The Boreal Owl Murder (21 page)

“I bet he’s also the one who wrote the letter to Rahr, then,” Luce said after a minute. “And maybe he’s the person who’s been threatening you, Bobby.” She reached over and gently rubbed my shoulder. “It’s over. Knott can tie up the case, and you can go back to work on Monday. For all we know, this guy may have already confessed to taking the shot at you yesterday. He must have believed he was protecting the owls.”

I sighed again. Luce was right: it was over. Rahr’s killer was in custody. I could go back to work. Mr. Lenzen would leave me alone. Kim and Lindsay could spill their guts to me again over and over. And over.

Forget the tissues. I was going to need a mop in my office.

The fact that my life could return to normal should have had me pumping my fist in the air in jubilation, but mostly, I just felt sad. Sad for Rahr and sad for his killer and his misguided intentions. Killing people to save owls was definitely not a solution. How could anyone possibly think that? It certainly wasn’t on any list I’ve ever seen of the top ten best ways to promote conservation. It wasn’t going to make environmentalists or bird-lovers look any better, either, and it sure wasn’t going to contribute to my public relations efforts at the state fair booth, no matter how close we were to the cheese curds. Fielding questions about birder murders wasn’t exactly on my agenda for enticing people to take up birdwatching.

I put the car in gear, and we drove to Two Harbors, the little town just north of Duluth on Lake Superior, where VNT was located. On the way, we listened to the rest of the news broadcast. Of course, everyone and her brother (that’s my gender sensitivity showing there—just thought I’d slip that in) had a comment to make about the big news. The city mayor expressed relief to bring a shocking crime to a close and thanked everyone for their cooperation in the investigation. Margaret Montgomery echoed the mayor’s comments and lamented that the confessed killer—who was definitely not a card-carrying member of her organization—chose murder as a means of voicing his conservationist convictions.

“No wonder environmentalists get a bad name,” Luce muttered. “It only takes one crazy person to do something like this, and then people who really care about, and work hard for, the environment get slammed.”

After Montgomery, there was a sound byte from a local psychiatrist (no surprise there—even if your market is certifiable, free advertising is still free advertising), a former colleague of Rahr’s, a few random people-on-the-street reactions, and finally, comments from Knott.

Or to be more accurate, “No comment” from Knott.

No comment?

“So why isn’t he dancing in the street?” Luce asked. “He’s got a confession.”

“I don’t know,” I said, bothered that Knott hadn’t said anything more than “No comment.” Maybe that was police protocol. Maybe he couldn’t say anything else because now lawyers would get involved and who knows how it would end up. Maybe Rahr’s killer would become the newest celebrity in town, especially if he could be linked to a hot issue. The media loves that stuff. I could almost see the headlines already:
Owls’ Avenger Kills Researcher or Forest Warrior Arrested for Murder
. As I thought about it, I sympathized with Montgomery big-time, because I knew that her job had just turned into a nightmare. No matter what she did or said, Save Our Boreals was going to be dragged through the mud because people would associate S.O.B. with the s.o.b. who killed Rahr.

Talk about a mess. She was going to need a mop even more than I did.

Eating helped.

After a burger and fries—typical birding fare, plus pie!—at north shore institution Betty’s Pies, I felt a little better about the radio report. Knott and I were both off the hook now with our superiors, and Luce and I could head into the forest with impunity.

Or, at least, with our binoculars. Either way, I wasn’t going to have to worry about an owl vigilante taking a shot at me or lining up Luce in his sights. I could finally focus again on getting my owl. And, for some reason, I suddenly felt lucky. That Boreal was a marked bird.

But before we could take up the chase, Luce and I had another mission to accomplish: checking out Very Nice Trees for Lily.

I had the address that Mike had left for me at the hotel (I didn’t know what he’d had to do to get it and I hadn’t asked) and a map of Two Harbors. We drove back toward town and took a right on Hillside Drive, which wound up a slight rise past some warehouses. At the end of the road sat a pre-fabricated building about the size of a small classroom. There wasn’t any sign out front, just the street numbers mounted above a mailbox affixed to the right of the front door. There were two large picture windows, however, and through them, I could see a desk, shelves, files, a worktable, and a grouping of upholstered chairs surrounding a low table.

