A Bobwhite Killing (13 page)

“Well, yeah. This morning I had some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Shana locked her eyes on mine. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling us something important?”

I returned her stare, wondering why all the women in my life seemed able to read my mind at whim. Lily had made a habit of it since we were kids; Luce had elevated it to a fine art. Now it seemed Shana had joined their club. At work, I prided myself on my repertoire of counseling faces; depending on the situation, I could do “Sympathy” or “Encouragement” or “Time to buck up and face the music, because you are so busted, kid” with just a quirk of my eyebrows. Yet no matter how many faces I could assume, I never seemed able to hide what I was really feeling from these three. Even that summer I was crazy about Shana, she could always read my mood and anticipate my reactions.

Oh, shit.

Shana had known I was in love with her.

Good thing I was already sitting down, because if I’d been standing, I would have found myself knocked on my butt.

Shana had known how I felt.

She’d never said a word about it, but she’d known. All these years I’d thought I’d hid my feelings that summer so cleverly, and she’d probably been thinking, “Aw, he’s such a cute kid to have a crush on me.”

Geez. Did I feel stupid.

Before I could really get a good case of total self-mortification going, though, Shana snapped me back to the present in all its glorious confusion. “Bernie was in the car with you. Is she all right?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” I answered, maybe a little too quickly, since I could see Shana’s eyes narrowing. “Well, she’s a little shook up,” I amended. “And her one rib might have gotten cracked when the airbag exploded, but—”

“WHAT?”

“Maybe you should sit down,” Alan suggested to Shana again. “I have the distinct feeling this story isn’t going to get any better. Am I right, Bob?”

I let out a long breath and looked at both Shana and Tom. “Someone cut my brake line. My brakes went out. I managed to spin out my car to stop it before we ended up tearing into a tree or going off the road. It could have been a lot worse.”

For a moment, no one said anything.

“Yeah,” Alan finally agreed. “You could have been dead. Then I would have to let Rick stand in as my best man. Nice save, White-man.” Then he smacked me—hard—with his hat. “You idiot. What the hell is going on around here?”

Jack’s note,” Tom said. Shana paled and sat down in the armchair across from me.

“What note?” Alan asked. “I swear to God, if someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I am going to get Lily on the phone right now to send that scary guy down here to make you all talk.”

I made a grab for his hat, which he was waving in the air in front of my nose, and tossed it beside me on the couch. “Are you talking about Scary Stan?” I glanced at Shana to be sure she hadn’t passed out. “How do you know Stan, Alan?”

He picked up his hat and sat where I had dropped it.

“He came by Lily’s place last night. After apologizing profusely for stopping by unannounced, he said he needed to call you about something urgent, but he didn’t have your cell number. When she asked what it was, he just told her to watch the news.” I noticed he took a quick check on Shana, too. “He was kind of odd. It’s like his eyes don’t have any light in them, or something. I just had the feeling I wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley, you know?”

Yeah, I knew. Stan had that effect on everyone, except, apparently, Lily. Lily didn’t think he’d been odd at all when they’d been dating. She’d once told me he was “refreshing” because he didn’t waste words.

I always thought he didn’t “waste words” because he held the rest of humanity in utter contempt. Although if Stan had apologized “profusely” to Lily, as Alan had reported, then I guess my sister was the exception to his rule, too.

Go figure that one.

Anyway, that solved one mystery: how Scary Stan got my private cell phone number. It also told me who tipped Lily off to the newscast, which in turn revealed where I was temporarily seeking refuge from the Biggest Show on Earth, as Alan had termed it.

Thanks, Stan. I owe you big time for that one, buddy.

“So here’s the deal,” I told Alan. “Jack’s dead. Billy, his assistant, is dead. The sheriff thinks that Billy shot Jack, but no one knows who shot Billy, though Kami’s being questioned about it by the sheriff because of the tranquilizer dart. In the meantime, Shana found a note that Jack wrote to kill me, which she thinks came from Big Ben’s pocket. Then this morning, my brakes failed and now Bernie’s getting X-rayed.”

