The Boreal Owl Murder (7 page)

Luce frowned. “Okay, maybe not a woman scorned. What about plain revenge? By the time the dust settled last year after the DNR and S.O.B. arm-wrestled over clearing the forest, there were lay-offs in the logging companies up there. That had to hurt quite a few workers. Maybe a terminated employee decided to pin the blame on Rahr for his job loss.”

I had considered that angle, too, but thought it was a stretch that some laid-off logger would have taken the time to track down Rahr, follow him up to the owl sites, bang his head on a tree, then strip him down to make sure he would die because he hadn’t done a better job of killing him in the first place.

Besides, Rahr was just a researcher. He hadn’t taken a really visible role in the controversy—nothing like the media attention S.O.B. had commanded. I thought that if a laid-off logger was looking for someone to pay back for his loss of employment, it would be someone from S.O.B., not Rahr.

“Although,” I said, remembering the demonstration I’d seen earlier, thanks to the testing students, of the superior strength of primal instincts compared to higher-level-thinking skills, “I suppose a crime of passion is possible. In the heat of the moment, momentary insanity could rule someone’s actions.”

But Luce’s mention of jealousy as a motive had reminded me of something else. After my counseling sessions yesterday with Kim and Lindsay, I had tried to think of who might be jealous of Rahr, and why. Late last night, a possible answer to that question occurred to me.

Jealousy isn’t always about relationships.

In the academic world of research, the world in which Rahr moved, jealousy could be about reputation.

Or the lack thereof.

As a graduate student, I had observed both subtle and outright competition between professors. Research grants were hot commodities. Those who got them, got ahead in publications and positions. Those who didn’t, didn’t. In some cases, losing out on a grant was a bump in the road of academia. Professors got over it, put their egos aside and continued to work together. In other cases, it led to major career highway reconstruction, causing some professors to leave departments because they couldn’t abide their colleagues’ crowing.

Grants weren’t the end of the competition, either. Say a junior professor did land some funding. Even though he or she might be the team leader, a senior professor with more credentials might be assigned as overseer of the project. Then, when results were finally published, guess what? The researcher who initiated the work had to share the credit—and the glory—with the senior staffer, who may have done little more than sign off on the text.

Finally, to add insult to injury, tenure—job security—was typically awarded to faculty members with the most publications and research credits. Promising young teachers who were already spread thin between meeting the demands of their students and the requirements of research had a tough time making the cut. As a result, you get the “publish or perish” mentality that seems to plague the world of academia.

So, I had to wonder. Could Rahr have had a professional opponent who had taken the “perish” part of the formula to a new high, or rather, low? Was there a researcher somewhere who was so desperate for an opportunity that he decided to create one by removing Rahr?

“That,” Luce said, “sends chills up my spine.”

“Mine, too,” I agreed.

Luce checked her watch and grabbed her coat. “Got to go. Soup base waits for no woman.” She leaned toward me and kissed the corner of my mouth.

Another chill chased up my spine.

This chill I liked.

A lot.

I gathered up my papers and walked Luce out of the media center.

“Looks like I’m on my own, then, for this weekend for chasing Boreals. While you’re sweating under the studio lights, I’ll be slogging through snow.” I held Luce’s coat for her while she shrugged into it. “The wages of birdwatching, I guess.”

Luce patted my cheek. “Poor baby. Guess I’ll just have to make it up to you later.” She trailed her fingers slowly over my lips, her blue eyes wide and laughing.

“Promises, promises,” I said. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and whispered, “Get out of here before I drag you into the old choir room and have my way with you.”

Luce laughed. “The choir room?”

I nodded. “It’s the secret love-nest of choice this year. I surprised two couples there last week. They all had passes to see their counselors but never showed up, so I went exploring. Something to do with the risers in the room, I understand. Want to find out?”

Luce punched me in the shoulder and left.

I walked back to my office, filed the credit reviews and checked my daily calendar. I had two hours before I was expected in downtown Minneapolis for an MOU board meeting.

“Mr. White.”

It was Mr. Lenzen, the assistant principal.

