Page 33 of Night Hawk
She slowly pressed the tip of the swab against his beak, and it came away red.
“Perfect.” Clay took the swab and put it back in the plastic tube.
They repeated the process with his talons, and Clay zipped his jacket pocket to keep the samples safe. “Can you get him into his cage?”
“Only one way to know.” She eased forward.
“Hungry.” Bird bobbed on her arm.
She slowly reached her arm out, and the bird hopped onto the perch in the cage. She moved at the speed of a snail and got the door closed and secured.
“For a while there I had visions of a bird permanently secured to my arm.” She chuckled.
He smiled with her for a moment, nearly getting lost in her eyes, but it was hard to forget the reason they were in this house. “We should work our way through the house to look for other evidence, then get Trent out here so someone can feed Bird.”
“Poor guy. Too bad food and water could contaminate his beak or I would give him some now.”
“Bird hungry,” he squawked from the cage. “Bird hungry.”
Feeling bad for Bird, Clay headed to the kitchen, Toni following. He used his cell to take a wide photo of the old pea-green cupboards, ancient appliances, and an empty eat-in area. “The lack of furniture is odd when he’d lived here for so long.”
“Maybe he was getting rid of things.”
A frying pan on the stove held shriveled burgers and moldy buns sat on a plate.
Clay turned to Toni. “Looks like his dinner was interrupted.”
“Think he planned to eat both the burgers or was he expecting company?”
“He’s not a big guy, but maybe he could eat two burgers.”
She opened the refrigerator. “Condiments and a twelve-pack with three cans missing.”
Clay looked through the cupboards but found nothing odd. “Let’s keep going.”
He went back down the hallway to the first bedroom holding a double bed with a worn lavender comforter. He focused his camera on the bed, thinking the comforter was an unusual color for a guy. Maybe it belonged to the missing wife. He opened the closet while Toni pawed through dresser drawers.
“Nothing here,” he said.
“Drawers either.”
They went down the hall to the second bedroom, this one with a twin-size bed covered with a baseball comforter, and framed baseball posters hung on the walls.
“Maybe Jason’s old room,” Clay said.
She crossed to the dresser and opened the top drawer. “Whoa. Look.”
Clay looked inside to find the drawer brimming with stacks of twenty-dollar bills. “Wow. Whoever killed Rader obviously wasn’t looking for money.”
She opened the remaining drawers to find them stuffed with cash too.
Clay let out a low whistle. “How much do you think’s there?”
She flipped through the bills and looked up. “All total, I’d say sixty grand or more. Why was Rader living in this dump like this when he could afford something much nicer?”
“Based on this bedroom and the fact that Rader’s still using the old comforter, maybe it was sentimental reasons. Or…” Clay didn’t want to continue, but it had to be said. “Maybe he can’t sell the place because the missing wife is still here.”
Toni’s eyebrow went up. “You mean buried out back or something?”
