Sacrifice of Buntings by Christine Goff Page A

tired. “I just don’t understand it. If you’ve seen one bird, you’ve seen them all. Oh, and Paul wasn’t half bad at golf, either. Another thing I don’t get. I guess if there’s a place in heaven for idiots there will be a golf course with lots of birds on it.”
    “I don’t get golf either,” Rachel admitted. And I don’t get you . Roger was an idiot, and Roger loved golf too. But if someone had killed Roger before she’d had a chance to divorce him, she’d still have been sorry. Wouldn’t she?
    “Don’t twitch,” Sonja’s Lucy Bell lady ordered. “You’re twitching.”
    “Well excuuuuse me,” Sonja replied.
    Rachel tried to relax. “I’ve heard Paul was working on a book. Do you think it will still be published?”
    “I’m thinking it ought to be published very soon,” Sonja said. “But here’s a case in point. Here is a perfect opportunity for some great publicity. But did he get the damn thing finished in time for it to be in print? Can you imagine what a signed copy would bring now?”
    Rachel drew in her breath. Any sympathy she might have felt for Becker’s widow evaporated.
    “Of course, he would have finished it if his department head hadn’t stolen his original research,” Sonja added. “The creep even stole the title. Luckily, you can’t copyright titles, so we’re using it anyway. A Sacrifice of Buntings . Doesn’t that sound more like a baseball book? Another sport I don’t get.”
    Rachel wanted to pop right out of her chair and e-mail Kirk. “Are you talking about Guy Saxby?”
    It had to be. That was the title of Saxby’s book.
    “The one and only,” Sonja said. “He even stole the title. Luckily you can’t copyright titles.” She repeated, word for word, what she’d just said, except this time she called it A Sacrifice of Buntings .
    “There you go!” chirped the redhead. “Now don’t put on your shoes for half an hour!”
    Rachel’s Lucy Bell lady patted her calf. Great , so now she was supposed to wander around the Nest barefoot, holding her hiking boots?
    “If you want something to do while you wait, we have a small display set up,” the Lucy Bell lady suggested. “Or you could get a facial! That will give you plenty of time for your polish to dry. Here’s a coupon!”
    Sonja had finally opened her eyes and was staring at her feet. “Good grief, she did it. She really did it. She painted my toenails black!”
     
    Rachel passed on the facial and vacated the chair for the next client. She weighed the risks of ruining her pedicure versus sharing her news and decided she could always repaint her toenails at a more propitious moment. Nobody was going to see her toes anyway.
    Under the glare of the Lucy Bell lady, she slipped on her socks and stuffed her feet into her boots while Sonja sacheted barefoot toward the ballroom. Rachel headed to the Nest and found Lark, Cecilia, and Dorothy admiring a Leica scope across from Beau and Reggie’s Birds of Prey exhibit.
    Rachel looked for blood on the floor, or any sign of what had happened there just a few hours ago, but the booth was whitewashed.
    “The show is starting in eight minutes,” Cecilia said. “We thought we’d catch it this time. We may not get another chance.”
    “Guy asked me to wait for him here. He had some business to attend to with Evan Kearns.”
    I’ll bet he did, thought Rachel.
    She signaled a huddle. “Paul Becker had changed his position on the land trade.”
    “So?” Dorothy said. “Lots of people change their minds about things. Besides, what’s it matter? He’s already dead.”
    “Except that it changes our suspect list,” Rachel said.
    Lark frowned. “How so?”
    “Because he was against the trade before, which is the premise we used when we started to list everyone. Now we need to look at people who might be against the trade and/or be angry because he switched sides.”
    “What would have changed his mind?” Dorothy asked. “He seemed dead set against it the