“That would make more sense,” Tom agreed.
“Remember that dog I told you about, the wildlife smuggling dog?” I asked.
Tom had just taken a bite of his sandwich so he nodded, cheese ecstasy lighting up his face. He swallowed and said, “Detection. He’s a detection dog, not a smuggling dog.”
“Thanks, Professor.”
He grinned and popped the last bite of sandwich.
“Tom, what if they’re smuggling parrots? Rare parrots? Expensive parrots?”
He wiped his mouth and said, “Possible, I guess. But why let anyone know about the birds? I mean, besides potential buyers?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about what little I did know. “I’m not sure they mean to let people know anything except that they foster them and find them homes. Persephone was none too happy that I took photos. Made me delete them.”
“Too bad. We could have tracked down her bird’s species.”
I grinned at him.
He grinned back. “You kept some.”
“Just one. But it’s a good shot.” Then a conversation with Neil Young sprang into my consciousness. “Oh, my God, Tom. I completely forgot. Neil said he has a bird, but then changed the subject.”
“Neil? Oh, the pretty doctor?” Tom’s tone took me by surprise, but when our eyes met he just grinned at me and said, “Man doesn’t like dog hair much, does he?”
“You saw that?” I chuckled, and started to remind him that Neil was just someone I knew in high school, but Tom interrupted. “So, he has a bird?”
“I, uh, yes. A parrot. But that’s all he told me. Come to think of it, he changed the subject when I asked about it.”
“People usually like to talk about their pets.”
“But these people don’t. Maybe they’re not supposed to, but they’re people, so they slip up. Maybe Moneypenny is using his followers to hold his birds pending sale.” Goldie’s comments about Treasures on Earth’s building permits came flooding back. “Tom! They’re planning an aviary! We’re definitely on to something. I need to call Jo.”
“Speaking of calls, I have a call in to someone at Cornell vet school. Send me the photo and I’ll send it after I hear back. I bet he can identify the bird, or knows who can.” He stood and put a twenty on the table. “I have a departmental meeting so gotta run.” He started to leave, but turned back and said, “We should send a picture of the feather, too. Maybe Jo would let you photograph it. You do need to call her. But Janet,” he took my hand and looked into my eyes. “please let the police do this. If you’re right, if these people did kill Anderson, they’re dangerous.”
I agreed, but fell a bit shy of a promise.
When I got home, a florist delivery truck was just pulling out of my driveway. “Great,” I mumbled, “another bouquet.” I parked in the driveway and retrieved a stunning arrangement of orange and blue gladioli from the porch. It was from Bill. The note attached said, “The door is always open,” and a house key was tied to the card with a blue satin ribbon.
As soon as I had let Jay out, found a place for the glads, and changed the water in my other three bouquets, I left a message for Detective Jo Stevens to call me, and then called Goldie. I grabbed my keys and bag and met her in the driveway.
twenty-four
“I just don’t understand why you’re fighting it,” said Goldie. We weren’t exactly discussing my relationship with Tom. She was discussing it, and I was listening. “Look how well you two get along.”
I pulled into the Parkview Hospital parking garage entrance and pulled a ticket from the machine.
“Not to mention how hot he is.” She tried to elbow my ribs, but couldn’t quite make it with her shoulder belt fastened. “You know, Janet,” she suddenly sounded thoughtful, and I feared something philosophical might be coming, but then she said, “I don’t believe I ever saw a photo of good ol’ what’s his name.”
“Who?” I found a space across from the entrance, so we continued the conversation on our way to the lab.
“Chet. I have no idea what he looked like.”
Like a jerk. “He was pretty good looking. That was part of the problem.” I laughed, although I was wondering why the mention of his name still made me want to kick something. “That, and his unwillingness to take a job that didn’t fit his elevated self-image. And there was the gambling, of course.”
“What kind of good looking?”
“Who cares, Goldie?” I asked, but she apparently really wanted to know. “Okay, I don’t know, sort of dark and handsome good looking. Think, I don’t know, young Tom Cruise-ish.”
