The next day I was up early and went for a run. If I can start before the sun comes up, I have the beach entirely to myself for a while. I went south from Oceanside and ran the full length of Netarts Bay before the sun brightened over the Coast Range. As the sun rose, the monochromatic greyness in which I’d started the run gave way to the muted greens of the hills, the dark blue of the Pacific, and the coal black of Three Arch Rocks. That sense of heaviness left me as it always did when I reached the turnaround point at mile five, and I picked up the pace as the sun rose higher. The longer I ran, the better I felt. By the time I’d completed the return trip to Oceanside, my head felt clearer and my problems seemed smaller and more manageable. I sprinted up the hill to my house, worked out with the free weights in the spare bedroom, then stretched and took a shower.
Detective Eccles texted while I was eating breakfast. He told me he wanted to talk to me again and said he could be at my house within the hour. I told him that was okay with me, and while I waited for him I took my binoculars out onto the deck. It was a quiet morning in Oceanside, with fewer tourists than usual in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. That suited me fine.
There was a bald eagle nesting in a dead tree at the top of the hill above my house. Every thirty minutes the bald eagle would glide out towards the bird sanctuary on Three Arch Rocks. The sound of hundreds of nesting sea birds panicking was clearly audible even from half a mile away. As the eagle reached the rock, every bird capable of taking flight would lift off, leaving behind the birds who were either too immature to fly or who were determined to protect their nest. Either way, the eagle would select its next victim from the birds left behind, pluck it from the rock, and lift off with prey in its talons. Then the eagle would fly back over my house and land in the nest at the top of the hill. The birds on Three Arch Rocks would settle again. A few minutes later the eagle would glide seaward from its nest and the process would start again. I wondered if the eagle had a voracious appetite or if it were just feeding its young.
After about an hour I saw Eccles’ rental Buick start its labored drive up the hill to my house. I went back inside, waited for him to park his car, and then I went outside and closed the front door behind me.
He got out of the Buick and locked it with the key remote.
“Car theft isn’t much of a problem in Oceanside,” I said.
“Force of habit,” Eccles said. “Discipline frees the mind from mundane details, so it can focus on things of importance.”
“Deep thoughts,” I said.
“Hardly,” Eccles said. “Common sense is more like it.”
It was a warm and humid morning, and Eccles was wearing a short sleeved red dress shirt over tan slacks and brown leather shoes.
“Want to walk down to the beach with me?” I asked.
“These shoes aren’t made for sand,” he said. “But I’ll walk down to the parking lot with you.”
We started down the switchbacks that led from my house to the parking lot for Oceanside Beach State Park.
“Have you talked to Peck yet?” I asked.
“I did talk to Anthony Peck,” he said. “He is a specimen of humanity.”
“In what way?”
“Well, he had three attorneys present. Every question I asked, his attorneys conferred on it before deciding whether it was okay for him to answer. He says he never had anything to do with your parents and only knew Burton socially. Says Burton was never an employee. Peck’s attorneys made the point more than once that dragging Peck into a twenty year old murder investigation with no proof of his connection to the case could be costly to my career.”
“Your response to the threat to back off?”
“I asked whether Peck would be more cooperative when I prove that Burton was on his payroll at the time of your parents’ murder.”
“I’ll bet he liked that.”
“That ended the interview. My supervisor called me ten minutes later and asked me why I pissed on a wasp nest.”
“Your supervisor sounds like a man who enjoys colorful metaphors.”
“Indeed he is. He suggested that my brain might actually be the size of a gnat’s asshole.”
I laughed. “At least now you know that you have his full support.”
“If I can prove Peck is dirty I’ll have all the support I need. If I can’t, and I annoy Peck again, I’ll be working security at pee wee rodeos.”
The bald eagle flew overhead on his next trip out to the feeding ground of Three Arch Rocks.
“Is that what I think it is?” Eccles asked.
“A bald eagle, yes.”
“Never seen one before. Those things are big.”
We’d made it to the parking lot for Oceanside beach, and we watched the eagle close in on the bird sanctuary. A cloud of nesting birds lifted off from the rock with an accompanying explosion of noise.
“What the hell is he doing?” Eccles said.
“Feeding time, as far as I can tell,” I said.
“No shit,” Eccles said.
Eccles watched as the eagle landed on the rock and then lifted off with new prey. As the eagle flew its return flight in our direction, it became obvious that it now had a large bird in his talons.
“Do you see the size of the bird he’s carrying?” Eccles said.
“I do.”
“He can’t be eating that whole thing.”
“That’s his third or fourth trip this morning.”
“I don’t see how his eaglets could be eating that much, either.”
“Maybe he just likes it,” I said. “Maybe he just enjoys taking down prey.”
“Most animals don’t do that,” Eccles said. “They only kill as much as they have to in order to stay fed.”
“Maybe this one is like Peck,” I said. “There’s nothing stopping him, and he likes doing it, so the killing continues unabated.”
“Maybe,” Eccles said. “Unless he has the misfortune to cross paths with someone like you.”
I shrugged.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked.
“After my visit with Peck, I wanted to tell you in person to stay out of Peck’s arena. I got the feeling from some of his bodyguards that if I didn’t carry a badge I might not have walked out of there. No joke.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Did my name come up during your discussion with Peck?”
“One of his attorneys asked me if I was interviewing you about the killing of Burton.”
“Out of the blue, huh?”
“Right.”
“So someone back in Oklahoma City is telling Peck’s people everything.”
“Seems like it.”
“You still telling your boss the details of what you’re doing?”
“Not any more.”
“You going back soon?”
“Not quite yet. Still got a couple branding irons in the fire.”
“I think your metaphors might be as colorful as your boss’s.”
“It’s the cowboy in me. Always thinking about rounding up the stray cattle.”
“Just so.”
“I don’t suppose that after our discussion the other day you decided to be more candid with me about what happened the day of your parents’ home invasion,” he said.
“I’ve told you everything I can remember,” I said.
“I’ll accept that,” he said. “For now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“I’m just getting started,” he said. “But my impression is that you and Peck both wish that Randall Burton was still buried by that oil well. That makes me curious. And I don’t think either of you are being straight with me by a mile, and in your case that puzzles me. That’s all right, though. Sometimes persistence is the name of the game, isn’t it? It’s like being a gold miner. You just keep digging until you find something.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Enjoy your day, sir,” he said. “I th
ink I can find my way back to my car without difficulty.”