Rant of Ravens Read online

  Had Miriam gone to the Raptor House?

  Rachel poured herself a mug of coffee and mulled over the events of the previous evening. Two things were clear. Donald Bursau was dead, and Sheriff Garcia believed one of the birdwatchers was the killer. But which one? She didn’t know much about any of them. And when had the murder actually occurred?

  Monday, after Eric’s announcement about the spotting of the LeConte’s sparrow, the entire group had rushed down to scour The Thicket. All in all, counting the others already there, there must have been more than twenty people.

  Outside, a bird screeched. Rachel stepped to the window. A flock of ravens wheeled into the meadow stretching from the back door to the mountains. In the distance, the tangle of willows, white alder, and weeds wound along Black Canyon Creek, kissed golden by the morning sun. The Thicket. In this light, it hardly looked like a place for a murder.

  Farther out, Long’s Peak rose 14,000 feet, towering above the snowcapped mountains of the Continental Divide. The range scalloped the blue horizon until the peaks disappeared behind the Raptor House and Lumpy Ridge. God’s country, or the Devil’s playground?

  Rachel refilled her mug, and slipped out the back door to see if Aunt Miriam had gone to talk with Eric. A Norwegian transplant with a veterinary degree, he stopped by early in the mornings to clean the cages and care for the birds, then returned every afternoon.

  The barn was empty except for Isaac. The eagle flapped his wing when Rachel entered. She sidled past, her loafers kicking up dust that shimmered in the light filtering through the cracks in the shutters. Spiderwebs clung to the rafters in clumps.

  She found Eric in the back room, stuffing dead birds into the microwave. “Good morning,” she said.

  He glanced up from across a table covered in brown-feathered bodies. Distaste must have shown on her face, because he grinned, holding up a carcass by one leg. “Coturnix quail. The falcons love’ em.”

  “Yum,” she said, hugging the doorway. “Have you seen Aunt Miriam?”

  “Ja, she stopped in before leaving. She went birding with Charles at Barr Lake.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A couple of hours southeast of here. I doubt they’ll be back before dinner.”

  So much for waiting until morning. Rachel edged closer. “What are you doing?”

  “Thawing bird food.”

  “Do you do this everyday?”

  He shook his head. “Normally we transfer the dead birds from the freezer to the refrigerator, or leave them out overnight. But with all the excitement…” He pressed a knife blade against the quail flesh. “It needs just another minute or two.”

  Her gaze took in the three-tiered metal rack of dead birds pushed in front of the large walk-in freezer. Curiosity overrode her squeamishness. “Do you buy all these frozen?”

  “No.” He punched the Quick Minute button on the microwave. “We raise them in the chicken coop. It provides a steady supply, which is good because it takes a lot of meat to feed all the birds we’re housing in here.” The timer dinged. He opened the microwave and knifed the quail. “Ah, good. It’s done.”

  It looked inedible. “Do you come in every day?”

  “Ja, mostly.” He scooped the thawed quail into two large buckets. “I try and take one day off a week. It changes, based on when Miriam or some other EPOCH member can cover for me. I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to leave this job alone.” He shouldered the back door open. “Would you like a tour?”

  “I’d love one.” Rachel followed him along the narrow pathway. A fly buzzed back and forth between the open buckets, lured by the smell of dead flesh and blood. All she’d seen of the facility was the barn and Collegiate Hall. Since then, the days had been consumed by work, the search for the LeConte’s sparrow, and now a murder investigation. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  Eric signaled a turn toward the Protective Custody House. The hospital wing, if she remembered right. “Shoot,” he said.

  “Did Donald Bursau contact you about his story before he died?”

  Eric’s step faltered. “No, he didn’t.”

  “He never left you any message, or made any contact?” She stood to the side, holding open the door of the building, allowing Eric to enter. His face was emotionless.

  “No. In fact, I’d never even heard of him before you found his body.”

