A Murder of Crows by Jan Dunlap Read Free Book Online

solving murders —if you’ve got it, you’ve got it.
    And if you’ve got it, you might as well use it.
    Or lose it.
    And I had no intention of losing my birding skills at the ripe old age of thirty-six.
    “Honey, I’m home!”
    I turned in time to see Luce stepping out onto the deck.
    “Red’s in the hospital,” she announced. “I stopped by Millie’s Deli on my way home to drop off a sample of my new quiche recipe for Chef Tom, and he told me that Red went to the emergency room right after we left yesterday.”
    “For what?”
    My wife gave me a kiss.
    “For a concussion,” she said. “Red fell down the steps to the deli’s basement storage area, and hit her head. She doesn’t even know her own name. Tom said he overheard Red and Prudence arguing when they went to the basement, and the next thing he knew, Prudence was yelling for someone to call 911.”
    “Prudence Delite?”
    “Yes, Prudence Delite,” Luce repeated. “Red asked her to help her bring up some supplies. I gather they’re old friends, from what Tom said.”
    Red’s comment that Sonny and his wife had been regular customers at Millie’s came back to me. I’d assumed that was the extent of the women’s acquaintance. Although, now that I reconsidered what I’d seen of their interaction at Millie’s, I’d thought the whole girl-slap thing had been way out of line for a server-customer relationship. And the way Red had handled it also seemed like she was pretty familiar with Prudence’s behavior. What had Red said?
    “Think about what you’re doing.” And “Put a lid on it, Pru.”
    That sounded like a lot more than a passing acquaintance, I’d say.
    That sounded like some kind of warning.
    About what, though?
    If I had to guess, it might have been that Red was reminding Prudence about her martial arts superiority so Sonny’s widow wouldn’t find herself laid out on the floor of the deli. I doubted, however, that Chef Tom would be pleased with that kind of customer service from his employees. It was one thing to knock your customers out with great food, but literally landing them between the tables was a culinary approach I wasn’t familiar with.
    At the same time, if Red’s military experience was common knowledge among Millie’s regular clientele—did that make me “irregular” since I hadn’t heard about it?—Mrs. Delite should certainly have known better than to launch an assault on a trained combatant. Last I heard, attacking a skilled fighter was rarely a good idea, unless you were equally skilled. I knew that I, for one, was going to be especially diligent at work about not angering the Bonecrusher, once I knew who he was. And until I did, I was going to be sure I didn’t antagonize anyone … just to be safe.
    But if Prudence and Red were old friends, as Luce had learned from Chef Tom, then Red must have been warning Sonny’s widow about something else.
    Making a scene in a public place?
    Could be. But if that was the case, Red was too late. According to Officer Kurt, Prudence had already done that at the Landscape Arboretum.
    Yet I could still hear the particular register of the tone in Red’s whisper, and it had sounded urgent. It had reminded me more of a Killdeer’s cry as it protected its young, rather than a Blue Jay calling to stake out its territory in defense.
    Okay, that’s weird—trying to interpret human behavior through bird calls, but what can I say? Given the choice between figuring out birds or humans, I think birds are a whole lot easier. With birds, what you see—and hear—is what you get, which is definitely not the case with a lot of humans.
    Trust me. I was the one who’d been suckered by the faked sincerity of a habitual reprobate into babysitting a bag of flour for a day.
    Two American Crows flew across the yard, followed by a pair of Blue Jays.
    So, had Red been trying to protect Prudence from something else, or was she just reminding her friend of her physical prowess? Did it even