situations.”
“What kind of situations?”
“You know what I mean…you two must be made for battle or something. No matter where you go, you seem to find yourselves in one.”
“Is that why you like hanging around working with your Old Man?”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“I know it can’t be the pay.”
“You’re right. It must be your overwhelming charm.”
“Hey, hold on a minute. Marcia knows all about my overwhelming charm.”
“Which is why she is still waiting for you at the beach.”
We rode on in silence for a moment or two.
“I guess we do get into some dicey situations from time to time, though, don’t we?” I said finally.
She nodded. “To put it mildly.”
“Let’s just hope this isn’t one of them.”
Toronto, with his Roman nose and close-cropped black hair, finally reappeared from working on the lights. He seemed to materialize like an apparition out of the darkness, and his eyes carried a cold glaze that told you something boiled just beneath the surface with which you would not wish to contend. It had taken twenty minutes of hard hiking to follow him back up the ridge. Another five to reach the spot where we’d surprised the deer.
“So let me get this straight,” I said to him. “You were doing balloon training up here with the bird before he took off, and you found the body here in the clearing and had it sent down to a lab in Blacksburg for an autopsy?”
The three-sixteenth’s Iroquois nodded. “Good people there at the vet school.”
Nicole gazed around the glow of the clearing. “And you wanted Dad and me here because…?”
“You’re here ‘cause you’re the big-picture guy,” he said.
Right. My big picture now was that we’d reached a small clearing near the edge of what looked like a narrow plateau. A steamy veil supercharged the air. More tape and cords snaked everywhere, and small wire flags dotted the ground as if they were random daisies. Down the hill at the back of the site, the portable generators made enough racket to drown out the tree frogs.
Toronto had transformed this lonely stretch of mountainside into a formal crime scene. At least we were clear about that. Even though I had no idea where the Commonwealth of Virginia statute stood when it came to private investigators looking into an incident such as this.
“Generators need more gas,” Toronto said.
He moved to take care of them, hoisting a couple of five gallon containers with his thick arms like they were featherweights. He wasn’t as lean as he’d been in his detective days, but he was stronger, more efficient.
“You said we’re pushing fourteen hours since the kill?”
“Exactly . . . Plus a front’s moving down from Ohio. Be a monsoon out here before dawn and there won’t be much evidence left to see.”
“You got a line on where the shooter stood?”
“Not for sure yet . . . Was hoping you could walk it with me.” He finished with the gas.
“What else do you know?”
“Jazzman could have been perched in this maple when they shot him.” Without looking, he pointed his thumb up and out toward the barely visible forest canopy overhead. “Then again, from the depth of the impression his body left in the dirt, he hit the ground like a rock. My money says he was in flight, maybe even in a stoop.”
“That would’ve been some shot.” I turned and looked at Nicole, who’d remained quiet up until this point. “What do you think?”
She nodded. “I think it’s going to be tough piecing it together.”
A little more explanation might be in order at this point.
The victim in question was a peregrine falcon. A male called a tiercel, affectionately named Jazzman. He had belonged to Toronto, who trapped him under special permit, raised and trained him from a passage bird to the four-year-old hunting falcon he was. Peregrines were no longer an endangered species. But, like all birds of prey, they still enjoyed special government protection. Whoever shot Jazzman had
“What kind of situations?”
“You know what I mean…you two must be made for battle or something. No matter where you go, you seem to find yourselves in one.”
“Is that why you like hanging around working with your Old Man?”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“I know it can’t be the pay.”
“You’re right. It must be your overwhelming charm.”
“Hey, hold on a minute. Marcia knows all about my overwhelming charm.”
“Which is why she is still waiting for you at the beach.”
We rode on in silence for a moment or two.
“I guess we do get into some dicey situations from time to time, though, don’t we?” I said finally.
She nodded. “To put it mildly.”
“Let’s just hope this isn’t one of them.”
Toronto, with his Roman nose and close-cropped black hair, finally reappeared from working on the lights. He seemed to materialize like an apparition out of the darkness, and his eyes carried a cold glaze that told you something boiled just beneath the surface with which you would not wish to contend. It had taken twenty minutes of hard hiking to follow him back up the ridge. Another five to reach the spot where we’d surprised the deer.
“So let me get this straight,” I said to him. “You were doing balloon training up here with the bird before he took off, and you found the body here in the clearing and had it sent down to a lab in Blacksburg for an autopsy?”
The three-sixteenth’s Iroquois nodded. “Good people there at the vet school.”
Nicole gazed around the glow of the clearing. “And you wanted Dad and me here because…?”
“You’re here ‘cause you’re the big-picture guy,” he said.
Right. My big picture now was that we’d reached a small clearing near the edge of what looked like a narrow plateau. A steamy veil supercharged the air. More tape and cords snaked everywhere, and small wire flags dotted the ground as if they were random daisies. Down the hill at the back of the site, the portable generators made enough racket to drown out the tree frogs.
Toronto had transformed this lonely stretch of mountainside into a formal crime scene. At least we were clear about that. Even though I had no idea where the Commonwealth of Virginia statute stood when it came to private investigators looking into an incident such as this.
“Generators need more gas,” Toronto said.
He moved to take care of them, hoisting a couple of five gallon containers with his thick arms like they were featherweights. He wasn’t as lean as he’d been in his detective days, but he was stronger, more efficient.
“You said we’re pushing fourteen hours since the kill?”
“Exactly . . . Plus a front’s moving down from Ohio. Be a monsoon out here before dawn and there won’t be much evidence left to see.”
“You got a line on where the shooter stood?”
“Not for sure yet . . . Was hoping you could walk it with me.” He finished with the gas.
“What else do you know?”
“Jazzman could have been perched in this maple when they shot him.” Without looking, he pointed his thumb up and out toward the barely visible forest canopy overhead. “Then again, from the depth of the impression his body left in the dirt, he hit the ground like a rock. My money says he was in flight, maybe even in a stoop.”
“That would’ve been some shot.” I turned and looked at Nicole, who’d remained quiet up until this point. “What do you think?”
She nodded. “I think it’s going to be tough piecing it together.”
A little more explanation might be in order at this point.
The victim in question was a peregrine falcon. A male called a tiercel, affectionately named Jazzman. He had belonged to Toronto, who trapped him under special permit, raised and trained him from a passage bird to the four-year-old hunting falcon he was. Peregrines were no longer an endangered species. But, like all birds of prey, they still enjoyed special government protection. Whoever shot Jazzman had
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