  That seemed odd. Especially if Bursau was the reporter Gertie claimed he was.

  Eric changed the subject, identifying the birds inside the cages. He fed quail to twelve red-tailed hawks, three peregrine falcons, and a golden eagle. He tossed dead mice to the American kestrels and owls.

  Freedom House was the last stop on their itinerary.

  “We have a white gyrfalcon in here,” he said. “Some kid found her in a pasture near Loveland. Her wing was broken, but it’s healing well. She’s almost ready for release.”

  Rachel peered through the observation slit. A large white bird with feathered pantaloons and black hash marks on its back and wings perched on a tree limb. The bucket clanged against the door when Eric entered the cage, and the bird swiveled its head. Wide-set dark eyes stared calmly in their direction.

  Rachel stared back. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a bird like that.”

  “We don’t see many gyrfalcons in the United States, especially not whites.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They’re arctic breeders. They live in Greenland and Alaska, way north. When the winter’s hard, some of the grays migrate south, but even I’d never seen a white gyr in the wild before.”

  “How do you think it ended up here?”

  “She may have been blown off course by a storm, or…” He shrugged.

  “Or what?”

  “Personally, I think she belonged to a falconer, though we did some checking around and no one’s claimed her. She wasn’t wearing a metal band, but still…” Eric locked the door to the gyrfalcon’s cage and led Rachel out the back door to a fenced-in chicken coop. A brood of quail skittered away as Eric undid the gate. “Falconers are required to band their birds.”

  Rachel envisioned an adjustable band, like the self-sizing rings delivered in gumball machines. Those eventually broke apart. “Maybe it fell off?”

  “No way. Birds bred in captivity are fitted with seamless bands. They’re put on while the chicks are small. There’s no way to get one off without cutting it or tearing off the bird’s leg. The wild birds wear aluminum bands crimped around tight with metal pliers.” He circled his thumb and middle finger, pinching them together. “If the bird lost a band, her leg would likely be marked in some way. This gyr’s perfect, now that her wing is healed.”

  “Then what makes you think she belonged to someone?”

  “For one thing, I’ve never seen a white gyrfalcon this far south. We see maybe half a dozen gyrfalcon total in Colorado. Mostly during December, January, and February. All of them gray. This white was found in March. Very late.”

  Eric captured a young quail and carried it back to Freedom House, releasing it into the cage with the gyrfalcon. The quail scurried into the vegetation.

  “Don’t tell me,” Rachel said. “She eats the bird?”

  “We need to know she can hunt before we can release her.”

  The quail darted toward the perimeter of the cage, searching for better cover.

  “The poor thing.”

  “The gyr has to eat.”

  The grass rustled, and Rachel could no longer spot the quail.

  “If the falcon belonged to someone around here and you release her, will she go home?” she asked.

  “No. Falcons are lost all the time. The best we can hope is that she uses her natural instincts to migrate north. Hopefully, she can assimilate back to the wild. She’ll be banded and outfitted with a transmitter. If she hangs around too long, I’ll go out and pick her up. Then we’ll have to winter her over and release her the next time another gyrfalcon is spotted in the area.”

 
; “Hoping that she follows it?”

  “You’ve got the picture.”

  The large white bird swiveled its neck, then rose in the air with slow, steady wing beats. It must have spotted the quail.

  “She’s very majestic-looking,” Rachel said.

  “Ja. In the olden days, only a king could fly the gyrfalcon. That’s why falconry is called the ‘sport of kings.’”

  Rachel had assumed it was an activity that had gone out with the Dark Ages. “How many falconers are there? I mean, there aren’t many kings left in this world.”

  “I’d say the North American Falconry Association has twenty-five hundred to three thousand members. Plus there are groups all over the world. The Arabs love flying the birds.”

  Aunt Miriam’s explanation of Bursau’s questions played through her mind. He’d asked her about falcons disappearing from the Raptor House.