Nice office, I thought. I wished my office at school looked that nice or was even a third the size of this one. I had a desk, two burgundy plastic chairs and a file cabinet jammed against a concrete wall. Public eduction chic. This looked like a successful realtor’s showroom; in comparison, my office looked like a broom closet at the gas station.

Come to think of it, I’ve probably seen nicer broom closets at gas stations.

I could also see that Vern Thompson, VNT himself, was in the office.

“The man is in,” I told Luce and got out of the car. She followed me up to the door, and I opened it for her to walk through. Thompson rose from his desk as we stepped inside, and I could see surprise register on his face as he recognized me from the Splashing Rock.

“Mr.—uh …”

“White,” I finished for him. “Bob White.”

“Yes, of course. The birder.”

We shook hands, and I introduced him to Luce.

“Actually, I’m here on behalf of my sister,” I explained. “She owns Lily’s Landscaping in Savage and asked me to look you up since I was going to be up here for the weekend.”

“Lily’s Landscaping. Yes, we did some business before Christmas,” Thompson said. “She took a good-sized shipment of our Christmas trees.”

“Yup, that’s right. She was very happy with them. They were very nice trees,” I couldn’t help adding.

Thompson smiled. “Truth in—”

“Advertising. I know,” I nodded. “Anyway, Lily wanted me to take a look at your operation, see what you’ve got in the way of white jack pines and, I understand, a great deal on ladyslippers.”

“Won’t you take a seat?” He gestured Luce and me over to the overstuffed chairs by the coffee table. “Can I get you something to drink? Pop? Tea?”

“No, thanks,” Luce and I both replied as we sat down. I noticed a little display calendar on the top of the rough-cut white pine coffee table and picked it up. It had a photo of Mount Rainier on it and the words
Big Timber Industries of Cascade, Washington
, emblazoned across the bottom.

“Pretty country,” I commented, replacing the calendar on the table. “Have you been out there?”

Thompson sat on the broad arm of a chair and shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I’m a Minnesota boy. Born and raised outside Ely. How about you?”

“Minnetonka.”

“Luce?” Thompson asked.

“St. Paul. Right on the Mississippi River, as a matter of fact.”

“Near the old Ford plant?”

“Yes,” Luce said. “Do you know it?”

“Sure do,” Thompson grinned. “I spent ten years there in the seventies, working the assembly line. Hot, hard work. Cooped up all day around big machines and sweating buckets because there’s no way to cool off inside a big plant like that. Some days, I just knew hell had to be cooler than that. But then business was bad for a while and I got laid off, so I came back north. I liked the Cities fine, and I sure learned my way around machinery at the plant, but I guess I just missed the north woods too much. Hunting and fishing, you know. And I like working outside. Ended up working in logging till last spring.”

I wasn’t surprised he’d been a logger. That certainly explained his muscular arms and overall good physical condition. Thompson might have been twenty years older than me, but I would have jumped at the chance to pick him for my Red Rover team on the playground.

“This,” he said, spreading his arms out to include the office, “is my newest business venture. And a good one it is, too.”

He laid his tanned hands on his knees. “So what can I tell you about VNT?”

“Basically, I was hoping to see your greenhouses,” I told him.

Of course, what I really wanted to know was if he was stealing stock off state land, but I didn’t think that was a good line for opening communications. “So, Vern, are you poaching all your product?” As strong as he appeared to be, I figured I could still take him if he threw a punch, but I wasn’t itching to prove it. Good counselors don’t provoke; they tactfully elicit. Another gem from one of my graduate classes.

“Well, Bob, I’d sure like to do that, but actually, we don’t have greenhouses, per se. We’ve got plantings, and it’s a little tough right now to get up to our growing property, what with the heavy snow and melting we’ve had this last week. The roads are mud, at best, and I’ve already got a couple vehicles stuck up there. So I’m going to give you a rain check—make that a sun check,” he smiled, “to see it the next time you’re up this way.”

He stood and handed me his business card, making it clear our friendly little chat had come to a rather abrupt end.

