Rant of Ravens Read online

  Praise for the Birdwatcher’s Mystery series by Christine Goff

  “Very entertaining. Birders and nature lovers alike will enjoy this new twist on the cozy mystery.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “You don’t have to be a bird lover to fall in love with Christine Goff’s charming Birdwatcher’s Mysteries.”

  —Tony Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author of the Navajo mystery series.

  “The birds of the Rocky Mountains will warm the binoculars of birders who have waited a lifetime to see real stories about birds in a popular novel.”

  —Birding Business magazine

  “Christine Goff’s Birdwatcher’s mysteries are engaging.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “A wonderfully clever, charming, and addictive series.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art.

  DEATH OF A SONGBIRD

  “A most absorbing mystery.”

  —Virginia H. Kingsolver, Birding magazine

  A RANT OF RAVENS

  “Everything you expect from a good mystery—a smart detective and a plot that takes some surprising twists… a terrific debut!”

  —Margaret Coel, NYT bestselling author of the Wind River Mystery series.

  “A Rant of Ravens is a deft and marvelous debut mystery set in the complex and colorful world of bird-watching.”

  —Earlene Fowler, national bestselling author of Seven Sisters

  “A Rant of Ravens stars a gutsy heroine in fast-paced action with a chill-a-minute finale… enchant nature… A fine-feathered debut.”

  —Carolyn Hart, award-winning author of the Death on Demand and Henrie O mysteries.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel

  are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  A RANT OF RAVENS

  Astor + Blue Editions

  Copyright © 2014 by Christine Goff

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form under the International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. Published in the United States by:

  Astor + Blue Editions

  New York, NY 10003

  www.astorandblue.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  GOFF, CHRISTINE. A RANT OF RAVENS. —2nd ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-941286-30-2 (epdf)

  ISBN: 978-1-941286-29-6 (epub)

  1. Mystery—Thriller—Fiction. 2. Local birdwatchers discover dead body—Fiction 3. Cozy mystery—

  Fiction 4. Mid-life—Mystery—Fiction 5. Birdwatchers—Fiction 6. Women & Family—Fiction 7. Colorado I. Title

  Jacket Cover Design: Didier Meresse

  Printing History

  2000 Berkeley Prime Crime

  The Berkeley Publishing Group New York, NY

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  For Maggie Osborne, my friend and mentor.

  Thanks for pushing me down the path.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Christine Goff

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the author

  Acknowledgments

  A RANT

  OF RAVENS

  Christine Goff

  Introduction

  When Astor + Blue Editions expressed their interest in reissuing the Birdwatcher’s Mystery series, I was delighted. The best way to keep the stories of the EPOCH (Elk Park Ornithological Chapter) members circulating is to have books and ebooks available, and I can think of no better partner than A + B to help me navigate the new waters of digital publishing.

  When I first started writing A Rant of Ravens, I also had a lot to learn—this time about birding. As a backyard birdwatcher, I’d rarely birded in the field. Yet, I knew the environment was where the stories existed. Thus I set my fictional town of Elk Park at the gateway to one of the world’s birding hot spots—Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP, or more often referred to as ROMO)—and drew on an old law enforcement case. In 1995, a peregrine eyas (youngster) was stolen from a nest in the park and later sold to a sheikh in Saudi Arabia for $100K. Peregrines are commonly used for hunting in the Middle East and often bred in captivity. However, this sheikh felt the program-bred birds had lost their instinctual edge and wanted an infusion of wild blood. The kernel from whence the story grew.

  Next, I needed some hands-on field-birding experience. The year was 1998, and Harlingen, Texas was hosting the 5th Annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. I signed up for a crash course in birding. Thinking a trip on the Rio Grande sounded like fun, I found myself in a tippy canoe along with sixteen world-class birders. Lesson #1, I quickly discovered that I needed a better pair of binoculars, and that I’d been using the ones I had incorrectly, for years. (You don’t lift the glasses and seek the target. You spot the target, and then lift the glasses.) Floating down the river, we witnessed baptisms taking place in the water on the Mexican side, saw fossils, and spotted birds—lots of birds. For me, life birds (those I’d never seen before) abounded. Others sought target birds that sometimes remained elusive. What we shared was a sense of a fascination with avian life, a camaraderie in the canoes, and a memorable experience.

  Observing the thousands of visitors to the Birders Bazaar Trade Show and the 600 + taking part in the field trips, I came away from Harlingen knowing I needed to anchor the Birdwatcher’s Mystery series with protagonists who had a commitment to promoting the welfare of birds and their environment, as well as a vested interest in solving the story’s crime. In A Rant of Ravens, that character is Rachel Wilder Stanhope. She is a non-birdwatcher, a fast-tracker from NYC, who comes to Elk Park to visit her aunt Miriam. Pressed into various birding activities, such as pishing for birds (check out the book), Rachel stumbles on the body of a reporter who was in town to nose around an old story. But while Rachel is busy sorting out possible motives, three rare birds go missing—and Miriam disappears without a trace…

  CHAPTER 1

  Dipped out?

