The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery)

by Boneham, Sheila Webster

  “Not what?”

  “Not all I have to say. This is hypothetical, okay?”

  “Okay?” I was on full alert now.

  “Sometimes violence is a two-way street. Sometimes we treat both partners in a domestic situation.” I stopped breathing and thought, Wow. Persephone? Sylvia continued, “And even so, Janet, people like this will stand together when they’re threatened.” I remembered Jo and Hutch talking about how they hated responding to domestic situations because victims often turn on the cops that come to help them.

  I promised again to be careful and closed my phone. The dogs bounced around me, ready for a ride, so I gathered up their leashes and the container of homemade biscuits and went back to the garage. I held my breath as I tried the back hatch, and breathed easier when it opened, despite the dents. Once they were squared away in the back of my van I more or less dragged George away from a debate with Bill and Norm over which bean goes better with rice, red or black, and we took off.

  “How far out of the way is Tom’s place?” asked George.

  “It’s not really. Do you need something?”

  “I do.” He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t ask, and we pulled into the shady side of Tom’s driveway about eight minutes later.

  I popped the back of the van, opened the front windows, and slid open the side doors, then stepped around to the crate doors to turn on the little portable fans hanging there. A decent breeze was blowing so the fans were redundant, and it wasn’t bad in the shade, so the dogs would be fine for a few minutes. I followed George to the front door and found the key between the one to my mom’s, now Bill’s, house and the mystery key that I’m afraid to take off my key ring in case it’s for something important and I someday figure out what that is.

  Just looking at the yellow and pink roses flanking Tom’s front porch makes me smile, and the humid heat held their scent like a canopy over the door. Something about opening this door felt safe, like coming home. I turned the knob, pushed, and stepped over the threshold. George was right behind me, and the scene before me might not have fully registered until I heard him exhale as if he’d been punched. We both froze and stared and said “ohmygod.”

  fifty-two

  George and I stood rooted to the floor of Tom’s foyer looking into the living room where a tornado had apparently touched down. “Ohmygod,” I said again, and then, “Do you smell gas?”

  We looked at one another and scurried into the kitchen. The oven door was open, the pilot out, and the gas turned on. George pulled the front of his T-shirt up over his mouth and nose, and I folded my arm across my face, nose pressed into the inner curve of my elbow. We both reached for the knob, but I let George turn it off while I moved to the family room and opened the sliding door. When I turned back toward the room, I felt like crying. The wall of books across from where I stood had been torn apart. Books lay everywhere, pages torn out and ripped or crumpled. Tom’s collection of Labrador Retriever figurines had been swept from their place of honor and lay in a heap, some of them broken.

  The kitchen table had been tipped over and one of the chairs lay smashed against the end of the counter, where a strip of molding hung loose and broken. George started to reach for the edge of the table as if to right it, but I stopped him. “Don’t touch anything,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “We should step outside. I’ll call … Dammit!”

  “What?”

  “I just charged this!” I shook the stupid phone in his direction.

  He handed me Tom’s handset from the counter. “Wait until we’re outside.”

  I didn’t know Jo Stevens’ number other than “number five on speed dial,” so I dialed nine-one-one, reported the breakin, and asked them to notify Jo Stevens or Homer Hutchinson because it was probably related to a case.

  “Tell them about the gas,” said George. I looked a question at him and he said, “In case he monkeyed with more than the oven.”

  The dispatcher told me to wait out front, away from the house, until the police arrived, and said she was notifying the gas company as well.

  “I’m glad the dogs weren’t here,” said George.

  I tried to say, “Me too,” but my voice wouldn’t work. I appreciated what George had said, though. Most people would have wished the opposite, thinking two biggish dogs would keep an intruder out. Truthfully, anyone nuts enough to go into a house in broad daylight and tear it up like that might be violent enough to hurt the dogs. Or worse. Then I thought of something. “George! Your laptop!”

  He gestured toward the interior of the car. “Under the seat.”

  “What do you think he was after?” I asked.

  “If it was Rich …,” said George.

  I cut him off. “Of course it was him. Who else?”

  “Houses do get robbed.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  The handset rang as I was about to reply.

