Bird of Prey
By Michelle Rodenborn
“Bobbie! Come home right now and get that pink monster out of the pool. It’s skating back and forth and glaring at me with those big white eyes.”
Bob Bailey pulled his cell away from his ear. In his wife Charlotte’s hands, a phone was a weapon—a drone delivering her kill shot through the radio waves—targeting any moment he might be enjoying himself.
Like the present one—staring at lush red lips smiling at him from behind the meat counter, making his chest expand, his limbs pulse, and his face spread in a grin.
Dave’s Oceanside Meats & Seafood had hired a new butcher—a young woman, for a change. “Sonja” had written her name with round, even letters on her employee’s name tag, dotting the “j” with a fat little heart. She had thick dark hair piled under her butcher’s cap, flawless white skin, and a tiny diamond stud on the side of her nose. She couldn’t be more than twenty, yet she was giving him that look.
And it wasn’t just today.
After first seeing Sonja in her butcher’s outfit two months earlier, he’d added more meat dishes to the dinner menu, requiring frequent stops at Dave’s. He’d learned Sonja’s work schedule and timed his shopping to coincide, making for many happy exchanges with her across the meat counter.
Over the past weeks, they had developed a real rapport. Unlike Charlotte, Sonja was impressed with his job as a life insurance actuary and asked him for details of his work. He complimented her aspiration to be a kindergarten teacher and loved hearing about the child psychology class she was taking at Mira Costa College.
They’d discovered that they both liked to cook. Each ate their steak rare with hot barbecue sauce. And though she’d never played golf—his favorite pastime—Sonja was game to learn.
Both had graduated from Oceanside High, though decades apart. He’d played varsity football, he’d told her, omitting the fact he’d warmed the bench all but one game. She’d been a varsity cheerleader, the captain of her team. He loved to picture her shaking her pom-poms and yelling, “Go, Pirates!” Bouncing up and down, short cheerleader’s skirt flying up to reveal luscious thighs and panties barely covering her—.
“Boob-a-la, are you there? What did you do with my float? I’m all lubed up with sunscreen and waiting for you. Where are you anyway?”
He turned away from Sonja and lowered his voice. “I’m at the grocery store.”
“Buy some fish this time, Bob. All you ever cook is meat.”
Sonja didn’t handle the fish. But she knew everything about meat—how to select the best steaks and chops, and exactly how many chicken cutlets made up a pound.
She spoke with an adorable little lisp, and he would ask for cooking advice just to hear her talk. He learned the best way to sear a steak and braise a roast, and her “no fail” chicken recipes.
After she placed his meat selection onto the scale, she’d look to him for a decision on poundage. Sometimes he’d ask for a little more or a little less to prolong their encounter. Once he nodded his approval, Sonja would tuck the meat into paper, wrap it up tight, and hand the parcel over. Their hands would linger on opposite sides of the package, the connection between them firing his body with an electric charge.
A few minutes with Sonja left him feeling like a man. Like he’d shed decades. Better than he’d felt in years—or ever. If only he were free.
“Boobie, are you listening? Come home now!”
He ended the call, glaring at the phone.
“Trouble with the missus, Bob?” Sonja’s red lips asked.
He chuckled, embarrassed. He always removed his wedding ring before entering the store, and wondered why Sonja assumed he had a wife.
“Oh, that’s a buddy of mine. We’re going to watch the Padres game at his place tonight. He asked me to pick up some snacks.”
Sonja’s dark, almond-shaped eyes shifted to his phone. “Your buddy’s caller ID is ‘The Psychic Vampire?’”
Bob quickly pocketed the phone. Charlotte was in fact a psychic vampire. She sucked the lifeblood right out of him.
“It’s a private joke,” he said with a shrug.
He already had a package of chicken breasts in his cart that he planned to cook for dinner that night. But wanting to delay his reunion with Charlotte, he moved farther down the counter.
“I’ll have some bratwursts,” he said.
Sonja walked down to where the bacon and sausages were displayed. Her hand hovered over the fat bratwursts as she looked up at him. “How many?”
Their eyes met. “Several big handfuls.”
Spreading her gloved fingers, she gathered up the thick sausages, the spicy meat practically bursting through the thin-skinned casing. She put them on the scale, then repeated the move twice.
“That’s almost six pounds,” she said.
He wanted to see her touch the meat again. “Maybe one too many.”
She held up one of the sausages while she eyed the weight on the scale.
“How does that look?”
He stared at her fingers pressing into the meat.
“Perfect,” he said.
