"Mister, what I saw was an owl and you know it," Roy said, "and I know why you're so scared."

The foreman let go of Roy's bicycle.

"I ain't scared," he said stonily, "and you didn't see no owls. Now get outta here and don't come back 'less you wanna go to jail, like the last kid I caught trespassin'."

Roy carefully guided his bicycle around the pickup truck, then took off at full speed.

"They was chickens!" the bald guy bellowed after him.

"Owls!" Roy proclaimed triumphantly.

Up, up, up the steep mountainside he went-that's what he was imagining, anyway. That's what gave him the strength to push so hard.

In reality Roy was rolling along East Oriole Avenue, which was as flat as a Mother Paula's pancake. He was very worried that the construction foreman would change his mind and chase after him. Any second, Roy expected to hear honking behind him, curses in the wind; the pickup truck trailing so closely that he would feel the heat off its big V-8 engine.

So Roy didn't look back and he didn't slow down. He pedaled as fast as he could, his arms taut and his legs burning.

He wouldn't stop until he reached the crest of his imaginary Montana mountain and coasted downhill into the coolness of the valley.

EIGHTEEN

"Same scrawny brat I seen around here last week," Curly complained to Officer Delinko, "only this time I caught the little bugger!"

Officer Delinko offered to report the incident, but Curly assured him that it wasn't necessary.

"He won't come back, I guarantee you. Not after he got a faceful of me."

It was nearly midnight at the construction site. The two men stood next to the patrolman's car, chatting casually. Both of them privately believed that the real Mother Paula's vandal was still on the loose, but they would not share their suspicions with each other.

Officer Delinko didn't tell Curly that the Matherson boy was too scared of alligators to be the vandal, because Officer Delinko didn't want the foreman to get all agitated again.

And Curly didn't tell Officer Delinko about the bulldozer seats being stolen while the Matherson kid was in custody, because Curly didn't want Officer Delinko to put the information in a police report that some nosy newspaper reporter might find.

Despite their secrets, both men were pleased not to be spending the night alone on the property. It was good to have a backup nearby.

"Hey, I meant to ask," Officer Delinko said, "what happened to those attack dogs you had watching the place?"

"You mean the psycho-mutts? Probably hightailed it all the way back to Berlin," said Curly. "Listen, I'm fixin' to turn in. Holler if you need anything."

"You bet," Officer Delinko said.

"And no naps tonight, right?"

"Don't worry."

Officer Delinko was glad it was dark, so that the foreman couldn't see him blush. He'd never forget the sickening sight of his precious Crown Victoria, its windows painted as black as tar. Officer Delinko still dreamed of catching the offender and bringing him to justice.

After Curly retired to the air-conditioned comfort of the trailer, the patrolman began walking the property, following the line of his flashlight beam from one survey stake to the next. He intended to do this all night long, if necessary, to make sure the stakes weren't tampered with. He had packed five brimming thermos bottles of coffee in his car, so there would be absolutely no chance of running out.

Guarding a vacant lot wasn't the most glamorous police work, Officer Delinko knew, but this was an extremely important assignment. The chief, the captain, the sergeant-they all were relying on him to keep the pancake-house property free of mischief. Officer Delinko understood that if he did the job well, his career at the Coconut Cove Public Safety Department would once again be on the fast track. He could easily see a gold detective's badge in his future.

Trudging through the shadows, Officer Delinko pictured himself in a tailored suit instead of a starchy uniform. He would be driving a different Crown Victoria-the charcoal gray unmarked model reserved for detectives-and wearing a shoulder holster instead of a hip belt. He was daydreaming about getting an ankle holster, too, and a lightweight pistol to go with it, when he abruptly performed an involuntary somersault across the sandy scrub.

Oh, not again, the patrolman thought.

He groped around until he located his flashlight, but at first it didn't work. He shook it a few times and finally the bulb flickered on faintly.

Sure enough, he'd stepped in another owl burrow.

Officer Delinko got to his feet and smoothed the creases of his trousers. "Good thing Curly's not awake to see this," he mumbled.

"Heh," came a small raspy voice in reply.

Officer Delinko slapped his right hand on the butt of his gun. With his left hand he aimed the flashlight toward the unseen intruder.

"Freeze!" the patrolman commanded.

"Heh. Heh. Heh."

Back and forth went the yellow beam of light, revealing nothing. The runty, asthmatic-sounding voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

Officer Delinko carefully took two steps forward and aimed the flashlight down the hole in which he'd tripped. An inquisitive pair of bright amber eyes peeked up from the blackness.

"Heh!"

The patrolman took his hand off his gun and cautiously dropped to a crouch. "Why, hello there," he said.

"Heh! Heh! Heh!"

It was a baby owl, no more than five or six inches tall. Officer Delinko had never seen anything so delicately perfect.

"Heh!" said the owl.

"Heh!" said the policeman, though his voice was too deep to do a proper imitation. "I bet you're waiting for Momma and Poppa to bring supper home, aren't you?"

The amber eyes blinked. The yellow beak opened and closed expectantly. The little round head rotated back and forth.

Officer Delinko laughed aloud. He was fascinated by the miniature bird. Dimming the flashlight, he said, "Don't worry, sport, I'm not going to hurt you."

From overhead came a frenzied flutter, followed by a harsh kssh! kssh! ksshhh! The patrolman glanced up and saw, framed against the starlit sky, two winged silhouettes-the baby owl's parents, anxiously circling their frightened fledgling.

Officer Delinko slowly began backing away from the burrow, hoping that the grown-up birds would realize it was safe to land. In the blue-gray sky he could see their dusky shapes wheeling lower and lower, and he quickened his retreat.

Even after the two owls alighted, even after he watched them disappear like feathered ghosts into the ground, Officer Delinko continued moving away, backing up step by step until…

He bumped into something so big and so cold and so hard that it almost knocked the breath out of him. He spun around and switched on the flashlight.

It was a bulldozer.

Officer Delinko had clonked directly into one of Curly's earthmoving machines. He glared up at the steel hulk, rubbing his bruised shoulder. He didn't notice that the seat was gone, and even if he had, he wouldn't have given it a worry.

The policeman was grimly preoccupied with another concern. His gaze shifted from the massive bulldozer to the bird burrow, then back again.

Until that moment, Officer David Delinko had been so busy worrying about solving the Mother Paula's case and saving his own career that he hadn't thought much about anything else.

Now he understood what was going to happen to the little owls if he did his job properly, and it weighted him with an aching and unshakeable sorrow.

Roy's father had worked late, so Roy hadn't had a chance to tell him what he'd learned about the owls on the Internet, and that one of the pancake-house files had been removed from the building department. It seemed very suspicious, and Roy wanted to hear his father's theory about what might have happened.