Free The Boreal Owl Murder by Jan Dunlap Page B

since our current method seemed to lack urgency, as well as effectiveness.
    “The problem isn’t that people don’t have the money,” she pointed out, “it’s just that no one realizes that the date stamped on their address label is their dues date. I think if we just sent emails out as reminders, that would work better.”
    “But does everyone look at email?” Bill asked.
    “Everyone in MOU does,” Jim said. “Whenever I post a bird sighting, I get calls and responses for the next two days. If I miss a day of MOU email, I feel out of the loop.”
    I knew just how he felt. I checked it first thing in the morning before leaving for work and again when I got home at night. In the summer, I checked it several times a day. Of course, there were always some birders who refused to share information on the Web. Rahr had been one of them. In all the years he’d worked with the owls, he had never posted any Boreal sightings. His refusal to do so was one of the reasons I finally tried speaking with him on the phone. But like I already said, that got me nowhere. At least the email system was successful in keeping other, more cooperative birders connected.
    Even Stan had posted sightings via email.
    “How current is our email list?” I asked Anna. I’d given Knott the residence address for Stan, but not his email address. If the detective had that, maybe he could track down Stan—make him exist again—to question him about his activities in the forest.
    “Well, we have to rely on members keeping us updated,” Anna replied. “Not very reliable, but it’s all we’ve got.”
    In this case, it could be enough, though. Stan used his email. I made a mental note to check through my deleted email file when I got home. I’d find one of Stan’s postings and forward his address to Knott.
    An odd thought crossed my mind. Who was stalking whom, now, Stan?
    “I move we use email reminders to collect dues,” Bill said, and the motion passed unanimously. “Now that we have secured our dues income, do we want to continue using some of that money to fund the Boreal Owl study?” He looked at the rest of us, his bushy eyebrows raised in question. “Does anyone know if there is going to be any more Boreal Owl study, in light of—ah—recent events?”
    “Actually, we were talking about that before you got here, Bill,” Dr. Phil said, tapping his pen against the table. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone working with Dr. Rahr this year, so I’m guessing the study is suspended.”
    Gee, me too, almost! I thought. Suspended, that is. My professional career down the drain. Glug, glug, glug! How was I going to support all the birds depending on my feeders? How was I going to support me?
    Funny, isn’t it, how sometimes the real weight of a conversation escapes you at the time, then comes roaring back at an inopportune moment to bite you in the ass? Well, sitting there in that MOU meeting was both my inopportune moment and my ass. My livelihood was on the line! That meant I was going to have to do a lot more to save my career than just hightail it up to Duluth and sic Knott on the big bad Mr. Lenzen. For the first time, it occurred to me that I was going to have to take some real initiative in not only helping Knott solve the crime, but in helping him to actually find a killer because until he found him, it was my future that was up for grabs.
    Or down the drain.
    Either way, not where I wanted it. Location, location, location.
    I tuned back in just as Anna unfolded a sheet of paper that she had retrieved from her purse.
    “Maybe not,” she said. “I got this email last night from a man who says he worked with Dr. Rahr some years ago on the owl project, and he’s very interested in picking up the study.”
    “You’re kidding,” Dr. Phil said, laying his pen down. It rolled, and I noticed it had some letters printed on it. Probably some promotional item he’d picked up somewhere. Heck, half the pens on my desk at work are