Beatrice Wagner stood in the damp, dank cellar, holding her breath, terrified that with the slightest movement, she would give herself away. The footsteps she heard overhead were heavy and hard. Tom Stern was a big, muscular man. What would he do if he discovered her searching in his basement?

     When she heard the cellar door open, she panicked. She had to hide and fast. But where? She was sixty-seven years old and, in spite of her thick glasses, her eyes weren’t what they used to be, especially in the dark. She dared not use her flashlight. The problem was soon solved, however. Stern put on the light.

     Beatrice spotted the garment bags hanging in the corner, and ran behind them. She was as thin as a rail, so they would easily disguise her presence. Her skinny calves, however, would be visible underneath them. If Stern should look down....           

     The garment bags were still swaying when Stern reached the bottom step. Her heart was pounding so hard that she put her hand on top of her chest in an attempt to muffle the sound. She could hear him breathing, short little raspy noises. Then he walked to the other side of the basement, whistling a nursery rhyme, “Bluebird, bluebird, on my window....” Even in the midst of her fear, Beatrice was angry, You obnoxious bully, she thought, just wait. You’ll pay for what you’ve done. She heard a door creak open and a few moments later, it was slammed shut again.

     “Rest in peace,” she heard him chuckle under his breath as he started up the stairs.

     He halted momentarily, and she thought, it’s over, he spotted my legs. Her eyes darted frantically searching for something she might use as a weapon. But nothing was in sight -- some old magazines, used clothing. Stern would not be unprepared. He was a murderer.

     He had killed before and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

     She could scream, but who on Morning Glory Lane would hear her? It was the night of the annual school play; half of Floral Village had attended to cheer their little darlings on. And why the hell wasn’t he there, anyway? After all, he was on the PTA board. Well, if he did attack her, she would certainly fight back. She would not be quiet and passive, when he took his beefy hands and broke her neck.

     Which is exactly what he had done in the past.

     Then the light went out and she heard the cellar door closing behind him. Still she dared not move, as something soft and fuzzy brushed against her legs. She counted to five hundred, not stirring at all, in case it was a trick, in case he returned. She felt chilled in the poorly ventilated room, in spite of the sweat trickling down her flat, sagging breasts.

     After a while, though, she grew weary of standing and her terror left hostility in its place. She had come for a reason, a cause. Tom Stern was a killer; she had seen him carry dead bodies into his house. It was up to her to prove it.

     She crept from behind the vinyl bags; she could hear nothing upstairs. Perhaps he had ascended to the third floor.

     She shone her flashlight on the window she had just entered. Luckily he hadn’t noticed that she had left it slightly ajar. She would do what she had come to do; then she would sneak out the same way.

     On her tiptoes, she looked around the basement, someplace where he might have stored the bodies. Convinced that it concealed no hiding place, she walked into the small room at the rear where she had heard Stern enter shortly before. There she saw it -– a massive white freezer with a padlock, which, thankfully, he had left undone.

     She sucked in her flabby stomach, and bit her dry, chapped lips. Her thin freckled wrists shook as she opened the lid, carefully, slowly. The door creaked loudly.

     She heard footsteps again –- oh God, she thought, he heard me! I gave myself away and this time I’m doomed! There’s no place to hide, no place to go. She whirled around, flashing her light in all directions. The debris took on menacing shapes in the dusk.

     She heard him cough and sneeze twice. Perhaps he had a cold, which would explain why he hadn’t gone to the school play. She waited a few minutes; he didn’t seem to be heading downstairs. The longer she waited, the more peril she faced.

     Get on with it, Beatrice, she ordered herself, imitating an old nanny of hers, back when her family had money, before that awful inheritance scheme went awry.

     She shone the flashlight in the ice, cold box and gasped, hopefully, not too loudly.

     There they were –- small corpses -– wrapped in plastic bags, and immediately she thought, why? Why does he keep the bodies? Is this some sort of macabre game to him?

