The Boreal Owl Murder Read Free Page B

unfortunately, that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. No, at the moment, it was my turn, as her guidance counselor, not to unload my truckload of personal crap, but instead, to listen patiently while she unloaded hers.
    Most of the time, that’s not a problem for me. I really like kids. I want them to know I’m in their corner. I know that when I was growing up, I could have used a few more teachers’ sympathetic ears. There were lots of times I was miserable, thanks to other kids. I got teased a lot, but with a name like Bob White, what did I expect? Once it got out that I was interested in birds—okay, make that practically obsessed with them—I got “bobwhite, bobwhite!” bird calls all the time and lots of mean-spirited remarks about bird brains, eating like a bird, and heading south for the winter.
    Now, I figure all the harassment I put up with while I was growing up made me into the sensitive and understanding kind of guy I am, which is one of the reasons I chose counseling for my career path. God knows it wasn’t for the money. And it sure wasn’t for the non-existent luxury office space, either. Or the mandatory lunchroom duty assignment.
    Talk about human misery.
    Don’t get me wrong—I love what I do. There’s nothing better than working with teenagers. Hormones notwithstanding. Plus, you get the same schedule they get—almost three months of summer off every year. And don’t forget winter break, spring break, and the occasional long weekend, too, thanks to a couple dead presidents and Martin Luther King, Jr. Hail to the Chief and I Have a Dream . I can always find a bird to chase.
    This morning, though, my counseling skills were being sorely tested. I was having my own “issues”—that’s a code word we counselors like to use. It’s shorter than “self-indulgent bull crap.” I didn’t want to listen to Kim, the drama queen of the hour. For one thing, she kept repeating herself, and I’d gotten the highly complex concept the first time around: she was angry with her best friend over a boy. Big surprise. What I really wanted to say was, “Hey! Just get over it! Get your little caboose outta here and go back to class where you belong,” but I was afraid that wouldn’t fly with my boss, Mr. Lenzen, the assistant principal.
    Besides, I could just hear the whine as the little caboose went out the door, “But what am I gonna DO, Mr. White?” The fact is, for some of these kids, no matter what advice I give them, or what coping skills I try to teach them, they just don’t get it. For drama queens, drama is definitely king.
    The other thing that kept distracting me was that I was still seeing that hand from Saturday night pop up out of the ground. The recurring mental replay hadn’t exactly given me sweet dreams during the last twelve hours. Neither had the memory of tripping over a corpse. And, oh yeah, there was also the big hungry bear and Scary Stan in camo with loaded artillery in his hands.
    But then, should all of that not be enough, I’d found a note attached to my bird feeder this morning. “ Stay out of the forest or you’re next.”
    Don’t get me wrong. I love threatening notes with my morning coffee just as much as the next guy. Adrenaline and caffeine. What a combination. Definitely jump starts a Monday morning after a long weekend.
    And, believe me, it had been one long weekend.
    By the time Mike and I had found a phone, led the police to the body, made statements and promised to buy tickets to the policemen’s annual ice fishing fund raiser for the rest of our natural lives, it was Sunday morning. We took turns driving back home to the Twin Cities. I dropped Mike off at his place in the northern suburbs, then made it back to my town house on the south side just before noon. I filled the suet feeders hanging off my deck and passed out on my living room sofa. I woke up about six, showered, zapped a tray of frozen breaded shrimp in the microwave for dinner and listened