The Kiskadee of Death (8 page)

“Bureaucracy can be bought,” the naturalist observed, “or at least mollified. The deal is that the FAA completed their review, and gave SpaceX the green light if it took measures to mitigate the environmental damage.”

“Measures?” Luce echoed. “Mitigate? So it's okay to do some damage, as long as it's not as bad as it could possibly be?”

For a few moments, all three of us were silent.

“Holy crap,” I finally said out loud.

“My feelings exactly,” Cynnie said. “It's like every other ecological disaster created by man. As long as it's not in your backyard, tough luck for the people who do live nearby. It has to get personal before the big shots will do anything about it.”

She smiled grimly. “And that's my job. I aim to make it personal for everyone.”

For some reason, her smile didn't leave me all warm and toasty.

“Yo, Minnesota!”

Schooner was standing a few feet away from our glum little group.

“You folks going to nail some grapefruit, or just yak all night?”

“Just bringing them up to speed on our local tragedy-in-the-making,” Cynnie said.

Schooner struck a pose, his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed. “You saying our float is a mess? I'll have you know we spent a week of long nights at Roosevelt's planning this masterpiece of ornithological beauty. And some of those nights we were even sober.”

“Roosevelt's is a favorite micro-brewery of the birding community around here,” Cynnie informed us. “It's in McAllen, and the owners are good friends of mine. They usually kick in a donation to our Festival Fund, too. Which they should,” she added, “since our MOB members make liberal contribution to the profit side of the restaurant's ledger.”

“With reason,” Schooner insisted. He took Luce's arm and steered her toward the lit garage. “The best sandwiches in town,” he told her.

Cynnie and I followed Luce and her escort into the float construction zone. Once inside, the sound of pounding hammers, shooting nail guns, and shouted instructions filled the air. I walked over to the side wall of the garage where three sketches of the MOB float were pinned to a large corkboard.

The first one showed a side view of the flatbed, with a human-sized Great Kiskadee surrounded by poster-sized photos of other birds common to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. In the drawing, the big bird was waving, presumably to the delighted parade crowds.

That explained the scary giant kiskadee currently draped on the float: some lucky individual was going to wear the creepy costume and be a goodwill ambassador for both Great Kiskadees and the McAllen Older Birders. The one-eyed detail was obviously a nod to the notorious one-eyed kiskadee specimen currently frequenting the area—the same one Luce and I had encountered at Estero Llano after running into Crazy Eddie this morning.

The second drawing of the float depicted what would be a ten-foot-by-ten-foot map representing the convergence of the two flyways that had created the area's stellar reputation as a world class birding location. It looked like the map would have a base of chicken wire covered in different types of citrus to create the two migration corridors: the Central flyway was going to be a path of oranges, while the Mississippi flyway would be a river of limes. According to the sketch, Texas was going to be a mosaic of lemons, with the nine World Birding Centers marked by stars composed of ruby red grapefruit.

The third sketch showed the front of the truck cab decked out like the head of a Green Jay. What in the world the float builders were going to use for the brilliant sapphire blue of its head, I had no idea; unless some innovative grower in the Valley was about to unveil a new variety of blue citrus, I assumed there was going to be some heavy spray-painting of oranges going on before the float made its public appearance in the parade. Having already observed firsthand at the Alamo Inn that many of the MOBsters regularly indulged their taste for beer, I made a mental note to myself to be sure I stood clear of any spray painting that might be scheduled for later lest I ended up on the float myself as a real Texas rarity: a blue Bob White.

A round of hoorays came from the other side of the garage, and I turned from my study of the float sketches to see a grim, but politely smiling, Buzz Davis stepping into the garage from the door that led into the attached house.

The man was tough, I decided. Stoic under pressure. His best friend had been killed this morning, and here he was putting in an appearance with a bunch of birders building a float for a parade. Then I guessed that either Buzz owned the house and the attached garage, or he was on very familiar terms with whoever did, and he was here for the companionship of friends in a very difficult time.

