A Birder's Guide to Murder Page 15

  My cheeks and forehead glistened pink from the scouring and my hair was dripping wet. I dried the ends with more paper towels and tossed the lot in the trash.

  There was nothing I could do about the ZombieFest t-shirt but hide it beneath my jacket, which I did.

  There was no sign of Derek in the bar.

  I zipped up my coat and headed outside to the parking garage. I roamed through the aisles, calling his name.

  On the third floor, I found him. He sat on the cold hard ground, leaning against a concrete support column.

  “Derek. Are you all right?”

  I raced to his side.

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head. When he drew his hand around I saw blood.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  I helped him to his feet. “What happened? Did you slip?”

  “Only after somebody hit me in the back of the head.”

  He winced as I palpated the back of his head.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” I said.

  “It’s not.”

  “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know. It was right after we talked. I spotted a car coming down the ramp fast. I stepped back and then I felt a sharp pain.”

  “Did you see who was driving the car? Was it the same vehicle as before?”

  “Sorry. I have no idea. It happened too fast. The driver slammed on the brakes. Then I heard the sound of running footsteps.”

  “So whoever hit you must have been an accomplice of the driver. We should call the police.”

  “No, no police. Not yet,” suggested Derek. “What could we tell them? We don’t know who hit me or even if this is related to the murders.”

  “But you could have been killed.”

  “I wasn’t even mugged.” He patted his back pocket. “Still got my wallet. Besides, you are supposed to meet Esther. If we involve the police, we could get tied up for hours.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

  He had a point. “Okay, I’ll meet Esther. You need to get checked out in the ER.”

  “It’s not that bad, Amy.”

  “What is it with men?” I asked as we reached our car. “You could bleed to death and still say it’s not that bad.”

  Derek chuckled. He moved tipsily to the driver’s side but I vetoed the move. “I’ll drive. You rest. In fact, if you won’t go to the ER, at least go back to the room and wash that wound out.”

  We argued about it for a couple of minutes. He finally broke down and agreed. Which was a good thing because I was already headed to the Eagle Inn.

  After seeing Derek safely to his room and promising that I would be back soon to take up nursing duties, I guided Karl’s rental car to the address written on the sheet of paper she had slipped under the windshield wiper of the car while I and the guys were at the cemetery.

  It led me to a bar called Missing Persons.

  Her idea of a joke?

  Esther occupied a small table next to a rowdy group of college boys. “What happened to you?” were the first words out of her mouth. “You look a hot mess,” were the second.

  I flopped into the empty chair beside hers.

  “Thanks,” I snapped. “If you think I look bad, you should see Derek.”

  I was out of breath. The closest parking spot was a block and a half away. I had run to the pub, fearing I’d miss Esther.

  I was also in a bad mood. Not enough food, not enough rest, not even fun and too much murder had taken its toll on my weary bones and aching skull. “I had a beauty treatment.”

  “If I was you, I’d ask for my money back.” Esther was drinking something glowing pink with an unnaturally red cherry bobbing around at the surface. A small triangle of red-tinted pineapple kept it company.

  “And if I was you, I’d start talking.” I wiggled my fingers in a come-hither fashion. “And fast.”

  Instead, she leaned forward and sucked at her lime green straw. I watched the ice cubes swirl and counted to ten.

  “Well?” I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the Pester.

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? What do you mean, not yet?”

  Esther reached for her drink. I snatched it away. I caught an inadvertent whiff of her drink and reeled. It was potent.

  The waitress came by balancing a tray on her upturned hand. She asked if I’d like a drink. I told her no.

  “Wait,” I called as she pushed toward the bar.

  “Yeah?”

  “Give me one of these.” I hoisted Esther’s pink poisonous concoction. If it killed me, so be it.

  I tugged off my coat and dropped it on the empty chair. People could think what they wanted of my ZombieFest attire.

  The five guys squeezed around a table for three beside us burst into happy shouts at something on the sports channel. College football.

  Personally, I always thought football fields were a waste of green space. Why not turn that big, flat field into a garden? Fill it with wildlife-supporting flowers and shrubbery rather than dozens of sweating men in uniforms chasing a pigskin.

  I had yet to win Derek, or anybody else for that matter, over to my way of thinking. Yet.

  Which brought my thoughts back to Esther.

  “Don’t you think Marty could be responsible, Esther?”

  “No,” she was quick to respond.

  “Surely it must have crossed your mind?”

  “He’s been set up.”

  “Who would want to set Marty up for murder?”

  “Once a spy, always a spy,” Esther said rather enigmatically.

  “Esther.” I tugged my hair until my eyes watered. “Would you please stop talking in riddles and tell me once and for all what’s going on?”

  “I said not yet.”

  “What do you mean not yet?” I repeated sternly. What was the boiling temperature of blood? Because I could practically feel my blood boiling under my skin. “Two men are dead and there’s all kinds of crazy going on. I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now.”

  I slapped my hand on the table. Hard.

  It stung. I felt tears spring up in the corners of my eyes.

  The waitress showed up in the nick of time with my drink. I took a slug.

