The Boreal Owl Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

obviously thought someone was messing with his research, but he also obviously didn’t know who that someone was, if he was reduced to making wild accusations on the phone to a total stranger.
    Who might be jealous—professionally—of Rahr? Thanks to his work with the Boreals, Rahr had an international reputation. Had he stepped on someone else’s toes along the way?
    Rahr was, after all, dead. Maybe I was being naïve about academic politics, but I thought death was a rather extreme form of retribution for toe-stepping.
    Or, if not professional jealousy, could Rahr have been dispatched by a crazed birder who’d seen one too many cuckoos?
    The truth is, anyone who has birded for any amount of time knows how competitive some birders can be, especially when it comes to adding elusive birds to their lists … and then not letting anyone else know where the sighting took place. But could any birder be so jealous of a bird sighting to murder someone?
    Stan’s face popped into my head for about the hundredth time that morning. I wished it would quit doing that. But if the shoe fits …
    Besides, even though the owls were a challenge, all the birders in the state already knew basically where they were. It wasn’t like it was a never-before-revealed secret. Rahr had been publishing his findings for years in the MOU newsletters, since the state organization was his primary financial supporter for the research. True, the reports were a pain in the ass to decipher, but they were unquestionably available to the public.
    And even to consider that a birder would commit murder to bolster his or her own list … now, that was unthinkable.
    Wasn’t it?
    “Hey, Mr. White.”
    I looked up from my desk. It was Jason Bennett, a Savage senior, who, thankfully, didn’t know the meaning of the word “drama.”
    For that matter, he didn’t know the meaning of the word “style,” either.
    He was standing in my office doorway, dressed in his usual attire: fatigue pants, a striped polo shirt, and a down vest. Definitely not GQ material.
    “Hey, Jason. What’s up?”
    “Dude, I’m bummed. I brought these excellent deer hooves to school to show-and-tell my friends, but Mr. Lenzen just nabbed me in the hall and said I should go directly to my counselor, do not pass go, do not collect $200. He said I was violating the school weapons policy. With deer hooves? Anyay, here I am.”
    I looked at the two deer hooves Jason was holding. I’d seen enough deer in my days with the DNR to know that the cuticles in question were indeed the real McCoy. “Very cool, Jason.”
    “Way cool, but weapons? No way, dude. These are natural artifacts. I got them at a garage sale. How cool is that?”
    “Well, Jason,” I said. “Maybe they’re not weapons to you and me, but Mr. Lenzen, he’s …” Anal. I wanted to say anal, but I didn’t think that was a good thing to call a colleague, let alone my boss, in front of a student.
    “Anal,” Jason said. “Definitely anal.”
    I cleared my throat. “Well, let’s just say he’s trying to stick to the letter of the law here,” I said. “Tell you what. I’ll just keep the hooves in here for the rest of the day, and you can take them home after classes. That way you’re disarmed, the rest of the students are safe from hoof violence, and Mr. Lenzen can be happy knowing he’s upheld the law of the land.”
    “Cool,” Jason said. He put the hooves on my desk and left.
    Odd mementos of a hunting trip, I’d say. Antlers I understood, but hooves? It reminded me of an article I read once about poachers in Africa and how they managed to sell every part of the animals they killed. I didn’t think poaching was a problem in Minnesota, though. We have more than enough deer to go around.
    Heck, if you want a deer, just drive a country road after dark. Cars are deer magnets. They practically throw themselves at them. I’d gotten one myself last November. I was coming home in the dark after attending a Sunday