  “What, exactly, does that mean, Aunt Miriam?” Rachel Stanhope shouldered the telephone receiver and rooted in the overstuffed filing cabinet for the Henderson design folder. The pendulum clock ticked toward the Monday morning production meeting, signaling a need to end the conversation, but curiosity had gotten the better of her. “An abbreviated version.”

  “It’s an expression I picked up birdwatching in the British Isles. Specifically, as defined by Peter Weaver in The Birdwatcher’s Dictionary, it means ‘failing to see a rare bird which other birdwatchers have succeeded in seeing.’ In your case, dear, it means you viewed Roger as a bald eagle while the rest of us spotted a turkey.”

  “Aunt Miriam, I can honestly say I’ve never once thought of Roger as a bird.” Unlike her aunt, who classified everything in bird terms, Rachel viewed the world from a more nonsectarian perspective. “Try a larger species.”

  “Canine?”

  “I was thinking equine.” Two months ago, Rachel had come home from work and found her husband in bed with a waitress from the West Side Diner. Roger, ranked sevent
eenth on the PGA tour, had called it a bogey, cited the “seven-year itch,” and taken a penalty stroke.

  “Well, if you ask me,” said Miriam, “the man’s a dodo.”

  Rachel swallowed against the sudden, rising lump in her throat. Aunt Miriam had always been her biggest cheerleader. More importantly, she stuck like ink to paper whenever the chips were down. “I spoke with a lawyer today. I’m thinking of filing for divorce.”

  Once spoken, the D word hung in the air, distended by the silence that stretched between them. Divorce had never been an option in the Wilder clan.

  Take Grandma Wilder, Miriam’s mother and Rachel’s paternal grandmother, a wizened eighty-two-year-old with piercing blue eyes, an iron will, and a rapier tongue. A self-proclaimed “recovering” Irish Catholic, she’d married Grandpa Wilder, an Irish Protestant who, it turned out, had a taste for whiskey. But she’d stuck by him and had borne him five sons and two daughters, in that order. Rachel’s father, Peter, was the oldest—a younger, male replica of his mother, who now lived with him in Chicago. Miriam, the youngest, had turned out to be a pint-sized version of her father.

  Rachel considered herself a combination of the two women. Like her aunt she sported the Wilder auburn hair and trademark freckles. But, unlike Miriam, she’d been blessed with Grandma Wilder’s blue eyes and, through some genetic mutation, a long, sticklike frame that Roger once deemed “willowy.”

  Miriam cleared her throat. “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest, dear. If you ask me, it’s about time you dumped him.”

  Relief surged through Rachel, then guilt. “I feel like such a quitter. Do you realize I’ve been married for eight years?”

  “Now, you listen to me, Rachel Wilder Stanhope. You are no quitter,” Miriam said, a steely edge creeping into her otherwise lilting voice. “Do you remember the time you took third place in Midwest magazine’s Young Photographers competition?”

  “I remember the white ribbon hanging on the refrigerator.”

  “Then you must recall that the following year you went back and took first place, beating out the previous year’s winner. That showed tenacity, Rae. Something quitters have little of.” Miriam paused. “Things happen in a marriage. Some good, some bad. God knows, if I hadn’t outlived my husbands, I’d have left all three.”

  “With your Puritan ethics?” Rachel rolled her eyes and laughed. “I’m not buying it, Aunt Miriam. But… thanks.”

  “The point is, sometimes God slams a window. That, my dear, is when you look for the door. Which brings me to why I called.”

  A sharp rap on her office door snagged Rachel’s attention. Jack Jaffery, vice president of design services at Images Plus, stood in the hallway. He knuckled the glass a second time, and gestured sharply toward the conference room. Rachel glanced at the clock, and flashed him the one-minute finger.

  “I have to go, Aunt Miriam. Can I call you back?”

  “This will take only a second, dear. I have a proposition for you.”

  Rachel hesitated. Miriam’s propositions established the foundations for most of the Wilder family legends. Rachel’s father liked to say she was the medium the fairies used to play tricks on unsuspecting people.

  “I want you to come and stay at Bird Haven for the summer.”

  Bird Haven was Miriam’s ranch, a 2,500-acre spread that butted against Rocky Mountain National Park, a few miles north of the town of Elk Park, Colorado. She and her late husband, William Tanager, had purchased the property sixteen years ago from a cattle rancher who was closing operations. Once they’d acquired it, they’d designated the land a wild bird sanctuary and converted the barn and outbuildings into a raptor rehabilitation center.

  After her mother died, Rachel had spent several summers there as a teenager. It was a time of healing—picking wildflowers in the meadow, searching for mountain lion tracks on the deer paths, and wading in the creek running ice-cold with winter runoff. But, much as she loved Bird Haven’s back-to-basics pace of life, spending a summer there now was out of the question.

  “You’re joking, right? You do recall that I have a job, Aunt Miriam?”

