The Kiskadee of Death by Jan Dunlap

once for me to keep it all straight. “You insulted Birdy? I thought you said you were trash-talking the drone.”
    Eddie walked over to his little kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. He pulled out an unopened bottle of beer and offered it to me, but I shook my head.
    â€œSuit yourself,” he said and uncapped it. “Birdy designed the drone, Bob. He’s an avionics engineer from way back. He used to work at NASA.”
    The framed wall photo of Birdy and Buzz at Fat Daddy’s popped into my head, and I began to connect some dots.
    â€œThat must be why Birdy was involved with the SpaceX program, then,” I said. “He used to work in the space program when it was all government-owned. Now that it’s spawned private industry looking to establish a profitable business, the companies probably love getting experienced ex-NASA folks on board to help develop the whole idea of commercial space tourism.”
    I described the framed photo to Eddie, and another connection occurred to me. “Do you know if Birdy was at NASA while Buzz was an astronaut?”
    Eddie nodded again. “That’s where they met,” he said. “But I don’t think Buzz was an astronaut, or at least, he never made it into space as one. If I’m remembering this right, Buzz Davis was kicked out of the astronaut program just before he was scheduled for his first flight. He had a drinking problem.”
    â€œBut Luce said she recognized him from a parade in St. Paul when she was a kid,” I recalled. “She said he was an astronaut.”
    â€œHe was. He trained as an astronaut decades ago,” Eddie conceded. “Those guys were the cream of the crop back then. Heroes in the making. But even so, a few of them never made it into space, because of medical disqualification at the last minute or because a space launch was scuttled. If Buzz Davis was in a parade back then, the organizers must have decided not to hold his disqualification against him.”
    I thought about the man I’d met that morning on the park deck. He could have been the poster boy for healthy retirement with his tanned skin, clear eyes and athletic stride.
    â€œHe must have gone through rehab and changed his evil ways,” I said to Eddie. “Buzz Davis glows with healthy living.”
    â€œAnd he wouldn’t take a sip of my liquor the other night, either, now that I think about it. Unlike Paddy Mac and Schooner.” Eddie shook his head. “Those boys could be world-class professionals when it comes to boozing, let me tell you.”
    I picked up a few pieces of equipment from the table and turned them over in my hands while I digested Eddie’s observations about Buzz Davis and my new-found colleagues of the MOB. “So how are we going to get you off the chief’s list of suspects, Eddie?”
    â€œFind out who did kill Birdy Johnson,” he replied. “But let’s have some dinner first. I’m starved. And then I’m taking you and Luce to watch the biggest flock of ugly buzzards you’ve ever seen.”
    Oh, good. If anything could instantly restore my wife’s spirits, it would be a flock of birds.
    Although, I had to admit, vultures might be a stretch, even for Luce.

 
    Chapter Seven
    A s it turned out, Luce opted out of going to dinner in favor of taking a nap at Eddie’s and heating up a can of minestrone she found in his kitchen cupboard. She insisted she’d be fine, and Eddie and I should go enjoy tamales and burritos at the Tex-Mex restaurant around the corner from the Inn. By the time we got back, she had color in her cheeks again and felt a lot better, so all three of us hopped into my car and headed for the Frontera Audubon Society to see the nightly vulture show.
    A short time later, I pulled into the long driveway off South Texas Boulevard that led to the headquarters of the society. Set on fifteen acres of what used to be a family citrus