“Whereas now we have mature Harrison Ford-ish.” She opened the door to the lab and ushered me in. “Progress!”
“Why are you asking about Chet, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Goldie as we reached the door to the lab. “He just popped into my head.”
We were in and out in ten minutes, a medical miracle of sorts. As I approached the kiosk at the parking garage exit, I noticed a set of big green fuzzy dice in the window facing us. I pulled up and handed my ticket to the attendant, a slightly scruffy guy with a gray comb-over and an impressive beer belly. He checked the voucher stamp and said, “Thank you. Have a nice day.” In the half-second between the end of his “day” and my car’s response to my foot on the gas, we made eye contact. Twenty feet later, I stopped before turning onto Randallia and burst into screamy laughter.
“What’s going on?” asked Goldie, looking around for the joke.
“Goldie! Do you know who that was?”
“Who who was?”
“Chet! That was Chet!”
She whipped around in her seat as I pulled onto the street. “Go back! Janet, go back, I didn’t get a good look.”
I pulled over to the curb and put the car in park, and Goldie and I laughed until we had tears running down our face.
“Nice career move, Chet,” I said. “Oh, jeez, I have to call Bill. He’ll love this!”
“Do you think he recognized you?”
I shrugged. “I barely recognized him. It didn’t click until we were moving again.” I fished a tissue out of my tote bag and wiped my eyes. “Oh, man, that was great.”
Laughter really must be therapeutic because I felt better than I had in days. We were both still grinning when we parted ways at home, and I spent a few happy minutes throwing a ball and running around like a nut with Jay. Then I went in. I still had a couple of hours before I needed to get ready for my dinner date, so I linked my camera to my computer and began downloading photos.
I’d been at it for about half an hour when Leo strolled in, hopped onto my desk, and yawned at me. Mid-cat-smooch I sat straight up and swore. I’d forgotten all about getting Bill’s kayak, and I was planning to go to Twisted Lake the next morning with Tom. Partly it was a snooping around mission, and partly a training session. Several members of Tom’s retriever training club would be there. I could take some photos, and check out the island with lots of people and dogs around for safety. If I had a way to cross the channel.
“Come on, Jay,” I said, grabbing my keys and his leash. “Car ride!” You’d think from his bouncing around that he never got to go anywhere.
Norm was mowing the lawn when I pulled up in front of their place. He waved, then disappeared around the side of the house. I found my darling brother in the garage, overhead door up, clearing shelves of old paint cans and loading them into boxes.
“Hi, Bill. What’s all this?”
“Taking these to the toxic county dump. County toxic dump. Whatever.” I must have looked perplexed, because he said, “We have a realtor coming Wednesday to put the house on the market. We’re moving to the new place, you know, the old place, as soon as we can get in there and do a few things.” He sat down on a box. “What’s up?”
“Thanks for the flowers. They’re gorgeous.”
Bill mock saluted. “Here for the kayak?” He studied my face for a moment. “What canary did you eat?” He rea
cted to my story about seeing Chet pretty much the way I did, and we had the best mutual laugh-fest we’d had in years. When we finally settled back down, Bill said, “Okay, then, the kayak!”
We decided I should take Norm’s, which was small enough to maneuver into my van if I folded the crate down and Jay rode loose. I prefer to have him in his crate in case of accident, but it was a short drive so I figured it wouldn’t hurt for once. When the kayak was loaded, Bill gave me a hug. It was getting to be a habit. “Careful out there.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Not worried about you. That’s an expensive kayak.”
I smiled all the way home, thinking it was nice to see Bill so happy. When I got there I had just enough time to take Jay for a short walk before I needed to tidy myself up, and that gave me a chance to call Giselle. I wanted to find out more about the Treasures on Earth bird fostering program, and Giselle might be my best source. Hell, she might be my only source, since I wasn’t inclined to cultivate Neil Young any further. Giselle agreed to meet me for coffee on Sunday.
