So where are we headed, exactly?” Alan was behind the wheel of his Camry hybrid, heading north and east of Spring Valley. I wanted to have another go at the Green Hills youth camp where we’d found Jack’s body yesterday morning. The camp had a variety of habitats and I was pretty sure we could find an Eastern Phoebe and an Eastern Wood-Pewee somewhere on the property.
I also hoped that focusing on something other than Shana, Jack, Billy, and a death threat would give me the chance to clear my head so I could start thinking logically again. Nailing Chuck O’Keefe without a moment’s premeditation wasn’t exactly the kind of habit I wanted to … well … get in the habit of. I was a trained counselor, for crying out loud. I was the person who was supposed to take the objective perspective in emotionally charged situations. Punching someone out was not part of the protocol.
No matter how good it felt.
And, man, it had felt good.
Two swallows swept across the road ahead of us and I pointed them out to Alan. “Cliff Swallow and Barn Swallow.”
“How can you tell the difference? They just look like little dark birds to me. Heck, even ‘swallow’ is way out of my league.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Listen and learn, oh mighty Hawk. One of the ways to identify birds is by their flight patterns. You see a big V of birds in the sky in the fall and you know they’re geese. You see a spiral of big white birds in the spring and you’re looking at American White Pelicans. You see sleek small birds diving and swooping over fields and you’ve got swallows.”
“The geese I can do,” Alan nodded in agreement. “And the pelicans—maybe. Guess I’d have to be looking up, huh?”
“Yeah, that would help.”
“So how can you tell one swallow from another then? It’s not like they’re flying slowly by, flashing their little birdie IDs at you.”
“It’s the flight profile, Alan,” I explained. “You’re right—they’re usually too fast to really note their markings. Instead, I look for the outline they make against the sky. Watch a minute—we’ll see more and I’ll show you what I mean.”
Sure enough, more swallows dipped over the farm fields beside the road as we drove. “Look at the tails,” I told Alan.
“Whoa! You’re right, they’ve got tails. I can see that.”
“Very funny. I mean look at the outline of the tails. The Barn Swallow has a deeply forked tail. The Cliff Swallow has a square tail. There must be a lot of old bridges and buildings in this part of the county, because that’s where Cliff Swallows nest.”
“Then why are they Cliff Swallows and not Bridge Swallows?”
“Because in a natural habitat, they prefer cliffs. But they’ve learned to be flexible, obviously. I guess they take advantage of what’s available.”
Kind of like Big Ben, I thought. Once Jack stopped funding him, he found another source of payments: Chuck. Which had to mean that Chuck knew about the conflict between his dad and Ben over the eco-community, but it didn’t stop him from supporting Ben. He’d chosen the mayor over his dad. Drawing on my experience with high school kids, I could think of two reasons Chuck might make that choice: he was funding Ben to spite his father as payback for some perceived injury, or he was personally putting his money, albeit the family’s money, where he thought it would do him the most financial good.
So either Chuck was angry at his dad for … what? Deserting him to marry Shana? Abandoning OK Industries to devote himself to the eco-community project, to which he’d been recruited by his lovely young wife?
Or was Chuck involved in some secret business deal with Ben that he hadn’t shared with his dad? A business that his dad wouldn’t condone because it flew in the face of what he was trying to accomplish with the eco-communities?
“Tell me about the ATV group,” I told Alan. “The one you mentioned earlier—the one seeking the injunction against the eco-community project.”
“Aflac,” Alan quacked.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Aflac,” he repeated. “You know, like the commercial on the television. My American government students were talking about the injunction one day before school let out for the summer, and one of the students kept saying ‘Mac Ack’ like he was impersonating a duck, and pretty soon, all the kids were doing the ‘Aflac’ quacking.”
Another swallow zipped past the car and I pointed it out to Alan. “That one’s a Northern Rough-winged Swallow. Its wingbeats are a little quicker, and it’s all brown on top. So what does your students’ quacking have to do with the injunction?”
“It was the name of the chief lobbyist—Mac Ackerman. Now, thanks to my students, every time I think of the controversy about the eco-communities, I think ‘Aflac.’”
I stared at Alan. “Come again?”
“Mac Ackerman is the name of the guy leading the charge against the eco-communities.” He glanced my way for a second. “What? You know the name?”
“Well, yeah,” I replied. “He’s one of the birders on this trip.”
“Really? I don’t think I would have pegged him for a bird lover judging from the comments he made in the press about the eco-communities. He was all about giving land to people to enjoy from the back of their ATVs and let the natural flora and fauna find somewhere else to … be flora and fauna.”
“He also knows a lot about cars,” I added. “In fact, he knew right away what had happened to my car when my brakes failed this morning. He was even right behind me on the road.”
