Flightfall (6 page)

The female goshawk was only a few months old, Toronto explained, and still in her immature plumage. I’d flown a couple of red-tailed hawks, had a short stint with a Kestrel, and currently flew a Harris Hawk, but I’d never handled a Gos before. Except for her coloring, she looked plenty mature to me. I could feel the power flow through her talons as she squeezed against my glove, her almost orange eyes fixed on mine. She had a rounded back and a bold white eyebrow, and was still mostly brown up top, although Toronto said this would eventually turn a bluish-gray. The grey ghost, as Goshawks were sometimes called. Toronto had named her Jersey.

Earlier, Toronto had taken Nicole and me through a little album of photos he’d taken of Jazzman too. In life his peregrine falcon had been magnificent: huge black eyes, steel-blue head, back, and wingtops, black and white stripes underneath. Peregrines were the fastest creature on earth, and in a vertical dive, called a stoop, could reach speeds well over two hundred miles per hour.

Nicole was still flying an RT, but she’d always longed to have a peregrine. “I can see why you’d be so upset,” she said looking through the photos.

“Jazzy was a good one, no doubt about that.” Toronto closed the book shut as we came to the end of the pictures. He rarely grew emotional, but the hitch in his voice betrayed his feelings over having lost something so precious, especially to someone taking it away violently, a rage tinged with deep sadness.

He slipped on his own glove, took Jersey from me, and carried her back to her perch inside her mews.

“What time we leaving for the mountain?” I asked.

“A little after eight. I want to be in position before dark.”

“And Sheriff Daveys is coming, too?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“You really think someone will show?”

He shrugged. “That’s what I’m betting. Except for what you told me about Simmons and the shooting club, no one besides the vet school people knows for sure Jazzy was shot and killed. We’ve dropped enough hints with all of our suspects to make them believe we’ll be scouring the mountain tomorrow.”

“Any hard evidence?”

“Not really. But what else do we have? Daveys said Clayton’s prints from his business card didn’t match the ones on the battery.”

“That would’ve been too easy,” Nicole said.

While Nicole and I were talking to Simmons at the shooting club, Toronto had hijacked the sheriff again for a few minutes outside his office and explained our plan. In a word, the sheriff thought we were all nuts. The fingerprint from the battery hadn’t matched any in the FBI’s criminal database up in Clarksburg. The only reason Daveys even entertained the idea of heading up a mountain in the dark with the three of us was his debt to Toronto. But Toronto said the Sheriff perked up a little during a follow up phone call after hearing what we’d told Toronto about our encounter with big Tanker truck. Apparently, Wylie wasn’t the only one with suspicions about illegal dumping.

“You’re sure the chef and the doc and his wife are the only ones who could’ve stolen your other tracker?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Toronto said. “Not too many people know enough about my business to have pulled off the theft. The Claytons do because we’re neighbors and I’ve worked for them.”

“But they had no motive to kill Jazzy unless there’s something to this dumping thing. And even then, it’s a pretty thin thread.”

“Right.”

“And Maria Andros knows you and has a motive, except—”

“Except, hotheaded as she is, she’s no killer.”

“You said it. I didn’t.”

“You think we’re going in circles?” Toronto asked.

“I don’t know. Nicky and I were talking about it earlier. There’s something here we can’t quite put our finger on, and that bothers me . . .”

Toronto turned to my daughter. “What do you think it is, Nicky?”

“I don’t know either,” she said. “I’m still suspicious of both Andros and the Claytons. You really think someone is going to show up on that mountain tonight?”

“We’ve dropped enough hints, planted enough seeds.”

“Let’s just hope one of them decides to sprout,” I said.

“I think we’ll see some action,” Toronto said. “And even if we don’t, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“The worst that can happen is that some random, beer-soaked hunter from Minnesota or somewhere downed your poor falcon. While we’re wasting our time, the guy could be across five state lines by now and probably hasn’t given it a second thought since.”

It was cooler later up on the ridge. The night closed in like a dark anger, the bloodthirsty mosquitoes in full temper.

“You folks have got to be certifiable,” the sheriff said as he helped us take down the floodlight stanchions and clean up the remnants of Jake’s crime-scene investigation. The man’s face was still beet-red and coated with sweat from the climb.

None of us was expecting much, but we at least we were well armed—Jake, Nicole and I with our handguns, the sheriff with his own plus a pump action shotgun. We concealed ourselves and settled in to wait.

A quarter moon rose slowly above the mist and after a while stood high over the clearing. The wind stirred the branches of the trees. It was a beautiful night for doing anything but staking out a mountain.

