01: Waiting for Bodies

A falcon and an owl stood watch on a billboard by a highway.

The rickety billboard advertised Paradise Hills, a subdivision that was never built. It was late afternoon, almost evening. They were far out in the country. The wind swirled the grasses in the fields and whispered in the cracks of the billboard. The two birds could see the highway stretching through the hills and forests as it snaked its way back to the city. The city, at this distance, was just a blip of jagged steel on the horizon. 

“This far away, the city doesn’t look like much,” muttered Detective Dietrich, the falcon. “But you get up close, and it’s like a million dreams tangled up in knots.”

“Sir.”

“You don’t have an opinion?”

“No, sir.”

Detective Dietrich was a bat falcon, smaller and sharper than the owl. His big eyes soaked in the world. Out of his jet-black head curved his black beak, a precise instrument, with a golden flare around his nasal openings. Around his neck was an ascot of white feathers. He had a waistcoat of black wings that covered the charcoal vest of his torso. His legs were a rich chestnut. He looked dapper.

Dietrich changed his grip on the weathered wood, and as he moved, two lights flickered to life beneath him. Five lightbulbs in domes of metal were meant to illuminate the billboard to passing drivers, but only two lights came on. The huge poster for Paradise Hills had long ago faded, with sections having peeled away to hang in strips.

“So you’re a barn owl?” asked Dietrich.

“American barn owl, sir.” Seneca was a big sturdy owl, with a snowy chest and wings colored to look like reddish tree bark. He was well camouflaged in order to vanish into the depths of any forest. He was a rookie in the Homicide Unit, and this was his first day with Detective Dietrich.

“I’m a bat falcon. Familiar?”

“No, sir.”

“We’re named for what we hunt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t suppose you hunt barns?”

“No, sir.” 

Moths batted the domed lights beneath them. Evening insects crackled in the fields. Cows in the distance made lowing sounds and turned for home. Along the horizon, clouds were gathering into a gray mob. 

“Half the job is waiting for the job to start,” said Dietrich.

“Yes, sir,” said Seneca.

Dietrich sensed something electric in the air, like a snap of invisible jaws, and he twitched. He sank his talons into the rotten billboard. “Did you feel that?”

“I felt nothing, sir.”

“Lighten up, kid.”

Seneca didn’t know how to lighten up.

And Dietrich didn’t know how to shake his strange feeling. It scared him. There was something out there, something murmuring in the sticky shadows, something brushing its belly into the tender grass. . . . Dietrich figured whatever it was, it didn’t belong. Something had come creeping out of the tangled knots of that dark city.

02: The First Body

A golden field stretched for miles. Grasses swayed in the wind, their fuzzy tips sparkling in the light of the setting sun. A breeze caressed the golden grass . . . until clouds moved across the sky and darkened the field in shadow. A storm was coming. There was a flash of lightning, and a vulture shot from the sky. The great black bird struck the earth. Thunder rumbled.

The vulture inspected something on the ground. He stepped in a circle to tamp down the tall grass. He peeled back the blades to expose a dead bird. 

Another vulture landed—and another. Eventually, there were six vultures closing in around the corpse.

“What we got?” asked Van Dad. Van Dad was the head of the VCSU, the Vulture Carrion Scene Unit. He was distinguished by yellow tracking tags attached to his shoulders. The tags were old and worn, symbols of what he’d been through as a cocky young vulture when humans had captured him, tagged him, and tracked his movements. But that was a lifetime ago.

“Little lady ain’t local,” said Van Halo, an albino vulture. Van Halo was as white as a cloud, with a head and legs of raw pink. 

“Exotic plumage,” said Van Juan, an eager vulture always looking to impress Van Dad.

“Exquisite in every way,” whispered Van Ick, ogling the body. The others thought Van Ick enjoyed his job a little too much.

“She was somebody’s pet,” said Van Dad. “Some human set her free, and she starved to death. Guaranteed. Seen it a hundred times.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” counseled Van Buren, the white-bristled grandfather of the group.

“Fine,” said Van Dad. “Decomp?”

“We got a mess of maggots,” said Van Juan, “but they’re small. Just hatched.”

“Dead maybe two days,” said Van Halo.

“I want the full exam done before Dietrich gets here,” said Van Dad. “And where the heck is my son? Where’s Van Go?”

03: The Vulture Who Loved Life

Van Go was a little naïve vulture who loved life. 

“Van Go!”

Van Go had wandered off to follow field mice scurrying into burrows, grasshoppers popping into the air, and swallows settling into a tree. He loved watching living creatures in action. It was exciting. He stuck his beak into clover and milkweed. He loved the odors of flowers and the promise of buds about to open. He helped a caterpillar inch up a stalk of wheat. He carefully sidestepped around a spider’s ornate web. A baby ribbon snake rippled over his toes, and he watched it vanish into the grass. 

Van Go heard his name being called. He had excellent hearing. He heard everything everyone was saying about the exotic female bird, dead two days in the grass. He wasn’t in a hurry to respond. Death wasn’t his thing. He couldn’t help a dead creature. Still, Van Go knew he’d better make his way back to his father.  