“Let's hear it for Buzz!” Schooner's amplified voice thundered in the garage. “Thanks for the use of your high-tech hangar here!”

That answered that question. This was, indeed, Buzz's property.

And a mighty fine property it is
, I thought, looking at the dark green Porsche parked in the far stall of the three-car space. If I remembered correctly from seeing the house when we drove up to the garage, the attached home was both expansive and expensive: a solid brick exterior with plenty of wrought iron fixtures, including open balconies on the upper level that overlooked a fountain that tumbled into a wide basin in the center of the brick-paved driveway.

Just because you washed out of the astronaut program didn't mean you couldn't still make a lot of money, I guessed. I wondered briefly what business had brought Buzz Davis his wealth, and when I remembered that Rosalie had said he was a Winter Texan, I realized that meant that Buzz probably had another home someplace else.

I wondered if it was as spectacular as this one.

No wonder Poppy Mac had complained about the decrepit kiskadee costume. If the MOB had this kind of money behind it, they could probably afford to buy any costumes they wanted. Heck, with that kind of money, they could buy all the costumes in the state.

Luce interrupted my case of green envy by loading a crate of yellow lemons into my arms.

“Follow me,” she commanded.

As ordered, I trailed my wife to a section of the garage where a large sheet of chicken wire was slowly being transformed into the map of the migration corridors I'd seen in the sketches. I looked from the empty expanse that would become the state of Texas to the crate of lemons I was holding.

“There is no way these lemons are going to cover that whole area,” I said. “We'll be lucky if we can get the panhandle out of this crate.”

A beeping noise behind me caught my attention and I turned to see Buzz Davis driving a small lift truck toward me.

It was piled high with crates of lemons.

“Let me guess,' I said, stepping aside so Buzz could lower the front lift's cargo onto the garage floor. “Lemons for Texas.”

Buzz climbed out of the little truck and patted me on the back. “Welcome to the MOB, Bob. I hope you like the scent of lemons, because you're going to be wearing it for a few days by the time we finish with the float. You know, Birdy—”

His voice faltered, and I saw his jaw tighten and his eyes tear up. He looked up at the garage ceiling and let out a long breath. When he looked at me again, he had a smile on his face.

“Birdy used to say we were making something a lot better than lemonade out of lemons when we built this float every year for the parade.” Buzz took another long breath. “He said we were building an invitation to every person at the Citrus Festival to get outside and appreciate birds.”

Luce took the crate from my hands and put it on the floor. “I'm so sorry for your loss, Buzz,” she told the old man. “I've heard from some of the other birders here that you two had been close friends for almost fifty years.”

“That's right,” he said. “We flew combat missions together in Vietnam. Got shot down together. Can you believe that's where Birdy got hooked on birding? In the middle of a war zone.”

A forced laugh escaped from his mouth, and he shook his head. “Whoever would have thought he'd die from cracking his head open because he tripped over a log birding?”

“Is that what the chief said?” Luce asked.

I immediately took her elbow and steered her toward the other birders.

“Ixnay on the eriffshay,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. To Buzz, I waved goodbye and said we'd check back with him later.

“Why would the chief tell him that?” Luce asked me when I'd walked her around the chicken wire map to pick up a nail gun sitting on a bench. “He told us Birdy's death is being handled as a homicide.”

I handed her the nail gun and picked up a box of nails to go with it.

“Luce, think about it. Birdy was at the park with Buzz. Buzz was the last one to see him alive, apparently. Chief Pacheco has to consider Buzz a suspect for that reason alone.”

I saw a trio of birders kneeling on the map, working on arranging the limes to form the Mississippi flyway. I saw that Gunnar was among them, his signature bandana now tied into a sweat band around his head.

“Where should we start with the lemons?” I called to him.

“Take your pick,” he called back. “Anywhere inside that yellow painted outline is fine. That's a whole lot of Texas to cover.”

