Death of a Songbird

Praise for the
Birdwatcher’s Mystery
series by Christine Goff

“
Very entertaining. Birders and nature lovers alike will enjoy this new twist on the cozy mystery.”

—
The Mystery Reader

“You don't have to be a bird lover to fall in love with Christine Goff's charming Birdwatcher's Mysteries.”

—Tony Hillerman,
New York Times
bestselling author of the
Navajo Mystery
series.

“The birds of the Rocky Mountains will warm the binoculars of birders who have waited a lifetime to see real stories about birds in a popular novel.”

—
Birding Business
magazine

“Christine Goff's Birdwatcher's mysteries are engaging.”

—
Mystery Scene

“
A wonderfully clever, charming, and addictive series.”

—David Morrell,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Murder as a Fine Art.

D
EATH OF A
S
ONGBIRD

“
A most absorbing mystery.”

—Virginia H. Kingsolver,
Birding
magazine

A R
ANT OF
R
AVENS

“Everything you expect from a good mystery—a smart detective and a plot that takes some surprising twists… a terrific debut!”

—Margaret Coel
, New York Times
bestselling author of the
Wind River Mystery
series.

“
A Rant of Ravens
is a deft and marvelous debut mystery set in the complex and colorful world of bird-watching.”

—Earlene Fowler, national bestselling author of
Seven Sisters

“
A Rant of Ravens
stars a gutsy heroine in fast-paced action with a chill-a-minute finale… enchant nature… A fine-feathered debut.”

—Carolyn Hart, award-winning author of the
Death on Demand
and
Henrie O
mysteries.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel
are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

DEATH OF A SONGBIRD
Astor + Blue Editions
Copyright © 2014 by Christine Goff

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form under the International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. Published in the United States by:
Astor + Blue Editions
New York, NY 10036
www.astorandblue.com

Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
GOFF, CHRISTINE. DEATH OF A SONGBIRD.—2
^nd
ed.

ISBN: 978-1-941286-32-6 (epdf)
ISBN: 978-1-941286-31-9 (epub)

1. Mystery—Thriller—Fiction. 2. Hotel owner discovers murderer—Fiction 3. Cozy mystery—Fiction 4.
Mid-life—Mystery—Fiction 5. Birdwatchers—Fiction 6. Women & Family—Fiction 7. Colorado I. Title

Jacket Cover Design: Didier Meresse

Printing History
2001 Berkeley Prime Crime
The Berkeley Publishing Group New York, NY
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

This digital document has been produced by
Nord Compo
.

For Wes, my best friend

DEATH
OF A SONGBIRD

Coffee is to the
weary what good maid service is to a luxury hotel: a necessity. Lark Drummond had neither.

She’d spent her morning as any other responsible hotel proprietor who had two maids out with the summer flu would: she’d scrubbed toilets, stripped sheets, and made beds until her back ached.

The good news was the Drummond Hotel was fully occupied. Every suite of the 132-room resort had been booked, courtesy of the Migration Alliance convention scheduled to start in Elk Park the next day. The bad news was there was no coffee and no cure for the flu in sight.

Lark tipped the coffee bag on end and watched a lone bean skitter across the Formica countertop. Outside her window and across the parking lot, the back door to the Drummond kitchen stood ajar. Only one thing blocked her dash for the pantry: Stephen Velof, the Drummond’s manager.

She had snagged Velof by picture and résumé, and he’d turned out to be more photogenic than personable. What came across as handsome in pictures came off stiff and rigid in person. The staff abhorred him, the guests tolerated him. But he was good at his job, and Lark depended on his expertise.

A graduate of the University of Colorado’s College of Business and Administration, Velof had majored in tourism and recreation. He’d obtained a master’s degree and worked at resort hotels in Florida, Mexico, and Hawaii. Before coming to the Drummond, he’d served as assistant manager at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. Lark could hardly believe her luck when he’d responded to the ad she’d placed in
Small Business Opportunity
magazine. Needing professional help, she’d hired him on the spot. Still, the next time she hired a manager, she would insist on a face-to-face interview.

She watched as her employee threaded his way through the cars toward the carriage house, his freshly creased trousers cracking with every bend of his knees. His yellow power tie matched his personality, and his blond hair rose in small, fashionable spikes. The man oozed perfection, from his gelled hair to his tasseled loafers. No doubt, he bore news of the next crisis du jour.

So why didn’t he just deal with it? Wasn’t that why she paid him the big bucks?

Lark glanced at her watch. She’d agreed to meet Rachel Stanhope at the Warbler Café at one o’clock, a half hour from now. She intended to be on time.

“Good, you’re still here,” Velof declared through the screen. “We have another problem.”

“What now?” It was a known fact that Velof considered burned toast a crisis, though she had to admit, the maid situation had been a doozie.

“The kitchen’s nearly out of coffee.”

That figured. Lark crumpled the empty coffee bag in her hand and pitched it toward the trash can. The wad of paper ricocheted around the rim, landing on the faded linoleum floor.

“I don’t think you grasp the urgency of the situation,” snapped Velof. “If you did, you wouldn’t be playing basketball.”