     She reached down and grabbed one of the bags, forcing herself to hold the small, frozen creature. She put it carefully in her tote -– although, how can it matter now, she wondered.

     Silently, she slipped out of the room and then out of the window, perhaps not as quietly as she had arrived because, after all, she had the proof she had come for.

     It was time the town of Floral Village learned just what sort of man Tom Stern really was.

***

     The room was abuzz when Beatrice entered. The various members of the club were standing around chatting, holding china cups full of herbal tea or hazelnut coffee in one hand, and homemade chocolate chip cookies in the other.

     They all looked smug and content, long time residents of Floral Village. They knew one another, had grown up together, counted on their friends for pleasure and support. It was Beatrice who was the outsider. She was born and raised in New York City, coming to the small New England town when she had married Peter. But then Peter ran away with the waitress from Nancy’s Nest and, the last Beatrice heard, they were living on the west side of Manhattan, less than ten blocks from where Beatrice herself had grown up.

     And after so many years, Beatrice was still living in Floral Village.

     “This meeting is called to order,” Marie Stanley raised her whispery voice slightly, and the twenty or so adults sauntered over to the small folding chairs, that had been set up in Memorial Hall.

     “This is the monthly meeting of The Bird Lovers Society of Floral Village. Would the secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, please?”

     Fat Estelle Douglas stood up and for five minutes recited events of absolutely no consequence in a flat, monotone voice. Then Tom Stern spoke. As the treasurer, he announced rather cheerfully that the club had over three hundred dollars in reserve. He ended his report by stating that he would be away for the next meeting and requested that someone read the report for him. Bunny Zimmerman volunteered.

     Beatrice had to sit through all the old business, which consisted of the best way to build nesting boxes, the locations where birds were sure to discover them, musings about the most nutritious foods and the various prices of binoculars to watch the creatures as they set up housekeeping.

     When it came time for new business, Beatrice’s hand shot up.

     “Yes,” Marie said in a rather, haughty, condescending voice. She had never liked Beatrice; Beatrice had embarrassed her publicly by writing an editorial, which condemned Marie’s practice of allowing her teenagers to overrun the village pool, unsupervised.

     “I don’t know how many of you are aware of it,” Beatrice spoke in a clear, loud voice, “but we have a murderer in our midst.”

     All eyes turned to her, horrified.

     “Last night I discovered a number of corpses.”

     “A serial killer!” Bunny Zimmerman gasped.

     “Why are you telling us?” Jim Donnelly wondered. “Why don’t you just go to the police?”

     “What are you talking about?” Marie asked impatiently and, strangely enough, not even with curiosity.

     “Monday afternoon I came upon a grisly scene while I was taking my morning stroll. I saw Tom Stern use a piece of pumpernickel bread to lure an innocent creature and then strangle it with his bare hands. A little later, he did the same thing, only this time he used a hammer to smash its head. Look, here, I have proof!” She reached into her Book of the Month tote bag and produced a half-thawed out crushed sparrow.

     “Where did you get that, you old biddy?” Tom Stern jumped up. “I was going to take those sparrows to the forest ranger tomorrow for owl food.”

     “This bird has been brutally killed,” Beatrice said.

     “I got fifty in the freezer myself,” Jim volunteered. “I’d like to get more of those critters, but I’m tired of bashing their heads against the sidewalk.”

     “That’s too time consuming,” Bunny’s reddish orange curls sprang out in all directions. “The thing to do is to put them into a sack, tie it to your car, and the exhaust will kill them all at once, neat and simple.”

     “Mass massacre!” Beatrice sunk into her chair. “My God! Why?”

     “It’s quite simple. Sparrows are the enemies of bluebirds,” Estelle explained. She was dressed in an aqua floral dress and she looked much like a plump bluebird herself. “Sparrows kill bluebirds. The sparrow is the trespasser. They invade the bluebirds’ homes -- sometimes they even peck bluebirds to death. Bluebirds are growing extinct. The only way to control the situation is by getting rid of all the sparrows.”

