Rant of Ravens (10 page)

She stopped at the end of the hall. She could see the stairway, and the landing halfway to the first floor. Moonlight streaked the walls in barlike patterns of white and black. Then the shadow of someone descending the stairs fell across the hardwood floor.

She pressed against the splintery boards and squinted in the darkness, trying to identify the person padding down the carpeted steps. Too tall to be Aunt Miriam, and most likely a man, judging by the way he held his arms.

A white blur flew at her face, and she flung her arms up, emitting a sharp squeak. Perky!
Damn!

The person on the stairs froze, then bolted, taking the stairs two at a time.

Instinct told Rachel to run for the study, lock the door, and dial 911. Self-defense training told her to be aggressive. The intruder knew she had seen him. Turning tail would only give away the fact she was terrified, and give him the advantage.

As Grandma Wilder always said, the best offense is to kick him where it hurts. If the prowler came within range, Rachel planned to karate chop his balls off.

She fumbled for the light switch. “Stop!”

The lights flared on. A flash of blue bolted into the living room.

Shit! What now? What if he’s not alone?

Rachel succumbed to instinct, grabbed the hall telephone, and punched in 911.

“What’s your emergency?”

“There’s someone in my house.”

“I’m having trouble hearing you, Miss.”

“That’s because I’m whispering.” She didn’t want the intruder to double back and stop her from placing the call. “There is someone in my house.”

“I’m sorry, Miss, but you’ll
have
to speak up.”

“Send help. There’s an intruder who doesn’t belong here.”

“Did you say there is someone in your house?”

“Yes.” Did the dispatcher have delayed response syndrome?

“You have an intruder?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Hold the line, Miss. I’ll dispatch someone to the scene, but it may take a few minutes. Can you confirm your address for me?”

“Bird Haven. I’m at Bird Haven.” Rachel set the receiver down on the table. While the dispatcher dinked around, the intruder was getting away, and he was a possible link to Aunt Miriam’s whereabouts.

“Are you still there, Miss?” The dispatcher’s voice rasped through the receiver. “Please remain on the line!”

Rachel didn’t answer. A door slammed at the rear of the house.

Think, Stanhope!
She hadn’t heard a car engine, so the intruder was still on foot, and therefore still on the grounds. Was he still in the house? Had he slammed the door to trick her into believing he’d slipped out the back?

The thought chilled her. Anyone willing to enter an occupied house to steal something was a person on the edge. Had whoever’d come here tonight known she was home?

Rachel moved cautiously into the living room. She crossed the room, fearful of the lurking shadows. Grabbing a poker from the set of fireplace tools, she balanced it on her shoulder like a baseball bat and started up the short flight of steps leading to the dining room.

A sharp whistle caused her to jump. Perky flew in, lit on the mantel, and whistled again.

“Shut up!” whispered Rachel, hyperventilating into her cupped hands.

Make me
, said the bird.

Don’t tempt me, you little tweet
. She brandished the poker in his direction. Where the hell was the sheriff?

She climbed another step. The stair creaked. Rachel froze. If the intruder was still inside and hadn’t heard her arguing with the stupid parakeet, he couldn’t have missed the squeaky step. Alerting him to her whereabouts didn’t seem like a great idea. On the other hand, if he’d slammed out the back door, he was getting away.

Be bold, Stanhope. Quit mincing your way along
. Rachel raised the poker and charged into the dining room. She glanced left, then right. Not a soul was there.

Perky flew up the parallel staircase on the opposite side of the fireplace and perched on a candlestick.
Problem, Chicky Baby?

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me if you saw someone circling around.”

Nope
.

Rachel flipped off the bird, then moved stealthily toward the cozy area attached to the dining room. She passed the swinging door that led to the kitchen. It didn’t slam, and the kitchen doors to the patio slid open and thumped closed. The cozy area off the dining room had the only door in this part of the house that slammed. It exited onto the back patio.

The door was shut tight, but unlocked. Rachel drew a deep breath, exhaled, and flipped on the patio lights. A figure loomed in the window.