“Urgency? There is no
urgency
, Stephen. Only annoyance.” Lark buttoned a flannel shirt over her lemon-yellow tee. “This is Wednesday. We have a coffee shipment due this afternoon.”

“That’s the problem.” He swung the screen door open and strode into her kitchen, stooping to pick up the trash. “Chipe Coffee Company just canceled the delivery. Apparently, Esther Mills called late yesterday and left a message with the front desk.”

Lark frowned. That didn’t sound like Esther. “Did she say why?” Lark plopped down in a chair and tugged on a white anklet. “Or, better yet, did she say when they planned to reschedule the shipment?”

Velof consulted a pink message slip. “The clerk wrote, and I quote, ‘Esther Mills called and said there will be no more coffee deliveries until further notice.’”

“That can’t be right.” Lark wiggled her fingers, gesturing for him to hand her the note. “Who took the message?”

“Peter Jacobs, the night clerk,” Velof said, handing over the pink slip. “He’s a reliable sort.”

Stephen was right. Jacobs wasn’t the careless type.

“Lark, I know Esther Mills is your friend, but…” Velof shook his head. “Look, I tried calling her myself. She wouldn’t take my call. Frankly, if she won’t or can’t give us a definite delivery time, then I think we have to find another distributor.”

Under normal circumstances, Lark would have agreed or at least conceded he had a point. However, Lark wasn’t
just
Esther Mills’s friend. She was Esther’s business partner, albeit a silent one.

Lark handed back the message. “Before we make any rash decisions, let me check into it.”

“In the best interest of the Drummond, I really must insist—”

“I said I’ll do some checking.” Lark pulled on her other sock and jammed her foot into a hiking boot. Velof’s manner and his inferred criticism of her management style raised Lark’s hackles. He seemed to forget or chose to ignore the fact that the Drummond was owner-operated, and that she, not he, was the owner.

On the other hand, Esther did owe them an explanation.

Lark yanked up on her bootlaces.

Canceled coffee deliveries were bad for business.

Yank.

Esther was nothing if not a consummate businesswoman.

Yank.

Lark remembered their first meeting, several years ago, at an evening program of the Elk Park Ornithological Chapter EPOCH presented a slide show on the birds of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Esther introduced her new “bird-supportive” coffeehouse, the Warbler Café, by distributing checklists of the bird species seen from the back deck. Two years later, when launching the Chipe Coffee Company, she’d shown up at the Elk Park Chamber of Commerce’s annual luncheon toting miniature cardboard birdhouses stuffed full of gourmet coffee beans.

In need of investors, she’d explained how the Chipe Coffee Company was an organic coffee distributorship set up to supply gourmet beans up and down the Front Range. The coffee—purchased directly from Mexican growers—was pesticide-free and “bird-supportive,” hence the name
Chipe
, pronounced
cheap-ã
, the Mexican word for warbler. Lark and several EPOCH members had ponied up. Anything for the birds.

So why had Esther canceled the order? Not enough supply and too much demand?

Lark gingerly wiggled her right foot into her other boot. Earlier that summer, she’d broken her ankle. Now she babied it, more out of habit than necessity. “Why wasn’t the message delivered earlier?”

“I can’t say,” Velof answered, whining through his nose. “I only learned of it ten minutes ago, myself. It’s not like I haven’t been busy this morning.”

“Of course.”
Though, who was the one up to her elbows in Tidy Bowl?
Lark finished tying her boots. “I’ll talk to Esther and get the skinny. I’m sure it’s just some sort of mix-up.”

Standing, she grabbed her scope and backpack from their ready position beside the refrigerator. Velof stiffened. “May I ask where you’re going?”

“To the Warbler.”

“With your birdwatching paraphernalia?”

Lark patted the backpack and hoisted it over her shoulder. “Yep.”

Inside were all of her birding essentials: a pair of binoculars, a field guide, small notebook, water bottle, granola bar, pencils, lip stuff, matches, pocket knife, and sunscreen. The scope came attached to a tripod, so that she carried by hand.

“You can’t just leave. That’s… irresponsible.”

“How so? There’s not much I can do here, Stephen. One of us needs to talk to Esther, and she’s at the Warbler.” Lark touched his sleeve. “I promise, I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“In the meantime, what am I supposed to do when our guests request afternoon coffee service?”

“Serve them coffee.” Lark scrambled down the porch steps, turning back at the stoop. “I’ll get some answers. Meanwhile, send someone down to the grocery store and have them buy some beans.”

The Warbler Café sat on the corner of Highway 34 and Village Circle, across the road from Elk Lake. The store occupied the end space of an L-shaped strip mall that squatted a half mile downhill from the Drummond. A large hand-painted mural adorned the coffee shop’s front door, depicting a colorful array of Colorado’s most common warblers—the yellow, yellow-rumped, Virginia’s, McGillivray’s, Wilson’s, black-throated gray, orange-crowned, and common yellowthroat—along with the yellow-breasted chat. A narrow redwood deck wrapped the end of the building, adding a skirted effect and a place to catch the view. This afternoon, people in shorts and T-shirts crammed the railings.

