Drizzled With Death (18 page)

I decided rather than enduring the awkwardness of dinner
with my family, I would go to the Stack for my evening meal. I hadn’t gotten more than a couple miles down the road when I heard a thumping coming from underneath the car. Praying I’d run over a branch and was dragging it, I pulled over and got out to investigate. Using the little flashlight attached to my key chain to get a better look, I knelt at the back of the car searching for the source of the noise. No branches were caught up in the underpinnings of the vehicle, but there was a piece of metal hanging down that seemed closer to the front of the car. I stood and made my way around to get a better look.

I reached with the flashlight as far as I could, trying to see what was the matter. My arm felt like it slid out of the socket and still I couldn’t get a good view. I turned my head, trying to flatten myself enough to slither farther between the lumpy ground and the underside of the car. My legs were still sticking out the end when I caught sight of someone else’s legs. And feet. But most important, claws. Running toward me. Wrinkled, gray-tan bird legs with a long, long claw on the end of each toe.

I dropped the flashlight and wriggled backward as fast as I could. Jumping to my feet, I saw what looked like an ostrich wearing a dinosaur costume. Black glossy feathers draped like an old lady’s shawl over its bulbous body. Its royal blue and red head had a bony ridge on the top. It towered above me. The thing must have been six feet and probably outweighed me by quite a bit, too. Although to be fair, so do a lot of family dogs. The bird hissed like a Gila monster and began to run in my direction. My mind went blank, my legs lost function, and I simply watched as it bore down on me. I still don’t know what snapped me into action, but I was grateful my reptilian brain made the decision for flight, not fight, without consulting the rest of me.

I whipped round the side of the car, keeping the tiny vehicle between us. I made a grab for the passenger door but found it locked. The bird rounded the front of the vehicle and I made it to the back, then the driver’s side. I jerked the door open, slammed it shut behind me, and sat trembling.

I reached into my pocket for my keys but found nothing. I tried the other jacket pocket, then each pocket in my jeans, all the while keeping an eye on the bird tapping at the glass with its beak. That was when I remembered dropping the flashlight with the keys attached under the car, outside, where the bird was. I lunged for my purse and dug out my cell phone. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Officer Paterson speaking.”

“It’s Dani Greene. I’m out on County Road and I think I’ve spotted one of the animals you are looking for.”

“Thanks for calling, exotics whisperer. Which one have you seen?” He sounded friendly and eager for information this time instead of superior and condescending. It was miraculous how much more attractive that made him seem. I felt a shivery little tickle on my neck on the same side I was cradling the phone.

“It’s a really big bird. Like a black-and-blue ostrich.”

“You haven’t stopped, have you?” I heard a note of anxiety in Graham’s voice. My stomach dropped low enough to operate the clutch.

“I’m pulled over on the side of the road. I don’t make calls while driving. As a police officer, you ought to know how dangerous that is.” Typical. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Mitch yakking on his phone as he blew past me on the highway.

“Has it spotted you yet?” Again, I heard the worry. It came through like a physical caress, only not so pleasant. And what about this guy made me think of caresses in the first place?

“It has.”

“Dani, you’ve got no business messing with cassowaries.”

“I thought the point of you asking for community involvement was that we spot them and call you.”

“The point is you shouldn’t stop for cassowaries. Even the Australian government websites say so. They’re very aggressive when provoked and they take gawking as provocation.” I looked over at the bird, which was circling the car. It looked bigger all the time.

“Where are you?” The anxiety in my voice was more than a match for Graham’s.

“Two minutes away, three at most, according to my GPS. Whatever you do, don’t get out of the vehicle.” Graham hung up and I sat huddled in the seat humming “Amazing Grace” when the bird stopped at the driver’s side window, its long-lashed eye cocked inside searching around like a beat cop at lover’s lane. If only the thing had a flashlight and a patrol hat, the picture would have been complete. I took a deep breath and told myself there was no way it was getting inside. And that, of course, was when things took a turn for the worse. Like a scene from a low-budget martial arts movie, the creature lifted one foot off the ground. Balancing on the other, it flashed a claw at me the likes of which I have never seen. Its foot held three toes and the middle one had a built-in dagger. It waggled it at me like we were in a production of
West Side Story
. My heart hammered around and I suddenly needed to pee worse than I had since that time in the third grade when the neighbor’s Doberman chased me up a tree and no one noticed I was missing until suppertime.

It raked down the window with the claw. The sound wasn’t exactly like the noise of fingernails on a chalkboard but it was close and much more frightening. The bird didn’t stop with the window, though. When it got to the metal of the door, I actually heard it rip.

I leaned away from the door as far as I could, wondering why I never drove the minivan until I remembered I didn’t have any kids and now probably never would. The bird didn’t give any sign that the door had injured it in any way. It lifted its foot again and began another pass down the side of the car. I was beginning to take the attack personally when the thought occurred to me that I had no idea what the thing wanted in for. Was it a carnivore? It hissed and slashed some more and I felt like I was in a science fiction novel that was not going to end well for me, one where the island inhabitants wall themselves up in a city to avoid the perils of the giant beasts beyond. I was worried for my safety but I was also angry about my car. It was a classic before the bird decided to open it like a can of kippered snacks.

The bird reached the bottom of the door and I watched with relief as it moved away. Now if it would just wander back into the woods, I would risk retrieving the keys and keep driving no matter how much the exhaust system dragged on the ground. That was when things started to get really bad. The bird leaned down and began to investigate the tires. There was some tapping and thumping and then a bang and a hiss. I felt the car settle lower on one side as the air leaked out of a tire.