“Sorry you made the trip out here for nothing and I can’t show you anything, but tell your sister that I can deliver all the ladyslippers she wants and she won’t find a better price or better stock anywhere. And if she wants those jack pine she talked about, well, I’ve got plenty of them, too.”

“Sounds like you’ve got quite a piece of land for all that stock,” I commented, tucking his card into my wallet.

“That I do,” he agreed. “That, I surely do.”

“It’s not a wasted trip, either, Mr. Thompson,” Luce told him. “We’ve already had a good morning birding and we’re hoping to find one of those Boreal Owls tonight. Bob’s got a line on a couple possible sites, so we’re going to give them a try.”

“Is that right?” He glanced at me and paused for a moment, like he was thinking that over. “How do you know where to look? Did you go on the owl trips last spring?”

“No,” I answered him. “We didn’t make it up here in time. I’ve just been researching Rahr’s journal reports, and based on that information, I’ve narrowed it down to some probable nesting areas.”

“Interesting.” He ushered us to the door. “I wondered how you—I mean, birders in general—could find those sites. They seemed fairly remote when we visited them last year on the tours. It looked to me like you’d have to be pretty highly motivated to track those owls down. There’s a lot of country up there.”

He stepped back to let Luce go through the door first. “Well, let me know how you do. I’d be curious to know what you find. So would Margaret, probably,” he added, “being as she’s the S.O.B. director.”

Thompson walked outside with us. I looked around the little parking area, empty except for my SUV and what I guessed was Thompson’s truck—a beat-up old olive green pick-up that could have doubled for one of the trucks we used when I worked for the DNR years ago. To my complete disappointment, however, even though I wished as hard as I could, there was not a single cherry-picker to be seen, let alone one with a stolen pine top hanging over the edge of its rusty old bucket.

So much for wishing. Time for Plan B.

Or, at least, it would have been time for Plan B if I’d had one.

Which I didn’t.

“So you’ve got a couple trucks stuck in the woods, huh?” I was back to hoping for incrimination by conversation. If he let slip that one was a cherry-picker, I was going straight to the nearest police station and asking for back-up.

“Yeah,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d probably still be stuck up there myself, too, if Maggie hadn’t come and given me a ride home. She’s an amazing woman.”

“Maggie?” Luce asked.

“Margaret,” he said. “Montgomery. She was having dinner with me last night at the Splashing Rock. Bob met her. Nice place, don’t you think? All that white pine in the dining room. I supplied it. The Splashing Rock was one of my first clients—helped me establish the business.”

I nodded in acknowledgment, remembering the aroma of pine that lightly scented the restaurant and trying to recall details from our conversation the night before. “That’s right, she said you two met on one of Rahr’s owl trips last spring.”

“Do you bird?” Luce asked him.

“No, not really,” Thompson laughed. “I went on the trip more out of morbid curiosity than out of interest in the owls.”

“Morbid curiosity?” Luce repeated.

“Yeah. The owls cost me my logging job. I was working for the company that was counting on the DNR contract to clear the forest, and when it fell through, thanks to the owls and Maggie’s S.O.B. crowd, so did my job.” Thompson laced his fingers together and pushed them out palms-first in front of his chest. “But turned out, it was the best thing that happened to me. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m my own boss.”

“That’s quite an accomplishment,” Luce said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks … Luce,” he said.

For a second there, I thought he was going to say “little lady,” but I guessed when he realized he was looking up at Luce, he figured it didn’t quite fit the situation. But Luce had his attention now. “I’d love to have my own business,” she told him, a note of longing in her voice.

She did?

Funny, she’d never mentioned aspirations of ownership to
me
. I slid her a glance and saw that she was gazing at Thompson with what I could only call blatant admiration. I even thought I saw her bat her eyelashes at him.

For crying out loud.

She was flirting with the guy.

What was she thinking? That a little female flattery was going to overpower his instincts of self-preservation and convince him to confess to poaching plants from government land? That her beautiful blue eyes would reduce the rugged lumberman to a pile of sniveling self-reproach? That flirting was going to get us a clue?