by Edie Claire
Allison rematerialized in the room. Leigh looked down and noticed that she was holding three more envelopes.
“Don’t feel bad, Leonard,” Randall assured. “You’ve done absolutely everything you could for him.”
Leigh watched sadly as the wannabe hippie lifted his free arm to wipe a tear onto his shirt sleeve.
“There has to be something else,” Leonard whispered hoarsely. “I can’t just let him die.” The cockatoo squawked. Then it bent down its dark beak and nipped at Leonard’s hand.
Leonard didn’t flinch. He just kept sniffling.
“Allison,” Randall said calmly. “Would you go get Morgan? We need to get this wound cleaned up.”
Allison nodded and disappeared. Leigh was about to disappear herself when an unexpected sound stopped her cold.
Leonard coughed. A long, drawn-out, hacking cough. A smoker’s cough.
It sounded eerily familiar.
“I’ve been thinking, Doc,” Leonard said when he could breathe again. “I know Bart’s a long way from flying right now. But… do you think being outside in an aviary could make a difference? Because if you do, I’ll… well, I’ll call Skippy. We’ve had our problems in the past, as you know. But if being at her place could help him…”
Leonard’s uneven voice trailed off, and Randall nodded. “I think it’s worth a shot, yes,” the veterinarian answered.
Morgan appeared and slipped behind Leonard to take hold of the bird. “Oh, poor baby!” she cooed. Her pretty nose wrinkled a bit, and her dark eyes narrowed at Leonard. “You smoke around him?” she asked disbelievingly.
Leonard bristled. Randall’s shoulders slumped with a sigh.
“I do not smoke around any of my birds!” Leonard retorted hotly. “I always go outside!”
“They can still smell it,” Morgan lectured, swooping up the bird like a pro. She held him out, chest nicely exposed, for Randall’s attention. “Bird lungs can be very sensitive, you know. You shouldn’t be doing it either. Have you heard that smoking causes cancer?”
The admonishing look that Randall shot at Morgan was stern enough to make Leigh cringe, but Morgan was oblivious. Leonard tried to respond, but succeeded only in bringing on another round of coughing.
Morgan rolled her eyes at him.
Hack, wheeze, hack. Hack hack hack…
Leigh’s mind flew back to the night before last. A dark house. No one in sight…
She couldn’t swear that the sound was exactly the same. But it was amazingly close.
She realized that Allison was at her side, watching her carefully. The look in the girl’s eyes showed she had guessed what her mother was thinking.
Leigh took another look at the slim, forty-something man in front of her. If he wore a hoodie that hid his hair… was it possible?
Her brain replayed the brief glimpse she’d gotten of the intruder as he hung over the window ledge, but there were no clues to draw from, no detail. She had seen light skin on his hands — that was all. As for body frame, yes, it was possible. This man was average height, with relatively narrow shoulders. She had assumed the figure to be a younger man, or a woman, but…
“What do you do for a living, Leonard?” Leigh asked pleasantly.
It was a non sequitur, but Leonard appeared to welcome the distraction, even though he probably didn’t know who Leigh was or why she was standing there.
I’m a professor,” he answered. “At Carnegie Mellon.”
Leigh tried not to look as shocked as she felt. She would have guessed he was a zookeeper. Or the owner of a kitschy vegan restaurant. Or perhaps on lifetime disability for some nonobvious malady. But a professor? “What do you teach?” she asked.
“Biological anthropology.”
Leigh was no longer surprised.
Leonard coughed again.
“Mom?” Allison said quietly, tugging on her shirt. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
Leigh registered her daughter’s words only with a lag. Her brain was still replaying the cough. She wasn’t imagining it. The pitch was a little different, maybe, but it was the same rasp, the same cadence…
She snapped back to alertness and followed Allison out of the exam room and around the corner to the treatment area. “What is it?”
