The Sparrow's Tale

"Sounds like you have your work cut out for you."

"Yes, I'll be up to my ass in mud all day and my neck in research all night."

"Research?"

"Got to see if I can trace her in the historical record. It's a long shot, but sometimes they pay off."

Finishing their coffee, they exited the trailer as the sky darkened over their heads.

"Birds again," he said.

"Sparrows," she said.

"But so many their numbers seemed to have doubled since the other day.

"They were here when we started to dig this morning. Almost as if, they are watching us. It's a little disconcerting, but maybe what I should expect from European invaders," she smirked.

"What?"

"The sparrows, they're the European variety. Never see the native variety around here anymore," she said, "They were introduced into Central Park in the Nineteenth Century, and now they have taken over.

****

Kathy was home that evening and bubbling with life. He didn't need to be told that this meant a new man in her life, probably a married man at home with his wife on a weeknight.

"Oh love, I'm so glad to see you. I've missed my big fellow, but you know that right. Well, no business tonight. I ordered a dinner delivery from Manzano's everything you like," Kathy declared.

She was a fine-looking woman, and no man ever knew a sexier one. He never met a heterosexual male who wouldn't sell his soul for a chance to bed her. It was unfortunate that there were so many men already soliciting the devil for a second chance at Kathy. If women can bewitch men, Kathy was the primer sorceress.

He let her drag him to their bedroom.

"I ordered the delivery for eight that gives us an hour and a half to play," she said pulling off his pants and briefs with a well-perfected skill. She was on her knees enveloping his cock before he had a chance to react. Kathy's oral skills were flawless, but it was her clear pleasure in the act of fellatio that so turned him on. However, she was a selfish lover where it came to the big O.

As she took him deep into her mouth and throat, she slowed and teased his arousal while her hands played over her own body. When she was ready, she pushed him down on their bed and pulling her panties to the side mounted him fully clothed. Her orgasm came hard and hot. What she loved about her Jim was how the change from oral to vaginal sex cooled him just enough that she could ride him to a second orgasm before he came.

Collapsing next to her husband after his orgasm, she gave him a deep tongue filled kiss and then sprang out of bed to do a slow, suggestive striptease during which she played with herself. This never failed to arouse him. As the last stocking was discarded, she was gloriously naked and flushing with the heat of her sexual need. Jim grabbed her and threw her onto her back to give her the good pounding that she deserved.

Lying next to her, an exhausted Jim could only wonder who else she had fucked that day, and why being with other men was so great a turn-on for her.

"It's only 7:40 lover," Kathy said as she crawled up her husband to plant her sloppy sex over his mouth. "Time enough for a snack," she said. Her final orgasm when it came convulsed her whole body like an electric shock.

When the food arrived, Kathy threw on a robe and answered the door. Jim, lying fatigued in bed, didn't need to go and watch to know that his wife flashed the delivery boy. The woman was insatiable when she was in this kind of mood. "Yes," he thought," it must be a new man or perhaps two. This knowledge hurt, and it was a pain that seemed to grow a little each day of their marriage. But what was there to be done? Kathy was Kathy, and there was the fact of it.

****

The call came early morning while Wilson was getting ready to head to his new work site. He hadn't been to the Canarsie site in almost a week. He had checked in with Laura Brant more to say hello than observe her dig. She had a fairly significant area under investigation but was winding down the project. He was, "Required at the Canarsie site immediately."

When Wilson arrived, the yellow tape was back, and with-it members of the New York City police.

"What's happened?" he asked of the officer who seemed to be in charge.

"Who are you?"

"James Wilson engineer, and technically I'm responsible for the site while we're on suspension for the Archaeology dig."

"The detectives are going to want to speak to you."

Eventually, two plainclothes detectives led him over to the office trailer. They identified themselves as Lenny Crawford and Sara Jenner. Crawford seemed to be the lead investigator. He did most of the questioning.

"When did you last see Jake Clinton?" Crawford demanded.

"I don't know. Maybe a week or so ago. Why?"

"We're asking the questions." Jenner inserted. Both she and Crawford seemed hostile.

"Any reason you know why he would be here last night?" Crawford asked.

