Death Takes a Gander (18 page)

“We’ll just have to call them all.”

“In the morning,” Angela said. “It’s too late to call now.”

There was nothing more they could do, so Angela and Lark headed down to the Warbler Café to meet the others. A town landmark, the coffee shop was housed in the corner of a strip mall on the east end of town. A painted mural depicting a variety of Colorado warblers marked the front door, while a wraparound deck stretched to the south overlooking the lake. Inside, tables crowded a hardwood floor. A long counter stretched along the back wall, covered with jars of beans and a variety of cappuccino and espresso machines. In the far corner, a copper roasting machine agitated beans, spewing the fresh scent of coffee into the air.

“Welcome,” Dorothy said, throwing open the door. Taking Angela’s coat, she shooed them toward a large round table in the center of the room, where Andrew and Opal Henderson were already ensconced.

The couple waved, and Angela conjured the image of Jack Sprat and his wife—only in this case, Jack was Jacqueline. Andrew was stuffing a piece of banana bread into his mouth, while Opal sipped her drink. No doubt a nonfat latte.

Gertie and Harry were making coffee.

“This is a great place you have here,” Angela said.

“Why thank you, dear,” Dorothy said, making a generous sweep with her arm. “You know we inherited it.”

While Dorothy sliced more bread, Cecilia launched into the café’s history. “It was opened by Esther Mills with seed money from the four of us—myself, Dot, Gertie, and Lark. A year and a half ago, Esther was stabbed to death in the parking lot.”

“How awful!” Angela vaguely remembered reading something about that. She just hadn’t connected the dots. “Did you ever catch the person who did it?”

“Oh my, yes. Thanks to Lark.”

“It wasn’t altruistic,” Lark said. “Like now, I stood to lose everything.”

Angela refrained from comment and accepted a fishbowl mug of coffee from Gertie. Warming her hands, she breathed in the coffee’s aroma.

“How’s Eric?” Andrew asked.

Lark glanced at Angela.

Does he think that’s where we had been? Angela wondered. “As far as I know, he’s the same.”

Dorothy’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she sniffed, using her napkin to blot her nose.

“Oh my, let’s not go all weepy, Dot. We need to stay strong, for everyone’s sake.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Lark said.

Angela counted backwards, trying to remember how many days it had been since the accident. Two? It seemed like more. The longer Eric remained in a coma, the more likely he was to emerge with some long-term damage.

She tried shaking the thought and fished for a better subject. “How’s it going at the Raptor House?”

Checking on the geese had been the primary reason for her coming up to Elk Park. The town meeting was secondary. She had been headed out the door when Verbiscar’s face had flashed across the TV.

Now there was someone she’d like to see in a coma
.

Dorothy set down her napkin. “It’s a miracle, really. The geese have mostly recovered. You would hardly know they’d been sick.”

Angela stared, convinced she’d heard wrong. Most times, no matter what you did, lead-poisoned geese died. Did that mean the toxin wasn’t lead?

“No kidding,” Andrew said. “That’s weird. And there I was advocating we put them down.”

“How are the banquet guests?” Angela asked.

“They’re better too,” Dorothy said. “Of course, it didn’t stop the health department from closing down the kitchen at the Drummond.”

“We’re waiting to see the results on lead-level tests,” Lark said. “They’re due in tomorrow.”

“So where did you peel off to in such a rush?” Harry asked, joining them at the table.

Lark explained how it had occurred to her that Ducharme must have ordered the geese from a new distributor. “Angela and I did some checking and came up with fifty-three possibilities.”

“Did any of them check out?” Harry asked.

“We’ll have to call in the morning,” Lark said.

“Did any of the names look familiar?” Gertie asked.

“Not to me.”

“Me either,” Angela said. She pulled out the page she’d torn from the yellow pages. “Do any of them look familiar to any of you?”

The EPOCH members passed the sheet around.

“I recognize this name,” Andrew said. His finger pointed to “Organics Unlimited.” Angela felt a tingle of excitement travel along her veins.

Opal wiggled in her chair. “I didn’t know he dealt with meat, did you?”

“Who?” demanded Dorothy. “Don’t keep us guessing.”

Andrew pushed aside the paper. “Donald Tauer. Organics Unlimited is a subsidiary company of Agriventures, Inc.”

“Maybe we should pay
them a visit?” Lark asked.

Angela swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. It was time to come clean. “
We
can’t do anything. Kramner pulled me off the case.”

“What?” cried the EPOCH members in unison.

Angela looked down at the floor, her gaze tracking the uneven flooring, the shifts in color and light. When she looked up, she faced seven pairs of eyes.

