Authors: Donna Andrews
By the time I finished that, I saw Caroline trotting toward me. Behind her were the two Shiffleys again, now carrying the large pigeon cage.
“There you are!” she said. “I’m ready to go to the zoo now. If you go and fetch your car, these nice young men will load the pigeons on it.”
“If I’d known you’d be back so fast, I wouldn’t have gone all the way to the parking lot,” I grumbled. “I really should check on what’s going on at the tent.”
“Rose Noire’s there,” one of the Shiffleys said. “Watching the wildlife.”
And the trapdoor, I assumed. I turned and trudged back toward the parking lot. On my way, I spotted Horace, trotting briskly up the courthouse steps with his evidence kit in his hand. He waved at me. No, he didn’t just wave. He gave me a Churchillian V for Victory salute with his free hand. I responded in kind, and felt strangely lighthearted.
The pigeons proved to be far less entertaining companions than Caroline’s wild animals. They cooed and fluttered occasionally. Caroline seemed lost in her thoughts. I had resigned myself to a quiet drive when Caroline finally spoke up.
“Don’t turn around and gawk or anything, but there’s a black van following us.”
Chapter 24
I glanced in the rearview mirror, being careful not to move my head.
“I see him,” I said. “What makes you think he’s following us?”
“He’s been behind us ever since we left town.”
“Once you get past the town limits there are only a couple of places to turn,” I pointed out. “If you’re not living along the road or staying at the Inn, you’d have no reason to turn off. And this is the only road to take if you’re going to Clay County, and not a bad way to go if you want to get to Route Seventeen.”
“Don’t you think we should at least take rudimentary precautions?” Caroline asked.
“Good idea,” I said. “Shall I fire a few warning shots across his bow with the aft phasers, or just activate the Romulan Cloaking Device?”
“I’m serious,” she said. “After all, there’s a killer loose. We should do something.”
I thought about it for a moment. Then I pulled out my cell phone, punched a few numbers, and handed it to Caroline.
“Talk to Grandfather,” I said. “Have him get a welcoming party ready in case this guy is following us. And then if you’re really worried, call 911 and ask Debbie Anne if they have any patrol cars in the area.”
“Hmph,” she said. “I expect your grandfather can handle it.”
I grew a little more concerned when we turned onto the zoo access road with the van still following. It was a little hard to think of an innocent reason for that, since the zoo wouldn’t open for another hour or so.
When we pulled up in front of the zoo gates, Grandfather and the zoo’s night watchman were standing in front of it. Zeke, the watchman, might have looked like a harmless old geezer if he hadn’t been holding a shotgun, barrel pointed to the sky but clearly ready to swing down and into action if needed. Grandfather was holding leashes attached to two young wolves.
I pulled up a little past them, so they’d have a clear view of the road.
“So what’s with this menacing van?” he asked.
“We don’t know that it’s menacing,” I said. “But it is a little odd that someone would follow us all the way out here.”
We all looked over at the black van, which had slowed to a stop at the same time we’d stopped at the gate.
“Hmph!” Grandfather said. “Not so brave now, is he?”
The wolves whined and snarled a little, and Zeke hefted his shotgun as if testing the balance.
The van started moving again and pulled up a few car lengths behind my truck. Then the driver turned off his engine.
We all waited for a few moments.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. I strode up to the driver’s side of the van, keeping a safe distance. The window rolled down and a face looked out. I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t quite place him.
“The zoo’s closed,” I said. “Why are you following us?”
“I wanted to see what you were doing with the pigeons.”
I remembered him now. The falconer. I’d have recognized him sooner if he’d been in uniform instead of jeans and a black T-shirt. Close up I could see that the shirt had T
HE
A
RT OF
F
ALCONRY
in white letters over a picture of a large hawk chasing a hapless rabbit.
“Why do you care what happens to the pigeons?” I bristled slightly, and took a step closer to the door of the van. “Is your hawk having a craving? Can’t you find something for her to eat that isn’t someone’s pet?”
He flinched as if I’d struck him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You have no idea how sorry. I didn’t know those pigeons were pets. If I had, I’d never have flown Sheba at them.”
