“Sorry.”
“See you at two.”
After clicking off the phone, McCaleb took a leftover tamale out of the freezer, cooked it in the microwave and then wrapped it in foil and put it in his leather bag for eating while crossing the bay. He checked on his daughter, who was in the family room sleeping in the arms of their part-time nanny, Mrs. Perez. He touched the baby’s cheek and left.
Bird Barrier was located in a commercial and upscale warehouse district that hugged the eastern side of the 405 Freeway just below the airfield where the Goodyear blimp was tethered. The blimp was in its place and McCaleb could see the leashes that held it straining against the afternoon wind coming in from the sea. When he pulled into the Bird Barrier lot he noticed an LTD with commercial hubs that he knew had to be Jaye Winston’s car. He was right. She was sitting in a small waiting room when he came in through a glass door. On the floor next to her chair were a briefcase and a cardboard box sealed at the top with red tape marked EVIDENCE. She immediately got up and went to a reception window through which McCaleb could see a seated young man wearing a telephone headset.
“Can you tell Mr. Riddell we’re both here?”
The young man, who was apparently on a call, nodded to her.
A few minutes later they were ushered into Cameron Riddell’s office. McCaleb carried the box. Winston made the introductions, calling McCaleb her colleague. It was the truth but it also concealed his badgeless status.
Riddell was a pleasant-looking man in his mid-thirties who seemed anxious to help in the investigation. Winston put on a pair of latex gloves from her briefcase, then ran a key along the red tape on the box and opened it. She removed the owl and placed it on Riddell’s desk.
“What can you tell us about this, Mr. Riddell?”
Riddell remained standing behind his desk and leaned across to look at the owl.
“I can’t touch it?”
“Tell you what, why don’t you put these on.”
Winston opened her briefcase and handed another pair of gloves from the cardboard dispenser to Riddell. McCaleb just watched, having decided that he would not jump in unless Winston asked him to or she made an obvious omission during the interview. Riddell struggled with the gloves, slowly pulling them on.
“Sorry,” Winston said. “They’re medium. You look like a large.”
Once he had the gloves on, Riddell picked the owl up with both hands and studied the underside of the base. He looked up into the hollow plastic mold and then held the bird directly in front of him, seemingly studying the painted eyes. He then placed it on the corner of the desk and went back around to his seat. He sat down and pressed a button on an intercom.
“Monique, it’s Cameron. Can you go to the back and get one of the screeching owls off the line and bring it in to me? I need it now, too.”
“On my way.”
Riddell took off the gloves and flexed his fingers. He then looked at Winston, having sensed that she was the important one. He gestured to the owl.
“Yes, it’s one of ours but it’s been… I don’t know what the word you would use would be. It’s been changed, modified. We don’t sell them like this.”
“How so?”
“Well, Monique’s getting us one so you can see, but essentially this one has been repainted a little bit and the screeching mechanism has been removed. Also, we have a proprietary label we attach here at the base and that’s gone.”
He pointed to the rear of the base.
“Let’s start with the painting,” Winston said. “What was done?”
Before Riddell answered, there was a single knock on the door and a woman came in carrying another owl which was wrapped in plastic. Riddell told her to put it down on the desk and remove the plastic. McCaleb noticed that she made a face when she saw the painted black eyes of the owl Winston had brought. Riddell thanked her and she left the office.
McCaleb studied the side-by-side owls. The evidence owl had been painted darker. The Bird Barrier owl had five colors on its feathers, including white and light blue, as well as plastic eyes with pupils rimmed in a reflective amber color. Also, the new owl was sitting atop a black plastic base.
“As you can see, the owl you brought has been repainted,” Riddell said. “Especially the eyes. When you paint over them like that, you lose a lot of the effect. These are called foil-reflect eyes. The layer of foil in the plastic catches light and gives the eyes the appearance of movement.”
“So the birds think it is real.”
“Exactly. You lose that when you paint them like this.”
“We don’t think the person that painted this was worried about birds. What else is different?”
Riddell just shook his head.
“Just that the plumage has been darkened quite a bit. You can see that.”
“Yes. Now you said the mechanism has been removed. What mechanism?”
“We get these from Ohio and then we paint them and attach one of two mechanisms. What you see here is our standard model.”
Riddell picked the owl up and showed them the underside. The black plastic base swiveled as he turned it. It made a loud screeching sound.
“Hear the screech?”
“Yes, that’s enough, Mr. Riddell.”
“Sorry. But you see, the owl sits on this base and reacts to the wind. As it turns, it emits the screech and sounds like a predator. Works well, as long as the wind is blowing. We also have a deluxe model with an electronic insert in the base. It contains a speaker that emits recorded sounds of predator birds like the hawk. No reliance on wind.”
“Can you get one without either one of the inserts?”
“Yes, you can purchase a replacement that fits over one of our proprietary bases. In case the owl is damaged or lost. With exposure, particularly in marine settings, the paint lasts two to three years and after that the owl might lose some of its effectiveness. You have to repaint or simply get a new owl. The reality is, the mold is the least expensive part of the ensemble.”
Winston looked over at McCaleb. He had nothing to add or ask in the line of questioning she was pursuing. He simply nodded at her and she turned back to Riddell.
“Okay, then, I think we want to see if there is a method of tracing this owl from this point to its eventual owner.”
Riddell looked at the owl for a long moment as if it might be able to answer the question itself.
“Well, that could be difficult. It’s a commodity item. We sell several thousand a year. We ship to retail outlets as well as sell through mail order catalogs and an Internet Web site.”
He snapped his fingers.
“There is one thing that will cut it down some, though.”
“What’s that?”
“They changed the mold last year. In China. They did some research and decided the horned owl was considered a higher threat to other birds than the round head. They changed to the horns.”
“I’m not quite following you, Mr. Riddell.”
He held up a finger as if to tell her wait a moment. He then opened a desk drawer and dug through some paperwork. He came out with a catalog and quickly started turning pages. McCaleb saw that Bird Barrier’s primary business was not plastic owls, but large-scale bird deterrent systems that encompassed netting and wire coils and spikes. Riddell found the page showing the plastic owls and turned the catalog so that Winston and McCaleb could view it.
“This is last year’s catalog,” he said. “You see the owl has the round head. The manufacturer changed last June, about seven months ago. Now we have these guys.”
He pointed to the two owls on the table.
“The feathering turns up into the two points, or ears, on the top of the head. The sales rep said these are called horns and that these types of owls are sometimes called devil owls.”
Winston glanced at McCaleb, who raised his eyebrows momentarily.