Eric stepped forward and
pressed his nose to the glass. Rachel yanked open the door. Forest and Charles rushed forward, flanking him from behind.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” she demanded, wielding the fireplace poker in anger.

Eric’s gaze traveled along the piece of metal and rested on the hooked end. He took a step back. “We were installing some security measures, and heard your call on the scanner. Are you okay?”

“Did you see anyone running away from here when you came up from the barn?” Rachel peered past him into the night that encircled the patio with a curtain of black. The three men looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Nope,” Eric said. “We didn’t see a soul.”

Sheriff Garcia surveyed the chaos in the study and shook his head. “You sure you didn’t hear anything?”

Rachel stared in horror at the emptied drawers, slashed cushions, and strewn desk contents littering the floor. She swallowed to steady her voice. “Positive. But you can’t hear anything from my room. I heard something only when the person stepped into the hall. Because of the board that creaks.”

“Was the person carrying anything?”

“Not that I could see. His hands were free.”

Sheriff Garcia rubbed the ends of his mustache. “He could’ve stuffed something small in his pocket. You say he was headed down?”

“When I reached the hallway, he was on the stairs.”

“And that’s when you flipped on the lights.”

“Right.”

“And what did he do then?”

“He ran.” Rachel squelched her annoyance at his line of questioning. It was a common marketing strategy to repeat information. The rule of thumb was to repeat things a minimum of three times for maximum retention. In the last four days, she’d decided that it must be a Sheriff’s Department strategy to rephrase and requestion witnesses as many times as needed to get the answers the sheriff wanted to hear. Garcia was into round five. He should have gotten the answers by now.

Garcia turned to the three men. “And none of you saw anything?”

Forest responded first. “No, like we told you, Sheriff, we were wiring a security system. Eric heard the call over the scanner, shouted to Charles and me, and we all ran up to the house.”

“You were together the whole time?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Out in the Raptor House wiring a security system to protect the buildings from break-in.”

“Together?”

“Yes.” The three men nodded in unison.

“And you were wiring this system at two o’clock in the morning.”

“That’s right, Sheriff,” Eric said. “We’ve already lost three birds. I don’t relish losing any more.”

“I’ll be the first to admit it’s taken us longer than we had anticipated,” Forest said, pressing a fist to his hip. “Are you going somewhere with this line of questioning, Vic? It’s apparent something’s on your mind. Perhaps you’d like to enlighten the rest of us.”

Garcia gestured to the uniformed officers working the crime scene that he was stepping outside, then signaled for Eric, Forest, Charles, and Rachel to join him in the hall. The floorboard squeaked as he stepped through the doorway. He stopped, then bounced up and down, making it creak several times more. “From what you’ve told me, the three of you were in separate parts of the Raptor House. Could you actually see each other?”

“Not always,” Eric admitted.

“But you were in constant communication?”

“Not constant,” Charles said. “Get to the point, Sheriff. What are you driving at?”

“I’m just trying to establish your alibis. We already know that one of you”—he raised his palms—“one of the birdwatchers made a call to Bursau from here on the night of the murder.”

Forest puffed out his cheeks in indignation. “Are you suggesting Eric, Charles, or I might have come up here and rifled Miriam’s study?”

“No, I’m just verifying your whereabouts.”

“This is ludicrous,” Charles said. “Even if one of us wanted to come in here, none of us would be stupid enough to risk being seen. Rachel would have recognized any one of us.”

Garcia swung his head back and forth. “Not in the dark.”

“I heard her say she turned on the lights,” Forest pointed out.

“Yes, but the intruder was running by then. She saw a flash of blue, then he disappeared through the darkened living room.”

The sheriff’s suggestion was chilling. Could it have been one of these men? Rachel’s gaze traveled over the threesome. All of them wore blue jeans.

“This is utter rubbish. Hell, I could no more outrun this young girl than I could outrun Deputy Fife over there.” Charles gestured at a young deputy squatting near the door.

“You play tennis twice a week, Pendergast. And you work out at the club. I think you underestimate yourself.” The sheriff grinned. “What do you think, Ma’am?”

Rachel didn’t know what to think. Or, for that matter, whom to trust anymore. “I fail to see a motive.”

