Twenty minutes later, Luke was leaning against one of the department cars, a two-door hardtop, talking on his phone. Natalie watched him briefly as if he were a stranger—such a brooding, handsome guy in a gray suit. He hung up and smiled, then walked up to her like a waiter in a posh hotel and handed her a coffee.
“Hey, thanks.” She took a sip and secured the lid.
“You’re welcome.” They had their own shorthand. “Show me.”
They moved across the field and stood in the wet weeds, studying the nine dead birds twisted up in twine and fishing line—a truly gruesome sight. Each crow had been bound tightly to its post—their heads pointing skyward, beaks open, fan-shaped tails pointing downward, iridescent black wings spread. It reminded Natalie of a crucifixion scene, played out in miniature, all the way down the fence line. These birds had been deliberately killed and posed in a shocking display for anyone to stumble across and wonder. There were no easy answers here. Only infinite shades of madness.
Now Natalie had to push through a membrane of surprise and shock in order to get to the other side, where she could assess the scene professionally. She stood studying the raw details, little beads of sweat trickling down her neck. Each of these poor, intelligent creatures had died an agonizing death—so tangled up in synthetic fishing line, zip ties, and heavy-duty twine that any attempts to free themselves would’ve made the situation worse. It was chilling.
Crows were highly intelligent animals. They belonged to the Corvidae family of birds that included ravens and magpies. Some biologists referred to them as “feathered primates” because they were able to perform difficult tasks and make strategic decisions. They had remarkable memories.
Natalie examined one of the bird carcasses with latex-gloved fingers—the glossy blue-black plumage, the reptilian eyes ringed with violet, the strong legs, and shiny black beak. A mature male crow.
“How did he catch them?” Luke asked. “Did he shoot them?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not finding any buckshot wounds. Probably snares or spring traps. That way, he could keep them alive for a while before deciding what to do with them.”
Luke shuddered. “A disturbing thought.”
“They’ve been dead for quite a while,” she went on. “And there are markings on these birds that don’t match their current bindings, which indicates he killed them somewhere else, then transported them here and staged the carcasses.”
“Which would explain why nobody else reported them until now.”
Natalie nodded. “He killed them someplace private, and then brought them here recently, posing them in a intentional pattern. He enjoys the theatricality of it.”
“There’s a method to this sick fuck’s madness,” Luke muttered.
Natalie could feel her heart hammering in her chest. She decided to throw it out there. “It’s obvious, right? Nine dead birds for the Missing Nine.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Maybe he’s sick of not reading about himself in the papers.”
“So he’s boasting? Flaunting his achievement?”
“It’s been out of the news for a couple of years now.”
“Well, he’s got our attention now.”
“Yes, he does.”
She nodded. “This is definitely the work of a sociopath. Too elaborate for a teenager, I think.”
“I agree.”
“An adult sociopathic loner. This was methodically planned, which makes him an organized offender. Sadistic. Premeditated.” Her flashlight sputtered off again, and the darkness was unsettling. She shook it, and it blinked on, illuminating the dead crow in front of her, its beak frozen in midshriek. She lowered the light and shuddered.
“Aren’t crows supposed to symbolize death?” Luke asked.
“Death, catastrophe.”
“So we can assume he’s into witchcraft?”
Natalie shook her head. “Any true Wiccan would never sacrifice animals like this. They have a reverence for nature.”
“Maybe he’s not a true Wiccan? Or maybe he’s a Satanist?”
“Every time we look into rumors of satanic cults, we come up empty.”
“Right. Because nobody’s going to admit to being a Satanist.”
“Not to the police anyway.”
Rumors of devil worship had been floating around for years. Just last May, there was talk of a satanic cult sacrificing people’s pets due to a three-month spate of animal disappearances. Missing cat and dog posters had popped up all over town. But a representative from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a statement clarifying that the local coyote population was responsible for killing people’s pets. He held a news conference and showed reporters definitive proof—a bag of coyote scat.
“We can’t blame this one on coyotes,” Natalie mumbled.
Luke shook his head. “No, we can’t.”
“It feels like a warning. Like a threat to the entire town.”
“Maybe he’s about to strike again?”
The thought was too alarming to contemplate. She caught an erratic movement out of the corner of her eye, a convulsion of particles. Thwick, thwick, thwick. Bats traveling through the foggy air. More than a dozen police officers had been called to the scene, and now they were scouring the Hadley property, including the abandoned house and barn.
“Hold on a second,” Natalie said, beaming her flashlight directly into the bird’s mouth. “I need some tweezers.” She rummaged around in her evidence kit, then leaned over the crow and used the tweezers to pull out a tiny scroll of paper that had been lodged in the bird’s throat. She carefully unfurled the scroll, while Luke held the flashlight steady for her.
Covering the narrow band of torn paper, in the tiniest handwriting she’d ever seen, were the words, What the hawk eats, What the hawk eats, What the hawk eats … Over and over again.
“‘What the hawk eats’?” Luke repeated. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He looked at her significantly. “What do hawks eat?”
“Rodents, squirrels, roadkill, and … other birds.”
“What?”
“They eat crows.”
“Birds eat birds?” He shook his head, repulsed.
“I witnessed it a couple of times at my grandfather’s farm.” The wind stirred through Natalie’s hair. “We used to visit him every summer up in Kripplebush. A flock of crows would follow Grandpa’s plow and devour all the earthworms that were churned up in the soil. The red-tailed hawks would hide in the trees and wait until the crows started pecking at the ground, searching for worms. Then they’d glide through the air, swoop down into the final run, and grab a crow in their claws and beak.”
“So maybe the Crow Killer grew up on a farm?” Luke surmised.
“He knows how to snare birds, that’s for sure.”
Over the years, Natalie had encountered bird snares in the woods made of simple materials. Poachers and hunters used a few wooden poles tied together with twine, a fist-size rock, and a cord. Once a bird had perched on the trap, the stick would be displaced, the rock would drop, and the cord would loop over the bird’s legs, trapping it. Simple materials, but it took skill and practice to construct such a trap.
“My grandfather told me that crows have two sides to them—good and bad,” she said. “On the one hand, they ate his corn, which was why there’d sometimes be a dead crow hanging around the scarecrow’s neck. He claimed it got rid of them for months at a time. On the other hand, he liked that they ate the weevils, grasshoppers, and June bugs that infested his crops. It was a mixed blessing.”
“What did your grandfather say about hawks?”
She shrugged, trying to remember. “They’re solitary hunters. Birds of prey. They prefer to kill shortly before nightfall, when the nocturnal animals emerge and hawks have a visual advantage.”
“Is that how the Crow Killer thinks of himself?” Luke posited. “As a bird of prey?”
“Could be,” she said, thick braids of discomfort knitting into her muscles.
A pair of turkey vultures glided in ever-widening circles above their heads. The rain was beginning to dissipate. They heard a shout from across the field. In the tall grass beyond the barn, a police officer was waving his arms.
Her heart made slow wing beats as they headed across the field.
Officer Keegan was holding up an army jacket—very familiar-looking, with pink and purple sequins on the back spelling out, I’VE GOT THIS. There were drops of blood on the denim fabric.