“I see you have deer hooves on your desk. I assume they are the ones you confiscated from Jason Bennett?”

As always, Mr. Lenzen was impeccably dressed in his trademark three-piece suit, trousers creased and shoes shined. He stood just outside my door, as if he couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold into my little domain.

I almost expected him to whip out a can of spray antiseptic.

“Yes, they’re Jason’s,” I answered. “But he knows he can’t have them in class, so I’m keeping them quarantined here until he takes them home.”

“They need to be removed from the building,” Mr. Lenzen corrected me. “Otherwise, they’re an incident just waiting to happen.”

Give me a break, I thought.

“What kind of incident?” I wanted to ask, but didn’t. “Will they rise up on their little cuticles and imbed themselves in someone’s …” But I didn’t say that either. Instead, I nodded and said I’d take care of it.

“There’s something else I need to discuss with you.” He took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to dive into infested waters, and stepped into my office. “May I?” he asked, indicating my visitor’s chair.

“Of course,” I replied, sitting back in my own desk chair. “What’s up?”

He took out his handkerchief and lightly dusted the seat. It’s not like the chair is ever unoccupied long enough to attract dust, but I didn’t think, at the moment, he’d appreciate a list of its recent occupants. He sat, crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap.

“Well, apparently,
you
are, Mr. White. I had a call from a Detective Knott yesterday, asking me to confirm your whereabouts last Friday noon. Needless to say, I was quite unprepared for his revelations that you had discovered a corpse over the weekend and were, of necessity, considered an initial suspect.”

He hesitated, waiting for me to comment.

I hesitated, waiting for him to go away.

“I think you’re aware of how important I deem Savage High School’s public image to be,” he finally forged ahead. “We are the educational standard bearers of our community, and I expect only the highest professionalism and integrity from each and every one of our staff.”

Yada, yada, yada. Been there, done that. I’d only heard this speech a few dozen times in the last five years—usually when a school bond issue was about to go before the voters. Since there wasn’t anything currently on the block, I had to wonder: where was he going with this?

“As a result, I’ve decided it would be in everyone’s best interests if you took a leave of absence until this—investigation—is resolved.”

It took a minute for what he said to sink in.

He wanted to suspend me.

He wanted me out of here.

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

The jerk.

“Mr. Lenzen, I’m not a suspect in a murder case,” I reminded him. “You yourself confirmed to the detective that I was here at school.”

“Yes, I did.” He neatly recrossed his legs. “But I feel your presence here at this point will only fuel speculation and distraction for both our students and our staff until the case is closed.”

Until the case was closed. That left things pretty wide open, I’d say. What if the case was never solved? My leave of absence might turn terminal—or more accurately, it might turn into a termination. I’d lose my job.

Gee, thanks, but even despite lunchroom duty, I’d rather not.

On the other hand, maybe there was another way to think about this, I realized, and I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Even though, at the moment, that horse was appearing more like an ass.

“I’m prepared to make some financial concessions,” Mr. Lenzen said, which was his way of saying I’d get some kind of pay during the absence, but not full salary. Knowing how he operated, I had no doubt he’d already checked the legalities and was maneuvering to get what he wanted—without leaving himself open to an even bigger public relations nightmare of employee litigation.

“I need to think this over,” I hedged. “Give me a moment here.”

I tipped my chair back and gazed at the water stain on my ceiling.

Did I mention my luxury office accommodations?

I mulled over the possibilities. If I took the leave, I’d have extra time to hunt the Boreal and an extended partly paid vacation. Not bad.

Of course, if I took the leave, I would be leaving my students adrift. What would Kim and Lindsay
DO
?

Finally, if I took the leave, I would, in effect, be giving Mr. Lenzen the last word.

Not if I could help it.

“Here’s what I’ll do,” I told him. “I’ll tie up some things tomorrow, then take a personal day on Thursday and Friday. No leave of absence. At least, not yet.”

What I didn’t add was that I’d head for Duluth and ask Knott to put the pressure on Mr. Lenzen to take me back by Monday in exchange for whatever assistance I could give him in his investigation. If I drove up on Thursday, I could pick up an extra night of owl hunting, too. Since I needed to use up the personal days anyway, using them to search for the Boreal sounded like a good idea.