  Purely for medicinal purposes. Sure enough, it took the edge off my pain. And probably the enamel off my teeth and the plaque off the sides of my arteries.

  Esther grabbed her own drink back and held it tight in both hands. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Who?” I clamped my eyes shut because for a second there I was seeing double. One Esther was plenty. Two was unthinkable. I opened my eyes. “Marty?” I looked forward to laying eyes on him again. Maybe, just maybe, he could give me some straight answers.

  “No.” Esther’s stern look melted into a smile. “Her.”

  I turned toward the entrance. It was Ilsa Skoglund.

  18

  If looks could kill, we would have all been dead.

  Ilsa Skoglund shoved a man the size of a refrigerator out of her way with a well-executed stiff arm to the chest. He bellowed, she barked, and he stumbled out to the sidewalk.

  There was no doubt in my mind that Lorna Fuller was right. Skoggie could handle any man, up to and including Lorna’s late husband.

  Ilsa Skoglund’s eyes scoured the room and landed on us. She threw back the hood of a lavender parka and walked purposefully to our table.

  Esther removed her voluminous purse and my coat from the chair between us. Ilsa Skoglund sat. Esther slipped the strap of her purse over the back of one side of her chair and my jacket on the other side.

  “Amy Simms, yes?” Ilsa unzipped her coat and shook out her hair. I noticed several men in the bar checking her out including the guys at the table next to us. She
took it in stride. I was sure she was used to being the center of attention. And for all the right reasons.

  “That’s right, Ms. Skoglund.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “Nor I you.” I turned to Esther.

  So did Skoggie, as she said, “What’s this all about?”

  “My question exactly.” I took an ill-advised second sip of my drink and my cheeks puckered. Whatever was in that drink, and I tasted pomegranate and strawberry, the concoction had to be at least eighty proof.

  I snatched a bowl of pretzels from the waitress as she passed. I set it down between us, but not before helping myself to a handful. I needed something bland to counter the alcohol.

  Was it my imagination or did the bartender look like Ben Franklin?

  The old post office where Ben used to work was just a few steps up the street. Maybe the old guy was moonlighting. Maybe he was a two hundred-year-old zombie.

  Maybe I’d had too much to drink.

  “I want to know why you set me up, Skoglund.” Esther was down to the last dregs of her own pink poison and it didn’t seem to be having any untoward effects on her at all.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ilsa’s jaw jutted out as if begging the Pester to give it a punch or at least dare to contradict her.

  Esther chose option two. “I have a reliable eyewitness who saw you hanging around at the Birds and Bees booth.”

  “You’re bluffing.” Ilsa folded her arms and stared at the space between us.

  “Who?” I wanted to know.

  “Nikki Nilsson,” answered Esther.

  I saw a flash of recognition pass across Skoggie’s face. “The woman’s a drunk and a pothead. I wouldn’t trust a word she says. If you were smart, you wouldn’t either.”

  “JJ’s assistant? When was this?” I interrupted. It wasn’t like we had any state secrets or valuable merchandise lying around but I still didn’t like the idea of a virtual stranger poking around our booth.

  “Don’t interrupt me, Amy,” Esther was quick to complain. “I’m working here.”

  I scooped up some pretzel wreckage and dropped it back in the basket.

  Skoglund wasn’t making a sign or a peep. Nor was she enjoying the pretzels. I didn’t mind. That left more for me.

  “You planted something in my purse.” Esther thumped her purse on the table, spilling half the contents.

  Skoggie finally spoke up. “And what is it you think that I planted?”

  “An SD card. And not just any SD card. The blank SD card that the police speculate is the SD card that was missing from JJ Fuller’s camera when he was found dead in that makeshift storeroom slash dressing room.”

  “Why would I want to plant a memory card in your purse?”

  Esther narrowed her eyes at the accused. “I don’t know. That part doesn’t make sense. Why me? And why was the SD card empty?”

  I cleared my throat of pretzel dust. “That’s a good question. I’d seen JJ taking plenty of pictures at the expo.”

  “That was a sixty-four-gig card,” Esther said. “Yet there was nothing on it.” She pointed a finger at Skoggie. “Could it be that there was nothing on it because you erased it?”

  Ilsa Skoglund rolled her sexy eyes. “Why would I do such a thing? Is this why you asked me to meet you here? So you could hurl wild and ridiculous accusations?” She swung on me. “Really, Ms. Simms, you should control your employees better.”

  Little did Ilsa Skoglund know just how much I wished that were possible but just how utterly impossible that was when it came to Esther.

  Skoglund rose suddenly, banging her chair into that of the person at the table behind us. “I’ve had enough. I’m a very busy woman.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” Esther was standing now too. “Especially since you discovered that—” She looked at me for guidance. “What was that bird, Amy?”

  “Huh?” I was busy polishing off my drink.

  “The one Ms. Skoglund discovered.” Esther added a dose of sarcasm to the word. “The one that I hear is gonna get her fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Oh. The ivory-billed woodpecker.” My eyes snapped to Ilsa Skoglund. “Oh!”