  “Where do they get their birds? Can they come here and get one?”

  “No. Falconers are permitted to cull a certain number of birds from the wild, if they obtain the proper permits. But a raptor rehabilitation center like this one is dedicated to saving birds for release, not for hunting or propagation.”

  “What about endangered species? Can those be taken from the wild?”

  “Certain birds are not allowed. All falcons are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, plus the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the Lacey Act Amendments. The Lacey Act makes it illegal to transport, sell, or acquire birds in violation of state, federal, or foreign law. Which essentially means that certain species are off-limits. The penalties for violation are very stiff.”

  “So do the majority of falconers buy their birds?”

  “Ja, but there are only a handful of licensed breeders in the Rocky Mountain area. Very few falconers are granted propagation licenses.”

  Rachel watched the white gyrfalcon soar the length of the cage. “What does a bird like this cost?”

  “From a breeder? Upwards of five thousand to eight thousand dollars. An overseas buyer would pay a lot more. A white gyrfalcon like this one would bring close to a hundred thousand dollars. That’s if you could get her out of the U.S.”

  Rachel turned away from the cage as the gyrfalcon dived. She heard the frantic rustle of grasses, a sharp whistle, then a crunching of bones. A meal fit for a queen.

  Rachel spent the rest of the afternoon working. With the computer setup from Images Plus, and no interruptions from coworkers or clients, she was able to accomplish in five hours what normally took eight. Today’s project had been constructing a web page for a Massachusetts-based writer whose book, Market Yourself a Bestseller, hit number 15 on the Publisher’s Weekly list. When it remained there only one week, the writer had sought professional help.

  She e-mailed her file to the office, clicked to go offline, then changed her mind. Maybe there was something about Donald Bursau or his story on the Internet.

  She typed in “Birds of a Feather magazine,” and clicked GO. An interactive web page appeared on screen. Feature Stories popped up in a flush of ducks. The only recent article by Donald Bursau was on America’s disappearing wetlands, so Rachel clicked back to the home page. About Our Writers produced better results. A full set of writer bios appeared. Donald Bursau’s name was first on the list.

  Born in New Jersey, Bursau had moved to Montana after graduating from the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism in 1978. An animal rights activist, he had sat in, marched, and protested every form of animal abuse known to man. In 1986 he won a prestigious award for his story on Operation Falcon, a sting conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to crack down on the illegal trade in wild birds of prey.

  It took her a few minutes, but Rachel finally found the story buried in the magazine’s archives. Published in 1985, it detailed a three-year undercover operation involving a hundred and fifty Fish and Wildlife Service special agents, and an equal number of state wildlife officers. Arrest warrants had been issued, and sixty-three persons had been charged with illegal trafficking in what was classified as a “multi-million dollar smuggling industry,” providing wild birds to overseas falconries.

  The article went on to list a number of the defendants, many charged with laundering-birds through legitimate breeding operations. It ended with a reference to a “key player from Colorado” who had slipped through the cracks.

  Uncle William? That was around the time he and Aunt Miriam had purchased the ranch and started the rehab center.

  In the 1970s, William had conducted research studies to determine the long-term effects of DDT on peregrine falcons. A decline in the species population had caused the bird to be placed on the endangered list. Studies showed that an accumulation of the pesticide caused aberrant breeding behavior and thin-shelled eggs, reducing hatching success.

  William’s analyses had required the collection of unhatched eggs. Was he also gathering viable eggs and selling them on the black market? The thought seemed ludicrous. Why take the risk? Unless Aunt Miriam was wrong about his pension, and he’d needed the money to help finance the purchase of Bird Haven. She made a note to look into Uncle William’s past financial situation.

  A search for information on “Operation Falcon” resulted in only a few short citations that recapped the information in Bursau’s article, so Rachel clicked back to the Birds of a Feather home page and jotted down the telephone number. An additional search of the online White Pages provided a Montana phone number and street address for the deceased reporter.