  One she might lose if she didn’t get her rear end into the production meeting soon. Jack, a short, balding man with horn-rimmed glasses and a Sean Connery beard, had the patience of an angry water buffalo. And though Rachel’s position as the firm’s top creative designer carried some clout, marriage counseling had cut into work time. Pushing Jack much further would be like wearing red in front of an angry bull, something Rachel knew better than to do.

  “Just hear me out before you make your decision, Rae. A change of scenery would do you a world of good, and you’d be saving my life.”

  Jack stuck his head into Rachel’s office and jerked his thumb in the air.

  “Aunt Miriam, I really don’t have time—”

  “I have an opportunity to go birding in the Middle East,” interrupted Miriam, not the type to be shut down without stating her case. “The problem is, I need to leave someone in charge of things here at the ranch.”

  “Can’t you ask one of the girls?”

  William, Miriam’s third husband, had brought three daughters from his first marriage into his second. The oldest, Gillian, was an anorexic matron living in Houston with a rocket scientist husband and four children who called Miriam “Nana Rich.” The middle daughter, Geraldine, was married to the leader of a South American drug cartel and lived on board a yacht anchored somewhere off the coast of Venezuela. The youngest, Gertrude, lived in Elk Park.

  Granted, she was somewhat of an energy drain, but she was single and nearing thirty—Rachel’s age. “What about Gertie?”

  “I need someone I can trust, dear. With William gone, those girls view me as an interloper. They forget that when we bought this place, your Uncle William and I pooled our resources. He borrowed against his pension, and I chipped in everything I had from my first two marriages. Everything I have is tied up in Bird Haven.”

  “Can’t you just close up the house for a couple of months?”

  “It’s not that easy, dear. After William died, I turned the operation of the raptor rehabilitation center over to the Park Service. But, per our agreement designating me as the resident landowner, I’m required to have someone on site holding my power of attorney. It’s just a formality, in case any unforeseen legal matters pop up. I also need to leave someone in charge of the checkbook.”

  That ruled out any of the Tanager sisters. Aunt Miriam’s stepdaughters had been hounding her to sell Bird Haven ever since Uncle William had died. He had left them his share of the estate, then tied it up by granting Miriam the right to remain on the property, with a proviso: if she moved, sold out, or remarried, his full share of the land equity at the time of his death was to be divided immediately among his heirs.

  “Rachel, those girls are watching my every move. Even a whiff of impropriety could jeopardize the land status. I want a house to come home to.”

  “What about your attorney? Can’t he represent you in your absence?”

  Jack loomed at Rachel’s door again, his bald head beet red, gleaming like a warning beacon. Rachel nodded before he could bang on the glass.

  “My lawyer’s the one who recommended I find a family member or friend to stay here. And there just isn’t anyone I trust more than you, dear.”

  “Trust me, I really have to go, Aunt Miriam. I’ll call you back.” Rachel hung up before her aunt could protest. Then, locating the Henderson folder, she held it up for Jack to see. “Look!”

  He jabbed a stubby finger in the direction of the phone. “Keep your personal life out of the office, Rachel. It’s interfering with business.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  Tailing her boss to the conference room, Rachel couldn’t help but think how Roger had spouted a twisted version of the same sentiment the last time she’d brought work home from the office. He claimed her job interfered with family life—or, more specifically, the business of starting a family.
r />   The production meeting was a regular Monday morning event, and the key players had all assembled by the time Jack and Rachel arrived. There were eleven people present in all—the three other members of the design staff, along with team members from advertising, public relations, and marketing. They all seemed to be tapping their pencils against the conference table in various rhythms of impatience.

  “About time,” one of the men commented, as Rachel slipped into a vacant chair near the door.

  “That’s enough, folks. Cut the drumbeat and listen up.” Jack ticked off the agenda items with military precision once things got started. They were a quarter of the way through the list and twenty minutes in when the receptionist buzzed. Jack snatched up the receiver, listened, scowled, then told her he didn’t care, that even if his mother was in the waiting area, she was not to interrupt them again.

  The meeting continued well into a second hour before Rachel was asked to make her presentation. She had spent the previous month designing brochure layouts to promote a Dale Carnegie wanna-be named Kevin Henderson. He offered a series of one-day “Take Back Your Life” seminars, had committed thousands of dollars for a “fresh” brochure design, and then insisted his face beam from every cover, effectively squelching any creative ideas the design staff had come up with.

  Ironically, it was Roger who’d triggered the solution. He’d left a packet of reprinted photographs on the coffee table in the living room. The photos, taken over the course of several years, depicted Roger scaling Mount McKinley, biking in the Andes, and participating in a variety of other activities paid for by Rachel’s steady employment. A risk junkie from the get-go, Roger openly aspired to try every adventure sport that existed, and to document his triumphs for posterity.

  Rachel, exercising latent adolescent genes, had taken a pair of scissors and cut his face out of several of the photographs when inspiration struck. With a little computer technology and some added artistic skill, Kevin Henderson merged with Roger Stanhope and became a man taking his life back.