When we got back home I fed Jay and Leo and was just about to take a shower when the doorbell rang. “Crappola,” I said, pulling my T-shirt back on. As I reached for the doorknob, I glanced out the front window. “Oh no,” I whispered, then to Jay I said, “Down.” He lay down and watched the door, eyes sparkling with anticipation. You’d think they were delivering dog food. When I thought about it, I realized that a dog-food delivery would make me happier, too.
But no, it was not a dog-food delivery truck in my driveway. It was a florist’s delivery truck. I pasted a happy look on my face. It was not, after all, the delivery man’s fault that I already had four bouquets in my house and didn’t need another.
Bouquet number five was gorgeous, if redundant. The sweet fragrance of the pink roses was intoxicating. Jay and I retreated to the kitchen and I set the bouquet on the table and reached for the card. “Hope this makes you as happy as you make me. Love you. See you tonight! Tom.”
“Where am I going to put this one, Bubby?” Jay wriggled his nub and grinned. “Okay, no room in here. How about the living room?” I cleared a space on top of an end table, inhaled the intoxicating scent once more, and headed back to the bathroom with Jay at my side. I sat down on the edge of the tub and took Jay’s head in my hands. “What am I going to do, Jay-jay? Tom wants to expand his family. You want to live with Drake?”
At the sound of his buddy’s name, Jay whirled and raced to the living room. No doubt he’d be watching out the window until his friend, and mine, arrived.
twenty-five
“Holy mackerel! That’s a lot of flowers!”
Tom stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room looking from one bouquet to another. The one from Goldie was on the kitchen table. The other four were scattered around the living room. Shadetree Retirement Home bloomed from the table behind the couch and the one from the vet clinic sat on the coffee table. Bill’s and Tom’s bouquets flanked the couch, one on each end table. “I don’t have any more horizontal surfaces in the public part of the house, so I hope that’s it for a while.”
“If I’d known, I’d have sent chocolates instead.”
The instant our eyes met we both burst into laughter. It was the kind that won’t stop, and we ended up sprawled side by side on the couch, the dogs half in our laps, Leo leaning toward us from the armrest, tears running down our cheeks. My ribs were beginning to complain about all the crazy laugh-fests, but the rest of me was glad for the chances to purge other emotions, at least for a little while. When the hysteria had run its course, I pulled myself up and my skirt down and scurried off to repair my hair and makeup. We told the doggy and kitty boys to be good, locked the doors, and left.
Maybe the laughter had cleared my brain, because I managed to keep all the crazy goings-on of the week in a shadowy corner of my mind through dinner. By the time we left the restaurant, the sun had set, the temperature had dropped, and we were both much more relaxed. Tom checked his watch and said, “We should get going if we’re going to make the movie.”
“Why don’t we just go for a walk? It’s so nice out now. We can see movies in January.”
Tom draped his arm over my shoulder and steered me down the sidewalk. “Works for me.” There was an oldies concert in Headwaters Park, so we wandered around the well-lighted, well-populated area for about half an hour, then Tom guided us to a bench from which we could hear the band and watch kids splashing in the fountain.
“They’re playing our music.” They had just wrapped up a Credence medley and were slowing it down with Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco.”
“Goldie’s music,” I said, and he smiled. “I talked to her today. Finally got it out of her. I still don’t understand why she didn’t want me to know she was having all those tests, but at least it was a false alarm.”
When I felt him straighten his back, I knew the truth and felt the blood drain from my cheeks.
“She lied to me,” I said as much to myself as to Tom. My voice was steady in spite of my roiling emotions.
Tom held my hand in both of his and said, quietly, “She doesn’t want you to worry. But yes, I guess she lied. She had surgery in June …”
“Surgery! She had surgery and didn’t let me help her?” I pulled my hand away and started to get up, but Tom put a hand on my shoulder and I stayed in place. “June … She told me she went on a retreat.”
“Janet, none of this is about you.”
