The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery)

by Boneham, Sheila Webster

  “Oh, so you don’t live here?” I asked.

  “New Jersey.”

  We chatted another minute or so, but I was antsy to tell Tom about the parrots, so I excused myself as soon as was marginally polite. As I walked toward Tom I pulled my phone out and dialed Jo Stevens’ number again, expecting to get her voice mail. When she answered in person, I stopped walking and told her what I’d seen. She said she’d be there in half an hour and asked whether there was a boat available to get to the island. I told her yes, hoping Collin’s boat was still there but figuring Jo could take the kayak and I could swim if necessary.

  When I told Tom I’d found a dead parrot and had seen a live one on the island, he stopped mid-stick-toss and stared at me. Jay bounced up and down as if to say, “Throw it! Throw it!” and Drake sidled over and whacked his tail over and over into the side of my knee.

  “Don’t Labs have nerves in their tails?” I asked, moving away from Drake and rubbing my knee joint. “Jeez, it’s like a billy club!” I took the sticks from Tom’s hands and threw them into the lake for Jay and Drake, then said, “You think that feather, you know, in the bag, you think that might have come from the dead bird?”

  “Wow.”

  “Is that yes?”

  “Did you have your camera with you?” Tom asked.

  “In the car. But look at this.” I flipped my phone open and showed him the pictures I had taken of the dead bird. They were dark and grainy, but he could see enough.

  “Get your camera. Take some decent photos of those birds and we can send them to the guy in Florida.” He called the dogs to him. “In fact, we can probably I.D. them ourselves from photos and confirm with him.”

  He walked with me to the road and pulled his x-pen out of his van while I got my camera. “We’ll put the dogs in here and take Collin’s boat to the island.”

  “Collin’s boat is here?”

  “Yeah.” He gestured toward the bank, but I couldn’t see anything but grass and weeds from where we stood.

  “We should wait for Jo.”

  “She can use your kayak, or I’ll come back for her with the bass boat.” He set the x-pen up in the shade, filled a water bowl and set it inside, ushered the dogs through the parted sections, and clipped it closed. Jay and Drake sprawled in the grass, dripping and grinning as only tired, mucky dogs can.

  I checked my watch. “Tom, it’s been twenty minutes since I called. She’ll be here before we even get to the island. Let’s just wait for her.”

  He started to say something, then shifted his gaze from me to something behind me. “Yeah, she will.”

  I turned.

  “Hiya.” Jo wore tan chinos and a short-sleeved white shirt. Her clothing did not say “cop,” but something about her screamed, “Do not mess with me.” When she reached us, she pulled her sunglasses off and wiped them, then gestured behind her. “Hutch’ll catch up. He’s changing his shoes.” Hutch was Deputy Homer Hutchinson, Jo’s partner. Jo put her glasses back on and grinned at me, “He’s upgrading his wardrobe and doesn’t want to go wading in his new shoes.”

  We resumed walking and the boat came into sight. “How many of us can that boat take?” I asked, eyeing a not huge rowboat pulled half out of the water and tied by a very long line to a small pin oak. I didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll meet you there,” I said, and headed down the beach to the kayak. The Goldens were still playing, and Pilot ran to me with two tennis balls sticking out of his mouth, did a little happy dance, and ran toward the water with Eleanor in hot pursuit.

  I got to the island before Tom and the two detectives, so I checked my camera settings and scanned the old sycamore for signs of the parrot, using the telephoto lens for a closer look. At first, I saw nothing. Then a flash of scarlet caught my eye, but I lost it as quickly as I’d seen it and had to pan back and forth very slowly a few times before I found it again. And there he, or she, was. Definitely a parrot, and almost as definitely the one I had seen earlier. How many parrots could there be on this little lake island in northern Indiana? Then again, I’d seen or heard about more parrots in northern Indiana in the past few days than I would have thought possible, so who knew? I brought the image in as close as I could and took several shots, then shifted my position and took a few more. The landing party had arrived and were tramping toward me, so I recapped my lens and made a mental note to try to get closer to the tree after the others left.

  twenty-nine

  The makeshift cover I’d made with the old sweatshirt was still in place, and when I pulled the shirt away, the dead parrot didn’t appear to have been touched or moved.

