gone.
Ron went to the door she had indicated. It seemed to be a lab of some sort. There were the classic lab tables, much like those he had used in college science courses, complete with natural-gas fixtures, sinks, and work areas. A smock-wearing fellow was busy puttering around with something on one of the tabletops, up to his elbows in a plastic tub.
“Hello,” Ron said.
The man looked over his shoulder as Ron came in. “Hello,” he answered. He squinted his eyes, focusing on the patch on Ron’s shirt. “Fish and Wildlife.” It wasn’t a question. “Sorry I can’t offer you my hand, but it’s covered in bloody goo, so I assume you wouldn’t like that.”
“You assume right,” Ron told him.
“You want a cold drank?” The guy had lapsed into an exaggerated southern accent. “Git you won out dat dere oss bahx. Might have a RC Cola in thar.”
Ron opened the refrigerator and saw an array of beverages. He chose a bottle of distilled water. “Thanks. This one looks good. I think I’ll pass on the RC. You guys don’t have any Moon Pies, do you?”
“Slap outta them. I et ’em all.”
Ron eased over to where the other man was working, looking to see what he was doing. “Well, in lieu of a proper southern greeting, I’m Ron Riggs. You already know who I work for.”
“I’m Adam Levin. Formerly with the University of Florida. At Gainesville. Now a much higher paid employee of one Mr. Vance Holcomb, all around jillionaire and crusading environmentalist.”
“Who’s the environmentalist? You or Holcomb?” Ron had all but emptied the water bottle.
“Both of us, actually.”
Ron had moved up close, and finally had a view of the contents of the vinyl tub. It looked to be a pile of guts. “Intestinal tract,” Riggs noted. “What was it?”
“Turkey buzzard. We’ve found several dead within the area, and I’ve been dissecting them to figure out what’s going on. We suspect poison. This is the first chance I’ve had to go through the stomachs. Got three more in the cooler over there.” He indicated a waist-high refrigeration unit against the far wall.
“Who would poison a buzzard?”
“Well, someone likely poisoned something else. Something the buzzard subsequently ate. Used to see this kind of crap all the time when I worked out in Arizona. Stupid, short-sighted ranchers would poison the coyote, other stuff would scavenge the dead coyote, and then they’d die, too.” He shook his head. “Damned ranchers. Those spoiled brats got away with everything they did. And those jerks grazing their stock on government property practically for free. Makes me sick to even think about it.”
Ron said nothing. At times, he felt helpless and ineffective in the face of the turning of events. So he had trained himself to be impassive when it came to something over which he had no control. Why put yourself in anguish when you had no influence to change such things? “Should the stomach be that color?”
“Yeah. That’s nothing unusual. Been in the cooler for some days, now. That’s the way it goes, you know.” Levin was using a small scalpel to open the top of the stomach cavity. Even cooled the smell that oozed out was noxious. It was only then that Ron noticed the scented jelly on Levin’s bare upper lip. Unprepared for the stench, Ron backed away.
“Ever come up on a vulture sitting on its eggs? They’ll cough up the contents of their stomach at you, hoping the stench will drive you off.” Ron was thinking of a black vulture whose nest he had accidentally found while investigating a rocky overhang on a mountain in Georgia.
Levin nodded. “Yeah. Seen it a time or two, myself. And they just lay their eggs right there on the bare ground. No nesting material at all.”
“Yep.”
Taking a second to glance back at Riggs, Levin spoke again. “So. What brings Fish and Wildlife here to the mighty compound?”
“Kate Kwitney brought me,” he said.
“Ooooooooooooh.” The biologist nodded knowingly.
“I just met her, actually. Out in one of the savannas a few miles from here.” Ron coughed.
“Just met her, you say?” Levin was cutting and squeezing his gory prize.
“Yep. Couple hours ago, is all.” He tossed the empty water bottle at the nearest trash bin, but it hit the rim and clattered to the floor. “Oops.”
“So, then. You don’t…know her that well.”
Ron grunted as he picked up the bottle and tossed it at the bin again. Once more it hit the rim and bounced off and clattered to the floor. “Shoot,”