#
Charlotte Bailey laid her towel on the chaise, settled herself on top, and donned a hat against the afternoon sun. The air was unusually humid for Oceanside, California, and sweat glistened on her skin. She lifted her phone to her face, directing the camera to selfie position. Her mascara was starting to run.
She glowered at the pool. The previous owners had installed a lap pool for their teenage son to train for the college swim team, they’d said. But it had seen little use, according to the father, once the son discovered cars and girls.
The pool ran 75 feet long and 10 feet wide, the depth ranging from five feet at the “shallow” end to over six feet at the deep. There were no internal steps, meaning all Charlotte could do on her own was sit at the edge and dangle her feet in the water.
Charlotte, who stood only five feet in one-inch heels, didn’t know how to swim. Her parents had dragged her every year from ages five to eight to the YMCA for swim lessons. The torture sessions began and ended with her screaming and refusing to go in the pool, and only trips to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream could calm her down.
But Charlotte didn’t hate the water. Kiddie pools shallow enough so you could sit and still keep your chest dry were great. She just wouldn’t “go under,” no matter how often the other kids egged her on.
Then in junior high, she’d gone on a class trip to Twin Lakes. While her classmates ran down the dock and jumped into the lake, she sat on the shore feeling embarrassed and left out. Seeing that the water only hit chest-deep on her friends, she’d braved jumping off the dock. She’d expected to land on her feet, but momentum took her under the water.
After thrashing about for what seemed like forever, she’d surfaced in a panic with something moving inside her one-piece. She’d managed to net a black bullhead in the top of her suit. Screaming, she’d tried to fish it out with her hand, not having the presence of mind to let it swim away. The catfish had bloodied her good with its spines and stingers, leaving her with scars. And not just on her chest and hand. Her classmates had made sport of her predicament, and forever after called her “Catfish Girl.”
That experience had kept her out of the water for decades. Then, ten years earlier, when they bought the house, Bob had tried to teach her to swim, using various flotation devices on her arms and around her middle. But it was no use. She’d made it through 50 years not knowing how to swim and could go another 50.
Besides, the water would ruin her fake lashes.
She picked up her cell and opened the “Find My” app to locate Bob. The little moving arrow showed he was on his way home. Not a moment too soon. The heat was unbearable. With no air-conditioning in the house, she counted on the pool to cool off. But she needed Bob for that.
He would get in the water and help her descend a ladder he’d attached to the side of the pool. Then he’d lower her onto an oversize float that lay flat like a bed with a little built-in pillow. Lying back, she’d cup her hands and splash water over her body to keep cool, admiring the palm trees that lined the property—the way they flexed with the wind, and shook their fronds at the sun.
She wouldn’t need Bob again until it was time to turn over, or get out. Or if she got parched and needed a drink.
That float suited her perfectly. What had Bob done with it?
Sitting up from the chaise, she let out a little cry. The giant pink flamingo with its yellow beak and white eyes rimmed with black had moored itself in front of her.
It was huge, nearly six feet in length, and about as wide, with a curved neck that rose more than a yard, and a puffy tail at the other end. Sparkles, like giant sequins, glittered inside its inner tubing.
“Good God,” she said aloud. How would you even lie on such a thing? It looked horribly uncomfortable, and unsteady, to boot. From time to time, the neck would catch the wind, and the bird would topple over onto its side. Bob was out of line to buy such a horrid thing without her permission.
Sighing, she got up, slipped on her sandals, and ventured to the edge of the pool. She leaned out to grab the bird by the beak, but it set sail again—out of her reach. She went to the stucco hut that housed the pool equipment and retrieved the pool net. It was a long, ungainly instrument with a net on one end and a large hook on the other. When she returned, the flamingo was dancing about the pool.
Crouching at the shallow end, she waited for its return. As if it enjoyed taunting her, the bird kept its distance. Holding the long pole hook-side front, she staked out her territory and fixed her eyes on her prey. Her arms grew tired and sweat ran down her nose, but she dared not wipe it off for fear of losing her grip.
The bird seemed to be mocking her with those languorous white eyes rimmed with black and placid yellow beak.
“Come here, you ugly, stupid beast.”
As if finally acknowledging her authority, the bird sallied over to her on a gust of wind but promptly bounced a few feet off the edge of the pool. A rope wound its way around the base, like on a ring buoy, fastened through loops spaced a foot apart. She tried to hook the rope, but it fit too tight, and she couldn’t get purchase.
Spotting handles on either side of its neck, she summoned the will for one last effort. Despite an aching back and arms like a cadaver’s, she hooked the beast by a handle and hoisted it ashore. After tossing the pole aside, she collapsed onto the chaise and stared at the bird.
What had gotten into Bob? Sparkles! And handles at its neck—as if she’d sit astride it and ride it across the pool!