“He doesn’t think I have enough experience or that I can be objective.”

Gertie snorted. “If you ask me, I’d say you were getting too close and ruffling too many feathers.”

“Either way, I’m out.” She looked straight at Lark. “Take it to Kramner in the morning.”

“Will he help?”

Angela shrugged. “It’s what he needs. He rushed the tests on the samples. He should have the lead level reports back tomorrow. He knows his job.”

“And if he won’t follow through?”

For Lark it meant the difference between saving the Drummond and being forced to close down. Angela dropped her gaze and worked the toe of her boots against a crack in the flooring. “Then call me.”

Angela slept in her own bed that night and ended up sleeping in. The telephone rang in the morning and yanked her loose from a nightmare. She’d been running through the woods at Barr Lake, headed toward the mist nets, footsteps pounding behind her. Now, clawing her way up from the depths of sleep, her heart raced. She squinted at the alarm clock and reached for the phone.

“Angela?’

Lark
. “What time is it?”

“Eight thirty.” Hysteria edged the woman’s voice, prompting Angela to a sitting position.

“What happened?”

“I called Kramner. He said the samples came back negative for lead.”

In a shift of panic, Angela’s heart pounded. She clutched the comforter to her chest. “Okay. Let’s think this through. Something is making the geese sick. What about PAH contamination from the clay pigeons?” Although that wouldn’t account for the food poisoning in the Drummond guests.

“No.”

“What about the alternative shot?”

“He claims there was nothing,” answered Lark, her voice sounding calmer. “It appears to be natural. The samples were clean.”

If that was true—and Angela had no reason to doubt Kramner’s assessment—Radigan’s willingness to let them take samples made sense. He had nothing to hide. They’d been looking in the wrong place.

“I guess this means Coot’s food poisoning was really an accident,” Lark said.

“Looks like.” That would explain why Radigan’s son ended up sick. So what had poisoned the geese?

Angela kicked her legs over the side of the bed and fished with her feet for her sheepskin slippers. “What about the lead levels on the banquet guests? Have those results come back?”

“That’s another thing. All but one came back normal.”

“What was the exception?”

“It turns out one guy drinks orange juice from a pottery pitcher. His whole family tested high. He was actually lucky he attended the banquet.”

Cold air from the slightly opened window wafted across Angela’s shoulders, and she shifted the comforter to cover her back. If the wetland samples from Barr Lake Hunt Club tested normal and the banquet guests’blood samples tested normal, the lab work on the geese was likely negative for lead too.

“Did you talk with Covyduck?”

“Before I called you. He’s checking on the tests as we speak. He promised to call me back.” Lark sighed, and a tendril of fear curled from Angela’s stomach to her throat.

They’d been working the wrong leads
.

“Angela?”

“I’m still here.”

I’m thinking
.

“What other things could make the geese sick like that?” she wondered aloud. “What would make them toxic to someone who ate them?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Come on, Lark, think! We have all the pieces. We just have to fit them together.”

Angela climbed out of bed. Cradling the phone against her shoulder, she shut the window and sealed out the cold air. The day was bright. Sunlight played on the frost covering the bird-feeders in the backyard, and a flock of LGBs—little gray birds, mostly house sparrows and pine siskins—mobbed the large feeder, kicking seed to the squirrels on the ground as they squabbled. Flashes of red indicated a house finch or two frolicked among the bunch, and an American goldfinch pecked thistle from the tube feeder. Reaching for her robe, Angela cranked up the heat, then settled herself into a chair from where she could watch the birds.

“Dorothy told us last night that the geese and the banquet guests were all getting better.”

“Right,” Lark said.

“So that should have been our clue. Lead accumulates in the system. Whatever poisoned the birds seems to be working its way through.”

“Like a virus?” Lark said.

Angela thought of Ebola and hemorrhagic fever, and nixed that idea. “No, more like—”

“Food poisoning,” they said in unison.

Why didn’t I see it before? thought Angela. It took less than a second for the epiphany to happen.

“It’s the corn!”

Lark’s silence at Angela’s pronouncement was profound.

“Hold on a minute. I’m switching phones.” Angela dropped the receiver and padded down the hall to her office.

A guest bedroom by virtue of the twin bed shoved into the corner, the prominent feature of the room was her grandfather’s desk, a huge mahogany rolltop dominating most of one wall. A thin layer of bills coated the surface. An ergonomically correct chair—a throwback to dorm life—was stuffed underneath. On either side, stacks of books rose from the floor like statues flanking a throne.

