Flightfall Read Free Page B

endangered. Media, reporters, and the like are always hot after anyone messing with an endangered animal... You could really put the heat on someone. How long you say you been flyin’ the thing?”
    “Two years.”
    The sheriff nodded. “How about you, Mr. Pavlicek?” He arched his eyebrows in my direction. “What’s your involvement in all this?”
    “Just here helping out a friend,” I said.
    “You ain’t even showed me no license.”
    I produced my driver’s license and private investigator’s license and he looked them over.
    “And your daughter, here?’
    “She works with me.”
    “Huh. And you all fly some of these here birds, too, do you?”
    “We do.”
    Sheriff Davies scratched his chin. “Pee-I business must be getting a little slow these days, great recession and all.”
    “We manage.”
    “You don’t look like no investigator.”
    Maybe my yellow flip-flops and Elvis Lives with Me T-shirt were throwing him off. I had figured I’d be headed to the beach by now, and hadn’t planned on an extended stay.
    “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” I said.
    He grunted in return, glanced at Toronto, who was decked out in a flak jacket, Tony Lama boots, and mirror sunglasses that could have come straight out of a G. Gordon Liddy catalog, before looking back at me. “You two fellas really ex-homicide?”
    “That’s right,” I said. “A long time ago. But...”
    “But what?” the sheriff asked.
    “Let’s just say the NYPD doesn’t always welcome us back with open arms.”
    He grunted again and looked at nothing.
    “What about the missing receiver?” Toronto asked.
    “You mean that electronic gizmo thing you showed me?”
    “Right. I have another one just like it and it’s missing.”
    We had spent an hour that morning rummaging through his barn, which he never locked, looking for the second receiver.
    “Jake. You know as well as I do, just ‘cause you found some battery out there in the woods don’t mean somebody was out to kill your hawk.” The sheriff worked his jaw as if he needed to spit. “But I suppose it could be. Had a couple old boys got into a dispute with the high school principal a while back. Kilt the family’s dog, and no one’s seen ‘em since. Likely skipped the state ... Someone upset with you, Jake? Enough to pull a stunt like that?”
    “Maybe.” Toronto’s voice dropped, betraying nothing.
    “Well, you’d best be giving that some more thought. Don’t you think?”
    Toronto nodded.
    The sheriff looked down at his watch. “We’ll have the battery checked for prints. I know I owe you, Jake, but I can’t do much more than that right now. There’s a meeting I’m supposed to be at and I’m already late.”

5
     
    Toronto’s Jeep bounced through a pothole on the way out of the county office parking lot.
    “That guy was prehistoric,” Nicole said, meaning the sheriff.
    “Oh, yeah?” I gave her the evil eye. “What’s that make Jake and me then?”
    “Just ancient,” she said with a wink. “Maybe with a touch of Neanderthal.”
    “Neanderthal,” Toronto said. “Nice.”
    “What did the sherriff mean when he said he owed you?” I asked.
    Toronto shrugged. “He had a deputy thought he was the next Chuck Norris. Asked if I could maybe do anything about it. So I stepped in and helped straighten the guy out.”
    Toronto and I had worked together for a long time. ‘Straighten the guy out’ normally involved intimidation, bodily harm, or worse.
    Back to what Nicole had been talking about on the trip out. Maybe trouble, violence, whatever, followed Toronto and me around like a trailing shroud. Maybe it went even deeper than that. Maybe it was some kind of karma from our past lives in New York. I think the Old Testament might have even had something to say about that.
    “You’ve already got somebody in mind for killing your falcon, don’t you?” I said.
    Toronto nodded.
    “Well, as your pro bono investigator, I’d certainly appreciate your