“You forgot the part about Chuck cooking the books to slide money to Big Ben,” Tom added to my report. He was sitting on the edge of the coffee table in front of Shana. “And that he’s accusing Shana of planning the whole thing.”

Alan rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I think I got lost at the dart part. So who shot the sheriff?”

“No one shot the sheriff,” I said. “Kami uses the darts on Nigel when he gets loose.”

Alan laid his head against the back of the couch. “I don’t think I even want to know who Nigel is.”

“He’s a pussycat compared to Chuck,” Tom said. “I’m sorry, Shana, but I think your stepson is a snake in the grass. He knew Jack stopped funding Big Ben, but he kept the payments rolling. So the question is, did Chuck pass the bucks to Ben because he wanted to spite his dad for ignoring OK Industries while he worked on the eco-communities, or did Chuck have another reason, like an under-the-table business deal with Ben? You said Ben and Chuck have been friends for a long time; maybe they’d started some kind of partnership on their own since Jack was devoting all his time to planning the eco-communities.”

Alan snapped his fingers. “That’s right! The eco-communities!”

The three of us looked at Alan.

“What about the eco-communities?” Shana asked.

Alan sat up straight and scooted forward on the sofa cushion. “It was on the news last night. The reporter said that Jack’s untimely death was a real blow to the eco-community project down here because there has been so much opposition to getting the zoning approved.”

A quiet tone of intensity crept into his voice. As a high school social studies teacher at Savage High, Alan was pretty low key, but I knew from our college days that if there was one thing that really gunned his jets, it was political activism. He was also a local news junkie, which meant he kept tabs on all kinds of issues around Minnesota.

“Just last week,” he was saying now, “the state ATV recreational lobbying group asked for an injunction against Fillmore County to stop approval of the revised zoning that would pave the way for Jack’s eco-community to break ground. If it was granted, then there was a good chance that the battle would go to court. Which would, in turn, mean more expenses for the eco people, not to mention the loss of time as their proposed site continues to degrade.”

“And Jack was the eco-community’s champion,” Shana pointed out. “He was the point man with the legislators.” She rubbed her belly. “And, of course, we were paying a lot of the group’s expenses out of our pockets for them, too. Jack really cared about this initiative.” Her voice sounded wistful. “He knew what a difference it could make for the future of the state. For our kids.”

Even from across the coffee table, I could see her eyes getting misty. Time for a diversion, I realized.

“Let’s get some air,” I announced, standing up. “I believe a little birding might do the trick, don’t you, Tom?”

With just a quick glance at Shana’s trembling chin, Tom caught on to my ploy. “Who’s driving?” he asked.

I clapped a hand on Alan’s shoulder. “Alan is.”

“I am?” the mighty Hawk choked.

“My car’s in the shop, and Tom’s shocks—or lack thereof—might be too hard on Shana,” I explained. “Your Toyota’s ride is smooth as butter, buddy. We can bird in style.”

“But I don’t bird,” Alan tactfully reminded me. “I like spectator sports, preferably indoor and with a view from a hospitality suite.”

“I can drive,” Shana offered, pushing hard with her hands against the arms of the chair in order to get enough leverage to pull herself to her feet.

“No!” Tom, Alan, and I all said at the same time.

“Hey,” Alan suddenly enthused, “I’d love to go birding! I bet it’s just chock full of fun, right? Fresh air, nice trees, ah … all that good stuff. Can we make a pit stop in your room before we go, Bob?” he asked, turning towards me. “I’d like to clean up a little after making the drive down here.” He grabbed my upper arm and dragged me out of the lobby into the hotel hallway. Behind us, I could hear Tom and Shana planning to meet us back in the lobby in another ten minutes.

“Gee, Alan, I’m so glad you’ve finally had a change of heart about my hobby,” I told him as I slid the magnetic key card through my door lock. “Maybe I’ll take back all those nasty things I told Lily about you.”

We stepped into my room, and he closed the door quietly behind him.

“Do not even bring Lily into this,” he told me sternly, “who, for the record, was absolutely right in being worried about you. Come on, Bob! What are you doing here? Practicing being a sitting duck? Somebody’s got a death wish for you, and you’re going birding? And as for the lovely, and exceptionally pregnant, Mrs. O’Keefe, are you sure you’re just offering a shoulder here, and not wondering if a little detour down memory lane might lead to something special in the present?”

