Death Takes a Gander Read Online Free PDF

1950s,” explained Eric.
    “That’s right.” She remembered reading about him in one of her college classes. “Wasn’t he the guy who reestablished the goose population along the Front Range?”
    “He was a man very big on geese. When he came on board, Colorado didn’t have many, just a few hundred resident geese in the northwest. Gurney changed all that. He even won a national conservation award for his efforts.”
    The wind picked up, and Angela repositioned her hat, tucking up a loose curl. “Thanks for the history lesson. I still don’t see—”
    “Do you have any idea how many geese we have now?”
    “Fifteen thousand resident pairs?” It was a guess.
    “Close. CDW, the Colorado—”
    “Division of Wildlife,” she said, huffing out a breath. She was young, not stupid. She knew what the letters stood for.
    “CDW put out a release in August of ‘01 claiming more than twenty thousand resident pairs,” continued Eric. “According to their figures, we may have as many as two hundred fifty thousand geese in Colorado during migration.”
    Angela whistled. In investigations, you followed the crimes against wildlife, not the studies. “How many are there now?”
    “More.”
    Angela bit back a laugh. “Seriously, do you know how those numbers break down?”
    “The original group, the Rocky Mountain group, has around ten thousand birds. The shortgrass prairie population—”
    “The ones in the San Luis Valley?”
    He nodded. “That group comes in at around sixty thousand. The rest belong to the Hi-Line population along the Front Range. You do the math.”
    She calculated the numbers in her head, twice. “One hundred eighty thousand geese?”
    “All along the Front Range, all pooping up a storm.”
    Angela emitted a half-hearted chuckle. “Still, you’re talking city populations. This is different.”
    “No, I’m talking damage to agricultural crops and city parks.” He threw up his hands. “Permission has already been granted for the roundup and removal of four thousand two hundred Hi-Line geese this summer.” Eric glanced sideways at her. “Any idea who holds those permits?”
    Angela mulled the question. It had to be someone connected to Frakus. Her eyes moved to the First Annual Elk Park Ice Fishing Jamboree banner. One name stood out. “Agriventures?”
    “You guessed it. The cosponsor of the Ice Fishing Jamboree.”
    She didn’t know much about the company, except that they were a large corporation doing business mostly in the organic foods market. “So, what you’re saying is—”
    “John Frakus has an ace in the hole.”
    “Donald Tauer, Agriventures’s CEO?”
    “None other.”
    They rounded a bend in the path and could hear more clearly the high-pitched honking and squeaks that signaled trouble. Another fifty feet and she could see the bodies. According to her watch, they had ten minutes before Frakus sent his men to scrape them off the ice.
    “We’re going to need reinforcements,” Eric said.
    On cue, Angela’s cell phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Kramner. “Speak of the devil.”
    She answered, then filled him in on what was happening. “The bottom line is, I told Frakus he can’t remove the birds from the ice.”
    “But he can, Dimato. I told him we’d allow the use of the Agriventures permit, provided—and here’s the caveat—the USDA must agree to count the birds in the permit totals. I want their intent to do so in writing.”
    “That’s it? Frakus wins?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded high-pitched, like the geese’s honking.
    “It doesn’t pay for us to be unreasonable.”
    “Excuse me, sir, are you suggesting it’s reasonable to allow him to plow the birds off the ice?”
    “I’m suggesting we choose our political battles. It does not behoove us to antagonize John Frakus over a flock of Canada geese. I told him to have USDA fax their permission and to be sure you have a copy before he does anything else.”
    “But—”
    “No