"Not that I can think of, he was responsible for the excavating work, but that was on hold. He removed all his equipment weeks ago."

"He was your partner right," Crawford ask as if he had caught Wilson in a lie.

"Only in a sense, we both had a stake in this building site."

"Doesn't his death increase your share?"

"I don't know—WAIT A MINUTE ARE YOU SAYING HE'S DEAD?"

"He's lying face down in that ditch they've been digging with the back of his head crushed in," Crawford said and after a pause, "Where were you last night."

"Home."

"Can anybody verify that?"

"No, I was alone."

"Aren't you married?"

"My wife was away on business."

"She go away a lot?"

"She's a realtor, and she's very busy."

"I understand she knew Mr. Clinton very well. You might say intimately."

"She knows a lot of people."

They asked a lot more questions. It was obvious that they had suspicions about Wilson. But it was the last question asked offhandedly as she was leaving by Jenner that sent a chill through Wilson, and he couldn't say why.

"You know any reason why Clinton would be holding feathers in his hand."

"What?"

"Feathers like from a bird."

They had barely left when Laura knocked on the trailer door. Coming inside she launched right into it.

"Did they grill you too. They acted like I killed him."

"Yes, I got the third degree. They implied I did it for the money or because he was seeing my wife."

"Was he —seeing her?" she said with a frown

"I don't know. I try not to."

"I see," she said in a tone that said she clearly did not.

"It's not the way you think. She's a complicated woman."

"I'm sure she is," Laura said meaning the opposite.

He could see he had no chance of explaining the situation to Laura, and that there was no way to overcome her disapproval. He gave a shrug and moved on.

"Where do we stand on the dig?"

This brought a smile to her face. "We've had a bit of luck. The one in a million chance you might say. She's in the 'Freeman's Journal,' or at least her death and burial are."

"What's a Freeman's Journal?"

"Abraham Freeman was born in Africa. He was brought as a child by Dutch traders to New York where he was sold as a slave to a printer. Working in the printer's shop, he learned to read and write. When the printer died, his widow, a Quaker, emancipated Abraham.

"For a while, he had to make his living as best, he could. One of his occupations was gravedigger. Here's the exciting part. Once free, he kept this journal of his experiences. He describes the hanging of an accused witch on a hill southeast of the village of Flatlands. He describes the execution and the burial that took place thereafter."

"And you think that's the grave we have here?" Wilson asked.

"He describes the burial in the wool coat, and the silver buttons from the coat being divided with two over the girl's eyes. That's too close for a mere coincidence."

"Well, I would say that you found your answers."

"Yes, but this becomes an important site because of the date, this took place in 1759. The execution of witches was ended by an act of Parliament in 1735. This proves that the practice of condemning witches continued in the colonies after it came to an end in Europe."

"Well, you've made an important find. I'm happy for you." As Wilson said this, he went to turn away, but before he could, she jumped into his arms and kissed him.

Taken by surprise Wilson returned the kiss, but as they broke apart, he grabbed her by the arms, "What are you doing, I'm a married man?"

A flash of anger crossed her face, "Truly! You need to take a good look at yourself. Everyone knows what your wife is, and what she does. Pretending that it isn't so is just being a fool."

Laura shook his hold loose and stormed from the trailer.

He didn't follow her just then. Something the detectives said was bothering him. What did the death of Jake do to the partnership? He knew who would have the answer. He called Kathy. She answered on the sixth ring just before her voice mail would pick up. She was out of breath as she took the call and croaked out, "What's up my husband."

Was it something in her voice, or only the heavy breathing that told him he had caught her in bed with another man?

"Jake Clinton is dead," he informed her.

"I heard. I'm so sorry, but don't let it upset you," she replied.

"The police seem to think I had a motive to kill him."

"Really..." she said feigning surprise."

Wilson played along, "Yes, among other motives they mentioned the partnership."

"Oh—oh that. I guess. Yes, I think the surviving partners come into his share. There's insurance to pay out his beneficiaries. But, he had only ten percent that's hardly a motive to kill someone."