Across the highway, Elk Lake shimmered serenely in the Colorado sunshine. To the north, the Drummond Hotel crowned the hillside, and to the southwest, Longs Peak towered majestically over downtown Elk Park.

Inside the café, the noise was deafening. Customers filled the tables that cluttered the hardwood floor, making navigation nearly impossible. Behind the counter, coffee machines clanged and whirred and processed. In the corner, a copper roasting machine agitated green beans and spewed the sharp scent of Mexican Jaltengo into the air.

“Lark. Over here.”

Lark turned toward the voice. Rachel Stanhope waved her arms from the back of the store. Tall and willowy, with a smattering of freckles capping her nose, she looked more eighteen than thirty. Her auburn hair was pulled into a ponytail through the back of a designer baseball cap, and she wore a pink crop top emblazoned with DKNY over tight-fitting jeans.

Lark fingered her braid and glanced down at her own attire. Flannel shirt. Dusty shorts. A definite thirty, going on thirty-five. While Rachel looked like a redheaded Jennifer Aniston, Lark looked like Heidi, back from a week with the goats.

Plowing her way to the table, Lark dumped her backpack and scope in one of the vacant chairs. “Man, this place is a zoo. Have you ordered yet?”

Rachel shook her head. “I waited for you. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to stay or take something to go.”

“I’d say go, except that I need to talk to Esther.”

“I’m not sure she’s here,” Rachel said. “I haven’t seen her, but here comes Teresa. She’ll know where she is.”

Teresa Cruz was the eighteen-year-old daughter of one of the Chipe Coffee Company’s Mexican coffee growers, and another of Esther’s projects. According to Esther, Teresa had fallen in love with a young man whom her father considered unsuitable. He’d retaliated by sending her stateside.

“Hola,”
said Teresa. Her low, husky voice, laced with a thick Mexican accent, sounded odd coming from someone so small. A little over five feet tall, she had a flat nose, wide lips, and wore her long, dark hair knotted loosely at her nape. Dressed in blue jeans and tennis shoes, she looked like any American teenager. A white Indian peasant blouse brought out her deep mahogany coloring. “What can I get for you?”

“Something tall and strong,” replied Lark, smiling at the girl. “Do you know where Esther is?”

“No,” snapped Teresa.

Lark and Rachel glanced at each other.

Teresa jerked her head in the direction of the counter. “Maybe she’s in the back. Maybe not.” Teresa poked the end of her pencil toward Rachel. “What do you want?”

“The same as Lark.”

“Two double espressos.” Teresa scribbled the order on a pad, then rubbed her temple with the pencil’s eraser. “Do you want cream?”

Lark and Rachel both nodded.

“Got it.
Con crema
. I’ll be back.”

“Hold on,” Lark said.

Teresa hesitated. “What?”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell Esther I need to talk to her.”

“If I can find her.” Teresa shrugged a shoulder, then turned and wiggled her way through the crowd.

“What’s her problem?” Lark queried, staring after the girl, amazed at how quickly she moved without seeming to hurry. Halfway to the counter, Teresa froze, then abruptly changed course and hurried away in a different direction.

“Don’t know. Maybe she’s tired?” Rachel offered. “Have you ever seen it this packed in here? This is absurd.”

Lark allowed her gaze to sweep the crowd. There did seem to be a lot of tourists in town. Last year, Elk Park had hosted over three million visitors: old people, young people, families, people of all nationalities. They thronged to “the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park,” and a fair percentage drank coffee at the Warbler. But for late August, this crowd was heavy.

“A lot of these people must be here for the Migration Alliance convention,” Lark said. The MA was a co-op of government agencies, organizations, and individuals banded together by issues involving migratory birds and their habitats. Every summer, their annual convention drew over twelve hundred participants. Much to Lark’s satisfaction, they’d designated Elk Park as this year’s site.

“Do you see anyone you know?”

“Paul Owens is sitting over there.” Lark leaned in closer and pointed. “Do you see the guy with the tall blond woman? They’re sitting at a table near the counter, two tables this side of the cash register.”

“You mean the guy who looks like Robert Redford?”

Lark cocked her head and squinted. “Which movie?”

“
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
”

Lark studied Owens for a moment. Medium height, blond hair, and bad skin, hard to see at a distance yet noticeable. “He does sort of resemble Bob, doesn’t he?”

Rachel nodded. “So why should I recognize his name?”

“Paul Owens is MA’s new executive director. He sets the Alliance agenda. He decides which projects get attention, which ones flounder, that sort of thing. In other words, he has all the power, and he wields it with a deft hand.”

“What you’re saying is, he’s the boss, and he knows it.”

Lark grinned. “Something like that.”

Teresa reappeared and deposited two steaming cups of espresso on the table.
“Dos
. To go. Sorry, but we’re all out of glasses. You need anything more?”

“Just the check.” Lark dug in her pocket for money.

“
Gracias
.” Teresa ripped the top sheet off her notepad, slapped it down on the table, and waited for Lark to pay. “By the way, Esther told me to tell you that she doesn’t have time for talking right now. She wants to know if you can come back after the rush.”