Allison frowned at her. “You know what. You think it was him who broke into Grandma and Grandpa’s, don’t you? You recognize his cough! I can see it in your face. Shouldn’t we call the police? Or at least Aunt Mo?”
Leigh shook her head. “His cough does sound like the one I heard, but that’s hardly any reason to sic the police on him. We have no proof of anything, and he’s a client. Besides, he’s fully employed and obviously knows how attached people get to their animals. What motivation would he have for causing so much heartache and risking his own arrest?”
Allison’s small forehead furrowed with thought. “I don’t know. But I still think we should call Aunt Mo.”
Leigh struggled with her own battling inclinations. Hearing the same cough was downright spooky, but it was only a cough — she could never be certain to the point of testifying. Still, it was worth checking the man out, wasn’t it? “Maura’s already coming, remember? She should be meeting us here any minute.”
“Oh, right,” Allison said with embarrassment.
The door from the surgery opened and Kirsten’s fluffy blond head appeared. “Hi, Allison! Hello, Mrs. Harmon!” the girl said sweetly, bouncing by them to look around the corner toward the exam rooms. “Ooh!” she exclaimed. “It’s the bird professor. Does he have that pretty macaw?”
Allison’s scowl was so pronounced Leigh almost laughed out loud.
“No,” Allison said shortly.
“Does your cousin really live on a farm in the North Hills?” Kirsten continued. “With a pond and a log cabin and everything?” Her vacuous blue eyes were wide, as wide as they could appear with so much mascara weighing down her lids. The teen hadn’t been wearing nearly so much makeup yesterday, Leigh noted.
“Yes,” Allison snipped.
“That is so cool!” Kirsten enthused. When Allison made no further response, Kirsten moved toward the exam rooms again. “Well, I’m going to go see the pretty macaw!” she said with a smile. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Harmon.”
Allison made a low, grumbling noise.
“Hey, everybody!” a husky voice boomed from the waiting room.
Leigh and Allison hurried in its direction, and found themselves surprised. Maura’s presence in a small room always had its effects, but usually they were positive. Today the policewoman seemed to usher in a chill. The waiting clients sat as tense as drums, even as they smiled at the dour-looking infant protruding from Maura’s chest. With petnapping on their minds, they probably wondered if the detective’s appearance at the clinic meant something sinister had happened. Leigh had disturbing visions of the false rumors that could be generated. A patient must have been snatched from the clinic! Whatever you do, don’t leave your pets there!
“Hey,” Leigh called out in her most cheerful tone, gesturing for Maura to come on back. “It’s about time you got here. I’m starving. How’s Eddie?”
The baby turned his head toward Leigh, looked her up and down, and started to cry.
Maura sighed. “Good going, Koslow.”
Leigh’s shoulders slumped. “What did I do?”
Mrs. Gregg, who sat by the reception desk without her Maine Coon today, chuckled warmly. “Oh, the poor little tyke,” she cooed. “So many new faces! My Jonathan always cried when strangers talked to him.”
Leigh fought the urge to argue that she was hardly a stranger. Why advertise the fact that your best friend’s baby couldn’t stand you?
The door to the far exam room opened, and Leonard appeared with his carrier in hand.
“My man!” Maura called happily, stepping over to extend her hand.
Leonard looked up with a smile and offered his own free hand for a fist bump. “SuperCop!” he replied, only afterwards seemi
ng to notice they had an audience. His smile disappeared as he looked around the room, but upon noticing the baby, he brightened up again. “So here’s the new arrival!” he exclaimed, bending down for a closer look.
The baby smiled back at him.
Leigh sighed. Allison giggled.
“I’d say that what’s new with me is pretty obvious,” Maura chatted. “What’s new with you?”
Leonard straightened and turned his attention to the reception desk. “Aw, you know. Same old, same old.”
Leigh watched the exchange with curiosity. She didn’t realize that Leonard and Maura knew each other; then again, she didn’t know Leonard at all. But the policewoman and the professor gave the impression of being old friends.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to it,” Maura said finally, turning back toward Leigh and Allison and following them out of the waiting room. “Take care, dude!” she called over her shoulder.