And—big plus, here—Scary Stan wouldn’t even know I’d left town, because if he asked Lily, she’d tell him I’d said that I was leaving for Duluth on Friday after school. Which meant that on Thursday night, I’d have the forest all to myself.

Except for a Boreal Owl or two.

I hope.

I put my visit with Mr. Lenzen behind me—literally—as I headed for my board meeting in Minneapolis by way of the Bloomington Ferry Bridge, which spans the Minnesota River.

After being informed of my possible suspension, it was a much-needed shot in the arm to be out in the brilliant March afternoon—the kind of afternoon that promises spring will eventually return, even to frozen Minnesota. The sky was clear, and there were some stretches of open water in the river, just the kind of liquid streaks that attracted fishing birds.

I glanced up through the windshield. High above, soaring on thermals, two Bald Eagles gracefully scribed broad circles. One was mature, his head and tail blazing white against the bright blue sky. The other was immature, still showing brown feathers, but gliding just as majestically as its elder. Together, the birds spiraled in the sky above the river, their wings barely moving as they rode the currents bringing warmer air back to the valley.

As always, whenever I see Bald Eagles, I was transported back to the first time I saw one at Lake Pepin, on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Remembering how awe-struck I had been, I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

I’d been about five years old, as I recall. It was a sub-zero day in January, and my mom had a bad case of cabin fever. She told my dad if we didn’t get out of the house for a while, she was going to lock herself in the closet and eat a hundred bags of Oreo cookies. I thought that sounded like fun, but I guess in her mind, it was a threat. She’d read some newspaper article about how Bald Eagles congregated around Lake Pepin in January because there was open water for them to fish and feed, and she thought it would be something interesting to see, as well as a preferable activity to gorging herself on Oreos.

Back then, Bald Eagles were still considered an endangered species. To further convince my dad to make the four-hour round-trip drive, she said she wanted us to see them in the wild before it was too late—something about her patriotic duty and American heritage and a legacy for her children. (At the time, I thought she said a
leg
for her children, and I couldn’t figure out what eagles had to do with my legs.) I think she said something about Dodo birds and Passenger Pigeons, too, but I couldn’t make any sense of that part either.

So she and my dad bundled up Lily and me in our little snowsuits (some things never change), and we drove for almost two hours to Lake Pepin. The sky was bright blue, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The snow was piled so high on the shoulders of the highway that it looked like we were driving through tunnels of ice, and the reflected glare of the sun off the snow made it hard to look out for very long. Lily and I played car bingo in the back seat, calling out trucks, horses, stop signs and trailers until we got into a fight about who saw a red barn first.

Looking back, I can’t imagine how a long car drive with two little kids fighting in the back seat was better than cabin fever for my mom, but I guess anything was a welcome change at that point.

Anyway, as we got closer to the lake and the road started rising up into the bluffs, my mom told everyone to start looking for eagles. Having only seen a picture of an eagle in my mom’s little bird guide, I wasn’t expecting much—just some long-winged birds circling over the water. Then, just before we got to the turn-off above the lake that my mom said was the best place for watching the eagles, my dad started seeing them.

“Oh, my gosh!” he yelled, startling everyone in the car, because my dad never raised his voice. “Look at all those eagles!”

He started pointing through the windshield, and I pushed my face against the car window, trying to see what all the excitement was about. What I got was a really cold cheek, thanks to the freezing glass.

But then my dad parked at the observation lookout, and we got out of the car, and there they were—scores of huge Bald Eagles soaring on thermals, diving to the water and plucking out fish. More were sitting in treetops along the lake. Their snow-white heads and tails caught the sun in a stunning contrast to their dark-brown bodies, and their massive wings beat slowly, powerfully, as they passed just yards above us. I held my breath in what I thought was awe (though it was probably because the air was so bitter cold it literally hurt to breathe, but I didn’t know that then), and I stood absolutely transfixed. I had never before seen anything like these eagles in my life—big, beautiful, flying wonders.