     “They’re beautiful birds,” Bunny cooed. “with their brilliant colors, red breasts, white bellies and their voices –- such a soft, gentle bird.”

     “And they’re smart, too,” Tom Stern added. “The first sibling actually helps to feed its younger brothers and sisters.”

     “Why can’t we be more like bluebirds?” Bunny wondered.

     “I electrocute the sparrows myself,” Estelle said proudly. “I put them in a tub of water and just zap them.”

     “Enough!” Beatrice shrieked. “How can you call yourself bird lovers and then slaughter innocent creatures?”

     “You don’t understand,” Tom said firmly. “And I still want to know where you got that dead sparrow, broomstick legs.”

     Several members snickered, while the rest of the congregation looked down at Beatrice’s skinny calves.

     “My legs are none of your damn business,” she snapped at him. “And you’re right, I don’t understand one bit. Rest assured that you haven’t heard the last of this matter!”

     She marched out of the room, while they murmured about her. She didn’t care. The situation called for drastic measures. Beatrice Rose Wagner had never been one to stand mute in the face of injustice.   

     And she wasn’t going to begin now.

***

     Beatrice’s first recourse was the ASPCA. Milton Sharp, who had been in charge ever since Beatrice could remember, was sympathetic, shocked, disgusted and regrettably, as he explained to Beatrice, powerless. There was no law in Floral Village against killing sparrows with whatever ghastly means the Bird Lovers Society could devise.

     Clearly, Beatrice was on her own.

     It did not occur to her to take political action. She was suspicious of people in general, was basically a loner, and had no understanding or patience with committees or team efforts.

     Her best course of action, it seemed, was to tackle one person at a time, and she would begin with Tom Stern.

     Somewhere, somehow, she would find something to use against him, blackmail him, so to speak, until he left those sparrows alone. Everyone had a skeleton in his closet, she reasoned, and Beatrice was determined to find his.

     When she did stumble upon his dirty little secret, it was more than she could hope for.

***

     Beatrice had taken to following Stern. She was not very adept at detective work and, hardly, unobtrusive. But Stern was small minded and unobservant himself so it was fairly easy to keep her eyes on him.

     Most of his errands were mundane and, in Beatrice’s judgment, rather self-indulgent.  First thing in the morning, he would stop at the bakery. Beatrice wasn’t sure what exactly he purchased there, but she thought it might have been a few donuts, one of which he ate upon exiting, the powder sugar falling on his weak chin, the jelly framing his bulbous lips. Then he would visit the library; he read the papers there, obviously in an attempt to save money. He had the annoying habit of licking his fingers upon turning the pages, and smacking his lips loudly when reading something, which met with his disapproval -- which was often enough.

     His afternoon was devoted to club activities: the bridge club, the book club -- they read mostly murder mysteries -- and, of course, bird watching.

     It was in the evening that Beatrice’s detective work finally paid off.

     Stern returned home around four-thirty, at least for the first few nights. Beatrice just assumed that he had retired for the evening and that’s just what she did. But on the third night, on returning from a novena, Beatrice decided to take a detour down Morning Glory Lane. She was parked in front of his house for a few minutes when suddenly Stern’s lights went off.

     When the door opened, Beatrice was thunderstruck.

     Her first thought was that she was on the wrong street, or looking at the wrong house. These small cookie-cutter Cape Cod houses looked pretty much alike, especially in the dark.

     But no, this was the right street, and the right house. The red mailbox, painted gaily with butterflies stated clearly 13 Morning Glory Lane.

     But this was not Tom Stern, could not be him, for this was a woman, an unattractive, fat, dumpy lady with long dark straw -- like hair, overly made-up, and flamboyantly dressed in a scarlet dress with lots of flashy gold jewelry. Lipstick, red spikes, and dark hose with a matching handbag completed what Beatrice thought was a whorish look.

