Hoot

Normally an officer of his rank wouldn’t get involved in such a silly case, but the company building the pancake franchise had some clout with local politicians. One of Mother Paula’s big shots had called Councilman Grandy, who immediately chewed out the police chief, who quickly sent word down the ranks to the captain, who swiftly called for the sergeant, who instantly summoned (last and least) Officer Delinko.

“Them cottonmouths can kill a person,” Curly said.

“Really. Can they kill a bulldozer, too?”

“Well... probably not.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Curly sighed. “Yes, sir. First thing Monday morning.”

“Music to my ears,” Chuck Muckle said.

“I got a quick question about the owls.”

“What owls?” Chuck Muckle shot back. “Those burrows are abandoned, remember?”

Curly thought: I guess someone forgot to tell the birds.

“There’s no law against destroying abandoned nests,” the vice-president was saying. “Anybody asks, that’s your answer. ‘The burrows are deserted.’”

“But what if one a them owls shows up?” Curly asked.

“What owls!” Chuck Muckle practically shouted. “There are no owls on that property and don’t you forget it, Mr. Branitt. Zero owls. Nada. Somebody sees one, you tell him it’s a—I don’t know, a robin or a wild chicken or something.”

“We need a warm body, and the only one we’ve got is sitting in juvenile detention. So officially he’s our perpetrator, understand?”

Officer Delinko and his sergeant agreed in unison.

“I’m going out on a limb here, so you know what that means,” the captain said. “If another crime happens on that property, I’ll look like a complete bozo. And if I end up looking like a bozo, certain people around here are going to spend the rest of their careers cleaning dimes out of parking meters. Am I making myself clear?”

Again Officer Delinko and his sergeant said yes.

It turned out that a thorough E.I.S. had been completed, and that the company’s biologists had documented three mated pairs of burrowing owls living on the property. In Florida the birds were strictly protected as a Species of Special Concern, so their presence on the Mother Paula’s site would have created serious legal problems—and a public-relations disaster—if it had become widely known.

Consequently, the Environmental Impact Statement conveniently disappeared from the city files. The report later turned up in a golf bag owned by Councilman Bruce Grandy, along with an envelope containing approximately $4,500 in cash. Councilman Grandy indignantly denied that the money was a bribe from the pancake people; then he rushed out and hired the most expensive defense lawyer in Fort Myers.