“Wha …” I felt as if he’d slapped me, and shrugged his arm off my shoulder. He grabbed my hand before I could get up and held on tight.
“I don’t mean it that way. I mean that Goldie is … was … ill, and her decisions about how to manage her illness and her life are hers. She feels pretty strongly about her privacy in this.”
Anger gave way to hurt feelings. I was ashamed of them, but there they were. I said, whining more than I liked, “But she told you.”
“Only because I saw what she was buying, all the supplements. I saw that the day last May when you introduced us at the Co-op, and again when I ran into her there last Saturday.” I realized that Tom, an ethnobotanist, would have known the significance of the supplements as soon as he saw them piled in Goldie’s cart. He knew his herbals.
“Why didn’t you …”
“I was going to tell you on Sunday, remember? But then Goldie showed up. I left hoping she might tell you then.”
I fished a tissue from my purse and wiped my eyes and nose. “So tell me now.”
“They caught it early and it looks like they got it all. She wasn’t lying about that part, she is fine. Or will be. At least that’s how it looks.”
“Or so she says.”
Tom squeezed my hand and chuckled. “So she says, but I think she told me the truth once she got going.”
I couldn’t believe my probably best friend hadn’t told me her life was in danger. “But …”
“Really, Janet, she didn’t want you to worry. She told me that you didn’t need to know she was sick to be there for her, because you are always there for her, and that she would tell you when she was either cured or incapacitated.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
Tom went on, “She’s okay with whatever comes, you know.” He pulled me into a hug and whispered in my ear, “You have to trust her with this.”
I don’t think of myself as spiritual, although something in me moves when I look into my dog’s or cat’s eyes or when I watch a sunrise. But Tom has worked with shamans, and that’s how he often refers to Goldie, and something in the warm night air wrapped itself around me, and I knew he was right. I had to trust her with this.
I leaned into Tom and felt the steady rhythm of his breathing for a few minutes, then said, “I need to walk it off.” We took the trail around the park along the river, walking in silence at first. Then I asked, “What do you think is going on with Treasures on Earth and their parrots?”
�
�It’s odd, that’s for sure. I can’t imagine they’re into avian worship. Maybe a sort of ‘practice,’ as in Buddhism? Maybe they do good by fostering homeless birds?”
“I have a bad feeling about it. There’s a lot of money in tropical birds.” I had known that for years, and in light of all that had happened, I’d been reading up a bit on the Internet. I told Tom about a few recent cases involving exotic birds brought into the U.S., then asked, “Did you find your bird guy?” Tom had said that he would check around for an ornithologist who might identify the feather in the bag Drake pulled out of Twisted Lake.
By that time we had circled the park and were back at Tom’s car. As he unlocked my door, he said, “Sort of. Ornithologist at Cornell gave me the name of a parrot specialist at Florida State, so I have a call in to him. Never guess his name.”
“Nope, I never will.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Oh, gee, okay, how about Robin?”
Tom grinned. “Not bad. But no. George Crane.” He chuckled, then said, “I actually knew a guy named Bass. Fish guy.”
“Well,” I said, sensing a contest coming on, “I once met an emergency vet named Bassett.”
Tom grinned. “I’m hoping to hear back from Dr. Crane on Monday.” When he’d settled into the driver’s seat he leaned over and kissed me, then said, “And that’s enough of all that for the rest of the night, my love.” Then he pulled something out of his pocket. “I was going to do this in a more romantic setting, but it’s burning a hole in my pocket,” he laughed, and pressed a small black velvet-covered box into my hands.
Oh shit. An almost irresistible urge to bolt swallowed me up, but I closed my eyes and held my breath for a few seconds. Tom had been talking about expanding his family. Was this his way of proposing? My thoughts were racing around like a flock of flighty sheep, and that image led naturally to Jay and our sporadic adventures in herding, and that led to a vision of Tom sitting on his couch reading with his dog snuggled under one arm and mine under the other. And that, I thought, was a lovely image.
The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery) Page 11
