still puzzled me why Jack would have said there were Bobwhites up there when it obviously wasn’t the kind of spot the birds preferred. Heck, with all the racket those ATVs made, I couldn’t imagine any kind of creature—human or otherwise—who’d find a happy home there.
But Jack was way too good of a birder to make that kind of error.
Which could only mean he knew about a location we hadn’t found yet. A spot where there were wild Northern Bobwhites.
And if he had found it, I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t, too.
What’s that old saying? “Pride goeth before a fall?”
According to my estimate, I’d already done that: taken a fall because of the pride. Okay, yes, technically, Nigel was only one tiger, and lions formed prides, not tigers, but he certainly humbled me when he leaped in my direction. And if it hadn’t been for Eddie’s electronic wizardry, that big cat would have been burping happily. Then, I believe, the proper phrase would be “The cat who got the canary.”
Or, to be completely accurate, the Bob White.
Wait a minute.
Could there possibly be a connection here? Bobwhites and Jack. Jack and Kami. Kami and an exotic animal sanctuary near where Jack said there were Bobwhites.
Was Kami protecting Bobwhites along with Nigel?
Would a big cat not eat a canary?
Only in a Disney film. And since Kami’s cat was far from an animated cartoon character, I had to believe that Nigel would as soon eat a Bobwhite as share sanctuary space with it. My free association technique might work great for helping high school students come up with solutions for relationship and classroom issues, but when it came to helping me locate a birding rarity, it wasn’t exactly burning up the barn.
But it did make me wonder if Kami might know something about the Bobwhites Jack had mentioned to Tom. After all, Jack had put Bobwhites on our list for this birding weekend, and so far, I’d come up empty-handed in the places I’d looked. There had to be a place I was missing, and Kami surely knew this neck of the woods better than anybody else since she owned a large piece of it. Maybe I could chase her down first thing tomorrow and pick her brain about Bobwhites.
Unless she landed in jail on a murder charge before I could get to her.
That would be a problem.
I wondered what really happened to Jack O’Keefe. Thanks to Eddie’s tape, there was no doubt that our birding leader had been at Kami’s last night; according to Shana’s admission that Jack never got home, it also meant that Kami may have been the last person to see him alive.
If she’d shot him, then she was definitely the last person to see him alive.
Then again, Jack wasn’t the only man at Kami’s last night: Eddie’s tape proved that Billy was there, too. So what was going on, and who saw who doing what? And what reason would Kami have to kill Jack or Billy? If she and Jack had quarreled, murder was a pretty extreme measure for settling an argument. Not to mention how inconvenient it would have been for Kami to chase him down to the youth camp to do the deed. And how would that play out?
“Hey, Jack, I’m furious with you. Could you just walk down this slope and go behind the old covered wagon there? No reason. I just want to shoot a couple of bullets into your heart.”
I don’t think so.
Trying to factor in Billy, too, only made the whole mess worse. Did the sheriff think that after Kami killed Jack, she took off after Billy? Just because he’d been on her property? Valuing one’s privacy, I could understand. But to murder for it? There again, the woman must have been pretty determined to do the deed if she’d followed Billy to Mystery Cave. Or did she have a standing appointment with Billy to kill him later?
“I’m going to be busy a little while offing Jack, so could we just meet at Mystery Cave in about an hour? By that big logpile off the main trail? You’re an administrative aide, you understand how challenging schedules
But Jack was way too good of a birder to make that kind of error.
Which could only mean he knew about a location we hadn’t found yet. A spot where there were wild Northern Bobwhites.
And if he had found it, I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t, too.
What’s that old saying? “Pride goeth before a fall?”
According to my estimate, I’d already done that: taken a fall because of the pride. Okay, yes, technically, Nigel was only one tiger, and lions formed prides, not tigers, but he certainly humbled me when he leaped in my direction. And if it hadn’t been for Eddie’s electronic wizardry, that big cat would have been burping happily. Then, I believe, the proper phrase would be “The cat who got the canary.”
Or, to be completely accurate, the Bob White.
Wait a minute.
Could there possibly be a connection here? Bobwhites and Jack. Jack and Kami. Kami and an exotic animal sanctuary near where Jack said there were Bobwhites.
Was Kami protecting Bobwhites along with Nigel?
Would a big cat not eat a canary?
Only in a Disney film. And since Kami’s cat was far from an animated cartoon character, I had to believe that Nigel would as soon eat a Bobwhite as share sanctuary space with it. My free association technique might work great for helping high school students come up with solutions for relationship and classroom issues, but when it came to helping me locate a birding rarity, it wasn’t exactly burning up the barn.
But it did make me wonder if Kami might know something about the Bobwhites Jack had mentioned to Tom. After all, Jack had put Bobwhites on our list for this birding weekend, and so far, I’d come up empty-handed in the places I’d looked. There had to be a place I was missing, and Kami surely knew this neck of the woods better than anybody else since she owned a large piece of it. Maybe I could chase her down first thing tomorrow and pick her brain about Bobwhites.
Unless she landed in jail on a murder charge before I could get to her.
That would be a problem.
I wondered what really happened to Jack O’Keefe. Thanks to Eddie’s tape, there was no doubt that our birding leader had been at Kami’s last night; according to Shana’s admission that Jack never got home, it also meant that Kami may have been the last person to see him alive.
If she’d shot him, then she was definitely the last person to see him alive.
Then again, Jack wasn’t the only man at Kami’s last night: Eddie’s tape proved that Billy was there, too. So what was going on, and who saw who doing what? And what reason would Kami have to kill Jack or Billy? If she and Jack had quarreled, murder was a pretty extreme measure for settling an argument. Not to mention how inconvenient it would have been for Kami to chase him down to the youth camp to do the deed. And how would that play out?
“Hey, Jack, I’m furious with you. Could you just walk down this slope and go behind the old covered wagon there? No reason. I just want to shoot a couple of bullets into your heart.”
I don’t think so.
Trying to factor in Billy, too, only made the whole mess worse. Did the sheriff think that after Kami killed Jack, she took off after Billy? Just because he’d been on her property? Valuing one’s privacy, I could understand. But to murder for it? There again, the woman must have been pretty determined to do the deed if she’d followed Billy to Mystery Cave. Or did she have a standing appointment with Billy to kill him later?
“I’m going to be busy a little while offing Jack, so could we just meet at Mystery Cave in about an hour? By that big logpile off the main trail? You’re an administrative aide, you understand how challenging schedules
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