     Beatrice rationalized that the lady of the night was a prostitute, fulfilling Stern’s vile needs. But the moment that the woman turned her way, Beatrice knew that wasn’t so. Something about her was familiar, the gait, the hunched shoulders; the lady looked uncomfortable, out of place.

     Could it be Stern’s sister?

     But it wasn’t Stern’s sister at all, Beatrice realized in a flash. It was Stern. Stern dressed as a lady, probably stepping out to some disgusting bar in another town. Stern was obviously a transvestite, and wouldn’t that make a rather pretty picture? Why on earth hadn’t she brought along a camera?

     And then it happened. Upon opening his car door, Stern stopped and glared at Beatrice –- with murder in his eyes.

     With shaking hands, Beatrice started up her 1983 olive green Skylark and sped away from Morning Glory Lane, feeling Stern’s angry eyes behind her all the way home.

***

     Safe and snug in her old Victorian house, Beatrice helped herself to a snifter of brandy -– for medicinal purposes.

     If only Stern hadn’t spotted her, then she could wait outside his house on another night and take a photo of him all dressed up. Doing that was out of the question now, there was no telling what punishment he would inflict if he were to catch her spying again.

     Yet, what she could do with that information! She could threaten to expose his little idiosyncrasy to every club he was a member of – unless he himself stopped killing sparrows and persuaded others to do the same. After all, he was the treasurer of The Bird Lover’s Society, and he was in a prime position to influence his peers.

     But none of this was possible -- unless she was able to obtain some proof.

     Suddenly Beatrice thought about the garment bags she saw in Stern’s basements -- stacks and stacks of them. Peculiar for a man to have so many clothes. She recalled a soft, feathery object rubbing against her leg, scaring her half to death. Suppose it had been a marabou boa?

     It wasn’t perfect, but if she could slip into his basement again -– maybe take a picture of his outrageous wardrobe, well, that’s just what she would need.

     She’d go when she was positive that he would be out of the house, Tuesday night, the next meeting of The Bird Lovers Society.

     The thought of entering that basement again filled her with dismay. But then she remembered those poor sparrows frozen stiff in the freezer, and she made up her mind. Trepidation aside, she would forge ahead.

***

     The window was unlatched as it had been before. He was not terribly smart, this Tom Stern or at least, not unduly suspicious. Why should he be? He has nothing to fear -– he’s underestimating me, Beatrice thought, and he surely won’t make that mistake again.

     The cellar was deadly quiet -– on this occasion she was more at ease, knowing that Stern wouldn’t return for at least an hour. Beatrice wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, armed with a camera and a flashlight.

     The garment bags were in clear sight. Beatrice opened them and drew back in disappointment. Nothing but old suits and ski parkas. And when she unzipped the navy bag with the fuzzy item sticking out, she discovered a fancy feathered duster.

     A further search in the basement brought no satisfying results. She couldn’t bear to venture in the room with the freezer. Clearly, she had no choice but to explore the other parts of the house, an option not entirely unattractive to her. Curiosity had long been one of Beatrice’s characteristics.

     She made no effort to muffle her sounds as she trudged up the stairs. She was relieved to find the door unlocked. It opened to a small kitchen, done tastefully enough in green and white, neat and clean looking.

     However, she needed to locate the bedroom closet, which, no doubt, would reveal the full extent of Stern’s wardrobe.

     She was just about to venture into the living room, when she heard a car door slam. She thought at first it might be a neighbor, but the heavy footsteps on the front porch instantly changed her mind.

     How could this be? The Bird Lovers meeting had barely begun. She had little time to wonder, though, as she raced back into the basement, slamming the door behind her, just as Stern’s key turned in the lock.