“No kidding?” Alan asked, then grew ominously quiet. “Are you saying he was involved in sabotaging your car?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He was sure Johnny-on-the-spot. To be honest with you, I was already thinking he might have been behind it when I thought he was just another ATV fan, but now, knowing he’s the head hauncho lobbyist, it really makes me wonder.”
“Bob,” Alan reminded me, “why would Mac Ackerman target you? You’re not a player in the eco-communities.”
“No, but remember that boundary thing I was talking about earlier? Maybe I’ve crossed some line in his head that makes me his enemy. Maybe he killed Jack to remove the opposition, and maybe he thinks I share Jack’s mission to build the communities because I’m Shana’s friend. Maybe he thinks he’ll knock off all the conservation advocates in the state one at a time. I don’t know!”
“Have you mentioned to anyone down here what your connection is to the eco-communities?”
“No!” I said, exasperated. “That’s because I don’t have any connection to the eco-communities! The only reason I’m involved with this mess this weekend is that I found Jack’s body instead of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and I’m trying to be a friend to Shana in her hour of need.”
“And you haven’t given anyone a reason to think you’re involved in the investigation of Jack’s death?”
“No!”
Then I thought about it for a minute.
“Well, maybe,” I corrected myself.
Alan spun his right hand in a circle. “Go on.”
“I called the sheriff last night to tell her that Jack had recently ended a financial relationship with the mayor,” I admitted, “and that she might want to check into it.”
Alan turned onto the entrance road to Green Hills youth camp.
“So you told the sheriff to check out the mayor?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“I don’t suppose you realize that sheriffs and mayors typically work pretty closely together in small towns?”
I shook my head. I was beginning to feel pretty stupid. “Never thought about it, no.”
“You know what I think?” Alan asked as he pulled into an empty parking area near the camp headquarters. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheriff, who has probably known the mayor a long time, went straight to him with your information. And I would guess, then, that the same mayor wasn’t overly pleased to learn that the sheriff now was also privy to that information.”
I stared out the windshield. “No, I would guess not.”
But even as I mentally slapped myself for calling Sheriff Paulsen, another tumbler in my head clicked into place.
“That’s how Chuck knew that Shana had the books audited!” I turned in my seat to face Alan. “Back at the hotel, Tom said that Chuck had accused Shana of having the books audited behind Jack’s back. So Chuck knew someone had been through the books and caught him. I couldn’t figure out how he’d found out so fast, since Stan just called me last night with the information for Shana. So Chuck must have heard it from Big Ben, after he heard it from the sheriff.”
Alan nodded along with my reasoning. “Sounds possible. But how do you connect Mac Ack to it?”
Good question. Before I’d figured out the leak from Sheriff Paulsen to Big Ben, I’d just about convinced myself that Mac had ruined my brakes for some crazy reason having to do with the eco-communities. He did, after all, have a whole box of tools in the parking lot last night, and he knew right away what had happened when I’d spun out with Bernie. Now I wondered if Chuck was to blame. Could he have made a late night visit to the Inn & Suites to cut my brake line as payback for ratting out his buddy the mayor to the sheriff? I’d seen the possibility of a soured financial arrangement as a motive for murder, so I had to assume that the sheriff would see it that way, too. That was the reason I had called her last night—to make sure she didn’t overlook the mayor as a suspect for Jack’s murder.
Then again, maybe Chuck had a more personal reason to get rid of me. For all I knew, my phone call to the sheriff inadvertently opened a can of worms that may have begun with Jack and Ben’s failed financial relationship, but actually bode much worse for the OK heir. Which begged the question: exactly what was Chuck’s financial arrangement with Ben?
“Let’s look for a bird,” I told Alan, pushing my car door open. “I need some air.”
Alan got out on his side of the Camry and looked towards the woods that spread out beyond the covered wagon at the base of the hill.
The covered wagon where I’d found Jack, just over twenty-four hours ago.
“Don’t I need binoculars or something like that?” Alan asked.
I handed him the pair that was hanging around my neck. “Use mine. I’ll bird by ear.”
“Hey, isn’t this the place where you found Jack O’Keefe yesterday? I saw the news last night with Lily, you know. I recognize the covered wagon.”
I nodded.
“Okay, White-man. Lead the way. Just go light on the bodies. It’s bad enough that you found one here, but if you find two, and I’m a part of the posse, my blushing bride-to-be will kill us both. I’m supposed to be pulling you out of this mess, not making it worse.”
Worse? How could it get worse than it already was? I now had two good candidates for trying to put me into an ambulance, a handwritten death threat that I still couldn’t account for, a very probable assault and battery charge looming in the very near future, a mayor who most likely wanted me out of the county for the rest of my natural life, and so far, not even a hint for finding a Northern Bobwhite.
Beside me, Alan thrashed through some bushes, scattering every bird within a half-mile.
Oh yeah, it could get worse.
I could have Alan birding with me.
I stifled a groan and headed off for the trees.