  She dialed the magazine offices first. A crisp voice came through the line. “Birds of a Feather. May I help you?”

  Rachel decided to take the direct approach. “I need some information on Donald Bursau, please.”

  “One moment.”

  Muzak featuring the songbirds of the Americas blasted in Rachel’s ear, then a man’s voice. “Who is this?”

  Her response was automatic. “Rachel Stanhope. I have a few questions regarding Donald Bursau.”

  “Mr. Bursau is unavailable.”

  That’s an understatement. “I’m interested in getting some information on a story he was working.”

  Silence followed, then a rustling of paper. “Who are you? Are you a reporter?”

  “No, I’m just…” What? The woman who found his body? Rachel decided to try a different tack. “I spoke with him Monday afternoon, and wanted to clarify some information he gave me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Then who can?” She tapped her pencil point against the yellow legal pad on the table and remembered the sign posted in Jack Jaffery’s office. Go Straight to the Top. “Is the editor in chief available?”

  There was another silence, and this time she feared the man had hung up.

  “He’s not. Now unless you have something else…” The question dangled, and Rachel heard more rustling of papers.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, hoping he’d realize she wasn’t going to drop the matter.

  “The name’s Kirk Udall. I’ve been assigned to cover Bursau’s beat for awhile. He’s, ah, a little out of commission right now.”

  “Mr. Udall, I know Bursau’s dead.” Rachel debated whether or not she should tell him some of the other things she knew. “I also know his story had some connection to my Uncle William.”

  “Tanager? William Tanager?”

  There was unchecked interest in his voice. “Yes.”

  “You’ve got my full attention.”

  “The afternoon before he died, Donald Bursau came out to see my aunt. He warned her to be cautious around some of William’s colleagues. She and I dismissed the idea as crazy, but now that Bursau’s dead, I’m concerned my aunt may be in danger.”

  “And…?”

  “I’d like to know what he knew.”

  Udall laughed. “Well, we can’t very well ask him, can we?” He paused. “Besides, what possible motive would I have for sharing information with you?”


  “A clear conscience.”

  “Have you talked about this with your aunt?”

  I tried. “She claims she doesn’t know anything.”

  The clock ticked while she waited for his reply. “You know, Ms. Stanhope, I have competitors at Birder’s World and Birding just dying to scoop me on this story. If you’d consider cutting a deal and selling me an exclusive to your story, maybe I could scrounge up something that would help you.” He coughed. “You know, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

  Rachel checked her temper by doodling on the pad. “How about this, Mr. Udall? You tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you if there’s any basis in fact.”

  He laughed again, harder this time. “Right, like I’m going to trust you.”

  Rachel bristled. “What makes you so sure Bursau had everything right?”

  “What makes you so sure he didn’t?”

  She didn’t have a good reply, and since it was clear she wasn’t getting anywhere, she hung up and dialed Bursau’s home number. Maybe he had a wife or girlfriend who would answer the phone. Instead his voicemail picked up. Rachel didn’t leave a message.

  By then it was five o’clock, and her appetite, which had flown the coop in the Raptor House that morning, had returned with a vengeance. Deciding a toasted cheese sandwich sounded good, Rachel shut down the computer and headed for the kitchen.

  The house, drenched in the long afternoon shadows, seemed lonely. Besides herself, Perky was the only one home. Rachel wished Aunt Miriam would get back.

  She was contemplating calling out a posse when Lark and Eric banged in through the back door.

  “Hey, Rae. Where’s Miriam?” Lark asked. She wheezed the words out, her face flushed.

  Up until the past few days, Rae had been a nickname used exclusively by Miriam. When had that changed? “She’s not back yet.”

  “Are you sure?” Eric dropped into a chair, rubbing his hands over his reddened face.

  “You were the one who told me she went to Barr Lake and wouldn’t be back before dinner. I haven’t seen her all day.”