He tossed his hat on the bed. “Granted, that’s a pretty big ‘something special’ with two babies on the way, and the woman has the most amazing green eyes I’ve ever seen, but, Bob, are you sure you know what you’re doing here?”

I walked over to the room’s oversized window and looked out. It was a beautiful day. Heck, it was still morning. The sky was a bright blue, a pair of Mourning Doves were perched in a tree outside the window, and a Killdeer was lightly running along the edge of the parking lot.

Did I know what I was doing?

Yes.

And no.

I turned back to face Alan. “You know, eighteen years ago, I thought Shana was the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world. She was smart. She was funny. She loved birding. When I was with her, I felt like I was on top of the world. As far as I was concerned, she was perfect.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I was a kid.”

Alan nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“She’s still all those things, Alan, but I’m not that kid anymore. I’m not interested in any trips down memory lane because memories can’t come close to what I have with Luce now. No contest. There never was.”

Even as I said it out loud, I knew it was the truth. Seeing Shana again had been an unexpected jolt to my memory banks, but as soon as the dust had settled, as soon as I saw the look that passed between her and Jack in the hotel lobby the night I checked in, I knew exactly what I was seeing and what I wanted.

I saw the same electricity that arced between Luce and me every time we were together. And I knew I wanted it for the rest of my life, as soon as possible. If seeing Shana again made me regret anything, it was not being with Luce every moment I was breathing.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Alan assured me. “You are just not that dumb, White-man. Any idiot can see that you and Luce belong together. Although, like I said, Shana does have the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen. Really, really green. And she’s got that whole Earth Mother thing going on, too, with being pregnant. It kind of brings out the protective side of a guy, you know?”

“Hey!” I barked at him. “You’re marrying my sister. No looking at any other women. Pregnant or otherwise. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

He laughed and scraped his long black hair back from the sides of his face. “Are you kidding me? Your sister is all the woman I ever want to look at. Besides, she’d kill me long before you even got wind of it, anyway. Speaking of which,” he suddenly sobered, “what are you doing about this death threat?”

This was the “no” part of my answer to the “did I know what I was doing?” question. I opened my mouth to tell him I felt safe as long as I wasn’t walking alone in a state forest, when a screeching noise split the air.

A crash didn’t follow it.

But two loud gunshots did.

Holy crap!” I shouted, diving for the worn brown carpeting on the floor of my hotel room.

Almost simultaneously, I heard Alan hit the floor on the other side of the bed.

“Are you all right?” I yelled.

“Stay down!” he yelled back.

“I’m not getting up to wave a red flag, if that’s what you’re worrying about.” I did, however, lift my head to see what damage had been done to the window.

None.

“What the hell?” I muttered, then slowly lifted my head and shoulders to carefully peer over the window sill.

There were no snipers posted in the parking lot. Of course, if there were really snipers, I probably wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. From what I understood of that particular line of work, one didn’t last long parading around in an open area with a rifle in your arms. Stealth was highly recommended as a character trait.

On the other hand, there was a jacked-up pickup truck parked at the far end of the lot. A couple of teenaged boys were sitting on the tailgate, laughing and pointing at the black rubber marks that now adorned the asphalt.

“Bob!” Alan yelled from his position on the floor. “What’s happening?”

“I think,” I said, “Mom and Dad went to church, and Junior’s joyriding with his buddy.”

“What?” Alan’s head and shoulders popped up on the other side of the bed.

“They weren’t gunshots, Alan. Just a truck backfiring. Maybe it’s a Sunday morning ritual here in Spring Valley. The parents do doughnuts after church, and the kids do donuts in empty parking lots.”

I stood up and brushed the carpet lint off my jeans.

“But you weren’t taking any chances, were you?” Alan pointed out, likewise standing up. “You heard the shots, and you thought it came from a gun. A gun aiming for you. This is serious shit here, Bob.”

I sat on the end of the bed and looked at him over my shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Actually, I figured that out when my car brakes went out this morning, and Bernie ended up with a ride in an ambulance.”