Garcia rubbed his chin. “Why?”

“Because he was obviously after the computer disks,” Charles said, plopping down on the hallway settee, “and we’d already searched for them up here this afternoon.”

“What do you know about the computer disks?” Garcia asked suspiciously. He eyed each of them, petting his mustache

Finally, Rachel spoke up. “I know only what was mentioned in the newspaper. Or rather
not
mentioned.” She related how Kirk Udall had shown up with the paper, and how they’d come up with the hypothesis about Bursau’s selling out his story. “Of course, it’s only a theory.”

“You say this new reporter’s here, in town?” Garcia signaled to the deputy dusting the door for fingerprints. “Go and bring in a fella by the name of Kirk Udall for questioning. Find out if he has an alibi for tonight.”

The deputy departed immediately.

“He was here earlier,” Rachel said. “I don’t see what he would gain by coming back and doing this.”

“What would any of you have to gain?” Garcia rubbed his forehead and stared at the carpet. “Did this Udall fellow say anything about receiving any files on disks from Bursau?”

“No.”

“Nothing sent by e-mail?”

“He didn’t say.” Rachel pondered this new line of questioning. Most companies were online, so it made more sense if Bursau e-mailed his notes to the office. In which case, the disks probably served as his version of hard copy. Or as a way to deliver information to the highest bidder.

The sheriff finger-combed his mustache. “Thanks for the tip about Udall. I’ll check him out, and call his editor on Monday.”

“You never answered Rachel’s question, Vic,” said Charles.

“What question is that?”

“What possible reason do you think any of us would have for rifling Miriam’s study?”

The sheriff slapped his hand against the butt of his gun and pointed at Charles. “The way I see it, Charles, you would do almost anything to protect Miriam.”

Even murder someone?
Rachel studied the man carefully. His gray hair was cut in military fashion: short, clean around the ears. His blue eyes glinted like steel. “You’re right, Vic. I would.”

“And Eric might be protecting her, too, though I think he’s more apt to be protecting the Raptor House.” Garcia balanced on the balls of his feet, then settled back on his heels. “With three birds missing and one guy dead, I figure he’s got to be worried about keeping his job. Throw in a whiff of illegal activity, and the feds are apt to close down the operation out here.”

Eric’s face hardened. His lips paled. It was clear Garcia had struck a nerve.

“And what’s my motive, Sheriff?” asked Forest. He appeared to be genuinely curious. And, for that matter, so was Rachel.

“Now that’s another matter. I think you’re somewhere on the other side. Whereas these three are looking to avoid a scandal, you want to expose the wrongdoing to the world.”

“What good would that do anyone?” asked Rachel

“For starters, it ends access to Rocky Mountain National Park through your aunt’s land,” Garcia said. “I’ve been doing some research. It seems that after William Tanager died, your aunt tied the public access to the trailheads at the back of her property to the park’s operation of the Raptor House.”

That was a new wrinkle, but from what Forest had told them about his pending legislation, denying access through Bird Haven played heavily in his favor. “Sheriff, do you know that Mike Johnson was up here on Monday night and could have placed that telephone call?”

“I am aware of that.”

“Then let me ask you a question. You suspect that my aunt, and maybe an accomplice, murdered Bursau, stole the three birds from the Raptor House, and then disappeared, correct?”

“Not exactly. I just haven’t eliminated any of the suspects yet.”

“So we’re all considered suspects?”

The sheriff nodded. “I guess you could say that.”

“Then why would my aunt’s accomplice tear apart her study? Wouldn’t Aunt Miriam have just told him where to look for whatever it is she wanted?”

The sheriff massaged the back of his neck. “I thought of that. You have a point.”

“What I think this break-in proves is that Aunt Miriam has something somebody wants. Something somebody would go to great lengths to get.”

“Maybe even that Udall fellow,” Forest had regained some of his composure. “If Bursau sold out the story, that’s reason enough for Udall to want to retrieve the disks.”

“Maybe even see Bursau dead,” Eric added.

“Or,” Garcia said, “that might be how someone wants it to look.”