No one past five years old would be caught on it dead.
#
When Bob returned from the store, Charlotte was waiting for him in the kitchen. Glowering, she looked inside the grocery bag.
“Where’s the fish, Bob? I asked for fish.”
She removed a package of chicken breasts and the sausages.
“I’m sick of chicken. And why on earth do we need five pounds of bratwurst?”
Bob flushed, remembering Sonja’s hand grasping the sausage.
“It’s for a new recipe. I’ll freeze most of it.”
“And where will you put it, Bob?” Charlotte opened the freezer door. “It’s so full of meat I don’t have room for my ice cream anymore.”
Charlotte slammed the door shut, her sun-lined face settling into an all-too-familiar scowl. “What did you do with my float?”
“It sprung a leak so I bought you the flamingo. I thought you’d think it was fun.”
“Fun? I can’t even figure out how you’d lie on it.”
“I’ll help you, like I always do.”
Charlotte exaggerated a sigh. “Can you come out now, for God’s sake? I’m dying of the heat. And tomorrow, buy me a float like the one you threw out.”
“Sure, honey,” he heard himself say.
He wondered why he always followed her orders, and why he still called her “honey.” Charlotte had stopped being sweet right after they’d opened the wedding gifts.
Charlotte stared at him, shaking her head. “I never should have let you talk me out of buying that other house. I knew we’d need air-conditioning.”
Turning on her heel, she headed for the pool. Bob watched her retreat, her trim, overly tanned body shiny with lotion. Somehow Charlotte had kept her shape, despite her affection for sweets and aversion to exercise. She wouldn’t even try the sports he liked—golf and tennis—or take a walk with him. Charlotte preferred “sitting” activities, like sunbathing and bridge club—and playing the slot machines on girls’ trips to Vegas.
He blew out his breath and hung his head. It wasn’t all Charlotte’s fault. He’d been too soft with her, caving to her demands rather than risking a scene. Now set in their ways, how would their lives ever change?
As a life insurance actuary, he’d estimated that Charlotte, like her parents and grandparents before her, would live well into her 90s—barring some accident. He would pay forever for his mistake.
“Bob! Are you coming or not?”
He walked out to the pool, seeing in a flash the unfolding of summers and years to come. He’d continue working hard to support them. But there would be no joy in coming home to a miserable woman whom he couldn’t make happy.
Perhaps if they’d had children, it might have been different. But, in the early years, Charlotte’s job as a traveling sales rep got in the way. She’d quit working while they were both still young, but no pregnancy materialized—not in the least because of her indifference to him in bed.
He found her sitting next to the ladder he’d installed at the shallow end.
She held a hand at her forehead to block the sun. “Finally! What took you so long?”
A wave of regret rolled up from his gut, chased by a tsunami of anger like he’d never felt before. He walked over to where the pink flamingo was beached. Grabbing it by the neck, he jumped in the pool.
“How am I supposed to ride on that thing?” Charlotte said.
He climbed atop the bird and lay on his back with his head braced against its neck and his feet on the tail.
“Sit yourself on the top step and I’ll pull you on.”
“You mean ride it with you?”
“Why not? It’ll be fun.”
“That’s not how we do this, Bob. I ride and you push me around. I’ll get all sticky lying on top of you.”
He lay back and stared up at the palms. The sun was firing their crowns a silvery orange, and they shimmered and shook in the wind—like the pom poms that Sonja would have used to cheer on her team.
Sonja.
He daydreamed about her, tuning out his wife’s noise, until it got so frantic, it couldn’t be ignored. He steered the bird over to Charlotte who had perched on the top rung of the ladder. One of her fake eyelashes drooped at half-mast, giving her mascara-blackened eye a Picassoesque look.
“Get off it, Bob, and let me on.” Charlotte’s nostrils flared.
“You want on?” he said, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her on top of him.
Charlotte screamed in his face, her mouth wide with howls.
He held her tight. “Relax, Charlotte, or you’ll tip us over.”
In fact, every day in the U.S., eleven people died from drowning, Bob the actuary knew.
But Charlotte didn’t relax. She lurched forward wrapping her arms around his head, the commotion causing them both to fall into the deep end.
Bob, who stood no taller than five-feet-nine in his younger days, couldn’t touch bottom. Though not a strong swimmer himself, he thought he could pull Charlotte over to the side, if she’d only let him.
She went under, screaming as she went, no doubt imbibing a good deal of water. When she surfaced, he grabbed her from behind in a cross-chest carry he’d learned in senior life-saving in high school. But Charlotte only grew more frantic, flailing her arms and trying to wrestle from his grasp.