  “Where’d that shirt come from?” asked Hutch.

  “Oh, uh, over there somewhere.” I gestured vaguely.

  He and Jo exchanged a look I couldn’t read and Hutchinson pulled a plastic bag from his fanny pack and put the shirt in it, then wrote something on the bag.

  “Never occurred to me that it was connected.” I was mildly embarrassed, although I wasn’t sure why I should be. “Uh, there were, are, a couple of empty bottles over there where the shirt was. I did think it odd …” I looked at Jo but she seemed more interested in the dead bird than in my thoughts. “I could probably find them if you think they’re, you know, if you want me to.”

  “You think this is the bird that feather came from?” Jo looked at Tom.

  “No idea. I’m a plant guy.” He grinned, but she didn’t get the joke, so he told her about the parrot specialist in Florida. “Hoping he’ll call here, or there will be a message from him when I get home.”

  “Janet, can you get some photos before we move this bird?” She laid a ballpoint pen near the bird for scale.

  I set the date marker to “on” and took several close-ups, then moved away to get a view of the area where I had found the bird. I was walking back toward them when that now-familiar sky-ripping squawk rang out from the lone island tree. We all turned that way. The little parrot was in full view, standing far out on a branch. As if in slow motion he unfolded his wings and glided into open air, seeming to move slowly at first, then swooping our way like a scarlet missile. He rocketed toward Tom and Jo where they hovered over the little body on the ground. They both raised their arms and ducked, but he cleared them by ten or twelve feet, then disappeared toward Moneypenny’s place.

  “Holy …,” said Jo.

  “Wow!” said Tom.

  “Holy wow is right,” I said, still staring after the bird.

  “Is it attacking?” asked Hutch.

  Jo looked at the bird at her feet and said, “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s protecting a friend.”

  “Guess I won’t be getting any more shots of him, or her, today,” I said, and explained that I had hoped to take some photos for identification purposes.

  Jo and Hutch pondered the best way to pick up the corpse, which wasn’t in great shape, and Tom and I set out to look for the beer bottles.

  “Don’t touch them,” Jo reminded us. Or me, probably.

  I more or less remembered where I had landed the kayak on my earlier trip, so we started there and walked in the direction Jay and I had taken. Although I wanted to find the bottles, I couldn’t help watching the sky and checking the tree every minute or so. A movement on the shore toward Treasures on Earth caught my eye, but Tom distracted me with a “There they are!” and when I turned to look across the water again, whatever it was had vanished.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “Thought I saw something. I think Jo was right.”

  “Widowed bird?” he asked.

  I looked at him to see if he was trying to be funny, but knew right away that he wasn’t. “Something like that.” I heaved a big sigh, then turned toward the beer bottles and took a few photos, figuring Jo was going to want them.

  “Nice out here,” said Tom, looking around. “I wonder what happened to the trees.”

  “I don’t know. Storm? Tornado?”

  He gestured toward a big trunk partially hidden in the tal
l grass. “Not that one.”

  He was right. I hadn’t noticed before, but the tree had been cut down, not broken. I started to say something when Tom jerked his head around and signaled me to be quiet. He was staring across the water toward the fence that separated Heron Acres from Treasures on Earth. Moneypenny’s place.

  “What?” I whispered.

  Softly he said, “I thought I saw someone over there. I heard voices.”

  “Not Jo and Hutchinson?” I asked, nodding toward the two detectives, who were crunching their way toward us through a pile of dry sticks.

  “Maybe. But I’m sure I saw someone.”

  “So?” Hutch was swatting bugs away with one hand and picking little green burrs off his slacks with the other. “Can we just do this and get back to civilization?”