     The phone rang; she heard him hurry to answer it. Had someone seen her entering through the kitchen window? She had to escape from the premises; the only problem was that the cellar window was directly under the kitchen and, if the curtains were open, he might see her crawling out. Better to stay put. And pray.

     “Hello,” he answered, friendly enough. “Oh yes. I called to thank you for the other night. I had a great time. Everything was perfect, the wine, the pizza, the homemade peach pie. You must give me the recipe…. Well, it’s been years since I attended a costume party...thank you.... I thought I looked pretty good myself. I caught a few neighbors peeking from their windows. I can just imagine what they thought. That old, nosy bitch, Beatrice Wagner was, for some unknown reason, parked outside my house. Her glasses almost fell off her homely face when she saw me. I guess she didn’t know about Dory’s masquerade party. I’ll call you when I get back next week.”

     Beatrice huffed in disgust at the news that her search had been in vain. She heard Tom place the phone in its cradle and trudge overhead. She couldn’t imagine that he would descend to the basement, certainly not to store more dead birds; at least he hadn’t killed any while she was watching. Then, much to her horror, she saw the knob on the cellar door turning. She dashed into the nearest spot, which happened to be in the room with the freezer, the one place she was determined to avoid. Desperately, she looked around for a place to hide, as she heard his footsteps descend.

     She had no alternative -- it was the freezer or nothing. If she didn’t climb in there now, she would be caught. There was no telling what Stern would do if he discovered her; at the very least, she would be the laughing stock of Floral Village, not to mention the possibility of a stiff fine or maybe even a jail sentence for breaking and entering. And what about the very real danger of physical harm? A man so vicious, so cruel.... 

     So, in a spilt second, she made her decision. She opened the large freezer and much to her relief, it was only half full. She had plenty of room to lay flat, as she pulled the lid over her.

     Just in time too, for Stern had reached the bottom of the stairs. Had he heard the freezer door squeaking? Maybe not -- because he headed towards the other side of the cellar. He shut the window and then she heard a click. He was locking it, which was quite all right; she could easily undo the latch.

     He started up the stairs, and she thought, thank God, he’s going, soon this nightmare will be over. She was rapidly becoming claustrophobic, not to speak of freezing cold. She heard him hesitate. Then he stopped. He turned around and entered the room, where she lay just a few feet away.

     I must have done something to give myself away, she panicked. And then she remembered. Her camera, her flashlight. Where had she left them? Oh God! She hugged her limbs close to her body in order to make herself warm, invisible.

     He was so close to her; she could feel her presence, even through the freezer. Go ahead, she said silently, open it, I dare you. It’s over, and that was all right because the truth was that she couldn’t stay in there a second longer. Something frozen was poking her in the back. A dead bird?

     He began to pull the freezer lid up.

     The phone rang and he dropped the lid suddenly. She heard a click, and then he barged up the stairs.

     “Yes,” he answered breathlessly. “I’m leaving right now. My taxi should be here momentarily. I’m going to spend some time at the shore. I’ll call you next week.” And then he gave a number in case of emergency.

     He was going away, Beatrice remembered suddenly. He had said so last week at The Bird Lovers Society, which would explain why he hadn’t attended the meeting. It would also explain his locking up.

     It will only be a moment longer, she consoled herself, and then I can get out of this coffin. Until then, she would not move, would not chance it. Once he was gone, she would have plenty of time to search through his things.

     Somehow it didn’t seem important anymore.

     A horn tooted, a door slammed, a car sped away.

     It was over.

     Beatrice pushed the lid of the freezer. She pushed it with all of the strength in her flabby biceps. It didn’t budge. She tried again. And again. Each effort was weaker. Her strength was ebbing away.

     There was something blocking it. But what?

     It came to her suddenly, and the horror of it made the sweat run down her forehead and into her cotton blouse, where it turned instantly to little ice slivers.

     The click she had heard before –- that was the padlock. Stern had bolted the freezer. He had locked it and he wasn’t coming back for a week.