there, and she needed to get out of the open.

With every step came pain, and her uncertainty grew. She had never completely ruled Radigan out as a suspect. Or Nate, for that matter. She would lay odds it was Donald Tauer firing the gun, but what if she was wrong?

Is this how Ian had felt? The hunter becoming the hunted.

She took the straightest route through the trees. Blood gushed from her shoulder and poured over the hand clutching her elbow. It was warm and sticky, and she wondered if she needed to tie off the wound.

The sound of someone thrashing through the woods behind her propelled her on. The clubhouse loomed into view, and she bolted across the driveway for the front door.

Please let it be open
.

Her prayer was granted. She rattled the handle, and the door swung wide. Quickly, she shut and bolted it from the inside. Traveling along the row of windows, she dropped one blind after another. If the shooter couldn’t see inside, it might slow him down.

She bumped her arm on the last window frame, and her knees buckled from the pain. Footsteps on the deck prompted her back to her feet.

Angela reached for her gun, but the holster was designed to draw the weapon using her right hand. But, with her shoulder injured like it was, she only managed to nudge the weapon deeper. The door handles jiggled.

Abandoning the effort, Angela edged her way along the tables to the kitchen. Adrenaline pushed her to run, but logic told her to move slowly, quietly.

She eased open the swinging door.

No one was there.

Making sure the back door was locked, she dropped the back window blinds.

She heard the sound of breaking glass and the creak of the dining room door, then above her head a green light flashed over the doorway. So that was how Radigan’s son knew Coot was there! The light was triggered by the door.

A shuffle of feet spurred her to action. She opened the back door and slammed it shut, then she darted into the next room. With luck, the shooter would think she had fled.

A clumsy retreat, and the front door banged.
Yes!

Quickly she moved through the rooms until she found the office. She picked up the phone and discovered the line was dead.

Panic coursed through her. Her breathing quickened. She forced herself to stay calm.

Think. What would Ian do?

Setting down the receiver, her gaze dropped to a paper on the desk. It was a printout on the properties of the shot Radigan had under development. Picking it up, she studied the contents. One of the main components of the shot was a corn-based plastic.

Suddenly the pieces clicked into place, and a cold fear spread through her veins. Donald Tauer was guilty, but not of murder. He was guilty of growing the corn used in the shot Radigan developed. Radigan sharecropped the land. He received payment, or a percentage of the crop in payoff.

“Figure it out?” Charles Radigan stood in the doorway, a rifle cradled in his arms.

Angela startled. Pain wracked her body, and she felt her strength drain. “Why take the risk? The formula doesn’t even work.”

“It can, provided we find the right product. The corn has special properties. The plastic we made was tough enough to withstand the blast of a shotgun, yet it was biodegradable.”

“And poisonous.”

“We could have solved that, given enough time.”

“Why not just get a license to grow it?”

“I was running out of time. Do you have any idea the hoops you have to jump through to grow and/or to use genetically engineered crops? My investors wanted to see results. Tauer never asked why I wanted my share planted with special seed. He didn’t want to know.”

“No,” Angela said. “He needed the land you controlled in order to keep his business going.”

Radigan smiled. “You’re a smart girl.”

“What about Nate Sobul?” She was afraid to find out, but figured the longer she could keep Radigan talking the better.

“The corn Tauer cleared for market was clean. I doubt there were even any traces of contamination. But your partner figured out the corn was causing die-offs.”

“And he tipped off Nate.” That made her feel happy. It meant Nate had been telling the truth.

“He must have reported his suspicions to the IES before I could silence him.”

“Is that the new terminology for murder?” Angela watched Radigan’s eyes. He didn’t care much for the question.

“What do you think?” he asked, waving the gun in the air. “Do you think I would stand by and let some gung ho environmentalist ruin me because a flock of geese died?”

No. Not any more than she would expect him to let her live now that she knew the answers. She dropped her left hand toward the edge of the desk. Radigan gestured with his gun for her to keep her hand on her elbow.

“Don’t do that.”

“I just needed to steady myself.” Her shoulder throbbed. Luckily the bleeding had stopped, and the wound only bubbled now and then when she moved.

“The case was dead without your partner, and Nate’s focus is on Tauer. As long as Tauer stays clean, there’s nothing he can do.”

“You don’t think with me gone, the case will just disappear, do you?” Angela asked, sitting down in the chair. Let him shoot her.

Her gun bumped against her side. If she worked at it slowly, maybe she could maneuver her right hand to extract the gun, all the while keeping it covered by the left.

“It’s my hope.”

Even Kramner wouldn’t buy that many coincidences.

“What about the geese at Elk Lake?” she asked, determined to keep him talking. She inched her hand a little closer to the gun.

“What about them? I figured they were off the Front Range, and it was obvious they were sick. I had my grandson help me scatter some sinkers around, hoping local animal control would assume they’d been poisoned from the lead. It almost worked too.”

That made sense, thought Angela. It was Radigan’s grandson’s partial fingerprint that Crandall had pulled off the lead-sinker container.

“Get up.”

The preamble was over. Angela’s fingers worked along the fabric of her shirt. “I need to rest.”

“I said, get up.” He prodded her arm with the barrel of his rifle, and her shoulder throbbed with pain. She struggled back onto her feet.

“Where are we going?”

“Back out to the field. You’re going to be shot by a hunter. You’re not wearing orange, and you’re out here on your own. I’m afraid you’ll look foolish, but it can’t be helped.”

Radigan stayed behind her, moving her through the house, out the front door, and to the driveway. The whole time, she gathered the fabric of her shirt into her hand. Finally, her hand captured the butt of her gun, and she slipped her finger around the trigger.