Someone was there with her, and that someone had informed her of Clinton's murder. She was perfectly aware that the obvious motive for the death of Jake Clinton was an irate husband or boyfriend. In other words, the husband of Kathy Wilson. He wondered whether the replacement of Clinton by whoever was currently in Katy's bed would deflect the suspicions of the detectives.

He decided to drop a bomb and see what happened, "Well, the partnership is no motive because those Archaeologists have found something big that will hold up this project for years. This was met with silence on the other end. Finally, he said, "I'll call you later."

About a half hour later Harris Pierce stormed into the trailer.

"What the hell is happening here!" he shouted.

"Besides murder, nothing, we're shut down remember," Wilson calmly replied.

"Yes, but how long is all this going to take?"

"No, concern for Jake—I see."

"What? You want me to cry for the ditch digger," Pierce said, "You cry for him. You seem good at that. I have condos to build."

Money was what made Pierce tick. He had a plan for a hundred condo development as an initial start. Jim Wilson knew from experience Harris planned on a profit of two hundred thousand a unit or about twenty million dollars. He was the controlling partner holding more than a fifty percent share. Munsen was the other senior partner with about twenty-three percent. Jake had ten percent before his death, and the remaining sixteen percent was Kathy and Jim Wilson.

Theoretically, Jim stood to gain with his wife over three million dollars. However, He saw that profits as blood money and was sure that when something went wrong—and he was certain it would—Wilson, as the engineer, would be the one held to account.

Harris Pierce would claim no knowledge of any hazards, and Jim was sure that Pierce was already collecting the forged evidence that would show him to be entirely blameless, but to top it off Jim was now convinced Harris was fucking Jim's wife. He was not a vindictive man, but he was now determined to see that Harris got what was coming to him.

"You should ask the parties holding the work up. The police first and then the Archaeologist."

Harris didn't want to deal any further with the police than he already had. The motives attributed to Jim worked equally well for him. Jim was not surprised when he charged over to where Laura was supervising what appeared to be the packaging of the artifacts discovered to date.

Laura and her crew had erected a big tent and within it a series of smaller enclosures. The police had stopped the pumps, and the ditch was already filling with groundwater. She was thinking about how this must have been the condition when the burial took place. The water seeping into the grave was why they wrapped the body in the officer's coat and weighted it down.

The peculiar properties, of the extremely coarse wool coat and the muddy ground, were what preserved so much of it, but it must have been a poor looking garment in its day. Abraham Freeman commented in his journal how the soldiers all including the officer spoke a strange form of English, and sometimes lapsed into another language which "The Patty [Irishman] said was a form of the 'old tongue' [Gaelic]."

Each time she looked, she found a new clue into the past, but each answer raised new questions. The buttons she had assumed had a crude X embossed on them, but now she realized it was the Saltire or the Cross of St. Andrew. The coat and its buttons came from Scotland. The expert she had contacted spoke at length of how the Scottish lads were recruited into the British army from a country plundered into destitution after the ill-fated rebellion led by the man known to history as Bonny Prince Charlie.

"What does it all mean?" she was asking herself as Pierce stormed up and demanded to know when she would be finished. She turned on him five feet and one hundred pounds of pure fury.

"Don't you understand she was murdered," Laura said pointing to the sturdy metal cases that now contained the remains. Confronted by her anger Pierce took a step back right into Jim Wilson who had followed him from the trailer. Turning he saw the anger and hate in the man's eyes.

"What's with you?" Pierce whined. The man was a good head taller and looked about ready to kill.

"You fuck my wife, and you ask me what's wrong?"

Just then the birds attacked. The sparrows had grown in number and in apparent aggression. They swooped down on the trio standing outside the tent in numbers that forced the humans to retreat into the tent.

"What the hell is going on, "Pierce said his voice one level below a shout.

It was like something from the Hitchcock movie, but the birds did not press their attack. They spiraled up into the air and seemed to disappear like a rain cloud parting to let the sun shine through. Pierce made a quick exit but not without Munsen and his assistant Tim seeing the near confrontation.

"What can Kathy Wilson see in him?" Tim said, but Munsen couldn't tell of which man he spoke. Like everyone else, the awkward assistant had a yen for the delectable Kathy.