  Tom led them to the bottles. When I said I had already taken pictures, Hutch turned a plastic bag inside out, picked up a bottle, and pulled the plastic up around it. The maneuver was so familiar in an earthier, doggier context that the image of it broke through my tension and I started to laugh.

  “What?” Hutch wiped at his face with his arm.

  “Nothing.” I stopped myself, but then he did it again with the other bottle and my lips blew an involuntary raspberry that morphed into one of those squeal-laughs. Even as I cracked up, I knew I was laughing harder than I should be but I couldn’t stop myself, and then Tom watched Hutchinson finish bagging the second bottle and he started to laugh. Before long we were completely out of control, and the two detectives were staring at us as if we might need straight jackets. When we finally seemed to be recovering our senses, Jo looked at Hutch and they shrugged at each other, and it took everything I had not to relapse into more squealing and giggling.

  Hutch slapped at his own cheek and said, “I’m outta here.”

  Tom mock punched my arm and then led Jo and Hutch back to the boat. Hutch stooped to pick something up on the shore—the dead bird, I supposed—and I turned back to the kayak. As I started to push off, something made me turn to look again at a stand of shrubs near the old sycamore. The sun was in my eyes and at first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but then I made out a man standing just in front of the shrubs. A big man, with light-colored hair lifting in the breeze—blonde, or maybe gray. I sat very still as the kayak drifted into the lake, paddle poised but quiet in my hands. I felt a chill in my cheeks and relief that I was on the lake and putting deep water between him and me.

  I tried to call to Tom and the others, but couldn’t make my voice work. In any case, they were out of sight and probably wouldn’t hear me. I dipped my paddle into the lake and turned the kayak away from the island, away from the man in the shadows. I kept paddling, gaining some speed, then turned for another look. He stood in the open now, in the light. As I watched, he raised his hands and held them as if he were holding something. I saw his finger move up, down, up, and I got it. An imaginary camera. I went back to paddling, then looked one last time. Another gesture. He held his hand up, index finger pointed at me, and his thumb flicked down and up. Then he raised his finger to his lips and pursed them as if blowing.

  My first instinct was to get out of there as quickly as I could, but that impulse immediately gave way to rage. Not stupid rage. Not the kind that would have sent me back to the island to find out what the hell was wrong with the guy. I have been known to do reckless things like that, but something about the guy’s body language scared the recklessness out of me. I pulled my camera from where I had stashed it in the cockpit and slipped the strap around my neck. I knew the jerk wasn’t going to pose for me and I wouldn’t have time for manual settings, so I flipped on the auto setting for athletic action, hoping the camera would do the work for me. I dipped my paddle just enough to turn the kayak parallel to the shore and laid it across the cockpit. He was still there, closer now to the water, and he seemed to be dragging something behind him. A rubber raft, maybe? I raised the camera and clicked off a series of shots. The first couple caught him full on, but his reaction time was fast and he turned away, arm up to hide his face. “Too late, you son of a bitch,” I said. I stowed my camera again and then I got out of there as quickly as I could.

  thirty

  Jo and Hutch had almost reached their car when I caught up with them. After my adrenaline-driven paddle back from the island and run across the field to catch up, I could hardly speak, but I finally managed to tell them about the man on the island and his bizarre gestures. I’d had the presence of mind to grab my camera, and I showed them the images, but they were too small for any detail other than his general build and clothing, and the fact that I had not imagined him. As I told the story, though, I started to feel a little silly, and said, “Maybe he was just trying to be funny?”

  Jo gave me her “have you lost your mind” look and gestured at my camera. “Email those to me as soon as you get home.” She was already moving back toward the boat. Hutch was ahead of her and looked like he was planning to rip the guy’s head off if he caught up with him. Hutch and I had not gotten off to a great start, but he had grown very fond of Jay and I was sure he’d shoot anyone who threatened a hair on his furry body. Jo stopped, turned toward me, and said, “Go home, Janet. Now.” She turned and ran after her partner, phone to her ear, but paused and said something to Tom as she passed him.

