The Boreal Owl Murder (2 page)

The hoots came closer. I held my breath, concentrating, waiting for the rest of the call that would unmistakably identify the bird.

Instead, I picked up another sound. A distant rumbling, almost like a motor, seemed to echo in the forest. I blocked it out. We were way too far into the woods from any roads to be hearing car engines.

The owl called again.

One hoot.

Two hoots.

Nothing more.

Silence returned to the forest.

“Damn,” I whispered. “Not the Boreal. We didn’t get him, Mike.”

Mike was still staring at the body in front of us. Even in the night darkness, I could see that his face looked a few shades paler than his normal Minnesota white.

“We sure got something else instead,” he muttered.

I looked down at the body, partly covered by branches, decaying leaves and drifted snow.

For just a few moments, I’d forgotten everything but the owl.

Including the frozen man at my feet.

Talk about being insensitive. Unfeeling. Cold. All of the above. Me, not the body.

Well, actually, the body, too.

And that’s when it dawned on me that the dead man wasn’t wearing a coat. Or a hat or gloves, either. No wonder he was frozen. It was damn cold out here. All he had on was a flannel shirt and jeans, which up north in March was hardly enough to even make a quick run out to the mailbox, let alone a hike in the woods miles away from anything. Mike and I were both bundled up in our serious winter gear, covering every bit of skin we could to avoid exposure to the cold: down parkas, wool hats, and thermal gloves. We’d had sub-zero temperatures with wind chill just the night before. The our breath frosted every time we spoke.

Now I wondered how long he had been there, since the corpse still looked fairly intact and definitely recognizable as a man. An older man, in fact. Even in death, his wrinkled face was tanned and weathered, like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors. I wondered where he’d come from, if he’d had Alzheimer’s, or if, somewhere, right now, someone was looking for a grandfather or uncle who had wandered off. I figured he couldn’t have been here long. There were a few scavengers and predators in these woods, and I would have thought they’d make short work of an available meal. Then again, it was still frigid in the forest. I supposed that the cold might have a preservative effect on a human body, and maybe the hungriest of the predators were still cozied up hibernating. Regardless of the corpse’s length of residence here in the woods, though, we needed to get him home. Wherever that might be.

“So,” I said to Mike. “What do we do with the stiff?”

“Not funny,” Mike whispered.

I glanced again at the rigid body. The initial shock I’d experienced was wearing off, and instead, I was feeling numb. Mike was right, it wasn’t funny. Not funny at all.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a joke,” I mumbled. The intensity of the cold was obviously getting to my own brain cells. “Really. It just came out. We never covered this kind of thing in grad school. Eating disorders—yes. Frozen bodies—no. I’m totally lost here.”

“You think I’m not? I’m a mailman, not a cop.”

“You’re a federal employee,” I reminded him. “You get special training. You know what to do with a suspicious package, right? Well, this is suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Look, all I do is take the mail, ask ‘is there anything in this package that is liquid, fragile, flammable, or potentially able to blow up all forms of life as we know it?’ I weigh it, stamp it and toss it in the bin. I don’t do bodies.” He rubbed his gloved hands together. “Do you have any bright ideas?”

I blew a frosted breath into the air. “Not at the moment, that’s for sure.”

Hoping for inspiration—divine or otherwise—I tipped my head back to look at the stars filling the sky. We needed to call the police, but my cell phone’s battery had given out earlier in the night, so we didn’t have any choices in the communications department. There wasn’t anything to do but hike back to the car, drive to the nearest phone—probably about thirty minutes away—and call the police. Then we’d have to hike back here with them so they could locate the body. I’d been up since five-thirty this morning chasing birds all over the North Shore, and now, hitting the pillow was still going to be hours away.

Not to mention the Boreal had eluded me once again. Talk about birding gone bad.

I took a final glance at the dead man on the ground.

And then the bad got even worse.

