A Birder's Guide to Murder Read online

  It took a moment for Esther to answer. “Because we were scared. Somebody is trying to set Marty up for murder, bring him out in the open.” She tugged at her lower lip. “Maybe try to kill him.”

  “Who?” I couldn’t help asking. “Who would want to kill Marty? You said he retired from the spy game ages ago? Besides, everybody thinks he is dead, right?”

  Esther shrugged. “Somebody knows he’s alive. Somebody besides me. I think that’s why they tried to set me up and why they planted that osprey feather.”

  “Marty’s code name.” I nodded. “You know,” I shoved aside, the bit of crust remaining of my pie, “in a crazy way, that sort of makes sense.”

  “It does?” Derek wasn’t following.

  “Sure. And you,” I said, meaning Esther, “took the feather from the crime scene because you knew it was going to implicate Klaus, er, Marty.” She nodded and I continued. “Then you placed it on his grave at Laurel Hill—”

  “And Marty got in touch with me. It was a signal. We haven’t spoken much over the years, but we knew how to find each other if we needed to.”

  Esther smeared grape jelly over a second slice of toast. “We’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on and who is behind it ever since the first murder. Then when Peter Porter got killed, we really got scared.”

  “Somebody sure means business,” Karl said. “Two dead bodies ain’t no joke.”

  No, it sure wasn’t.

  I helped myself to Derek’s cola. “You still haven’t fully explained yourself, Esther. Was Fuller a spy, too?”

  “According to Marty, Fuller had gotten mixed up with some people who were willing to pay him big bucks for his photography,” Esther said. “And it wasn’t birds they were interested in.”

  I drained the glass and handed it back to Derek. “Lorna, JJ’s wife, told me he got angry with her recently when she went into his office and saw him looking at photos on his computer. She said it didn’t make any sense because there was nothing special about the photos.”

  “What were they? Did she say?” asked Derek.

  “Just people. Here and there. Funny,” I said, “but Ilsa told me the same thing. She found a lot of shots of people on the SD card that she removed from JJ’s camera after his murder.”

  “And now those pictures are gone for good because Ilsa erased them,” said Esther.

  “Do you think she realized their significance?” Derek said.

  “She said not.”

  “Maybe she was involved in all this espionage too,” suggested Karl.

  “You might be right.” I sighed. It was all too complicated and instead of getting clearer, the situation seemed to be getting cloudier by the minute.

  I grabbed Esther’s hand and pinned it gently to the table top. “I still don’t understand, Esther. Why? Why were you looking into JJ Fuller’s activities? What does any of this,” I said, waving my free hand in the air in complete and utter frustration, “have to do with you?”

  “Good question, Chief.” Karl nudged her with his elbow. “Tell us, Esther.”

  Esther plucked my fingers one by one from her hand. “Didn’t it strike you odd that we’re here?”

  “Huh? Are you talking about here at the diner?”

  “Here. In Philly.”

  “Because Phoebe Gates invited us to the American Birding Expo.”

  I looked at Derek. He was as confused as I was. “Because there was a cancellation and an extra booth,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Esther waved my words away like they were nothing more than a pesky fly at a picnic. “But why us? Why Birds and Bees?”

  I chewed on my lip while my brain got to work on the question. “Because Phoebe had met us last year at the Wings Over Carolina thing. Phoebe remembered us and liked us and when the booth became available, she gave me a call.”

  “Do you remember what Barbara said when she told you about the phone call she’d had with Phoebe?”

  “Mom?” I shook my head. “No. Something about the booth and we could have it if we wanted it. Why?”

  “Barbara specifically mentioned that Phoebe had mentioned my name.”

  My jaw practically hit the table.

  “I’ll be damned,” Karl whispered.

  “She did.” Floyd bobbed his head. “I remember. Barbara did say that.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Esther pointed her question at me.

  “At the time, I admit, it did seem a little strange.”

  “Why would Phoebe want Esther here?” Floyd asked.

  “Something to do with her connection to Marty Ritter?” offered Derek.

  “And, thus, to JJ Fuller?” I added. “Tomorrow, I think I’ll track her down and ask her.”

  “If Marty didn’t kill JJ Fuller and Peter Porter,” I asked Esther, “who do you think did?” With this new bombshell, I realized that I may have dismissed Phoebe and Lorna as suspects too soon.

  “Marty and I thought it was Ilsa Skoglund. We’d seen her meeting with Peter Porter on a couple of occasions clandestinely.”

  “Like at the Audubon Center,” Derek commented.

  “That’s right.” Esther bit the end off her triangle of toast. “They met at her hotel once, too. Plus, a fast food joint near the Expo Center. We were pretty sure she was behind the murder after that. Well, Ilsa Skoglund and Peter Porter.”

  “You believed she had murdered Fuller for the photos of the woodpecker?”

  “It seems a likely bet.”

  “When we met her at the bar earlier, she denied it.”

  “She didn’t deny stealing the SD card or wrongfully claiming the discovery of that woodpecker for herself though,” replied Esther. “If she’s guilty of those things, she might be guilty of murder, too.”