The women didn’t speak until they had made their way downstairs to Randall’s office. Unfortunately, there was no more privacy to be had downstairs. Ethan and Matthias were busily stacking piles of newspapers while Jared pushed a broom, and Paige was attending to a Yorkie that had chewed its bandage off.
Leigh lifted her hands helplessly. “Isn’t there anywhere you can talk in this place without being overheard?”
Allison shook her head.
Leigh figured the girl should know. “Let’s go outside.”
Chapter 15
The women walked up the street a bit and leaned against Leigh’s van. “How do you know Leonard?” Leigh asked.
Maura seemed surprised. “We went to school together. He’s an Avalon boy.”
Leigh explained about the familiar coughing sound. “So I guess you think I’m crazy and that there’s no way he could be our petnapper?”
“Well now,” Maura said with a smile. “Those are two separate issues. But no, I can’t see Leonard risking everything for a few extra bucks. It’s not his style; he’s too much of a softie. It would take some pretty extraordinary circumstances to make him do something that desperate.”
“Aunt Mo?” Allison said plaintively, holding out the handful of letters. Leigh suspected the child was about to burst with curiosity.
“Right,” Maura agreed. “Just to be on the safe side…” she dug into the bag slung over her shoulder and produced a pair of gloves and a paper sack. Leigh opened the van and the detective set up a field lab in the back seat. She opened the first envelope and held out a single square of notepaper with block handwriting in blue ink.
CATCH HIM! Saw his back running off — skinny guy in hoodie.
“That’s not much to go on,” Allison said disparagingly.
Maura opened another. This note was longer, and produced by a computer printer.
I’m afraid to go to police but this [expletive] grabbed my cat out of the backyard and made me pay $500 to get him back! Wanted money in can behind elementary school. I heard some woman in Ben Avon had to pay two grand for her dog, but that’s all I know. The [expletive expletive]!
“The amounts vary a lot, don’t they?” Leigh noted. “They asked $300 for Lucky, but Skippy told me she’d heard rumors of thousands, too.”
“Rumors are likely to be exaggerated,” Maura commented. “However, the differences are interesting.” She thought a moment. “I wonder what the perp is basing his demands on.” She opened up the third envelope. This one was handwritten in flowing cursive on flowered stationery.
I am sorry that I am not brave enough to go to the police. But I almost lost my mind when my precious baby was in the hands of that maniac. I had to take out a second mortgage to get her back — but it was worth it! Please, please, stop him soon!
Leigh sighed. She could only assume that the author was so upset she didn’t realize she had offered no helpful information whatsoever. Letter number four was no better. In fact, it was a whole lot worse.
I heard the clinic was asking for tips. Which is pretty ironic, since you’re obviously the ones doing it! I doubt you’ll let the police see this, so I’m going to write them too. I mean, who else knows all this stuff? You have all the information on everybody and you know who has money. Shame on you all!
The three exchanged worried glances. “I have to admit, there’s some sense to that,” Leigh said miserably. “If my dad wanted to make out a hit list, based on who had money and who was most likely to pay up, he would certainly know.”
“Sure he would, but people trust Grandpa,” Allison said loyally.
Little Eddie made a grab at the letter, but Maura pulled it away and dropped it into the sack. “One more.”
They haven’t hit us yet, but we’re keeping ours locked up. Heard about a dog and a cat stolen but both came back okay. The cat cost $500 but they wanted $1500 for the dog! I heard somebody saw a guy with a ponytail running away from their house. That’s all I know. Don’t know who got taken exactly, sorry. Nobody wants to say because I guess the ransom notes say that if you tell anybody they’ll come back and kill them! I probably wouldn’t say anything either if it was me.
A guy with a ponytail. Leigh cast a questioning glance at Maura.