About fifteen feet on the other side of the body, somebody else had decided to come to the party. I was pretty sure that we hadn’t sent out any invitations, and yet, here he was, not even wearing a party hat or blowing a horn, but obviously ready for cake and ice cream. He did, however, bring his nice big teeth with him, which he was happy to display for us. I guessed he was five feet tall and weighed close to three hundred pounds. Overall, I’d say he was the most impressive party crasher I’d ever seen.

For a bear.

Hello, Smokey.

So maybe I was wrong about that hibernating thing.

The bear growled low in its throat and took a step towards the corpse that lay between us. He kept his teeth bared.

From somewhere behind me, Mike spoke in a barely audible whisper. “I think it wants the body. You know … dinner?”

Thanks to a couple summers of employment with the state’s Department of Natural Resources, I knew a little about black bears. They usually stay away from people, making me pretty confident that Mike was right—that it wasn’t me being featured as the midnight special on tonight’s menu. The corpse, though, was another matter. When bears are hungry enough, they’ll eat garbage, so a week’s worth of frozen meat all wrapped up in one package would probably entice even the shyest bear to make a bid for the checkout. But there was no way I was going to let Smokey past my cash register. Problem was, I wasn’t sure what I could do about it without getting my arm ripped off in the process. I had a distinct feeling that the bear wasn’t in the mood for accepting a rain check.

And then, lo and behold! I didn’t have to do anything at all about it, because a bullet whizzed past my right ear and exploded on the ground right in front of Smokey’s nose.

The bear started, blinked, turned tail and lumbered back into the forest. I spun around and found myself embarrassingly up close and personal with the business end of a rifle barrel aimed right at my crotch. On my unknown rescuer’s other arm, hung a vicious-looking crossbow. That was pointed at Mike.

Well, hell, I thought. Things just kept getting better and better tonight.

Motionless, Commando Joe stared at me through his night vision goggles. In the distance, I heard an owl call.

“Great Grey,” I said, without thinking.

Fortunately, Joe didn’t respond by pulling the trigger and ending the family line before it even began. Instead, he lowered both weapons to the ground and peeled off his goggles. “White. Thought it might be you.”

I knew this guy? I tried to see past the camouflage clothing and face paint, but without a flashlight, and under these circumstances, I was … well … in the dark. I couldn’t recall any Rambo-types in my phone book.

And then it hit me.

It was Scary Stan.

Stan Miller.

The one birder in the state nobody liked to bird with because birding with Stan was like birding with a ghost. He rarely said a word, moved without making even the hint of a sound, could disappear in a heartbeat, and when he did look at you, it was like he looked right through you. Rumor had it he was either a free-lance sniper, a mob killer in the Witness Protection Program, a CIA operative on long-term medical (read “psychological rehab”) leave, or just plain nuts.

And it was common knowledge in the Minnesota birding community that he hated my guts because I’d had the nerve to question one of his bird sightings a few years ago. But—come on—an Arctic Tern in downtown Minneapolis in June? Who wouldn’t have questioned it?

Of course, when I went to see the bird myself and found that it was, indeed, an Arctic Tern (courtesy of a freak Alberta clipper cold front that had blown the poor bird thousands of miles off-course), I graciously ate a very large serving of crow and apologized to Stan, but as far as he was concerned, the damage to his credibility was done. Since then, we’ve had a running, but silent, competition to score the most unusual birds every season.

Which probably explained what he was doing up here tonight: he was chasing the Boreal, too.

Although that didn’t explain the rifle and crossbow.

I blinked, and—naturally—he disappeared.

“You do this?” His voice came from behind me where he was squatting next to the frozen man.

I walked over to where he was studying the body.

“Right,” I said. “I always bring bodies with me when I bird. It’s the secret of my success.”

Mike had recognized Stan, too. “How about you?” he asked.

Stan gave Mike his empty-eye stare.

“Just asking,” Mike said.

Stan stood up. “Bears aren’t the only predators in this forest.”

And then he disappeared.

“Man, is he creepy.” Mike shivered in his parka.

I shivered, too, but it wasn’t from the cold. I could still feel Stan’s stare through his night-vision goggles, watching me, and for the barest space of a moment, I wondered just how nuts Scary Stan was. If I’d been alone …

But I wasn’t. Mike was with me. Reason number ninety-three to always bird with a buddy: to discourage scary people from killing you.