The rolltop’s cubbies were crammed full of papers, and it took her a moment to locate a Colorado map. Spreading it open on the desk, she clicked on the speaker phone. “Lark, do you remember how Covyduck said they’d found a mixture of corn and wetland grasses in the geese’s stomach?”

“Yes.”

“At the time, I figured it would help us pinpoint the previous location of the geese, but what if it’s the corn that’s making them sick?” Angela traced her finger along the route of the Barr Lake Drainage Loop. There was farmland all around.

“Geese eat corn all the time.”

“True,” Angela said, “and people eat geese. Just go with me on this.” She needed Lark’s help to brainstorm. “Outside of the shot, the fishing sinkers, and wetland vegetation, corn was the only thing the geese had in common, right?”

“Right.”

“And unlike lead, corn passes through, right?” Angela sat down, twisting her legs into the chair.

“Which explains why the banquet guests and the geese are getting better.”

“You’ve got it!” Angela traced her finger along the eastern edge of Barr Lake. “What do you want to bet at least one of the fields near the Barr Lake Hunt Club is planted in corn?”

Lark hesitated. “That doesn’t explain why it’s making them sick.”

“Maybe they sprayed the field with some new pesticide, or—” Angela broke off. There was another possibility, one she hadn’t thought of until now.

“What?”

“Maybe the corn has been genetically engineered.” Genetic engineering technology was still in its early experimental phases, and she knew next to nothing about it
except
that it was becoming more prevalent.

“But isn’t GE farming regulated?”

“It’s supposed to be. But I know of at least one case where a bunch of people died and a few thousand more ended up disabled—all from taking some sort of GE dietary supplement.” Angela paused. “That, and what I’ve read about Monsanto.”

They were one of the largest producers of genetically engineered crops and had been fined numerous times over the years for their planting practices—not leaving a large enough border around their GE fields, not monitoring for spread, and planting test fields of GE crops without notifying APHIS, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service division of the USDA.

“Aren’t they the ones that produce sterile seed?” Lark asked.

“Yes.” The practice had spawned a big debate by forcing farmers to buy new seed every year. Since the onset, other companies had jumped on board, and now there were plants being engineered for insect resistance and pharmaceutical production. It was big business and big money.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lark asked.

“I am if you’re thinking Agriventures is somehow involved.” Angela untwisted herself from the chair. “I think it’s time to do some research.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. Have Covyduck send the sample back through the lab. Let’s see if they can pinpoint a toxin in the corn.”

Lark clicked off, and Angela spent the next hour on the phone. According to county records, the land adjacent to the Barr Lake Hunt Club was owned by Radigan Enterprises. Hadn’t he mentioned something about sharecropping the land?

It didn’t take long to find out who held the lease. According to a woman in the Adams County tax department, Agriventures, Inc. had declared profits for farming the land for the past two years.

Angela headed to the kitchen to make some tea and mulled over the facts. The only connection between Ian’s death, Eric’s accident, and the plane crash were the waterfowl poisonings. Try as she might, she had never been able to come up with anything else tying the three together. With this new information, and ruling out Coot’s poisoning, the whole case pulled together. Donald Tauer was the common thread.

The more she thought about it, the more it all made sense. If Ian had figured out the source of the poisonings was the corn, he would have confronted Tauer. Was that the reason he was out at Barr Lake on the night he died? Was Tauer the person he had planned on meeting?

She knew for a fact that Tauer had been at Elk Lake on the morning of Eric’s accident. Had Eric figured out the source of the poisonings and confronted Tauer prior to Tauer’s meeting up with Frakus and Nate? Had Tauer placed the phone call to her claiming to be Frakus?

And why?

Thinking about Nate caused Angela’s mouth to go dry. He was the commodities grader for the Agriventures fields. Could he be involved in the scheme? Could he have accepted payments from Tauer for his stamp of approval on Agriventures’s products?

Listening to the whistle on the tea kettle, Angela debated calling Kramner, then decided against it. No doubt she was in over her head, but he had ordered her off the case, and at this point she didn’t have anything more than suspicions to go on. Besides, even with hard evidence, it would give him just cause to fire her for working the case against his direct orders.

While the tea steeped, she closed her eyes and relived the scene at the fishing hut the morning she’d found Eric. Donald Tauer had been more concerned about the contents of the fishing hut than about Eric’s accident. Was there something inside the hut he was worried might be discovered, or was he really just worried about the firemen damaging things? Frakus had been upset about the ramifications that Eric’s accident would have on the fishing tournament. And why had Nate been there?

She recalled his comment about things not being what they seemed. How so?

Angela sat up, squeezed the tea bag, and sipped at the bitter liquid. She guessed it was time to ask him a few questions.