Free Death Takes a Gander by Christine Goff Page B

ready?” Harry yelled.
    She turned to see him waiting with another bird. Reclaiming the screen, she glanced up at the clock. It was nearly noon.
    At last count there were eighty-five geese left to treat—take away the ones that had recently died. At twenty minutes per bird, divided by three, they would be here well into the night. Fatigue settled around her shoulders, and her arms drooped like the wings of the geese.
    When she dropped to her knees beside Harry, the biologist asked, “What did you find?”
    “Lead sinkers, like we expected,” she answered.
    “Did they look corroded?” His intensity surprised her. She tried picturing them in her mind.
    “Not really. Why?”
    “Something’s off.” Using a knuckle, Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Lead needs time to be absorbed in the bloodstream.”
    Obviously .
    Her expression must have said she had thought as much, for he pushed on.
    “Don’t you see? It takes a couple of days for sinkers to erode and leach enough lead into the bird’s system to cause poisoning. It wouldn’t happen overnight.”
    Lark slapped a piece of tubing into his hand. “They’ve been fishing the lake for a month, Harry. Maybe the geese picked some up earlier?”
    “Then we should be seeing signs of chronic lead poisoning—more weight loss, that sort of thing. These birds were healthy until very recently.”
    She couldn’t disagree with him there.
    “Plus, someone would have noticed this number of birds on the ice.”
    He had a point.
    “Maybe someone did,” she said. “I’ll ask around.”
    Harry dug in his pocket, then dropped a tiny lead sinker into her hand. “Feel this.”
    She rolled the small object between her thumb and index finger. “Okay?”
    “Notice how smooth and round it is.”
    “It’s similar to what we found on the ice.”
    “That’s my point. A partially digested sinker, one left in a bird’s system long enough to leach lead, wouldn’t feel like that. It would be distorted… just a blob… if there was anything left at all.”
    Lark rested her hands on the edges of the bucket. “What are you saying, Harry?”
    “I’m saying it’s not the fishing sinkers that are making the birds sick.”

CHAPTER 7
    “Then what is?” Angela asked, walking in on the tail end of the conversation. She was interested in hearing his theory. On her lunch break, she’d spoken with Kramner and told him about finding the fishing sinkers scattered on the ice. He had told her in no uncertain terms not to pursue an investigation. As far as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was concerned, the matter was closed. But if something else was making them sick, maybe he’d reconsider.
    Lark glanced up. “How’s the fishing?”
    “It bites.” She thought of Frakus and his insistence she challenge the little boy’s catch.
    Harry chuckled.
    “I came to pick up my truck and to see how things were going.”
    She leaned closer to watch the lavage procedure. “Seriously, Harry, I’m interested in hearing your theory. Maybe if… ”
    She broke off, unsure what she was looking for. She needed something with far-reaching consequences. “Maybe if I had a bone to throw him, I could convince Kramner to let me investigate.”
    Harry stuck out his hand for another syringe. Lark handed him one, and he jammed the snout into the tubing. “I don’t know what’s making them sick. I only know it can’t be the sinkers. It doesn’t make sense.”
    “Except there was enough lead on the ice to wipe out the entire Hi-Line population.” A stream of effluent gushed from the tubing, and Angela pulled back.
    Lark guided the flow over the screen. Several fishing sinkers were visible, snagged among the plant matter.
    “Angela’s right,” Lark said. “It wasn’t there by accident. There was too much of it. Like I said, maybe the geese picked it up earlier.”
    Harry shook his head. “If there had been lead on the ice the day before, Frakus would have noticed. They set up the