“Stop it, Charlotte,” he said, holding her close. “You’ll drown us both.”
The bird had approached them and Charlotte grabbed at a rung of rope midway along its base. The soggy line sagged with her weight, the motion causing the bird to flip over onto its side on top of them.
Charlotte let go of the rope, submerged, and came up on the other side screaming. As she grabbed another length of rope, Bob felt the line tighten around his neck.
He’d gotten his head caught in the stretch of rope Charlotte had grasped when she capsized the float. Bob struggled to free himself, but the rope kept getting tighter as Charlotte pulled hard on her stretch of line and tried to climb on board the bird.
He was facing out, his weight anchoring the float so that it lay trapped on its side. Its bulky form pressed against the back of his head and pushed his face into the water. He tugged at the rope, his face submerging each time Charlotte tried to hoist herself atop the bird.
“Char! Let go of the rope.” His voice was a whisper.
“I can’t. Do something, Bob!”
The line sliced into Bob’s throat. The more Charlotte tried to climb on, the more water he swallowed.
Charlotte screamed and screamed as she tried to balance herself—with one foot pressing down on Bob’s shoulder and a death grip on the rope.
#
Oceanside Police Officer Manny Desoto and his partner, rookie officer Chip Johnson, pulled up in front of the Baileys’ house. They’d responded to the scene after the neighbors called 9-1-1 on account of screaming coming from the back yard.
The neighbors had reported that they couldn’t see what was going on due to a high fence and rows of bamboo shielding the Bailey property. They volunteered that they hadn’t stopped by to check on the Baileys because they weren’t on good terms—something about someone’s pittosporum plants getting hacked without permission.
When the officers went to the backyard, they saw a woman’s body at the bottom of a long lap pool, and a big inflated flamingo lying on its side, dragging a lifeless man in its ropes.
Desoto grabbed the long pool hook by the chaise. “I’ll start hauling them out. Call for paramedics and check the house.”
Johnson quickly did as asked then returned to the pool.
“No one inside. Paramedics on their way.”
Desoto had hooked the woman by her swimsuit and was pulling her to the edge. Johnson collared the bird by its neck, and dragged it and the dangling man onto the deck. After freeing the man from the rope, he kicked the float back into the pool.
Working together, the officers pulled out the woman, then administered CPR to both victims. They got no results, but persisted in their efforts until paramedics arrived and took over the job.
Desoto and Johnson stood off to the side watching the paramedics at work.
“How the hell did Bailey get his head caught in the rope?” Johnson said.
Desoto shook his head. “Reminded me of Captain Ahab in that scene from Moby Dick.”
“Captain who?” Johnson said.
Desoto glanced at the rookie. “Never mind.”
The sun fired up the bird’s sparkles as it bobbed in the water.
“My kids would love that pink flamingo,” Johnson said. “Like it even better if we had a pool.”
Minutes later, one of the paramedics called out to them.
“It’s no use. I’m calling the M.E.”
“Such an odd scene in the pool,” Johnson said to Desoto, pulling a half-eaten Snickers bar from his pocket and popping it in his mouth. “What do you make of it?”
Desoto flipped the question back onto the rookie. “Tell me what you think.”
Johnson chewed his cud of candy. “Beats me. Tragic accident, I suppose.”
Desoto looked up at the magnificent palms, thrashing their fronds in the strong wind. The palms had witnessed it all, but they weren’t telling.
“Have you considered murder-suicide?” Desoto said.
Johnson turned to him with a frown. “Is that what you think?”
Desoto watched the glittering bird, now freed of its burden, glide down the length of the pool, like a skater on ice.
“No,” he said. “I’m thinking double murder.”
Johnson’s mouth hung open as he gazed at his partner.
Desoto met the rookie’s stare.
“Looks like the bird did it to me.”
THE END
Michelle Rodenborn is the author of crime fiction and other contemporary stories. She is a 2022 Claymore Award Finalist—in the Thriller Category—for her debut novel, Tightrope of Lies.
Her short story, “Shooting for the Stars,” is featured in the 2023 San Diego Partners in Crime Anthology, Crime under the Sun. Her short story, “Bird of Prey,” appears in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Space Sirens, Vol. 9, 2023.
Her crime fiction is informed and inspired by her experiences working in the Los Angeles Criminal Courts—first, as a trial attorney in the Public Defender’s Office, followed by a six-year term sitting as a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Pro Tem. Her later legal career involved private practice as a customs and international trade attorney.
Michelle is a member of the National, Los Angeles, and San Diego chapters of Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. She is the founder and former president of Women in International Trade-Los Angeles, and a former board member of Los Angeles’s Foreign Trade Association.