  I bent over with my hands on my knees, still catching my breath and wondering if I was going to be sick. It seemed as if I stood that way for an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before I felt Tom’s hands on my shoulders.

  “Janet?”

  “Okay. I’m okay.” I collected my camera from where I had set it on the grass and stood up. “Just that post-adrenaline barfy feeling.”

  “What the hell?” Tom asked. “Jo told me to take you home. What happened?” I told him, and he started to turn toward the lake, as if to follow the deputies.

  “Tom, Jo told me to go home.” I knew she was concerned for my safety, but I didn’t want to admit that out loud. Instead, I said, “I took some photos of the guy. She wants me to send them to her.”

  Tom turned toward me, hesitated a moment, then said, “Okay, let’s go.” Ten minutes later we had the kayak, x-pen, and dogs loaded. I took a last look across the field and lake but other than the bass boat resting on the island’s shore, I couldn’t see any activity out there. Jo and Hutch must have walked to the far side, beyond the sprawl of bushes.

  By the time we turned onto Coldwater Road and headed toward town, the nausea had passed. It was replaced by a more considered fear, and various parts of my body began to tremble, first my stomach, then my hands, then my lower lip. Aw, shit, Janet, don’t start crying, I thought. If I were honest I’d have to admit that I felt safer with Tom there beside me, but I didn’t see any need to say so, especially with tears. I tried to force myself to breathe deeply, but my stupid nose sniffed without my wanting it to.

  Tom reached over and took my hand but remained quiet for a few minutes. Then he asked, “What else happened out there?”

  I had told him a man was out there, but had not told him about the pistol gesture. I finished up the story just as we turned onto Coliseum. “I think you should stay with me until Jo finds that guy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t think you should be home, especially alone. Come to my house.”

  I made a rude noise. “He was just a nut.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “I need to go see Mom. Haven’t been there since Tuesday.”

  “Love to see your mom.”

  “I need to change.”

  He squeezed my hand and turned his gaze from the road ahead for a quick ogle. “Don’t change, Janet. You’re perfect as you are.” I made another rude noise and he checked out my mucky clothes and grinned. “Okay, on second thought …”

  My focus was drifting, and unlike my camera lens, my brain isn’t easy to twist into clarity. It works at times more like a fast-motion auto settin
g, readjusting constantly, but it’s not nearly so clever as my camera at keeping a single subject in focus. This was one of those times, and my thoughts hiphopped back and forth from my mother’s losing battle with Alzheimer’s to the weirdo on the island to Anderson Billings’ odd message to the pleasure of watching a group of frolicking dogs to the weirdness of seeing parrots by a lake in northern Indiana.

  “I think I need Ritalin or something.”

  “Why is that?”

  “What the hell do you think is going on out there?”

  Tom chuckled. “Wow. Can’t even focus on not being able to focus, huh?”

  “It’s all interconnected. I’m sure of it now. What the heck could Moneypenny’s group be up to? I mean, parrots?” We had just pulled into my driveway. “We’ll have to leave the dogs here while we visit Mom. Too hot in the car.”

  Tom was shaking his head before I finished the question. “We don’t know who that creep was or what he might know about you, so I think my place is a better bet.” He parked in the shade, rolled down all the windows, popped the back of his van open, and opened his door. “Let’s just grab what you need to take the boys to my place. They’ll be safer, and you can clean up there.”

  My thoughts kept bouncing around while I grabbed some clean clothes and my laptop, and took five minutes to refresh the water in the five vases and remove a few droopy blossoms. When we were back in the car I said, “If someone is out to get me and knows that much, then they know about you, too.”

  Tom frowned. “Maybe.”

  “I’m not leaving Leo here alone.”

  “Of course not!” Tom’s a big fan of my brave little cat.

  “Let’s leave the three musketeers with Bill and Norm while we visit Mom. If it isn’t safe enough for me … Unless you don’t want to g …” He held up a hand and stopped me before I finished the last word.