A Birder's Guide to Murder Read online

  “The pen.”

  I heard Floyd’s voice in the background. “Tell Amy she should come.”

  “I’m trying to do that, Floyd,” Karl growled. “That’s why we called.”

  Floyd said something back. I’m not going to repeat it here. Suffice it to say, my ears turned red. I didn’t know Floyd had it in him. “Why is Floyd so ruffled?”

  “I don’t know. He probably needs a cookie.”

  That sounded like Kim. She gets cranky when her blood sugar sinks.

  “So are you coming or what? If so, you’d better hurry.”

  I pressed my ear harder against the phone. Floyd was whispering at high speed but I couldn’t make out the words. “Where is here exactly?”

  “I told you, Chief. The pen. We tailed this guy Marty and caught up with him at the pen.”

  “Hey, look.” That was Floyd practically yelling.

  “Ouch!” Karl hollered. “What did you punch me for? Hey, is that Esther?”

  “Esther’s there?” I screeched. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “She just hopped out of a cab. If you ask me, Chief, she’s come to meet Marty.”

  “Marty’s there, too?” My ears rang in pain. I had no idea my vocal range extended so high. Whatever this pen was, it seemed to be a popular Philly hot spot.

  “Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? Me and Floyd followed him from the apartment on Laurel Cove.”

  “Karl, tell me the two of you did not break into the apartment.”

  “Of course, not,” Karl said in full-blown indignation. “That is very much against the law. I am a retired chief of police. Besides,” he made the mistake of continuing, “why would I want to look at a bunch of dumb stamp albums.”

  “If you didn’t go inside the apartment, how did you know about the—”

  “Esther’s going inside, Amy!” Floyd yelled.

  “We’d better follow them,” Karl replied. “It’s dark as coffee beans in there. All we’ve got are our cellphone flashlight apps and they might spot us if we turn them on, anyway.”

  “Wait! Karl!” I strained my ear and heard the sound of a van door opening and closing quietly. “Karl? Floyd?”

  For a moment, I heard nothing but grunts, wheezes, then a clatter followed quickly by a curse.

  “Yeah, Chief.” Karl was barely audible. “Our targets have moved inside. Floyd, grab the gear from the back.”

  “Will do, Karl.”

  “Quietly,” Karl urged.

  “What gear?” My brain was bouncing off the walls of my cranium. “What pen, Karl?”

  “Eastern State Pen, like I told you, Chief. You gotta listen better. We’ve got to run before we lose them or they maybe lock the gates on us.”

  “What gates?” My blood pressure had to be pushing two hundred—and that was the diastolic reading. “Listen to me, Karl. There will be no more breaking and entering.”

  “No problem. I believe Esther’s pal, Marty, has taken care of that himself. Besides, nobody uses this place anymore. Except tourists.”

  “Tourists?”

  “And I’ve got my thirty-eight,” Karl continued, saying things that in his mind were meant to reassure but in my mind only frightened me all the more.

  “You brought a gun, Karl? I told you no guns!”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye out for you. Over and out, Chief.”

  “No, wait,” I pleaded. “No over and out. This isn’t over until I say so and—” I didn’t say so. Karl had hung up.

  A seventy-something, half-blind coot with a loaded gun running around a penitentiary after dark. And there were tourists.

  What could go wrong?

  I sank to my knees.

  Plenty.

  I gnashed my teeth and squeezed my phone between my fingers. I heard a crack. A jagged line appeared on the screen, running vertically from the upper right to the bottom left corner of the screen.

  It was a symbol.

  My entire life seemed to be developing cracks. Great big, gaping cracks.

  The phone had been almost new, too. I was still making payments on it. And would be for another year.

  The good news was that the phone was still working. I googled the Eastern State Penitentiary. It wasn’t far from the Laurel Cove Apartments. I could be there in a matter of minutes.

  The penitentiary had ceased its official operations as a prison in 1970, having first opened for business in 1829. It was now operated as a historical site. It was after hours. What on earth had brought them all there in the middle of the night?