The detective sighed. “A lot of men wear their hair in a ponytail, you know. As well as a lot of women who could be mistaken for men in the dark. Never mind how vague the reference is in the first place.”
“I recognized his cough,” Leigh said heavily. “I wasn’t even thinking about it at the time, but the similarity was so striking it hit me out of the blue.”
Maura studied her friend’s face. Then she held up her hands. “Fine,” she conceded with a sigh. “Let’s go pay the professor a friendly little visit. At home.”
After a complicated interval of fetching and installing Eddie’s car seat in the van and laboriously securing him into it, the foursome took a relatively short ride before beginning the reverse process of getting Eddie back out and into his front pack again. “Are you sure Allison should be here?” Leigh fretted when they at last stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Maura frowned at her. “Koslow, I’ve known Lenny since we were six years old. If I thought he was in the slightest bit dangerous, do you think I’d be bringing Eddie? I’m only doing this to humor you.” She led the way up the front steps of the modest brick row house, which was just over the borough line from Avalon into Bellevue. Even from the street, they could hear birds squawking.
“Has he always been into birds?” Leigh asked.
Maura shrugged. “I didn’t know he was into them at all. I usually just run into him at the store or something — I’ve never been to his house. At least not this one. His folks used to live over on Orchard.”
She rang the bell. There was no porch beyond the steps, so Leigh and Allison stood behind her.
Leigh breathed a sigh of relief when the door started to open. Leonard had left the clinic right before they did, and they were hoping he had taken the bird straight home. She wanted to get this over with.
Leonard opened the door just wide enough to peer through the crack. His eyes widened with panic. “Maura?” he said with a gulp.
“Hey again,” the policewoman said cheerfully, ignoring his odd behavior. “Listen, can we come in a minute?”
Leonard’s frightened gaze darted from Maura to Leigh and Allison. Then he stuck his head out a little further and looked up and down the block. “Get in quick, then!” he ordered, flinging the door open and practically pulling Maura in by the arm. “Quick! Quick!”
“Okay, okay,” Maura said easily. “Chillax, dude! What’s the hurry?”
Leigh and Allison filed in quickly also, and after another furtive glance up and down the street, Leonard shut the door behind them. They were standing in a bizarre sort of foyer, the walls of which were entirely formed by beaded curtains.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized meekly, pulling aside the colorful beads and gesturing them into the main part of the living room. “Come in, please.”
Leigh half expected t
o see hookah pipes and silk cushions on the floor. Instead she walked into an indoor aviary. Finches and budgies were everywhere, flying from perch to perch, alighting on the sparse furniture, picking through the food that was laid out at several stations around the room, and making a cacophony of clucking, cheeping, and whistling noises.
“Geez, Len,” Maura exclaimed, her hands carefully poised to protect little Eddie’s exposed head. “I’m guessing you’re not into Hitchcock films, are you?”
Leonard was not amused. “Why did you have to come to the house?” he demanded, his hands wringing nervously. “What if somebody saw you?”
Maura’s smile faded as she studied him. A green budgie landed on his shoulder.
“Um,” Leigh said uncertainly. “We’re sorry to intrude, but I found this after you left.” She extended the leather glass case that had been in Randall’s junk drawer at the clinic since the nineties. A gift from a previous client, it had the image of a macaw burned into it along with the word Mexico. Randall had always found it cheesy. “Any chance it might be yours?” she asked innocently.
Leonard stared at the case a moment, his eyes wide. Then he shook his head vigorously. “No, it’s not mine.” He threw another glance at Maura, then practically crumpled onto the back of his couch, displacing two zebra finches and a pied cockatiel. The man’s relief at learning the presumed point of their visit was obvious. Also obvious was the fact that he was scared to death.
Maura stepped over and leaned against the couch back next to him. Baby Eddie was fascinated by the fluttering, colorful animals, and he cooed joyfully while reaching out for any bird he perceived to be within reach. Maura made certain, however, that none were.
“Len,” she said warmly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. But now that we’re here… is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