Instead of scaring the thing off, the popping noise startled it into even more aggressive action. It jumped onto the hood of the car, offering an even better view of its clawed feet. With a striding, leaping motion, it disappeared from view and the entire car shook as it landed with a thud on the convertible’s soft top. I heard the ripping before I saw the claw coming through the fabric.

I was bent low in the seat when I heard a horn blaring over the sound of the tearing fabric. I looked through the gap in the steering wheel and spotted Graham’s state-issued truck racing into view. He parked a hundred or so feet away and slid out on the passenger side. He busied himself with something in the back of the vehicle then headed toward me carrying a rake. As he drew closer, I could see it was missing a bunch of tines, like it had been under a running lawn mower. He held the rake aloft like a king’s standard bearer and advanced toward me at a steady pace.

I wasn’t sure where to look, up at the claw coming down toward my head or out at Graham. Soon enough, I didn’t need to choose. The ripping noise ceased and the claw pulled back out of the fabric. I could see through to the sky. As suddenly as it had jumped on, the bird took a flying leap off the roof of the car and began running toward Graham. He stopped moving forward but he didn’t back off. He just stood there bobbing the rake up and down like a picketer at a demonstration. I’m not sure what Graham had hoped it would do for him, but whatever it was didn’t seem to be working. The bird was bearing down on him steadily, determinedly hissing and opening and closing its beak.

I didn’t want to attract it back in my direction, but I didn’t see what choice there was. I laid on my own horn and kept at it in staccato bursts. The bird appeared disoriented. It dashed back toward me and then raced once more toward Graham. It shot past him and began pacing near his truck. Suddenly, out of the woods emerged a second bird, even bigger than the first. It joined the first bird and they appeared engrossed in each other.

Graham took advantage of the birds’ short attention span and ran toward me, not even keeping his eye on them. He just pelted along like he was training for the Olympics. If the U.S. teams added these birds to their training regimens, we would probably bring home an even larger array of glittering medals.

He paused next to the MG long enough to notice the flat tire, pop open the door, and grab me by the hand.

“Is there anywhere nearby we can take shelter?” he asked as he dragged me along behind him.

“Tansey’s place is just over the rise a little ways. She has an outbuilding Knowlton uses for his taxidermy at the edge of the property. Tansey doesn’t like the dead animals so close to the house.”

“How long to get there?”

“Three minutes, if we hurry.”

“Oh, we’re going to hurry.” Graham picked up his pace and I was almost dragged off my feet. His legs had to have been twice as long as mine the way he was moving. I wished I had taken time for a snack in the afternoon because my energy levels had been flagging even before the cassowaries showed up. Now I was running on pure adrenaline.

“What will happen if they catch up with us?” I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer, but the question blurted out before I could stop myself.

“Have you seen
Jurassic Park
?”

“Enough said.” I broke into a jog and then turned on the turbo. What I lack in stride, I make up for in a willingness to try harder. We ran the whole way to the little shed. Fortunately, few people in Sugar Grove worry about locking their outbuildings. Many don’t even lock their houses. Graham pushed open the door and shoved me through it. I stood there looking around at all manner of dead creatures in various poses before I could catch my breath. The place smelled of skunk. It made me wish I were still out in the open air even if it meant I was running from those feathered dinosaurs.

Graham was tipping his cell phone this way and that trying to pick up a signal. Despite the smell filling my nostrils, I was so hungry I peeked around for something to eat. Knowlton’s workshop seemed like he had stolen the space. His taxidermy tools were clean and laid out on a workbench in an orderly fashion. The rest of the shed looked like a purgatory of delayed decisions. Ice skates with broken blades, belts with missing buckles, rusty handsaws with missing teeth heaped up in piles and leaned against the walls.

Here and there among the mess a perfectly preserved creature struck a pose. From the top of a stack of plastic milk crates a stuffed raven prepared to swoop down on me. A bobcat crouched between a wicker chair with a busted seat and a child’s wagon. A coiled snake wrapped convincingly around a chunk of granite on the floor in the corner. It was so realistic I could have sworn I saw it twitch just a little.

My eyes roamed the room for a box of crackers, a sleeve of fig bars, a slightly withered apple, anything that would slake my hunger. I lifted plastic bags left from a defunct discount store, balls of grubby used string, and cans of greasy bolts and washers. Graham startled me with his voice just as I was yanking open a metal cabinet door.

“Do you remember the name of the poison that killed Alanza?” I looked at him, trying to determine why he would ask such a thing. He was stooped over a metal toolbox, the large red kind on wheels. One of the drawers was opened and he gestured at something in it. I stepped over to look.

“It was called Compound 1080, I think. It has another name, too. Like flouro something. A pesticide and rat poison was what Lowell said.”

“Could it be called fluoroacetate 1080?”

“I’m pretty sure that was it.” I started to pick up the box he pointed at, but he shot out his arm and circled my wrist with strong fingers.

“Don’t touch it.”

“Why not?”

“Because Lowell said a few salt-sized particles of this stuff were enough to kill a fully grown woman and that means it would be twice the amount needed to kill you.” I shrank back. If Graham hadn’t been there to remind me, I would surely have picked it up. Even if just handling it hadn’t killed me, it might have if I had found something to eat and wasn’t able to wash first. Which given the amenities in the shed, I wouldn’t have been. With the way my stomach was growling, I wouldn’t have stood on the formalities.

“Thanks. I was foolish.”

“Just enthusiastic. Besides, you wouldn’t want your fingerprints found on what might have been used to kill Alanza.”

“You think this is the actual poison used to kill her?”