Chapter Thirty

Kate had thought the book would be helpful, but she had no idea she’d learn this much.

“What?” Livvy leaned forward to try to see what Kate was reading. “Are you going to read it out loud?”

“Read what?” Bonnie made her way to the counter, her cane tapping out the rhythm of her cautious, rolling gait.

“Kate thinks she’s got a lead on what has scared your birds away,” Livvy said with excitement.

“Really?” The cadence of Bonnie’s walking picked up until she reached Kate’s side.

“Actually, no.” Kate reached the end of the story, sighed, shook her head, and set the book down with her thumb placed firmly between the pages to hold her place. “Just the opposite.”

“What?” Livvy and Bonnie both demanded in unison.

“This story isn’t about a man who learned how to scare birds away, but about one who found a way to draw birds together to scare people away.”

“Was that man’s name Artie Best?” Bonnie wanted to know with a smile.

“I came here for answers, but I’m not going to find them that easily.” Kate shook her head in amusement at her friend’s suggestion.

“So tell us what you did find,” Livvy urged.

“The book actually warns that the whole thing might be an urban legend.” Kate lifted the book, opened to the page where the story began, cleared her throat, opened her mouth, then shut it and the book again. “It’s almost silly. Then again, it is the kind of silly thing that a desperate person just might try.”

“Just hit the high notes of the story then,” Bonnie suggested. “We’ll tell you if it sounds plausible.”

“Good idea.” Kate set the book on the counter. “Now supposedly, around fifteen years ago, a man became angry when the local high school bought the land behind his home and cleared it out to build a football stadium. This displaced local wildlife, and the traffic, construction, and inconsiderate spectators inconvenienced him and his neighbors. So he devised his own means of retribution.”

Bonnie and Livvy both leaned against the counter, their chins propped in their hands as they listened intently.

“The story goes that every evening at approximately the time the games would be starting the following fall, he would dress in a referee’s uniform, go out onto the field, blow a loud whistle, and scatter bags full of birdseed.”

“And birds literally flocked to the site,” Livvy concluded.

“And they continued to do so every time a man in a referee’s uniform took the field and blew a whistle. So at the first football game, when the ref took the field for the coin toss...” Kate left it for the others to come to the obvious conclusion. She pushed the book toward Bonnie in case she wanted to go over the details herself. “And Artie Best has stacks and stacks of birdseed in his supply barn and has been using it up fast.”

Bonnie glanced over the pages containing the story, then closed the book. “And you think that Artie might have checked out this book?”

“I think he had his hands on it.” Kate flipped the book over to show the black smudges on the cover. “Those are just like the stains LuAnne Matthews showed us in the pocket of her uniform where she put the seed packet.”

“What seed packet?” Livvy wanted to know.

“These exotic South American sunflower-type seeds that come in a bright foil-type packet and are coated with this light, gritty black oil that leaves a mess.” Bonnie tapped the damaged book cover, then fixed her gaze on Kate. “But Dud Howell had seed packets like that.”

Kate had thought of that already, and of LuAnne saying that Dud was very careful not to get his hands dirty from the seeds. Kate remembered looking at Dud’s hands and at Charlene’s. She’d never seen any of the black substance on them. “Technically, the seed packet was left by Dud Howell, who pulled it out of the pocket of the overalls he borrowed from—”

“Artie Best,” Bonnie filled in the blank.

Kate hated to admit it, but this didn’t look good for the local bird wrangler.

“But didn’t Dud have seeds like that before he started wearing those borrowed overalls?” Bonnie asked.

“Good point.” Kate frowned.

“And, not unlike the man in the story of the stadium, Artie hasn’t made any attempt to hide his displeasure with people tramping up and down on his property.” Bonnie used Artie’s own words to drive home her point.

“But the man in the story went to all that trouble to get the birds to come to a specific place, not to leave it.” Livvy was apparently still trying to make the pieces fit and wasn’t completely satisfied with the result.

“So has Artie, I suspect. He loves the birds and wants to protect them, so I think he’s found a way to make them come to him. The man in this story was able to do this in a football stadium without people catching on. I suspect it was because the birds stayed close to the feeding grounds. And if Artie got the idea from this book weeks ago, he’s had plenty of time to have trained the birds before Bonnie came around and noticed the flocks weren’t as widespread as they were supposed to be. The birds are missing as we get close to his land because they are staying on his land where we were not permitted to go.” Kate put her hand on Bonnie’s shoulder. “In essence, he’s stolen all the birds that make their home in or are migrating through Best Acres. He must be using an isolated spot out in the country. That’s why we aren’t seeing birds as we near his place. They are keeping to a small area. I suspect if we watched the skies all day long we might catch them but we really haven’t had that advantage. However, if Artie has trained the birds to congregate in one or even a couple of specific spots on his property, those spots would be a bird-watcher’s dream.”

That realization seemed to hit Bonnie. She turned to Kate and whispered eagerly, “He might even have encouraged the umbies to keep to those areas.”

“I suppose so.” Kate paused. “He was very particular about when we could come out to see him and was away from the house at certain times of the day. So you think he could encourage even specific birds like the pair of umbies to stay close to wherever the seed was being spread all the time?”

“Yes. There is so much land out there, not just Artie’s but just open land all around, lots of brush and so much tree cover. If the birds were keeping close to certain areas and staying in those trees, not having to fly around looking for food, it would seem to us there were hardly any birds at all,” Bonnie surmised.

“Other times, when we spotted small clusters of birds or two or three flitting by, that was probably between feedings.” The pieces were all coming together for Kate.

Bonnie nodded, her eyes lighting up with understand-ing. “Yes. Wild birds don’t rely solely on food from humans for their entire diet. But they might stay close to a source of food.”

Kate sighed. She’d been hoping it wouldn’t come to this. “So we’ve established motive, opportunity, and at least circumstantial evidence. The only thing now that can cinch the case against Artie Best would be to confront him.”

And that’s just what they agreed to do.