By one a.m. I was almost ready to call it quits. The sheriff looked antsy, too—he’d already disappeared to relieve himself in the bushes more than once. Nicole remained stoic, but even she was growing tired, I could tell. Toronto, on the other hand, barely seemed effected. In fact, he barely moved and might’ve been asleep, except that his eyes were wide open and constantly scanning the dark.

I was just about to say something about leaving when a pair of headlights appeared down the mountain.

“Someone’s on the fire road,” Toronto said calmly.

“Well, I’ll be . . . ,” the sheriff said.

Another pair of lights became visible in the same spot, then vanished.

“Whoever it is, they have company,” I said.

We all dug in a little deeper and waited. The sheriff made a show of checking the load on his weapons.

Twenty minutes later, I spotted two flashlights making their way up the ridge below us. I pointed.

“I see them,” Toronto whispered.

“Nobody comes up here in the dark like this unless they’re up to no good. We’ll wait until they reach the clearing, then take ‘em into custody,” the sheriff said.

“Don’t you want to see what they’re up to first?” I said under my breath.

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded his okay. The sound of twigs snapping and boots pushing through leaves reached our ears. These people weren’t worried about making a racket. A woman’s laugh floated through the air, but it didn’t sound genuine. Instead, it carried a hint of fear.

A few moments later the lights popped into view on the far side of the clearing. Two ghostly figures stepped into the pale moonlight. It was hard to tell for sure, at first. But then it became clear that one held a rifle to the back of the other.

“Now, darling,” a woman’s voice said, “we’re going to take a good look around and find that dead falcon before that big Indian or his two private eye lackeys find it first. I only hope some bear hasn’t made off with it. I know you’ll cooperate, dearest. You’ve always been good before.”

“I’m getting pretty sick of this crap, Sylvia.” The new voice belonged to Maria Andros. “You said you had to meet me up here tonight. Just the two of us. What’s with the gun?”

“It’s just a little gun, pumpkin, just for safety,” Mrs. Clayton said. “It’s a fun game though, isn’t it?”

“Not for me.”

We still held the element of surprise. With my head and eyes I motioned to Toronto to move around to one side of the pair while Nicole went to the other. The sheriff and I would take the middle.

I crept around to position myself behind a pair of boulders. The two women were moving toward Toronto’s position opposite me now, sweeping their lights back and forth.

“You’re jealous of Jake, aren’t you?” Maria said. “That’s why you killed his bird.”

“Me jealous of Jake Toronto? What for? He was just being paid to get rid of you for Ricardo. Ricardo was the one who was jealous of you and me, dear. You must know that’s true.”

We heard only the night sounds for several seconds.

Then: “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore, Sylvia...”

Sylvia Clayton moved closer to Maria Andros, angling the barrel of the rifle toward her head. “You’re tired, darling. We’ll talk this over.” She began to stroke the younger woman’s hair. “That falcon was such a beautiful wild thing, you know. Did I tell you it was spiraling upward when I finally found it? The wings weren’t even moving. I think they ride the currents or something. It was really quite a shot.”

So Jazzman hadn’t been shot in a stooping dive after all. Now that we had the perpetrator right in front of us, it all made sense. Apparently, Dr. Clayton wasn’t the only one practicing his shooting out at the range.

“Ringing up.” Toronto’s voice punched through the darkness like an invisible knife.

The two women spun in his direction.

“When they rise like that,” he said, “they ring.”

The beam of Sheriff Daveys’s flashlight illuminated the couple. “Hold it right there, ladies. It’s the sheriff.”

As if he’d been their shadow, Toronto seemed to materialize next to Mrs. Clayton and took hold of her arm and the rifle. Maria tried to turn from the light, but ran straight into me. She scratched my face, tried to bite my shoulder, and kicked at my ankles.

“It’s okay,” I said, with Nicole’s help holding her at arm’s length. “It’s okay now ... It’s over.”

In a minute it was, with the sheriff reading the handcuffed Sylvia Clayton her rights while Maria Andros heaved sobs into Nicole’s shoulder.

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” Mrs. Clayton said. “I’ll have all of your jobs for what you’re doing here.”

“All due respect, I don’t think so, ma’am,” the Sheriff said.

“Do you have any idea what my life has been like the past couple of years? All the money we’ve risked with the network. I told Ricardo we should have gotten a divorce long ago, but we’ve been trying to hang on until the show goes into syndication. The cable rights could be worth millions, or we could lose everything we’ve worked for. Don’t you people understand?”