“Then what were you trying to do?” Grandfather stepped forward and fixed the falconer with his most savage frown.
“Doctor Blake!” People’s faces didn’t usually light up like that when Grandfather frowned at them. “I am such a fan of your work—you have no idea how exciting it is to meet you!”
He scrambled out of the van, grabbed Grandfather’s hand with both of his, and pumped it with enthusiasm. I hoped Grandfather was too surprised to retaliate with his customary bone-crushing grip.
Then again, we still weren’t 100 percent sure that the falconer was on the side of the angels.
“The work you’ve done with breeding endangered raptors in captivity is incredible,” the falconer was saying.
Grandfather began to preen slightly.
“Getting back to those pigeons,” I said. “You claim you didn’t know they were pets?”
The falconer’s face fell again.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “FPF told me they had a major pigeon infestation at their property here in Caerphilly. And they claimed they wanted to do the environmentally responsible thing—to control the infestation with natural predators. That’s where I came in.”
He dashed back to his van, reached in, and pulled out something. I saw Zeke shift the shotgun a little, but the object the falconer was pulling out was one of those magnetic signs people use when they want to advertise their business without doing a permanent paint job on a vehicle. In black letters on a red background, it read S
OME
L
IKE
I
T
H
AWK:
N
ATURAL
P
EST
C
ONTROL.
C
HARLES
D
OANE,
P
ROPRIETOR.
“Interesting,” Grandfather said. “So you have a lot of hawks?”
“Just the one,” Doane said. He opened the driver-side rear door to show us a large cage containing a hooded hawk. “Sheba.”
“Red-tailed hawk,” Grandfather said—to me or possibly Zeke, since presumably Doane knew what kind of bird he had, and Caroline had been fostering assorted injured raptors for decades. “Not a bad specimen.”
Doane beamed proudly as Grandfather peered in at the hawk.
“No offense,” I said, “but exactly how is one hawk supposed to tackle a major pigeon infestation? Unless it eats a lot more than the average bird, it could probably only chow down on a pigeon or two a day. That wouldn’t even slow down the growth of a real infestation. Unless Sheba’s the advance scout for a whole army of hawks you plan on bringing along now that you’ve scouted things out.”
“No, one or two hawks should be fine for most bird abatement jobs,” he said. “Pigeons aren’t dumb. They figure out most of the things we do to chase them away—all those ultrasonic noisemakers and hawk profiles and such. They get used to them. But a natural predator—that they don’t get used to. Once they learn a hawk is flying the territory, they leave.”
“And the pigeon problem is gone, as long as you and your hawk are around,” I said.
“Once you convince the pigeons that an area’s not safe, they pretty much avoid it,” he said. “I’d only have to come out once or twice a week to keep the area clear.”
“Any reason they were having you disguised as a guard?” I asked.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a disguise,” he said. “Mr. Fisher—he’s the one who hired me—he asked if I would mind wearing the company uniform. I have T-shirts with my company name on it, but he didn’t think that would go over well with his management—he said some of them can be real sticklers for decorum. Plus, he thought if I just blended in with the security staff, I’d be less of a target if any of the locals were softhearted. And he even agreed they’d pay me a beginning security officer’s salary on top of my company’s fee, and it included the uniforms and laundry service so…”
He shrugged.
“They probably thought you’d be a more menacing figure in the uniform,” I said.
“Menacing? Me?” His voice squeaked slightly.
“So you had no idea what was going on when they hired you,” I said. “But you’ve figured it out now?”
“Not really,” he said. “All I know is that they’re pretty frantic to get that guy out of the cellar. They think there’s a secret passage he’s using to get in and out, and there’s a standing reward of ten thousand dollars if anyone finds it. A few of the security officers spend all their free time tapping on walls.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. What if they branched out from tapping on walls on the inside of the courthouse to probing for tunnels on the lawn outside?
“If they find any, the Caerphilly County Historical Society would love to hear about it,” I said aloud. “I’m afraid they find the courthouse embarrassingly lacking in local color. No ghosts, no secret passages.”
“Well, they’ve got a murder now,” Caroline said. “That should keep them happy.”