She took her chance at the treeline. Darting ahead of Radigan, she ducked behind the trunk of a cottonwood. He fired his gun, and the shot chipped at the bark.

“You can’t get away.”

This time, bracing her hand with her left arm, she fired back, hoping the action would gain her ground. Sprinting west through the cottonwoods and willows, she crashed through the understory, oblivious to the pain in her arm. Branches tore at her face and reopened the wound in her shoulder. Her blood spilled, and her energy drained away.

“Angel!”

She hated him using her nickname and considered stopping to shoot at him again. But common sense spurred her on. The birders were waiting at the banding station.

Radigan gained on her. She could hear him closing in, drawing closer and closer. Stopping at the edge of the trees, she stared out at Barr Lake. She had stuck to the treeline, but there was a section of dried lake bed to cross that measured thirty feet across. Thirty feet too many.

“Give it up, Angel. You’ll never make it.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have played this one alone. That had been Ian’s mistake. Not trusting his partner.

“Lark!” she screamed, hoping her voice would carry to the banding station. “Help! Someone!”

“They can’t hear you.”

No, but they could hear the gun
.

Angela fired in his direction. She had eight shots left. There was no telling how long that would hold him off. She could only hope that the noise brought help.

Radigan fired back, the slug chipping the bark of the cottonwood at the height of her ear.

She waited until he fired again, then shot back.

After trading more shots, she was down to her last bullet when she heard Lark calling. With a sudden thrashing, Radigan took off through the trees.

Peeking behind her, Angela watched in stunned silence as the EPOCH members walked hand in hand, crunching their way across the dried lake bed.

The reunion had been short-lived. Lark called 9-1-1, and dispatch sent out emergency crews. Angela was taken to the nearest hospital, and the police issued an all-points bulletin for Charles Radigan.

Two weeks later, her arm still in a sling, Kramner drove Angela up to Elk Park.

“What’s going to happen to Radigan?” she asked as they wound their way into the mountains.

“He’s been charged with murder. Tauer cut a deal in exchange for a lesser plea.” Kramner glanced at her sideways. “I have to admit, you had it pegged.”

A small comfort.

“Does that mean I get to go back in the field?”

Kramner squared his jaw and nodded his head. “You still need some training, Dimato. But I think I’ve worked it out to hire someone to pick up where Ian left off with you. He can’t come on board for a couple of months, so don’t think it will happen tomorrow, but… ”

Angela felt lighter. She needed a month or two to recover. The timing just might work out.

The truck crested the hill and coasted into Elk Park. The lake sparkled below them, nestled in the valley between Long’s Peak and Lumpy Ridge. The weather had warmed. The ice had broken, heralding the onset of spring.

“What are we doing here, sir?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

He pulled the truck into the parking lot at the Visitors Center, and Frakus rushed out to meet them. “The others are already down by the lake.”

Frakus glommed onto Kramner. Angela lagged behind, enjoying the day. The path was clear of snow, and birds twittered from the willows. In another month, the warblers would start returning.

Lark waited for her down by the lake. “How’s the arm?”

“Better. Did I remember to thank you?”

Lark grinned, and the other EPOCH members rushed over to greet her. Bernie Crandall clapped her on her good shoulder.

“Hey there, Special Agent Dimato. How goes it?”

“Good, in spite of the extra holes.”

Lark tugged on her sleeve, and the beefy cop stepped out of her way. “Eric, look who’s here.”

Eric Linenger stood at the water’s edge. His muscular frame appeared wilted, but his blue eyes sparkled. “Vell, if it isn’t my rescuer.”

“You’re walking!”

“And talking. Who would have believed?”

“I’m glad you’re okay.” She knew he’d improved, but now she knew he’d get better.

“Me too.”

“Me three.” Lark slipped her arm through Eric’s. “Now comes the best part.” She moved to the side, and Angela noticed the crates sitting beside the shoreline. She counted eighty-six.

“We decided to have a send-off party,” explained Gertie. “John sent Petey and his crew up to bring down the crates. You get to do the first honors.”

Angela blinked back tears and bent down to open a carrier. But before she could extract the honking goose, Pierre Ducharme swaggered toward them from the top of the boat ramp.

“I have returned to collect my paycheck,” he announced in a thick French accent. “Stephen tells me you are on the ice.”

Lark stepped forward. “I don’t know what to say, Pierre. I owe you an apology.”

“Oui, madame. I am waiting.” Ducharme puffed up his chest, and Angela couldn’t help but laugh. “You think this eez funny?”

Oui. She shook her head and forced a straight face.

“I’m sorry, Pierre,” Lark said, looking to Eric for guidance. Eric signaled her to go on. “I jumped to a conclusion, and I was wrong.”

“You are forgiven, madame.” A smile fractured his swarthy face. “I gladly accept back my job.”

Angela choked. She doubted that’s what Lark had in mind.

“But—”

“No buts, madame. I will go straight away and start preparing zee lunch.”

Lark watched him swagger away, a pained expression on her face.

“Cheer up,” said Crandall. “He’s an excellent cook.”

“No paté,” Lark shouted. “Do you hear me, Ducharme? No geese, no ducks. Stick to chicken.”

“Oui, madame. I am hearing you.”

The geese had too, and they all set to honking. Angela turned back to the crate. Raising the lid, she reached inside and picked up the gander. As if sensing her injury, the bird stopped struggling the moment it entered her arms. She marveled at the creature, at its soft feathers, its gentle breathing. She basked in the moment. Then, opening her arms, Angela set the bird free.