Chapter 5

Ed, Albert, and two FBI agents sat in the local bar drinking cokes and talking to the waitress. The woman, in her early fifties, had seen more men come and go through the bar in her lifetime of working there than most women ever met in their entire lives. The four men at the table were the strangest that she had ever encountered. Winking at the woman and the bored manner in which she had greeted them, Ed said, “You don’t seem surprised to have a Druid in your establishment.”

“Hey, you work in a place like this long enough and you see everything. A couple winters ago, one of the regulars had a breakdown and came in here wearing an evening dress claiming to be the homecoming queen. We used to have a guy that came in here regularly that dressed up like Robin Hood, just like you, and that’s old news. A guy in a robe is nothing compared to that,” shrugged the woman.

Laughing at the easy truth that she told, Ed said, “I just love small towns. They are so down to earth.”

The two FBI agents stared at Ed in surprise, not knowing what to make of him. They had been warned to expect anything from him. Rich Martin, the second FBI agent, suggested, “Shouldn’t we be asking questions?”

Looking at him, Ed replied, “We are.”

“Two suits, a Ranger, and a Druid. I figure the suits are Feds. So what are you doing in our little town?” asked the waitress.

Sitting back in his chair, Ed took a sip of his coke before answering, “Trying to solve a murder of a Ranger.”

The waitress was stunned by the revelation. Uncertain, she asked, “You mean the hiker that was killed was a Ranger?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Ed as he watched her carefully. Her reaction was physical, as though someone had just punched her in the stomach. Her hands immediately went to her belly as if it were in pain.

“Don’t tell me that it was John that was killed?” she asked with real concern in her voice. Even as she asked the question, she knew she didn’t want the answer.

Albert answered, “Yes. The hiker was John Wilkins. He was a very good friend of mine.”

“Damn. I really liked John. He was such a nice guy. Always had a kind word for me when he was in town,” she said with real grief in her voice as tears welled up in her eyes. With the anger that one would expect from a person that discovered their lover had been killed, she said, “I hope you nail who ever did it.”

“That’s why we are here,” replied Albert.

Ed gestured to a chair and said, “Please sit down.”

Numb, she moved to the chair and sat down. Looking up at Ed, she said, “I don’t understand how it could have been him. I saw him a couple days before they reported finding the body. He wasn’t going anywhere near where they found him.”

Albert asked, “Do you know where he was going?”

“I thought so. He said that he was going to examine some of the places north of town. He said that he had heard that there were some rare plants up that way. Something about natural grasses.”

Albert perked up at that and asked, “Did you say natural or native grasses?”

“I guess it was native.”

“That would be a find. Too many of the native grasses were forced out by the introduction of other grasses. I’m sure that he would head there in a minute,” Albert mused intrigued at the idea that it was possible to find a patch of native grasses. Such a find would be extraordinary. Looking over at the waitress, he asked in an excited voice, “Do you have any idea where he may have heard that rumor?”

Scott interrupted, “We are here to capture a killer, not to seek out a plant.”

Holding up a hand, Ed replied, “It may be the same thing. The Ranger went to investigate the plant and someone killed him.”

Albert glanced over at Ed with a questioning look and then asked, “Are you suggesting that someone may have lured him out with the promise of a rare plant?”

“Not suggesting anything, except that if he heard about a plant he would have gone out there to investigate it. Something may have happened while he was looking for it,” replied Ed.

The waitress watched the conversation as she thought about her last conversation with John. Most of their talk was of a personal nature and his comments about his plans were an afterthought to let her know when she could expect him back. It wasn’t that they were lovers; she was old enough to be his mother. She said, “I don’t know who gave him that information.”

The group was quiet as each of them processed the news in their own fashion. The waitress started to stand up to go into the back and cry when Ed asked, “I saw the most amazing sight the other day, an owl was walking across a field. Has anyone else mentioned seeing a walking owl?”

Surprised by the question, she answered, “As a matter of fact, the Bauer boys were in here talking about seeing a walking owl about ten days ago. Lots of folks were teasing them about that.”

Ed smiled and said, “Thanks.”

After the waitress walked away, Albert turned to Ed and said, “Smart. I never would have thought to ask about that.”

“Who can see that and not talk about it?” asked Ed.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure that I would want to meet someone that could see a sight like that and not be surprised or amazed by it.”

The two FBI agents looked at each other puzzled by the discussion about a walking owl. Finally, Scott asked, “What’s all this talk about a walking owl?”

“We saw an owl walking across the field where we found the beer cans. It was a very odd sight,” replied Albert.

Looking directly at the FBI agents, Ed said, “Albert has spent more time in the wilderness than anyone else that I know. He has only seen that sight once. Now, if two guys are boasting of having seen a walking owl, odds are good that they saw the same one that we did. That places them at the scene of the crime.”

The two FBI agents looked at each other and shook their heads at how these guys had managed the discussion. They had gotten very significant evidence without the person from whom they had gotten the evidence even being aware of what they had said. Not once during the entire discussion had they flashed any identification or let the waitress know that they were doing anything more than just looking around.

“I guess the next step is to find out a little about the Bower boys,” said Scott happy to have something that he could do.

“First, we have to find out how to spell their name. I’m not sure that it’s B-O-W-E-R or B-A-E-U-R. From the way that she pronounced it, I would suspect the later,” replied Ed. Responding to a call of nature, he stood and headed towards the restroom to empty his bladder. On the way to the men’s room, he noticed the payphone with the small telephone directory sitting on a shelf below the phone. Smiling, he stopped and looked up the names. There wasn’t an entry for Bower, but there were about twenty for Baeur.