“Okay,” I said to Mike. “We’ve got to get to a phone. We’ll just have to hope the bear doesn’t come back in the meantime.”

“I doubt it will,” he replied. He retied his parka hood to fit more snugly against his ears. “I expect Stan’s gunshot convinced it to find a different buffet line for the night. I know I sure wouldn’t hang around where someone was taking shots at me.”

We started back down the trail, the moon beginning to rise above the treetops. Funny thing about someone taking shots at you, I realized. It could actually mean one of two different things. One: someone wanted to hurt you. Or two: someone wanted to scare you off so they wouldn’t
have
to hurt you.

Without a doubt, Stan scared off the bear by shooting at it. And while I really didn’t think Stan would shoot me—no matter how many times I might lock horns with him over birds—I couldn’t help thinking a little bit about how close that bullet had come to my ear, as well as his parting comment about predators in the woods. Was he trying to scare me out of the area so I wouldn’t find a Boreal before he did?

That would be pretty low.

It would also be useless.

Because if he was so sure he’d find a Boreal in that particular location, then the last thing I was going to do was stay away from it.

Stan Miller might be scary, but he was also an exceptional birder, and I could certainly respect that. If finally getting a Boreal this season meant following in Stan’s disappearing footsteps, then I was definitely willing to give it a try. I mean, really, if he didn’t like me on his tail, what was the worst he could do to me?

Shoot me?

He’d already passed on that one tonight.

Leave me to freeze to death in his tracks?

I came to an abrupt halt on the trail. Now that I thought about it, Stan hadn’t seemed particularly disturbed to see a frozen man in the middle of the forest. Of course, depending on which rumor about his real identity was true, finding dead men might be a big event on Stan’s radar. Even so, if Stan had staked out the area for the Boreal, wouldn’t he have noticed an underdressed man wandering around or have found the body before Mike and I did? And wouldn’t he have done something about it? Instead, he’d just melted away into the woods tonight after shooting at the bear, like he’d never even been there.

And what was up with the rifle
and
crossbow? Not exactly standard birding equipment. Deer hunting, maybe. Boreal chasing, no. Bear hunting was a possibility, but he’d let Smokey go with only a warning shot. So what was Stan really hunting up here tonight?

Which only made me conclude that something weird was up with Scary Stan Miller. That, and the fact that all my finely-honed school counselor instincts were jangling. This guy had a secret, and I was going to find out what it was.

But first things first, and the first thing I had to do was get a police officer back up here in the woods to pick up a frozen body.

Yup, like I said, I love birding. And even when it goes bad—and at this point, I had no idea how bad it was really going to get—there’s always the possibility of getting something you hadn’t planned on. Of course, you hope it’s another bird.

Not a body.

So then, like, you know, I told her she was being a lousy best friend because she knew I liked Brad, and he was starting to like me, too, and then she started flirting with him? I mean, Mr. White, how could she? And then …”

It was Monday morning. I was folded into my cubbyhole office at Savage Senior High, a good three hours south of where I’d spent the weekend chasing Boreals, not to mention finding a body and providing Stan Miller with the opportunity to practice his marksmanship. And, like every Monday morning, I already had a line of students waiting to talk with me as soon as I walked in.

Naturally, I like to think that students flock to me because I’m good at what I do. I feel their pain. I share their angst.

I get them out of class.

Bingo.

However, I also knew—and as my colleagues delighted in reminding me, frequently—that many of the girls I counseled had crushes on me, which seemed to be an occupational hazard for any single guy surrounded by masses of seething female teenage hormones.

Right now, it was one of those seething masses, by the name of Kim, who was taking a turn sitting in my office, venting about her upsetting weekend. Believe me, her upsetting weekend was nothing in comparison to
my
upsetting weekend, but, unfortunately, that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. No, at the moment, it was my turn, as her guidance counselor, not to unload my truckload of personal crap, but instead, to listen patiently while she unloaded hers.