“Van Go!”

He was half the size of the adults but more handsome, although not by vulture standards. Vultures thought he was ugly. He was only handsome in comparison to the typical turkey vulture. Vultures had gnarly red skulls and wings like cloaks. Vultures hopped and lurched and hunchbacked around a carcass in such a comical way that it looked like they were poking fun at the dead. But vultures weren’t poking fun; they were performing a service. 

A fortress of vultures had their backs to Van Go, who, in their shadow, looked like a runt. It seemed impossible that this little bird would ever gain entrance into the fortress of the VCSU.

A baby maggot snapped like a grain of rice in the soil between Van Go’s toes. Van Go rescued the baby maggot in the gentle scoop of his beak.

“Van Go?”

“Hurnh,” mumbled Van Go, the maggot in his mouth.

“Where the heck is that kid? Get in here!”

Two vultures separated to allow Van Go to enter the crime scene. The vultures loomed like towers, and they didn’t give him much space. Van Go beaked his way into the crevice between their bodies and extended his neck and pedaled hard against the ground to force his little body through the opening. He popped out into the center of the circle. 

Everyone glared at him.

Van Go returned the baby maggot to the flesh of the exotic bird. The baby maggot worked its mouth-hook into muscle. After five days of eating, the maggot would pupate for two weeks and emerge from its shell as a fly. 

“Don’t touch the crime scene,” warned Van Juan. “How can you not know that?”

“Yeah, don’t touch,” repeated Van Dross, with his mouth full. The big guy was always chewing something: a tendon, a ligament, a bit of gristle. He had lowered his big head to Van Go’s level, but Van Dross himself had snuck a bite out of the crime scene. And he still had a maggot hanging from his beak.

Van Go nabbed the maggot from Van Dross’ beak and returned this second maggot to the corpse as well.

“Did he just save a maggot?”

“I think he saved two.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s two maggots past crazy.”

“Enough!” barked Van Dad. A raindrop splattered against the red armor of Van Dad’s skull, and he blinked. “Dietrich’s on his way, and we’re not done. Son, pay attention. You’ll take over for me one day. So learn from the best.”

Van Go felt terror grip his whole body. Every time his dad told him he was going to take over the VCSU, Van Go suffered a tingly feeling of dread. He hung his head, and as rain drizzled on the highway, he surrendered to another lesson in death. 

Arriving with the rain were Detective Dietrich and the rookie Seneca. They took cover within a raggedy highway bush.

“If you want to be a detective,” Dietrich said to Seneca, “you have to pay attention. If you want to save lives, you have to listen.”

Van Go overheard Dietrich, whose words lifted Van Go’s spirits. He thought he was doomed to join the VCSU because he never knew what else a vulture like him could do. Now he knew. If you wanted to save lives, you became a detective. That was Van Go! 

“I’m a detective,” he declared. It felt great to say it out loud. So he said it again. “I’m a detective.”

Van Dross misheard him. “Where’s the detective?”

“No,” corrected Van Halo. “Van Maggot said he was a detective.”

“More like a defective,” sneered Van Ick.

Van Juan whispered, “I wish he was a detective.”

Van Dad snapped at Van Halo for calling his son “Van Maggot” and chest-bumped Van Dross to assert dominance over the biggest vulture. Van Dross spit out the trachea noodle he’d been chewing and toppled backwards into the grass.

Van Go escaped from the circle of vultures and hopped blissfully toward the raggedy highway bush.

Dietrich came out to meet him. “The young apprentice,” he said.

“I’m a detective.” Van Go’s eyes were wide with hope.

“A detective? Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Something is wrong with him,” whispered Seneca.

Dietrich flinched. “Don’t sneak up on me, rookie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So why do you think you’re a detective?”

“I want to save lives,” said Van Go, who then quoted Dietrich’s own words back to him: “‘If you want to be a detective, you have to pay attention. If you want to save lives, you have to listen.’”

Dietrich knew a lot of tricks, but he didn’t know this one. “Who told you that?”

“You did.”

“Sure, kid.” Dietrich wasn’t going to let this kid get the best of him. “What about the body?”

“Dead two days,” said Van Go, trying to talk like a detective to impress Dietrich. Van Go sidled next to Dietrich and lowered his voice to sound tough. “Exotic bird, female. Possibly a pet.” Van Go paused to listen to the conversation in progress among the VCSU members, who were too far away for even Seneca the owl to hear their discussion clearly. “No,” said Van Go, updating the details. “Not a pet. Neck broken. Not an accident. ‘Dietrich’s got himself a body.’”

“Who said that?”

“My dad!” chirped Van Go, reverting back to his cheerful self.

“Hey!” called Dietrich. “Is that my body? Broken neck?”

Van Dad poked his head above the fortress of vultures and muttered, “How’d he know that?”

“Nice work, kid,” said Dietrich.

“I’m a detective.”

Seneca, impressed by the little vulture’s super-sensitive hearing, inspected Van Go. “Something’s wrong with him, but he is useful.”