After relieving his bladder, he returned to the table and, as he sat down, announced, “It’s spelled B-A-E-U-R.”

“Okay, how did you find that out?”

“Looked it up in the telephone book. When we get to the hotel, we can get out a map and plot out the addresses of the Baeurs in the telephone book to see who lives in the right area,” replied Ed.

Nodding, Albert added, “The right person could go to the Sheriff and ask about them in terms of following up on a walking owl siting.”

“Why don’t we go directly to the Sheriff and ask straight out?”

Ed laughed and said, “You don’t know much about small towns. Everyone knows everyone here. First sign that you are hunting someone, that person can disappear for months.”

Leaving the bar, Ed and the two agents went to the hotel while Albert went to get a map of the area. The hotel was only half a block from the bar and even at a leisurely walk, it didn’t take long for them to arrive at their rooms. It was an old style hotel that had a single story with the rooms opening to the front of the building. There were one and one-half parking spaces in front of each room suggesting that it often had more clients coming by car than rooms. Curtains that didn’t quite close all of the way covered the large windows.

Ed went to his room and moved a table away from the wall so that the four men could sit around it. Going over to the small table next to the bed, he opened the drawer looking for a telephone book. Instead, there was a Gideon Bible. Looking at it, he laughed and closed the drawer. Opening the drawer of the table on the other side of the bed, he found the telephone book.

He opened the door to his room so that the others could join him when they had finished their activities in their rooms. He knew the two agents were reporting on the progress to their section chief and calling their wives to let them know that it would be another day or two before they would be done. The telephone in his room rang and he answered, “This is Ed.”

“Hello, Ed. This is Howard,” replied his intern in a cheerful voice.

“How’s it going?”

“Fine. We had the entire high school band out here. Most of them were painting the outside of the house. A number of the girls went in and gave the house a thorough cleaning. Leroy fixed the wood chairs by taking them apart and gluing the joints. One of the kids actually knows how to fix the cover on the sofa. He’s bringing over a sewing machine tomorrow. We are going to a store in a while to pick up some fabric for the sofa.”

Ed smiled at the happy tone of voice in which his intern reported the results of his day. It had been a risk, but he had put the student in charge of putting things right at the old ladies house. Leroy and Ling had stayed there to see what they could do to help, but it had been Howard’s show. He replied, “Smart move getting the band to help out. Did Leroy supply the money for that?”

“No. It was Ling who came up with the idea. I thought it was brilliant and went with it. She offered ten thousand dollars to pay for band uniforms and new instruments,” answered Howard. He was quiet for a moment and then said, “Leroy has been paying to get the materials for the outside of the house. There were a number of rotten boards that had to be replaced.”

This was the kind of effort that everyone in the family enjoyed working on, the chance to help someone that was weak improve their life. In a way, he wished that he was back there working on the house. The chance to fix something and make it better was too good to pass up without significant soul-searching. Going out to face down evil was so much more difficult and never seemed to bring him pleasure. He joked, “We are going to make a Druid out of you yet.”

Howard laughed and said, “I had better get going now. I’ve got to get to the fabric store. They are keeping it open late for us.”

“Okay. Call me tomorrow.”

“Sure thing.”

Ed listened as the phone went dead when Howard hung up. It was interesting how miserable Howard had been hiking through the woods, but enjoyed the hard work of fixing up a house. He set the handset on the phone and returned to the table. Looking at it, he realized that there were only two chairs. The agents would have to provide two chairs from their room if they were going to work here.

Albert entered the room holding up a stack of papers that were photocopies of a detailed map of the area from the country records building. Shaking his head, he went to the table and started setting out the papers. Taping pages together, he reconstructed the original map. Looking up, he grunted, “They wouldn’t let me take the map, so I had to photocopy it.”

For Ed, this was another sign that it was impossible not to like small towns. Things were done in their own way and according to their own timetable. Fighting the system made you pushy. If you went with the flow, you could get tremendous things done. No matter what, the first step had to be winning the support of the locals. He smiled, “At least they let you copy it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s so,” grumbled Albert.

Scott and Rich entered the room looking at the effort that Albert was putting into reconstructing the map. Ed said, “Why don’t you get two more chairs and help Albert identify where the Baeurs are located?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go talk to the Sheriff for a minute. I figure that if those boys can kill someone, then they are well known to the law for other little indiscretions. I’ll use the walking owl story as a pretext,” answered Ed as he headed towards the open door.

Walking down the street, Ed took a moment to get a flavor of the area. It was interesting, but even though a lot of the men wore blue jeans and caps common to the men in Arizona, the leather work boots and flannel shirts changed the look from cowboy to northern outdoorsman. Even little gestures emphasized the differences. At home, the men would stand, leaning against something, with a thumb hooked in the front pocket of the pants with the fingers spread. Here, the men stood with the legs spread and hands in their back pockets with their hips thrust forward a little.

The Sheriff’s office looked like every other Sheriffs’ office in a country setting. The deputy, standing behind the counter, did his best not to look startled at having a Druid walk into the office. Intending to make Ed wait, his effort was totally undermined when Ed said, “I saw the strangest thing the other day. It was a walking owl.”

The Deputy burst out laughing and asked, “A walking owl?”

“Yep. It was a walking owl. Marched right across a field like it was a little soldier. I was at the bar down the road and heard that someone else had seen the same thing. I was wondering if I could track them down and ask them questions about it,” replied Ed with a smile.