  I’d find out soon enough.

  At least I wouldn’t have to worry about prison riots and armed guards clashing with Floyd, Karl, Esther and Marty.

  And me.

  I punched the prison’s address into my phone’s GPS and studied the map. There was a fault line running through Philadelphia blocking my route to the prison. After a moment, I realized that the fault line only existed on my screen so I anticipated no problem reaching Karl and Floyd quickly.

  Whether I’d be on time to prevent them from doing something dangerous or stupid or a combination of both was another matter entirely.

  Taking one last look to be sure I hadn’t left a trace of my presence in the apartment, I clutched my cracked phone in one hand and grabbed the door knob with the other.

  Bad news was back with a vengeance.

  The woman in 3B stood blocking the doorway with an old-fashioned broom. She was clutching the broom by the end of its handle—and I didn’t think she had come to tidy up.

  20

  I was going to have to think fast before she clobbered me like a cockroach that had made the fatal mistake of crossing the threshold into her pristine world.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Bergdorf.” I tossed my hand in a carefree, over the shoulder wave. “Don’t you worry, I’ll show myself out. No need to interrupt your phone call for me. By-eee!”

  “Hello again.” I pretended to see my potential attacker for the first time. Big smile, I told myself.

  “I don’t believe I formally introduced myself. I’m Amy Simms,” I said, sticking out a friendly hand but receiving no skin in reply.

  The woman in 3B narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She was holding that thick wood-handled broom like a brawling hockey player getting ready to hit somebody rather than something. “Hello.” She peeked in the door.

  I gently pulled it shut. “Mr. Bergdorf is on the telephone. Such a lovely man, don’t you think?”

  “Sorry.” She lowered the broom from above her shoulder to the floor. “I thought you was those perverts.”

  “No.” I shook my head to conceal the fact that my entire body was shaking. “No perverts here.” Her eyes were fixed on my ZombieFest shirt. Just freaks. I quickly zipped my jacket to my chin. What must she think? “Nice seeing you again. Gotta run.”

  And I did. I ran all the way down three flights of stairs and didn’t stop running until I’d reached the car. I’d half-expected to hear her pounding footsteps chasing or the whoosh of her flying by me on her broom as she strafed me, but I made it to the car unscathed.

  I jammed the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. Not a hint of life.

  I had left the headlights on.

  More cracks in my existence.

  I waved at passing cars until my hand felt heavy and numb. How some birds, like an Alpine swift or an Arctic tern, could flap for thousands of miles at a time nonstop, I couldn’t imagine. I’d poop out going around the block.

  Finally, a truck stopped and the driver offered to help.

  “Thank you,” I said to the Good Samaritan who conveniently carried a set of jumper cables in the back of his truck.

  He slammed down the hood of my car and shot off.

  A car roared past as I reached for the door
handle. I felt a sharp pain on the tip of my nose followed by the sound of glass breaking.

  The driver’s side window was smashed to bits. The tip of my nose was bleeding profusely. I grabbed some tissues from my purse to stanch the blood and climbed in the car. My eyes fell on a grimy brown brick lying on the passenger seat.

  “What the hell?” I looked around nervously. “Somebody could have killed me.” I clenched the steering wheel. That was the point wasn’t it?

  I wasted no time maneuvering into traffic. Whoever had thrown the brick could be coming back for another try. Cold wind blasted me through the broken window as I sped up the street.

  My mind was reeling, dabbing my nose with one hand, steering with the other. Floyd, Esther and Karl were prowling around inside an abandoned penitentiary. Who knew what trouble they could get in?

  The Eastern State Penitentiary cut an imposing and spine-chilling presence. Massive stone walls rose thirty feet high. I hadn’t expected the prison to be situated so close to the city street.

  A neighborhood tightly surrounded the eery old prison, which had been built in the neo-Gothic design. No doubt meant to frighten the citizenry of Philadelphia into remaining pious and to steer clear of criminal activities. The penitentiary loomed over them like a dark, foreboding beast ready to swallow them whole should they dare transgress.