The Sheriff seemed unmoved as he turned with another set of handcuffs for Maria Andros. Apparently, he wasn’t an investor.

“Don’t you dare say a word, Maria,” Mrs. Clayton tried to lunge at the younger woman, who seemed too traumatized to care. “And I’m not saying anything else either. I want to talk to my lawyer.”

The Sheriff finished reading both of them their rights.

I made eye contact with Toronto, who was examining Sylvia’s rifle. “Private eye lackeys, huh?”

He shook his head and smiled.

The next day Toronto, Nicole, and I buried Jazzman in the high clearing. It was a private ceremony, just the three of us beneath a pale blue sky.

A lot still needed sorting out after conversations at the jail the night before with Maria Andros and with Gabriel Wylie, who’d been rousted out of bed and brought in for questioning by one of the Sheriff’s investigators. Turned out Sylvia liked to play both sides of the tracks. In addition to her erstwhile romantic advances toward Maria she had a boyfriend on the side who owned one of the local trucking companies. In an attempt to keep up her overly lavish lifestyle and fund the growth of her husband’s TV ventures, they’d been double dumping waste water as Wylie had alleged, falsifying records. Whether Dr. Clayton knowingly participated in the scheme was unclear, but the Feds were being called in to help sort it all out.

I think Jazzman would have liked the spot Toronto picked out for his final resting place. A couple of yards from the edge of a cliff formed by a huge rock outcropping, where the sun slanted gold against the grass and the long view to the valley below would afford the falcon peace and security.

When finished, we descended to the fire road again. Toronto said he’d give Nicole a ride back to Charlottesville where he’d help her look in on our own birds and run a couple of other errands. A light breeze blew across the forest canopy as I pulled open the door to my pickup.

“Thanks for coming, Frank.”

“At least we found out what happened.”

“I blame myself.”

“I know.”

He and I shook hands and he gave me a bear hug. I hugged Nicole as well and waved as they saw me off.

Passing down the dirt road, I couldn’t help but glance back up the mountain to the top of the cliff where we’d laid the peregrine to rest. I like to think that in some way, beyond our understanding, Jazzman still soars there on that precipice. Maybe the spirit that lived in him lives somewhere in us, too.

The road is long.

I would have five more hours of thinking to the beach.

END

BONUS BOOK EXCERPT FROM

THE BLUE HALLELUJAH

THE FORTHCOMING STANDALONE SUSPENSE THRILLER

BY ANDY STRAKA

Detective Jerry Strickland’s wife Rebecca went to prison after being convicted of killing one of his suspects in a murder case. There she eventually succumbed to cancer. Now, as the end of his own life nears, it’s time for the elderly Jerry to tell what really happened with Rebecca and why. But when his eight-year-old granddaughter Marnee goes missing the tale takes a new turn. Jerry rushes to help in the search and discovers that not only may Marnee be in peril, her disappearance may point to a piece of Rebecca’s story that has been missing all along.

All afternoon the old man had been sweltering in the steamy woods, watching and waiting. All afternoon with a pit in his stomach, sweat dripping from his brow onto his dark clothing, flies and mosquitoes biting and swirling. He had lost track of how many times he’d raised the binoculars to his eyes, struggling to keep a focus on the girl.

Not much else was astir in the late afternoon heat.

Soon time would be running out. He glanced down at his watch. In a few minutes the camp would begin breaking up for the day and a line of parents in their cars would start forming along the entrance road. The girl, he knew from watching, could be a bit of a loner. Maybe he would be able to slip behind one of the restrooms and grab her without being noticed, but it would be a big risk.

He watched as the children were herded into loosely organized groups. Counselors only kept close track of the younger ones and near pandemonium ensued. Could he use the temporary confusion to his advantage?

He was just about to leave his hiding spot and move through the bushes down the slope when the unexpected happened. The girl broke off from her group and began moving in his direction alone.

He could scarcely believe what he was seeing. She was making it almost too simple for him.

A wave of paranoia roiled his stomach as he swept the lenses over the main building and the swarm of campers and counselors again to make sure no had seen the girl leave. He wondered if the police were filling the tree line opposite looking at him, but when he scanned the area with his field glasses he saw no sign of such a thing.

The old man fingered his satchel with the syringe and rope inside. His patience had finally been rewarded. Some things buried should stay buried. He zoomed in once more on the girl. She was nine years old, he knew, didn’t seem to be in any hurry, pretty dark hair and skinny legs. Dipping in and out of his view, she began tossing stones as she went.

He reached down to pick up his bag. Just a few moments more and she would be close enough for him to make his move.