  “Janet?” It was Jo Stevens.

  I admitted that it was I.

  “Where’s your phone? I keep getting your voice mail.” She sounded angry and relieved all at once. After I explained, and confirmed that we were not inside Tom’s house, even though I had answered his phone, she said she was tied up but that two patrol cars were on their way and that her partner would be there as well.

  “They’re here,” I said. Two cruisers with their lights spinning were half a block away, and behind them I saw a black Taurus that I figured was Hutch.

  “And Drake?” asked Jo.

  “He wasn’t here,” I said, and heard a sigh from the handset.

  “I’m sending a car to your place.”

  “Okay.” That sent a tremor through my skull. “Jo, have them check on Goldie. I’ll call her now.”

  “Will do …”

  “Janet, your friend, Anderson,” she paused. “You were right. We don’t have the full report, but preliminary shows it was no accident.”

  My face went cold and I leaned against the van to keep my balance. “He didn’t drown?”

  “He probably did. But someone cracked his skull first.”

  I forced myself to swallow the bile that shot into my throat.

  “What’s the code for your house? So my guys can get in.” Jo’s voice sounded like it was far away, but her words registered and I gave her the code to my new locks.

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Jo, wait,” I said, regaining my balance. “It had to be that creep Rich Campbell, you know, from Treasures on Earth. Moneypenny’s henchman.”

  “Some of it, maybe. What time did you leave Tom’s place?” That seemed like an odd question, but I told her we had an early lunch and left around noon. She said, “Wasn’t him then.”

  “What?”

  “He was picked up at a rest area in Delaware County a little while ago,” she said.

  So this was random? I wondered? Or if not random, at least not related to our amateur detecting? “Picked up?” I asked.

  George mouthed questions at me. Who? What? I signaled him to wait, but he wasn’t nearly as responsive to hand gestures as Jay is, so I turned away to hear what Jo had to say. A truck bearing the Northern Indiana Public Service Company logo pulled up behind the cruisers.

  “I can’t say much, but a wildlife dog indicated him in the rest area,” said Jo, and I could hear the satisfaction in her voice.

  Wildlife dog. That had to be Lennen, the Lab I met at my vet’s office. He was the only wildlife detection dog I knew of in the area, and one of very few in the whole country.

  A young man with NIPSCO emblazoned across the back of his jumpsuit got out of the truck, jogged across the lawn, and entered the house.

  “Did he have a bird on him?” I asked.

  “Let me talk to George,” she said.

  “Wha …,” I started to protest, then realized that George’s status vis-à-vis wildlife smuggling might allow her to tell him what she couldn’t tell me. I handed him the phone and waited. When he hung up he started to tell me, but I said, “Hang on.
Let me give Goldie a heads up.” She answered on the first ring, and was as cheerful as ever and didn’t see any reason for a visit from the police, but she said she’d humor me.

  When I had finished, George said, “The dog indicated on Rich’s vehicle. That gave them cause to search it, and the dog indicated the back seat. The bench had been modified, hollowed out, and there were two birds inside. She said parrots. I’d have to see them …”

  He cut it off as Hutchinson came out of the house and straight to us. The man was never long on social graces, so I was surprised when he nodded at me and said, “Janet. You okay? And the dogs?” He stopped for a nanosecond, then walked to the back of the van, where I heard him say, “Oh, Jay, glad to see you’re safe and sound. How’s my sweet boy?” I walked around to the back and found him sticking his thick fingers as far as he could through the bars of the crate. Drake squooshed the side of his head into the bars of his crate and Hutch gave the black dog’s ear a scratch and said, “Yeah, yeah, you too, you too,” in the semi-baby talk that some people use with animals. I made myself not laugh in case Hutchinson took it badly, but it would have been a “hope for the human species” laugh if it had come out.

  “Listen, can we go?” asked George. “We’ve been gone a while and, well, our bird …”

  Hutchinson pulled his hands away from the dogs and said, “Yeah, sure, don’t see why not.” He looked at the mobile handset in my hand. “That belong here?”