  “I agree with Esther.” Karl rubbed the tip of his chin. “Once a person crosses the line into illegal activities, it’s been my experience that such a person won’t feel disinclined to engage in wider and, maybe bigger, crimes.”

  “You could be right, Karl.” That from the lawyer among us.

  “It fit with Porter squealing to the police that he’d seen me in the vicinity at the time of the murder.” Esther paused and adjusted the navy ribbon at the back of her head.

  “And her planting the SD card in your purse,” I added.

  “It was the osprey feather in the room though. That made no sense. No sense at all.”

  “How so?” Floyd wanted to know.

  “Somebody, Fuller’s true murderer, wanted to suggest that the Osprey was behind the killing.”

  “That’s what you said before,” I replied. “So?”

  “So who besides me knew that the Osprey was still alive? How did they know that leaving that feather would draw him out?” Esther raised her brow in my direction.

  But I had no answer.

  23

  “What if you hadn’t found the feather and the police had instead?” asked Derek.

  “Then they probably wouldn’t have made sense of it at all,” Esther answered.

  “And Marty or Klaus or whoever he really is, would never have become a suspect and would be sitting in his apartment staring at his stamp collection right now.”

  “But the police didn’t find it,” Derek persisted. “You did.”

  “I received a text telling me that I should go to that room,” Esther explained. “JJ Fuller’s dressing room.”

  “Who was the message from?”

  Esther shook her head side to side. “We don’t know. It came from one of those online services you can anonymously send messages through. Marty dug around on the internet and made some inquiries. He came up emptyhanded.”

  “Did you show it to the police?” asked Floyd.

  “Detective Locke didn’t take it seriously. He said I could have sent it myself.” />
  “I don’t think I like him.” Floyd’s countenance darkened.

  Esther managed a small smile. “The message told me that I should go to that room and told me explicitly what time to be there.”

  “And you went.” Karl reached across the table and helped himself to one of Floyd’s biscuits.

  “I went.”

  Floyd patted her hand tentatively. “I wish you’d told me. I could have helped. I could have gone with you.”

  “I had to go alone,” Esther said. “I didn’t want to get anyone else involved.”

  And now we were all involved.

  “That feather was the Osprey’s calling card. Marty, for all his flaws, has a sense of humor,” Esther went on. “Once he’d gotten the codename the Osprey, he took to leaving a feather at the scene of his various…escapades. He thought it was intriguing.”

  Escapades? Murder and spying were hardly what I would have called escapades but I kept my mouth shut. We had bigger problems than semantics to deal with now.

  “Sounds like more of a taunt to me.” Derek rubbed his hands.

  He might have been dreaming of gripping his driver. I’d seen that look when he was on his way to the country club. He probably wished he hadn’t volunteered to come and had stayed home where he could have played a round of golf every day.

  “Who would want Marty dead after all this time?” I asked.

  “Marty doesn’t know. Neither do I,” replied Esther. “Most of the people he dealt with are dead or retired. Like him.”

  “What about this Porter character?” Derek held up his glass for a refill. “How deeply was he mixed up in all this?”

  “Marty and I think he was just a small-time blackmailer. There’s nothing suspicious in his background, at least that Marty’s been able to uncover.”

  “Your pal still connected?” Karl asked.

  “He has his sources,” Esther said rather coyly.

  “Right.” Karl ran an imaginary zipper across his lips. “So what kind of spy were you, Esther? Do any field operations? Sit behind a desk cracking codes? Ever have to…” Still in imaginary mode, Karl slowly traced his finger across his neck, “eliminate one of the bad guys?”

  “Karl!” I yelped.

  Esther, for her part, looked like she was about to eliminate a former chief of police. Her white-knuckled fingers were wrapped around a fork. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

  “What?” complained Karl. “I’m only curious, is all.”

  Floyd was looking sadder and sadder. Like me, he was getting to know an Esther that was not what she had appeared to be. “I think I’ll get some air.” Floyd climbed slowly to his feet.

  “Want some company?” asked Karl.

  “No, thanks.” Floyd grabbed his jacket from the coat tree beside the register. “Hey, look.”

  Marty’s face was on TV.

  And he didn’t look happy.

  24

  I spent a fitful, sleepless night, tossing and turning and kicking. The sheets seemed to tighten around my ankles like boa constrictors no matter how hard I fought against them.

  Esther had refused to say another word about what was happening, which was infuriating. She had clammed up on seeing Marty’s face on the TV screen. The caption stated that he had been taken into custody near the Eastern State Penitentiary. He was being held in the county lockup on suspicion of two murders.

  Even more infuriating was Esther’s ability to quickly fall asleep once her head had hit the pillow. How could she sleep with her friend in jail?

  Wasn’t she concerned? Wasn’t she worried?

  I had asked her both questions, and she had stuck with the clam routine. Although I pried and pried, she refused to release a single pearl—of wisdom or otherwise.

  It was the final day of the American Birding Expo. We had driven over in both vehicles, intending to drop the damaged rental car off at a local branch of the rental car agency at the end of the day. In the meantime, the guys had duct-taped cardboard in the hole where the window used to be.

  According to the instructions handed out by expo officials on Thursday, we had to be packed and out of the building by 7 p.m.