“No.” I shook my head. “If it happened a century ago, maybe, but a grisly modern murder—that’s not local color, it’s scandal.”
“You’re probably right,” Caroline said. “Well, time’s a-wasting. Let’s take care of these pigeons.”
Doane frowned. He threw the magnetic sign back on the passenger-side seat of his van and straightened up.
“Just what do you plan to do with those pigeons?” he asked.
“Put ’em in a cage where they’ll be safe until Phinny Throckmorton can claim them again,” Caroline said.
“He probably thought we were going to feed them to our raptors,” Grandfather said.
“Kid, you’ve been hanging around the wrong people,” Caroline said. “Why don’t you quit that horrible job?”
“I would if I could get another one that would let me pay the rent and feed Sheba.”
“Hmmm.” Grandfather peered at him, head cocked to the side as if Doane were a new and interesting animal he wanted to identify. “If you’re looking for work in the wildlife management area, you’re talking to the right people. What qualifications do you have?”
Doane wilted slightly.
“I was working on my bachelor’s at Virginia Tech. But I had to put it on hold. No money.”
“What were you majoring in?” Caroline asked. “And what do you want to do when you finish?”
Doane looked uncomfortable.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about this—but could we take Sheba into a cool place first? Even with the door open, the van’s going to be an oven before long.”
“Follow me,” Grandfather said.
“Bring the birds,” Caroline said over her shoulder.
They strode off toward the aviary section of the zoo. Doane grabbed his hawk, Zeke and I hoisted the pigeon cage, and we scrambled to follow.
We turned the pigeons loose in a big empty cage. They fluttered around nervously for a while, possibly because Sheba was keeping them under close observation. So we took her with us to Grandfather’s air-conditioned office and he poured cold waters for everyone, Sheba included.
“Rather large for a red-tail,” Grandfather said. “So—you planning to specialize in ornithology? Focus on raptors, maybe?”
“Actually, hawks aren’t really my main interest,” he said. “Not that I’m not very fond of Sheba. She’s a great little hunter. But I’ve got something more interesting I’m working on.”
He looked as if he were waiting for us to ask what—for that matter, dying to be asked. We all exchanged glances, and then Grandfather cocked one eyebrow. It was enough.
“Cadaver birds!” Doane exclaimed.
I glanced over at Grandfather. His face bore a look of puzzlement that I’m sure was echoed on mine.
“Vultures,” Doane added, as if that explained everything.
“You’re planning on specializing in vultures?” Grandfather asked finally.
“Not just that,” Doane said. “I’m training them. You’ve heard of cadaver dogs.”
“Also known as human remains detection dogs,” I said. “Yes. My cousin Horace has worked on some cases where they’ve used dogs to find buried remains, or clues at a crime scene.”
“And they do a great job,” Doane said. “Don’t get me wrong. But you know what’s the greatest problem with your typical cadaver dog?”
“Attention span, maybe,” I suggested. “They’re right in the middle of a hunt and—squirrel!”
“No, actually it’s mobility,” he said. “Especially in your rough terrain, like woods and mountains, it could take a cadaver dog hours to cover a few square miles of territory. But one of my vultures can soar above the treetops and pinpoint its target in a fraction of the time.”
“Along with every bit of roadkill in the immediate vicinity, I should think,” Grandfather said.
“It’s a training issue,” Doane said. “It’s slow, but we’re making very real progress in teaching them to hunt for human remains.”
“And what happens when they find remains?” I asked. “Do they fly back and fetch you?”
“We mount a GPS device on their legs,” Doane said. “And we track them, with a monitoring system, and when the vulture becomes stationary, we head for that location.”
“And damn well hope your vulture isn’t far away,” Grandfather said with a snort. “Or are you also training them to wait until you give them permission to eat?”
Doane sighed.
“We do have some obstacles to overcome, I admit,” he said. “But just look at the potential benefits.”
“You could fit them with little muzzles, like dogs,” I suggested.
“Now that’s an idea,” Grandfather said. “Much the way fishermen put bands around the throats of trained cormorants to keep them from swallowing the fish they catch.”