Rachel had heard enough. It seemed like the sheriff twisted everything to make Aunt Miriam look guilty. And Rachel hated to believe one of the EPOCH members was involved. The thought of one of them being a murderer made her stomach flip-flop. With her brother, Ben, in Alaska, her father and grandmother in Chicago, and Miriam missing, the EPOCH members were all she had. “Do you really think Aunt Miriam killed that man?”

“No. I’m just trying to find out where she is.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Rachel said, exhaling loudly. Somehow they had to be missing something. Something important. But what?

She replayed the scenes leading up to this point: the argument between Miriam and Bursau, pushing through The Thicket, Lark hissing, stumbling over the dead man’s foot, two birds flushing, one flying away. What was she forgetting? The bird! It had had something gripped in its beak. And she’d seen a flash of light. “That’s it!”

Garcia’s eye’s narrowed. “What’s it?”

“The night I found the body. I saw two birds come up out of the bush. One was the LeConte’s sparrow. He settled back down. But the raven carried something off. I’m sure of it.”

The three bird experts exchanged glances. The sheriff cocked his head. “My men are just about finished, Rachel. I suggest you try and get some sleep tonight. I’ll post a man outside.”

“Wait a minute. Aren’t any of you interested?”

Garcia laid a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re worried about your aunt, but there’s no possible way for me to investigate all the crows—”

“Ravens.”

“—that we have around here. If that bird carried something off, it’s gone.”

Rachel cinched the belt of her robe more tightly around her waist. “I remember seeing a flash of light. I can almost picture it in my mind. There must be some way of tracking that bird.”

Garcia spread his arms wide. “How’ bout it? Any of you have any ideas?”

“It would be impossible,” agreed Charles. Forest concurred.

“Sorry, Rachel.” Garcia paused halfway through the doorway to Miriam’s study. “Let me know if you figure out a way. You never know. I’ve caught a few jail
birds
in my day that I thought would get away.”

Heat edged its way up Rachel’s neck. Granted, it was a slim lead. But she intended to follow it up. “In that case, Sheriff, you might want to talk to Perky. He saw the intruder, too.”

The others left right after the sheriff. Rachel waited until the early rays of sunlight tipped the mountain peaks golden, then called Harry. If anyone knew something about ravens, she reasoned, Harry would. He had agreed to stop by.

Now, seated at the breakfast table, he worried his fingers along the handle of his stoneware coffee mug. “You know that your idea’s a little out there.”

“The others thought so, too. But it
is
possible, right?”

“Technically, sure. Ravens are members of the corvid family. Plenty strong enough to carry off a computer disk. An adult weighs three or four pounds, and has about a four-foot wingspan.”

“Would you define
corvid
in layman’s terms for me?”

“It’s a family name, a family being comprised of a number of similar species. The corvid family includes magpies, jays, rooks, and crows.”

“All the camp robbers.”

“Right. They’re the Navajo of the bird world. Adaptable, smart, quick to learn, and great scavengers.”

“Tell me about the raven.”

“They’re the largest species of corvid, and they’ve been known to pick up odd things.”

“What kinds of things?” Rachel hoped computer disks were on the list.

“Candy bars, car keys, shiny objects.” Harry leaned back in the chair. “
National Geographic
did an article on ravens in one of their January issues. Very interesting. The author claimed a raven had unzipped his backpack and stolen his cheese.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Then he questioned a biologist in Yellowstone. According to the expert, ravens have been caught opening Velcro fasteners on the snowmobile storage compartments, and even untied knots to snitch food. The article showed a picture of one holding a map.”

“So it
is
possible!” Rachel sloshed her coffee in her excitement, and grabbed for the paper towels. “Assuming the raven did pick up a disk, where would he have carried it?”

Harry helped her blot up the spill. “Most likely he dropped it when he found it wasn’t edible.”

That left a lot of territory to search between The Thicket and Lumpy Ridge. “Assuming he didn’t drop it, where would he have taken it?”

Harry rested his elbows on the table, set his chin in the vee of his hands, and patted his cheeks in thought. “I can think of only two possibilities. Ravens are like golden eagles in that they cache food.”