“Okay, pal, you’ve said your piece. I don’t agree with you, but I’ve listened to you politely. Now have a nice day, and let me get on with feeding my friends here, okay?”
Fred’s left eye begins to twitch nervously, and staying low-key appears to be an effort. “You think they’re your friends, huh? What you’re doing isn’t very friendly. The friendly thing is to let wild birds be wild birds.” Fred swallows hard, takes a deep breath, and presses ahead. “Another thing. What you’re feeding them. Bread crumbs. It’s not good for them. If they load up on stuff with no nutritional value, they’ll get malnourished. It’ll kill them eventually.”
“Urban folklore. The occasional bread crumb isn’t going to kill them.”
“If you don’t care about the welfare of the birds, your so-called friends, think about it from a selfish human point of view. Birds can be noisy, and the more of them there are, the more noise pollution they create.”
“Doesn’t bother me. I don’t live on the lake. I just visit.”
“What about this, then? These ducks and geese graze on the shrubbery and lawns. If there are too many of them, they could eat everything down to its roots. That would really mess up the landscaping in this beautiful park we all enjoy so much. And don’t forget, oversocialized birds can get aggressive. These geese, for example. They’ve been known to attack people. You don’t want too many of them around.”
“I’ll take my chances,” George says blandly.
Fred shakes his head. He looks thoughtful, as if searching his mind for one last argument that might move George. Finally he says, “Do you fish?”
“No, I don’t believe in fishing. Hunting either.”
Fred grows more agitated. He raises his voice slightly, though trying to restrain himself. “That is just so… so ironic. Then the fish are your friends too? Like the birds?”
As Fred gets more exercised, George looks amused. “I wouldn’t put it that way. I just don’t like the idea of fishing, that’s all.”
“It might interest you to know, George, that each and every one of the geese on this lake produces one pound of feces per day. That can lead to unpleasant odors for us but to even worse effects on the fish. It lowers oxygen levels, and that can be deadly to all aquatic life. And speaking of feces, ever heard of salmonella? A real public health hazard, right? It can come from duck feces. And do you want even more droppings on the picnic tables than there are now?”
“Oh. Okay. And if I don’t feed the birds bread crumbs, they won’t shit?”
Fred takes another deep breath. There is now a fanatical gleam in his eye. He appears to be a man losing control. “You may not fish on this lake, George, but others do. If birds get too friendly with people, they’ll wind up getting hooks caught in their beaks, or they can get tangled up in the fishing lines. That’s a terrible way for one of your so-called friends to die, don’t you think? What you’re doing is no good for anybody, people or birds or fish or anybody. You’re ruining the whole ecology. You really gotta stop.”
“And are you going to make me stop?” George says, still more amused than anything.
“I didn’t come here looking for any trouble. But there’s nobody around but you and me, and I probably could make you stop if I wanted to.”
“So now you’re threatening me?”
“I’m not threatening anybody. Just giving you some advice.”
“Well, take your advice and get outta here. I was enjoying the morning – calm, serene, feeding the birds, communing with my fellow creatures-and you’re ruining it for me. Get lost.”
“This is a public park. I can go where I want and say what I want and do what I want.”
“You can, huh?”
“Yeah, I can!” Fred starts waving his arms and yelling, frightening the birds, making them scatter.
George has had enough. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a handgun, and fires point-blank at Fred, who clutches his chest and falls dead at the edge of the lake. George looks down at him lying there for a moment, then resumes feeding the birds.
“YOU CAN GET up now, Foley,” Berwanger said. His partner regained his feet, and both bowed as the class applauded.
Lourdes Ramirez said, “That was great. But wouldn’t it have been even more effective if you’d pulled your real gun on Detective Foley instead of just pointing your finger and yelling ‘Bang’?”
“They would have gotten me fired if they had,” Moe Gustavson said from the back of the room.
Berwanger nodded. “Can’t make it so realistic we give somebody a heart attack.”
“Man, but that was so awesome,” said a young man in the back row. “I thought Fred was the serial killer. I was sure he was going to off George for feeding the birds. You really do a good fanatical nutcase, Detective Foley.”
“It’s not such a stretch for him,” said Berwanger.
“I feel kind of sorry for George,” said a serious-looking girl in the second row. Several of her classmates groaned, as if they’d heard off-the-wall points of view from her before. “No, really. I mean, in his mind, he was doing something good and generous for the birds. He thought of them as his friends. He was saving them from hunger. And along comes this guy, Fred, who tries to stop him. He listened to him, pretty politely really, until Fred started to chase the birds away. Then George just did what he needed to do to keep helping the birds. I mean, not that it was right, not that it was sane or anything, but he could keep feeding the birds, you know?”
“Wouldn’t the gunshot have scared them off more than a guy waving his arms and yelling?” a male student said reasonably, and she appeared deflated.
“But, man, this is really totally awesome,” said one of the young men bookending Lourdes Ramirez. “Really cool. Like, I mean, not that I’m in favor of murder or anything like that, but just imagine. This guy, George, becomes a serial killer. He feeds birds in remote places with nobody else around, and if anybody shows up to object, he blows them away. I mean, that is just too cool, you know?”
Moe Gustavson asked, “How many people did George kill before he was caught?”
Berwanger looked surprised at the question. “Just the one.”
“Just the one?” Lourdes echoed, looking outraged.
“Sure,” Berwanger said mildly. “Some other people heard the shot. He fled, but we got a good description of him. We picked him up that same day, matched his gun to the slug found in the victim, made the case in court real easy. His lawyer tried to get him off on an insanity plea but got nowhere. He’s in prison now, and will be for a long time.”
“Is he working with birds there?” asked the serious girl in the second row. “Like the Birdman of Alcatraz?”
“No idea,” Berwanger said.
“Wait a minute!” Lourdes protested. “I feel totally cheated.”
“Never enough blood and gore to satisfy Lourdes,” Gustavson said.
“That’s not the point, Mr. Gustavson,” she said. “Detectives, you said he was a serial killer. If he killed only one guy, how could you call him a serial killer?”
Berwanger and Foley looked at each other for a moment. Then Foley said, “But what about all those birds he killed?”
A Certain Recollection by John Buentello
He woke to the sound of sirens filling his ears. He called to his partner, Darby, who was not there, and then to his wife, who must have left for work as usual in the darkness of the early morning. Brenda worked at the bakery just down the street, three blocks from the house they had lived in for thirty years. Or had they been here longer? He fumbled out of the sheets, listening to the sirens, wishing Brenda was here to help shake him awake. He’d always been a heavy sleeper. Maybe that came from so many long hours driving to crime scenes and making out reports, sifting through all the evidence, interviewing witnesses and grilling suspects, looking for a clue to whatever case he and Darby had been assigned to.