The Boreal Owl Murder by Jan Dunlap

guessed. Or was it a case of primal instincts edging out higher level thinking skills?
    Too bad the state didn’t set high school graduation standards for hormone levels. These kids could blow it away.
    By the end of the school day, I was left with just two students watching the clock and timing down to the minute when they would hand in their tests.
    Actually, the day’s assignment wasn’t that bad. It gave me a whole day to catch up on paperwork, something I never managed in my office where accessibility was critical, but completely time-consuming. That aspect of my job was also one of the reasons I took real pleasure in birding on the weekends—in contrast to constant distraction, birding was time I could spend in single-minded pursuit.
    As opposed to the multiple-minded pursuit my head had been spinning its mental wheels on since talking with Knott last night.
    The dismissal bell rang just after the last tests were laid on the table in front of me. I stacked them in a box and piled my papers together.
    “Hey, good-looking. Pretty please can you tell the nice man I’m not here to burn down the school?”
    I turned around to find Luce standing just behind me with a security guard, who looked disgruntled. She gave me a little peck on the cheek and pulled up a chair from a neighboring table. I smiled and nodded to the guard who turned and left.
    “I’m on my way to work, but these scones jumped out of my oven and cried, ‘Take us to Bobby, take us to Bobby,’ so here I am.”
    She handed me a brown lunch bag that warmed my fingers and released a scent that was already making me salivate.
    “What’s new at school?” she asked.
    I peeked in the bag and groaned in delight. Luce had made my favorite: white chocolate raspberry. “I am your slave forever,” I said.
    “Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” Luce laughed, removing her coat. Today, her long blonde hair was neatly braided and wound in a coil on the crown of her head; the pale pink t-shirt she was wearing put a rosy glow in her cheeks.
    “Put a couple candles on your head and you could pass for Santa Lucia,” I told her.
    “Who?”
    “Santa Lucia. Come on, you’re Scandinavian. You know Santa Lucia—she brings baked goodies to good little boys on her feast day in December, wearing a wreath of candles in her hair.”
    “Sounds like a fire waiting to happen,” Luce sniffed. “Santa Lucia is Swedish, Bobby. I’m Norwegian. And Santa Lucia does not bring goodies to good little boys. She brings saffron buns and coffee to wake up the family.”
    “So, where’s the coffee?”
    She made a grab to take back the scones, but I was faster and held them out of her reach.
    “What’s new? Let’s see—aside from watching thoughts struggling against all odds to be born in the heads of reluctant sophomores, not a whole lot,” I said, telling her about my day in the media center. “I did, however, get caught up on credit reviews for seniors, and I’m happy to say we will, indeed, be graduating quite a few of them in June.”
    I filled her in on the latest news from Knott about the investigation into Rahr’s death that had now turned into a murder investigation.
    “His head had been bashed?” she asked. “Yikes. That sounds pretty vicious, Bobby. It sounds like something that would happen in a big crowded city teeming with psychopaths, not in the peaceful pine forests of northern Minnesota. Who would attack Dr. Rahr? He was an owl researcher, for heaven’s sake.”
    “Yeah, I know. I don’t have a clue. But then again, why would I? It’s not like I’m the detective, here. I’m just the poor schmuck who found the body.”
    “Come on, Bobby, let’s play detective,” Luce said, leaning back in her chair.
    I waggled my eyebrows at her. “I’d rather play doctor.”
    Luce rolled her eyes. “Pay attention. Money is supposed to be the biggest motivation for murder. At least, that’s what all the mystery novels I read say. Then it’s revenge