Murder With Puffins

'That's ridiculous,' Takahashi said. He reached inside his coat, probably to pull out his business cards. 'I'm--'  'Mr. Takahashi!' I snapped. He froze. In fact, everybody froze.  'Hold on a second,' I told Mrs. Peabody, the ringleader.

'If you don't mind…' I said to Binkie. She looked puzzled, but nodded.

I handed Spike's leash to Michael, drew Takahashi aside, and spoke to him in an undertone.

'Are you sure you want to tell them what you do? These are rabid environmentalists. They're very militant about development.'

Takahashi turned pale.

'What am I supposed to tell them?' he asked.

A thought struck me.

'What do you know about the Unheralded Genius of the Down East Coast?' I asked, recalling the subtitle of Resnick's biography.

'It's another of those birds, isn't it?' Takahashi said without enthusiasm.

''Who could have predicted this event, at once so joyous and so tragic?'' I quoted.

''Who can calculate the import this occurrence would present upon his life and art?''

Takahashi began edging away from me. Okay, so he wasn't the biographer. Just checking.

'Inside joke,' I said. 'Just leave it to me.'

'What's going on anyway?' Mrs. Peabody asked, tapping her foot with impatience.

As Takahashi continued to sidle farther away, I beckoned Mrs. Peabody to join me--which took her out of earshot of the other birders.

'You can't reveal this to a soul,' I said in a low voice.

'No, of course not,' she said eagerly.

'Are you familiar with the Unheralded Genius of the Down East Coast?'I said.

'No,' Mrs. Peabody said, looking at Takahashi. 'Is that him? What's he supposed to be a genius at?'

Okay, so neither of the Peabodys was masquerading as James Jackson, either. It was worth a shot.

'Well, I can't say too much--but would it surprise you to learn that a certain environmental organization had taken an interest in Victor Resnick's less savory activities?'

Takahashi looked as if it would surprise the hell out of him, but he managed a feeble smile when Mrs. Peabody put on her reading glasses and inspected him at length.

'Well, that's quite a different kettle of fish,' she said finally. Takahashi must have passed muster; she grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously for several seconds. 'Carry on, then!' she ordered before turning on her heel and beginning to shoo the other birders out of the room.

'No, it's not what we thought,' I heard her telling several people. 'I can't talk now, but I'll tell you all about it later.'

So much for not telling a soul.

'What am I supposed to do now?' Takahashi asked.

'As little as possible, until the ferry comes,' I suggested.

'Right,' Takahashi said, looking around nervously. 'You really think one of them would harm me?'

'I have no idea,' I said. 'But if I were you, I wouldn't take chances. For all we know, one of the birders could have knocked off Victor Resnick. If some kind of environmental vigilante is running around loose on the island, you don't want to make yourself the next target, do you?'

'But what am I supposed to do if they ask me why I'm here?' Takahashi said, looking perplexed.

'Tell them you're under orders not to reveal that information,' Michael said.

'Whose orders?' Takahashi persisted.

'Mine,' I said. 'But don't tell them that, of course. Just say orders.'

'Right,' Takahashi said.

'And stop the masquerade; just carrying around a pair of binoculars isn't going to make anyone think you're a birder.'

'Binoculars? I don't even own binoculars.'

Well, that was odd. Had the birders imagined the binoculars, or was there another imposter masquerading as a birder?

But before I could interrogate him further, Mrs. Peabody burst back into the room.

'Is there something else wrong, Mrs. Peabody?' I asked.

'There certainly is,' she boomed. 'Look at this!'

She thrust something under my nose.

For a split second, I wasn't sure what it was. And then I realized that it was a puffin. Not one of the plush stuffed puffins from Mamie Benton's shop. Right general size, shape, and color. But even a stuffed puffin left out overnight in the hurricane wouldn't be quite such a limp, bedraggled mess. This was the real thing. Or had been, when it was alive.

'I thought the puffins were long gone by now,' Michael said. 'Out to sea for the winter or something.'

'Well, this one obviously wasn't in any shape to make the trip,' I said. 'Where was it anyway?'

'Down by Victor Resnick's house,' she said. 'Near that tidal pool you found him in. The poor thing was probably his last victim.'

'And when did you find it?'

'An hour ago,' she said.

'An hour ago?' I echoed. Something about this didn't make sense. 'Would you mind showing us where?'

'Not at all,' said Mrs. Peabody. To my relief, she whisked the dead puffin out from under my nose and began striding toward the porch steps. 'It's about time somebody did something about this! Clearly the local authorities aren't going to take any action!'

I looked around for Rob, but he had fled, and Mrs. Peabody was rapidly disappearing.

'Arg!' I exclaimed, taking the end of Spike's leash. 'Come on, you little monster.'

He followed me, barking with glee. As I expected, I had to pick him up and carry him after about fifteen feet--although, to his credit, he managed to pick up a remarkable amount of new mud during his short time on the ground.

To my dismay, other birders began following Mrs. Peabody as she strode through town. I suppose, given the weather, there wasn't all that much else for them to do, since most of the birds remained sensibly out of the rain. We had collected fourteen or fifteen stragglers by the time we reached Resnick's house. Mrs. Peabody led us past the house and down to the tidal pool, along the path the rising tide had prevented Michael and me from using yesterday.

'Right there,' she said, pointing to a large flat rock. 'It was lying right there.'

'Lying how?' I asked.

'I'll show you,' she said, reaching for her knapsack. For a second, I thought she was about to shed her knapsack and arrange herself on the rock in the place of the dead puffin. But instead, she pulled out a camera.

'I took pictures of the body,' she said.

'The puffin's body, you mean?' I asked.

'Well, of course,' she said. 'What other body could I mean?'

'Victor Resnick's?' Michael suggested.

'Him,' she said, shrugging. 'Why would I bother? Here, I'll show you.'

'Great,' I said as she held out her camera. 'We can have the film developed.'

'You don't need to develop any film,' Mrs. Peabody said with a scornful look. 'This is a digital camera. Here.'

She pressed a switch on the camera, looked at it for a few seconds, then turned it so we could see. The back of the camera had a little display screen, on which I could see a picture of a small evergreen tree.

'That's fantastic!' Michael said, looking over my shoulder. 'You can see the pictures as soon as you take them! Does it use film?'

'No, it saves the pictures on a computer chip,' Mrs. Peabody said.

'The things they do with computers these days,' another birder said, shaking his head.

'And if you don't like what you've taken, you can erase mem and try again,' Mrs. Peabody said.