I licked my lips and shifted my attention to my mother's body, now removed from the rubble. A man and a woman squatted next to her, examining her. They had found the gunshot wound.
I looked back at Jack. "Who were they? Do you know them? Did you sell them their guns?"
Shock showed on his face; he shook his head. "No. I didn't-know them or sell to them."
I let that set in, waited to see if my anger lessened. Finally it did. He was on my side. Because of my past, I might not agree with how he made his money, but it didn't mean he was responsible for my mother's death.
I nodded, letting him know I accepted his answer.
He nodded his too. We were in agreement, focused on the same puzzle. "Do you know them?"
"Maybe." I told him about the birders and the two women I'd found at the safe camp when I'd returned from Madison.
I stared at him, willing him to see an answer I didn't. "Why would two old human birders, if they even were part of the group I confronted, try and steal babies here?"
"Revenge?"
"Because they think I killed the birder Bern found?" My nunchakus had been used to kill her. Another birder could have found her first, seen the weapon, and recognized it as mine, but then why not go to the police? Why follow me to Mel's and take two infants? It made no sense.
Unless, while roaming our woods, they had heard something? Did they know more about the Amazons than they should? Had they heard the baby was in Madison and realized he was important to us? Did they plan to use him to get us to do something for them?
It was as logical an answer as anything else I could come up with.
"The babies. . " Jack began, but I stopped listening.
I'd been so focused on why the birders were here, I hadn't thought of what might have happened before, how they got the children in the first place. I'd also forgotten my mother wasn't the only mother who would fight to the death for her child.
Forgetting I was keeping a low profile, I jumped to my feet. "Dana. Where's Dana?"
Mel raced toward me. "Keep still. We're almost done with them." She nodded back over her shoulder. The police were questioning Bubbe now. It was obvious from the expression of strained patience on the officers' faces it wasn't going well.
"The"-I hesitated for a second, not sure what to call them-"birders. . women had two babies. One was Pisto, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Yes. He's with Mandy."
I nodded; that was part of my concern. I hadn't seen Dana. I'd lost my lieutenant last fall; if I lost her sister too. . "Is she okay? Was she with them?" I tried to sound calm and in control but knew by the understanding expression on Mel's face that I'd failed.
"Dana wasn't here. She took Lao to a neighbor's. We trade produce with them. She heard the explosion, though-everyone did." Mel grimaced.
Tonight's happenings were going to cause a lot of problems for my friend. She tried hard to blend with humans. Attention like her shop was getting tonight would not be welcomed. But she seemed mostly unflustered by it. She smoothed her hands over her shorts, getting more dirt on them than she removed. "You said birders. Who are they?"
"I don't know. I'm not even sure they are birders, but the coincidence. . " I told her the same story I'd told Jack minutes earlier.
"Could they be Amazons?" she asked.
I shook my head. "No." There was nothing about the women that said Amazon. "But. . " I explained my theory that they might think Bern or I were involved in the other woman's death, that they might have followed us.
"But why take the babies?"
I shook my head. "I have no idea."
"Opportunity?" Jack suggested.
"They came into the basement and found the babies unattended and took them thinking they'd make good bargaining chips?" Mel asked.
"And the rest was just coincidence? The fire and explosion outside too?" It seemed too much to me.
"No." Jack again. "I don't believe in coincidence. The explosion was planned. They wanted us to be doing something else. It's why I came around here in the first place.
"Blowing up a line of trees. . " He snorted. "Who would do that?"
"Teenagers, according to the police. Apparently there's been a group of them vandalizing fences and businesses lately." Mel's face was devoid of expression.
"And I guess these teenagers may have gotten scared and shot when Zery's mother came out of the basement?" Jack asked.
Mel shrugged. "Not an accusation I would make."
"And if they find a suspect?"
She smiled. "I don't think they will get their man."
"Why not describe the real shooters? We've decided they can't be Amazons." Jack's suggestion. I knew the answer.
Mel looked at me. Jack did too.
"Because we don't want them arrested." We wanted them dead.
Mel's eyes flickered. I wasn't sure what my friend who had left the tribe a decade earlier was thinking. The old Mel would understand, the new one? I didn't know, but she hadn't told the police about the women. For now I'd take that as a sign she was on my side.
She twisted her lips to the side. "We do need to find them. They weren't hurt, were they?"
"The one, maybe. The bird attacked her. The other. . I don't think so." Either way, both had managed to escape and quickly.
"We could check the hospitals," she offered, but she didn't sound convinced and I wasn't either. If I had just set a line of trees on fire and shot someone, I wouldn't be heading to the hospital unless absolutely necessary. And I didn't think either of the women were that hurt, if at all. Still. . "When Lao gets back with Dana, I can send her. She will blend better than the rest of us."
With that avenue, unlikely as it was, covered we returned to our conversation.
"Maybe we just need to break this down more," Mel suggested. "Zery, what happened exactly, when you ran around here? Why'd you run around here?" There was a groove between Mel's eyes. I could see she was working as hard as I was to make sense out of what had happened.
I glanced at Jack.
He shifted his jaw to the side. "The sons have watched the Amazons for a long time now. We know how you think."
Despite the fact we seemed to be working together at the moment, I didn't appreciate his view that the Amazons could be so easily pegged.
"That told you to catapult around the building?" I asked my voice dry.