  Had it really only been a matter of a few days since we had arrived all bleary-eyed, bushy-tailed and innocent?

  It seemed a lifetime away. There had been two killings, the announcement of the sighting of a bird once thought to be extinct and, oh yeah, Esther was a spy.

  Okay, a retired spy. Purportedly. I still couldn’t get my mind wrapped around that bit of news.

  Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I believed it. Esther had always been known to stretch the truth a bit, like the way a candy maker stretches taffy to the near breaking point.

  While it seemed quite likely that Marty had a sketchy past that might have involved some sort of cloak-and-dagger activity, I’d need a letter signed by the head of the CIA verifying Esther’s vague espionage past before I’d believe it.

  The Expo Center was open and doing a brisk business. The parking lot was packed to capacity. A couple of murders hadn’t stopped the festivities, dimmed them maybe, but not extinguished them.

  That included me. I’d come a long way and paid a reduced yet still hefty sum for me to be in Philly. I was determined to make the best of things—murder or no murder.

  We had dropped Esther off at the police station in town. She wanted to check on Marty and would join us later by cab.

  Floyd had offered to accompany her but she had insisted he come with us. Karl was doing his best to keep his friend’s spirits up. I’d seen puddles of water that looked happier.

  The crowd milling listlessly outside the entrance to the Expo Center was a surreal mix of zombies (think weeping wounds, bandages and gore) and birders (think khaki, bird guides and sturdy hiking boots).

  I had a hunch both ZombieFest and the American Birding Expo had attracted more visitors than might have otherwise have been the case if there had been no murders.

  There were also a handful of uniformed police officers in addition to the regular Expo security team.

  Personally, I was hoping our killer was long gone or in jail. If Marty had committed the murders, that was where he deserved to be, ex-lover of Esther’s or not.

  And if Esther was planning to bust him out of jail and take it on the lam with him, Floyd would be devastated. I, on the other hand, could begin to contemplate more seriously renovating my apartment and expanding into the soon to be vacant apartment below me.

  I had a long to-do list for the Expo. You would think that list had something to do with birds. It didn’t. It was all about murder. I wanted to speak with Phoebe Gates again, Lorna, too. Then I wanted to look for Peter Porter’s friend, Suze, assuming she was at ZombieFest. I had no other way of finding her.

  With the Expo ending, I wanted some answers, some closure to what had happened. While I actually would feel bad for Esther if Marty ended up proving to be guilty in the eyes of the law for the two killings, it would mark a nice neat ending to everything. Including the continued cloud that was hanging over Esther. I knew she’d never truly be an accomplice to murder. She might have made the mistake of associating with someone who was a killer but, at heart, the Pester is a softy.

  My first goal, however, was to return all of the optical gear that Karl and Floyd had helped themselves to from the Ornitho Optics booth.

  To their credit, both Floyd and Karl had offered to accompany me and admit to their transgression, but I was afraid that Irv Shipman might prefer to press charges rather than laugh off their borrowing his expensive equipment. After all, I barely knew the man.

  “Hi, Travis.” I smiled and showed lots of pretty white teeth. This was definitely showtime. I wished I’d taken my short stint at the community theater more seriously.

  I gently laid two totes full of cameras, lenses, binocular
s and a spotting scope on the front table of the Ornitho Optics booth.

  “Hello, Amy.” In a long-sleeved black Ornitho Optics polo and khakis, Travis was the picture of a birder, or at least the picture of a purveyor of birding equipment. I, for one, was just happy to see him with a shirt on.

  “Is Irv here?” He wasn’t manning the booth but that didn’t mean he wasn’t close at hand.

  “No, sorry. An old buddy of his stopped by. I think they said they were heading down to the food court.” Travis relieved me of the gear and set it beneath the front table. “What happened to your nose?”

  I’d placed a bandage over my nostrils. “Osprey bite.” I didn’t know why I’d said that. It was the first thing to pop out of my mouth.

  Travis jerked his head back. “Did you say osprey?”

  “Just kidding. I wanted to return this gear.”

  Travis poked his nose in the nearest tote. He smelled of lavender. “What is it?”

  “A couple of over-zealous employees of mine borrowed some of your display equipment.” That was an understatement. “I wanted to make sure you got it all back.”

  He stuck his hands in the second tote and handled the various pieces of gear.

  “It was all a big misunderstanding.” I watched nervously. “I’m sure everything is in like-new condition.”

  Travis pulled out a long lens and squinted as he held it up to one eye.

  “If it’s not, let me know and I’ll reimburse you.”

  Travis laid the lens carefully on the table. “No worries,” he said with a smile. “I’m sure everything is good.”

  “You didn’t notice this stuff was missing?” I observed several holes on the drapery-covered tables where equipment had probably been lying. A couple of tripods were minus their cameras and scopes, too.

  “Irv noticed. I had not.”

  “I hope we didn’t cause him any distress. I was afraid he would report a possible theft to the Expo Center authorities.” Or worse, the police.

  “Irv said not to sweat it. So I didn’t.” Travis moved the totes to the floor. “Thanks for bringing them back. I’ll tell Irv. Of course, now it’s more to pack.”