  I’d have never wanted to be a prisoner in this place. The prison looked like something out of a horror movie, complete with crumbling walls and looming stone towers. It was hard to imagine that this land used to be a pleasant country cherry orchard.

  I spotted my van and pulled to a stop behind it. No one was inside the vehicle. As much as I wished I’d find Floyd and Karl there, I had known I wouldn’t.

  I looked up and down the deserted sidewalk then made my way to the entrance. There might have been more than one entrance to the penitentiary but I was here now and so was the Kia. Hopefully, that meant the guys weren’t too far off.

  All I had to do was find them.

  And drag them all back to the inn. Dead or alive.

  The blood coming from my nose had reduced to a trickle. I stuffed my bloody tissue in my pocket and kept moving until I found myself facing a heavy iron gate and a couple of sturdy doors. I tugged upward on the gate and the only thing that budged was my right shoulder, which I was pretty sure I had dislocated.

  I cursed and pushed my face into the gate. “Psst. Floyd? Karl? Are you there?” I kept my voice low. Who knew who or what was lurking out there in the inky darkness?

  Ghosts of prisoners past?

  Karl with a loaded gun?

  I received no reply.

  Knowing I should just turn around, go back to the inn, get some sleep and focus on making the most of the Expo, I did the next worst thing: I tried the solid wooden door to the right.

  Sadly, it creaked open.

  I was destined to enter.

  Me, Amy Simms, entering an abandoned prison in the middle of the night. “Talk about birdbrains.” My whispered words bounced off the damp stone walls.

  I meandered down a long, low-ceilinged walkway following the muted light coming from a few fixtures scattered overhead. I passed a long sales counter behind which another door stood ajar.

  I pushed through and found myself outside.

  Outside being a relative term. I was under the stars. But I was also in the middle of a penitentiary with hewn and squared twelve-foot thick and thirty-foot tall granite walls.

  Perhaps a prisoner or two had escaped over the length of its existence, but if I were locked in, I’d have a hard time getting out on my own with anything shy of a helicopter and an ace pilot.

  Lesson learned, at least for the near-term, I reached into my pocket and set my phone on vibrate. I had plenty of signal and was ready to use it. At the first sign of trouble, or zombies, I was dialing 911.

  And maybe a good zombie exterminator.

  I started down the path to the left for no particular reason other than I’d seen a couple of bats whizzing through the night sky to the right.

  Bats on the right, go to the left. Always a good rule of thumb.

  I hadn’t taken a dozen wary steps when a black arm reached out of the shadows and a hand clamped down on my sore shoulder. “Oww!”

  “Quiet, Chief!” I felt Karl’s cigar breath on my ear as he dragged me kicking and screaming against the façade.

  I stopped kicking and screaming once my brain actually realized that it really, truly was Karl I was seeing by the light of the crescent moon above and not some undead version of the ex-cop.

  That was Floyd bundled up beside him. With their coats buttoned to their chins and a couple of dark ski caps atop their heads they did, indeed, look like a couple of aging cat burglars.

  Or soon to be escaping convicts.

  Karl looked the part, complete with a nasty looking gun in his hand. “Put that thing away,” I snapped. “Before you hurt somebody.”

  “Aw, Chief, it’s not like it’s loaded.”

  “What do you mean not loaded? I saw you stick a handful of bullets in myself.” Floyd pulled at the collar of his jacket. He was weighted down with gear. “What if there’s trouble?”

  Karl shot Floyd the dirtiest of looks, visible even in the low light, and shoved the weapon in his coat pocket. “Like they say, guns don’t kill people.”

  “No, bullets kill people,” I replied. “Why are you standing around inside an abandoned penitentiary with a loaded weapon, anyway?”

  “You never know.” He patted the pocket with the gun. “Like Floyd says, there could be trouble.”

  “From who?”