I grabbed a big tray of lemons that had already been halved.

“I figure that the chief told Buzz it was an accident to keep the real details of the investigation under wraps, so whoever killed Birdy won't know the police are already looking for him,” I continued, laying out my theory to Luce. “If Buzz is the murderer, you don't want to tip him off that you're onto him.”

“But the Aquavit,” Luce protested. “It was Eddie's bottle.”

“Which he said he lost here, working on the float,” I noted. “Any of these people could have picked it up…”

Luce finished my thought. “And then coincidentally happened to drop it near where Birdy's body was found?”

Our eyes met over the tray of lemon halves.

“You know,” I slowly speculated, “if you were planning to kill someone, and you found a personal item that would link its owner to the murder scene, maybe you'd think that'd be a good idea—plant false evidence to point to someone else as the killer.”

“Like a bottle of Aquavit,” Luce said. “But that means anyone who was here with Eddie…” She let her sentence trail off.

I nodded. Almost in unison, we both turned our heads to scan the faces of the people in the garage.

Buzz, Schooner, Gunnar, and Paddy Mac had all been at the park this morning when I'd spotted Birdy's leg beneath the overturned canoe. Schooner and Paddy Mac had, in fact, been part of the small clutch of birders with us when I noticed the Green Kingfisher at Alligator Lake, just before I caught a glimpse of Birdy. Another person in the garage had also been at the scene, I now realized. Poppy Mac, Paddy Mac's wife, was one of the women with us at Alligator Lake.

As for the rest of the birders working on the float, I couldn't recall if any had been at the park, but there was no rule I knew of that said a murderer had to hang around until his victim was found. For that matter, there was no reason at all to think the murderer had been on the park deck with us as Chief Pacheco began collecting statements. I knew I sure wouldn't stay around if I'd killed someone—I'd make a beeline for the border.

Huh.

In this case, the border was right there—the Mexican-American border, that is.

For just a second, I had a flashback to Buzz and Rosalie on the park deck before Luce and I set off to Alligator Lake and found a dead man. Buzz had made some comment about immigrants not being welcome and Rosalie's response gave me the feeling she was offended.

“That's right!” I said, then realized I'd said it out loud, which was why Luce was giving me a funny look.

“Rosalie's an immigrant,” I said, laying the tray of lemons back on the bench.

“What are you talking about?” my wife asked.

“I thought you could read my mind,” I told her. “You always seem to know what I'm thinking. Here.” I took her hands and placed one on each side of my head. “Can you hear me thinking?”

“I think the sunscreen we bought yesterday isn't working and now your brain has fried along with your arms,” Luce suggested. She removed her hands. “No, I can't hear you thinking. What are you talking about?”

“This morning, at the park when we met Rosalie and Buzz. She was upset when Buzz made the crack about immigrants not being welcome in Texas,” I explained. “Pearl told us Rosalie grew up, poor, in Mexico, and that she really appreciated the opportunities she found in America. I bet she sympathizes with the illegal immigrants who risk so much to find a better life in the United States, and she was offended by Buzz's attempt at a joke.”

Luce studied my face a moment, then tapped me on the chest with the end of the nail gun. “And what does that have to do with anything?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“I'm not sure,” I admitted. “But there's something about the border being so close to where Birdy was killed. I'm sure of it. I just don't have it all figured out yet.”

Luce pointed her nail gun at the tray of lemons. “How about we work on getting this map done? Maybe by the time we finish Texas, you'll have another clue.”

I picked up the tray of lemons again and followed her to the edge of the yellow outline where she dropped to her knees to start attaching the fruit halves I handed her.

I didn't want another clue.

I wanted to solve the case and keep Crazy Eddie from getting killed.

Because in my experience, once a birder sets his sights on a particular bird, he doesn't give up until he gets it. I didn't want to find out the same was true of whoever had set his gun sights on my old friend, instead of the vultures, at Frontera Audubon.