  “Oh is right,” said Esther. “What if the lovely Ms. Skoglund here didn’t take those pictures of that bird? What if JJ Fuller did?”

  I gasped. “And what if you killed him to get those pictures?”

  Skoggie fell back in her seat. “It’s not true.” Her words sounded hollow.

  “You killed him to get your hands on these photos he took. Then you planted the SD card in my purse to throw suspicion off you and onto somebody else.”

  Esther cackled. “My luck, you picked me. What was it? Was I just convenient?” Esther shook her head side to side. “Shame on you picking on a poor, defenseless old woman.”

  I couldn’t help looking dubiously at Esther. I wasn’t so sure about that defenseless part.

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Ilsa replied.

  “Maybe you’d like to answer to Detective Locke instead?” I said.

  “Fine.” Ilsa Skoglund’s fingernails tapped out a message. “I knew what JJ was up to.”

  “What was he up to?” I wanted to know.

  “He was going to announce his big discovery.”

  “The whatchamacallit woodpecker.” Those were Esther’s words.

  “That’s right,” Ilsa said through a heartfelt sigh. “He was going to announce that he had proof of the elusive bird’s existence during his keynote address at the American Birding Expo. It was going to be a feather in his cap, so to speak.”

  “So you knew about the discovery before his intended announcement.”

  “And then you announced the discovery of this bird yourself, thereby making yourself eligible for a fifty-thousand-dollar reward,” put in Esther. “Sounds like a motive for murder to me.”

  It sounded like a pretty good motive to me too.

  Ilsa Skoglund’s announcement that she had rediscovered the ivory-billed woodpecker had been a very big feather in her own cap. No doubt securing her lucrative speaking engagements and sponsorships for years to come.

  “He sent me a text gloating about it. JJ was a loathsome man.”

  “So you killed him,” Esther insisted yet again.

  “No, I did not. In fact, I didn’t really believe JJ had any photographs. Certainly none worth murdering him over.”

  “You thought he was lying?”

  “I thought he was faking. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You mean you thought Fuller doctored up some pictures to look like this woodpecker everybody is so worked up about?” Esther asked.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried a stunt like that,” Ilsa claimed. “JJ was almost as much a whiz on the computer as he was with a camera.”

  Esther rubbed her nose and started fiddling with my coat on the back of her chair. “You got any tissues?”

  “No. Use a napkin.” Why was she interrupting our conversation over tissues at a time like this?

  Esther plucked a napkin from the tabletop dispenser and blew hard. “Okay,” she said, rubbing her nose once more. “Sorry to interrupt. You were telling us how you murdered JJ Fuller and then Peter Porter. JJ to get your hands on the photographs of this special bird and Porter to shut him up.

  “What was he doing? Blackmailing you after you had already paid him off?”

  I leaned back and looked at Esther in awe and maybe just a little newfound respect—not that I’d ever admit that to her. Despite our differences, she had a way of getting to the point and no fear in speaking her mind.

  I, for one, was happy to not be on the receiving end of her verbal attack for a change.

  Ilsa Skoglund was looking miserable. I offered her a sip of my drink or any othe
r drink from the bar but she refused. “I don’t believe in alcohol.”

  What was that supposed to mean? We were in a bar with an entire wall lined with the stuff. Believe in it or not, it existed. To prove my point, I sucked the remainder of my drink up my straw and looked around for our waitress. I saw her standing on one foot on this side of the bar talking to Ben Franklin.

  Was it my imagination or did she look like Betsy Ross?

  I waved my glass for a refill.

  “I did not pay anybody off and nobody was blackmailing me.” Ilsa Skoglund’s jaw barely moved as she talked. “And I have never heard of anyone by the name of Peter Porter.”

  “That can’t be quite true, can it?” I said. “You must have heard about his murder.” The entire Expo Center had been abuzz with murmurs, not to mention police and blue lights that had nothing to do with Kmart specials. “Besides, I saw you speaking with Porter in the woods down below the Audubon Center. Remember?”

  Her response was a down-turning of the lips.

  “What were you talking about?” I asked.

  “Birds.”

  “Birds? You really expect us to believe that?” Esther scoffed.

  “Why not? There are millions of bird lovers. It was early morning and we were on a nature walk.”

  I couldn’t picture Peter Porter as a birding aficionado and said so. Zombie bats, maybe. Birds, no. He had not been carrying a pair of binoculars or a camera either. “If you were talking birds, it was one bird in particular, the ivory-billed woodpecker. I think you were talking blackmail.”

  “I don’t care what you think, Ms. Simms.” Ilsa Skoglund drew her fingers through her hair.

  “Porter demanded a piece of that reward money,” suggested Esther, “in exchange for keeping quiet.”

  “There was nothing to keep quiet about.”

  “Your word against Porter’s.” I drummed the table. “And now Porter is dead and we’ll never hear his side of the story.”

  “Convenient.” Esther blasted her eyes at Ilsa.

  “Mr. Porter’s death is unfortunate.” Esther snorted but Ilsa didn’t let that deter her from continuing. “I am not a murderer. I would never harm a living thing.” She crossed her arms and stared me down. “I have nothing to hide.”