The TV news trucks came later that day in time for the evening broadcasts. Drawn in by the murder they stayed to cover the Indian burial ground and its witch occupant. The story led the local news reports.

****

It was a large crowd topping two hundred. They were allegedly peaceful but vocal in their protests and definitely hostile. They were blocking the roadway out and had pushed the police barriers back. The police had retreated to the construction fencing.

Jim had slipped in from the ocean side and immediately gone looking for Laura. She was at the tent where he assumed, she had spent the night guarding her precious artifacts.

"What can they possibly want?" he asked when he found Laura.

"The usual, we're desecrating graves, disrespecting Native American culture, and engaging in white oppression of the native peoples."

"Oh, you've seen this before."

"Not in so urban a setting. Usually, the excavations are out in the country, and it's much harder to raise so large a crowd," she said and then with a sigh, "the only thing to do is try and wait them out. I don't dare move the artifacts through the mob."

A police lieutenant entered the tent and walked up to Laura, and doffing his hat said, "We're managing to hold the crowd back, but only just. I was wondering if maybe you spoke to the leaders..."

Laura gave another sigh and with a resignation followed the Lieutenant out. Jim trailed behind with growing concern for the situation. The trench had already filled nearly full of murky black water. The engineer in Wilson recognized how bad a sign this was, the water table was high and the land beneath their feet an unstable slurry of sand and urban waste.

Four protestors had been let into the dig site, a tall, thin man wearing a leather vest and fringed buckskin pants, A tall black woman wearing an African print dress, a short, curvy redhead girl of maybe seventeen, and a young Hispanic man wearing blue jeans and a plain white tee-shirt.

"Hello, Chief Redcloud," Laura said to the tall, thin man who was clearly the leader or principal instigator depending on your viewpoint.

"It's Simon Redcloud and as you know 'Chief' is a derogative term, but it's nice to see you, Laura, even if it is only to stop you defiling the graves of your people."

"Still selling the same misguided pablum to the ignorant—I see," Laura said with a sigh and then she stepped toward the others in the group.

"This is not a sacred burial ground. There is but one grave here, and yet it has an important story to tell us if you will look and listen. She was a healer who was executed by the ignorant people of this place. Murdered in a sense for doing good, but then she was buried by five men none of who came here willingly. Two of them were brought here as slaves.

"One was an African," Laura said turning to the back woman, "the other was an Irishman," she said turning to the little redhead. "The other three was Scots forced into serving the army that oppressed them and taken to this foreign land that must have seemed like the end of the earth to them."

She paused to see whether she had their attention, "They laid her loving in this wet ground wrapped in a wool army coat. They put the coats silver buttons on her eyes," She held up a button for all to see.

"It bears the Saltire the flag of Scotland perhaps an act of defiance on an English army coat. They laid her in the ground here and said a simple prayer over her," She said turning to the ditch she had dug now filled with water. As she spread her hands wide, she said, "This is the story that I've been called here to find and tell." Just then the birds rose in their thousands swooping and swirling. The redheaded girl screamed for a body floated up from the depth of the ditch water.

****

"I'm telling you that I have no idea who would want to kill Harris Pierce," James Wilson declared. He was in a room at the police station. The room was painted a putrid green, and he was seated at a table that looked as if it was purchased from Goodwill.

"You telling us you don't have a motive to kill the man who was diddling your wife, and whose death cut you in for a big slice of twenty million dollars."

It was detective sergeant Sara Jenner asking the question now; she had dropped the pretense that detective Crawford was in charge.

"You are wrong on both accusations. To begin with, the site is unsuitable. Therefore, there is no twenty million profit, and as to my wife, she knows a lot of men. Remember she was the motive you gave for the killing of Jake Clinton."

"Yes, and Harris Pierce's alibi for that murder was none other than your wife. Who told us she spent the whole night with Pierce."

"Well doesn't that tell you anything. Only a madman would try to kill off all my wife's lovers."

"Very convenient to play the willing cuckold, but you have a sizable rap sheet," Jenner said putting a printout on the table.

"I've never been convicted of any crime. "

"But you've been charged with assault seven times. You put two men in the hospital. It seems you can get quite angry with those who frequent your wife's bed."