Free The Boreal Owl Murder by Jan Dunlap

city? I understand the Minnesota River’s got some open water.”
    I told him about the eagles and the hawk and the Canvasback and the White-fronted Goose I’d seen yesterday. As a lifelong birder and one of the founding fathers of the Minnesota birding organization, Jim was rarely unaware of what birds were in town or passing through; at somewhere around seventy-eight years old, he’d seen species in the state that I’d give almost anything to get on my Minnesota list. We talked a little more about the weather and what migrants the southerly winds might bring. Then I asked him what he knew about Dr. Rahr.
    “A tragedy,” he said, shaking his head. “What is this world coming to when a man can’t even be safe birding?”
    Caught by the room’s overhead lights, the rim of white hair that ringed his balding head gleamed white; it suddenly struck me that Jim resembled the eagle I’d seen on my way to the meeting—not only did he have the white head, but he had golden eyes, a sharp nose and imposing height. If he fully extended his long thin arms, they’d make a wide, though perhaps spindly, wingspan.
    I wondered if he ate a lot of fish.
    “I met Andrew maybe ten years ago,” Jim explained. “I was working on putting together a birding guide for the Arrowhead region of Minnesota, and he was just starting to study the Boreal Owls. It was a passion for him, you know. He was teaching at the university and spending time in the woods on his own nickel, mapping out the owls’ range and breeding habits. Back then, MOU wasn’t funding any research, so this was really his labor of love.”
    “Did he ever have any assistants with him that you know of?” I asked.
    That was probably expecting a lot, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Jim had a good memory. He could tell you about birders he knew fifty years ago. Whether or not he could remember the names of researchers—whether or not he even knew the names of any researchers—I had no idea.
    “Or did Rahr ever complain about someone doing similar research with the owls or talk about colleagues trying to horn in on his work?”
    Jim shut his eyes and rubbed his hand over his forehead, almost as if he were trying to massage a thought into the front of his consciousness. Would it work? If it did, I was going to patent the process and sell it to the parents of sophomore sloths everywhere. I’d make a million bucks. At least.
    After a moment, his eyes popped open and focused sharply on me.
    “I do remember something like that, Bob. It was probably after the first year we funded Andrew. Maybe four years ago, now. He had a grad student from the university working with him, and I remember he didn’t like the boy. I asked if he wanted us to include a stipend for the boy to work with him the next year, and he said no, he didn’t trust him to do the work. I got the impression the boy had a big head, like he thought he knew better than Andrew how to conduct the study. Kind of a prima donna, I guess.”
    “Rahr was a prima donna?”
    “Not Rahr, Bob. The boy.”
    “Jim, how’ve you been?”
    Dr. Phil Hovde walked into the room and reached out to shake Jim’s hand and then mine. “Bob, good to see you. Beautiful day, isn’t it? Saw on the list-serve that you got a White-fronted Goose and Canvasback yesterday.”
    “Yup, I did,” I said. “Welcome back, Dr. Phil. You’re back a little early this spring, aren’t you?”
    Dr. Phil, a retired orthopedic surgeon, and his wife, Myrna, are snowbirds. That means they migrate south every January and February to a condo in Florida, where they can soak up sunshine instead of taking turns shoveling snow. Tanned and fit, they both look younger than their seventy-odd years, and if it weren’t for the time I saw his silver toupee fly off on a windy afternoon we shared birding, I’d think that mop of hair on his head was his own. He was, however, a dedicated birder and enthusiastic board member, so I forgave him his annual winter