Read Online Flying Crows by Jim Lehrer - Free Book Online Page A

woman about the dangers of allowing strange men into her house like this. But as a cop on an unorthodox freelance mission of curiosity, he was delighted.
    He declined her offer of coffee or tea but did sit down on a small blue-and-white flowered couch across a low table from her. She had gone to an overstuffed chair that was covered in a matching fabric. The set reminded Randy of a similar one—in red and white—in his own house. He and his wife, Melissa, had bought their set at Sears. Wonder where Janice Higgins got hers?
    â€œWell, tell me about Birdie,” she said in a sweet, open way. “I have often wondered what became of him. I lost track after I met Billy, got married, and left the Harvey House service. Billy was a traveling man. He came in one day for lunch when his train to Des Moines was late. Of course, that’s how I met Birdie too. Is Birdie your father?”
    Randy had come to ask questions, not answer them. But he said, “No, ma’am.”
    She was wearing large black-rimmed glasses but he had a good view through them of two bright blue eyes. They were focused right on him, too, waiting for him to say something. Your turn now, young man. If you’re not his son, who in the hell are you? No, no. A Harvey Girl would never say
hell.
    â€œI only recently met Mr. Carlucci,” Randy said, kicking himself for not having worked out in advance a good line of approach. He had just jumped in his unmarked police Chevy and driven out here, telling the various detectives in the office that he had to run an errand. “I’m on the box if you need me,” he had said. That was not exactly true. He had left his handheld two-way radio in the car.
    â€œI’m delighted to hear he’s still with us,” she said, her smile from the front door beginning to disappear. “My Billy died last year. He was the best salesman who ever worked for Zondervan—that’s a religious book publisher. Billy had this territory for thirty years. He covered everything from Minneapolis south to Wichita, the Mississippi on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west. He was gone a lot, but I got used to it.”
    She stopped and waited for a response. It was again Randy’s turn.
    He elected to stay on his subject, not her’s. “I assume you knew that Birdie actually lived at Union Station,” he said, deciding that he had to get on with it. And the truth—some of it, at least—was the way to go.
    The smile began to return. “Oh, yes. He told me he had witnessed an awful crime somewhere but he didn’t want to talk to the police and FBI about it because it involved some of his relatives—I think that’s what he said. It was a long time ago. At any rate, that’s why he stayed out of sight there at the station for a while.”
    A while? How about sixty-three years? Did she not know how long Birdie was there?
    Randy held that thought to himself. “He told me you brought him food from time to time.”
    â€œThat’s right. We became good friends—in a way. Maybe in more than one way.”
    Randy thought he saw a quick flash of red appear under the white powder on her cheeks. Once a Harvey Girl, always a Harvey Girl.
    â€œDo you ever remember meeting another friend of his, someone named Josh?”
    She shook her head and looked off to an end table on the left at a large photo portrait of a man in a dark suit whom Randy figured to be Billy Higgins. “Josh,” she repeated. “Frankly, I didn’t realize he had any other friends around the station besides me. He kept himself washed, shaved, and neat and had nothing to do with the other men who hung out at the station. Birdie was no bum like they were.”
    â€œThe Josh I’m talking about came with Birdie to the station the first time, I believe.”
    Her eyes brightened. “Oh, yes. There were two men with him the day I met Birdie. They came into the Harvey