  Floyd jostled the camera, scope, tripod and binoculars he was lugging around like a two-legged pack mule. He held a bulging tote bag in his left hand. “That Marty guy. I don’t trust him, Amy.”

  “Neither do I, Floyd. Neither do I.” I peered around the corner of the wing. Originally, there had been seven single-story cellblocks arranged in wagon wheel fashion. The thinking at the time was that it allowed a guard in the center of the wheel to keep an eye on all the wings with a simple turn of the head.

  More cell blocks, and a second floor, had been added soon after as the penitentiary, like so many others, quickly became overcrowded. Why did it seem sometimes that the world was chockful of people eager to commit some crime? “Where is he? Is Esther with him?”

  “Yes,” Floyd said.

  Karl lit a fresh cigar and inhaled the smoke like it had been sent fresh from heaven as a gift for his lungs. “We followed them to a courtyard around the other side.”

  I backed up a step and waved my hand frantically in front of my nose.

  “They must still be there because they haven’t returned this way,” explained Floyd. “We came back to wait for you.”

  “Good. That’s good.” At least Floyd and Karl had had the sense to wait for me rather than do anything stupid. “Who meets at a creepy old penitentiary after midnight?”

  “Esther, that’s who.” Karl chuckled while puffing on his cigar.

  It stank to high heaven but I knew he was nervous—we all were—so I let him smoke.

  “Show me,” I commanded.

  We slowly worked our way across the crumbling prison grounds. It was the absolute spookiest place I had ever been in my entire life. Karl led the way. I was in the middle and Floyd, struggling with the gear, brought up the rear.

  “Quiet now.” Karl halted, put up his hand and gestured. He slowly stuck his head around the corner of the building we were flanking. “I think I see them.” He gave me a nudge. “Take a look, Chief.”

  Gripping the cold rough stone, I inched my face around. A larger than expected courtyard was framed by the massive wall behind. I could just make out several human-sized black blobs in the distance. “Are you sure that’s Marty and Esther?”

  �
�Who else could it be?” said Floyd.

  My imagination went wild: ghosts of dead prisoners, specters, werewolves, zombies, the troubled spirits of JJ Fuller and Peter Porter meeting under cover of darkness to plot their revenge on their killer?

  I kept such thoughts to myself. Sharing them with Floyd and Karl wouldn’t gain me their confidence or respect. “Is that a third person with them?”

  Floyd peeked from under my shoulder. “I don’t know. I can’t be sure. There might be a third person with them.” He turned to his partner in crime-solving. “Take a look, Karl.”

  Karl pulled the cigar from his mouth. He crushed its glowing orange tip against the cell block wall. He stuck his head out, too long for my comfort, before saying, “Hard to tell.”

  “Have you got some sort of fancy listening device amongst all that gear?” I asked.

  “No, but I bet I can get a shot of him.” Karl pulled a fancy camera from the American Birding Expo tote Floyd had also been carrying around. “It’s got a doohickey for night photography.”

  “Where did you get that camera? And all this other stuff?” It all looked reasonably new. And expensive.

  “We liberated it along with the binoculars.” Karl pressed his right eye up to the viewfinder. His hand swiveled the lens.

  “Commandeered,” Floyd corrected.

  I looked in horror at the sleek, long black lens bearing the Ornitho Optics logo. Poor Irving Shipman. Hadn’t he noticed how much of the merchandise from his booth had now gone missing?

  I promised myself that everything would be returned to him—and in perfect, like new condition.

  “Fine.” Okay, so I gave in. Just because it was wrong to have it, didn’t mean we couldn’t take advantage of the fact that we did. “Can you make out faces?”

  Karl trained the long-lensed camera on our fuzzy dark subjects. His arm started wobbling. Floyd gripped Karl’s elbow to brace it.

  I closed my eyes and pictured being with Derek back at the hotel. My attempt at teleportation failed. I returned my attention to the matter at hand. “See anything?”

  “It’s them all right.” Karl’s voice was a mere whisper on the light cool breeze tickling my face. “And I believe Floyd is right. I think there’s some third guy.”