  “Oh, right.” I handed it over. “It won’t do me any good at the lake, huh?” George gave Hutchinson his number since my phone was useless, and Hutch turned back toward the house. I stopped him. “Hutch, have you looked into Regis Moneypenny? I mean, he must be part of this.”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t say because you don’t know, or can’t say because you’re not allowed to?” I asked.

  “Yep.” Hutchinson’s eyebrows had risen just about to his hairline and he was staring into my eyes.

  “Okay. You have. And he is?”

  Hutch just stared at me in reply.

  “So, if you don’t think Moneypenny is involved, just shake your head. I mean, should I be watching out for him at the lake?” I remembered my uneasiness on the island earlier, the feeling that someone was watching Tom and me on our walk. A couple of deer, my non-paranoid hemisphere reminded me. But something still bothered me about that section of fence where the brush thinned out. It felt like a conduit for evil.

  “Won’t be there,” he said, starting to turn away again but still talking. “He’s in Muncie posting Campbell’s bail. I spoke to the jail down there on my way here and he had just arrived.”

  I did some quick calculations and figured it would be close, but Campbell could have made it to the rest area north of Muncie after he attacked my van. Perhaps I associated the open stretch of fence with Anderson’s death. It seemed likely that Rich Campbell had come into Heron Acres that way. He could leave Treasures on Earth from the back of their property without being seen and, assuming he had a boat of some sort, he could cross the narrow stretch of lake without being seen from most of Heron Acres.

  George interrupted my thoughts. “At least we’ll have the place to ourselves. That should make it easier to catch ourselves a Carmine Parrot.” I was too distracted to remember to keep George away from the back of the van, and when I closed the back hatch, he said, “Janet! What happened here?”

  “Oh my! Someone must have backed into it.” As soon as I said it, I knew how dumb it was. How could I not have seen the damage earlier? George gave me a look and seemed to be about to speak, but he didn’t. We climbed into the van and headed back to the peace and quiet of Twisted Lake.

  fifty-three

  The sky was a clear, hot, August blue and the air was still as death in town, but when we stepped out of the van at Heron Acres, we entered a different world. A sweet breeze blew from the lake, the glare of urban concrete was miles behind us, and the air smelled of lake water and grass rather than petroleum fumes. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. That calmed me, but when I opened my eyes and looked across the field to the water, Anderson Billings came to mind. He died violently in this peaceful place, as creatures who live here do every day. Perhaps the Buddha was right. All is illusion.

  Don’t go all philosopher now, Janet, said a little voice, merging into a very real voice that was speaking to me.

  “Janet, where do you want this pen?”

  I shook off my complex feelings and helped George tote the x-pen to a nice spot in the shade, back twenty feet or so from the beach. Just beyond, a kayak lay on the grass. I walked over and took a look. “You go ahead and take the boat,” I told George. “I’ll let the boys play a bit, then take the kayak over.”

  “I thought you left your kayak on the island?” asked George.

  “This one must belong to Collin, or one of his relatives. Mine is on the island. But they won’t mind, I’m sure.”

  George started to move toward the boat but stopped and pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at it. He pushed a button, then said, “Aw, crap.” He shook the phone and tried again, then started walking around. “Lost the signal.”

  “Something important?” I asked.

  “Maybe? There’s a text from the cop, what’s his name? Hutch? Said ‘need to talk, call me.’” George kept walking this way and that. “This happen a lot out here?”

  “Yeah, it does, actually. Sometimes I can’t get a signal at all, other times it’s fine. Weird.” I tossed him my keys. “Here, take my van and drive back to that little store on the corner where we turn. You can get a signal there.”

  “Listen, as long as I’m going … Are you hungry? I’ll grab something for all of us. I meant to do that, but the mess at Tom’s place distracted me.”

  I looked at my watch. It was after seven, a long time since lunch, and once George planted the thought, I realized I was famished. We walked back to the van and opened the back. Jay and Drake spilled out of their crates, barking with glee. Neither of them is a big mouth, but they were excited and feeding off one another, and apparently it was all too much to contain without making some noise. “Okay, okay, shhhhhh.”

  I tapped on the passenger window to ask George to bring me a candy bar, too, and by the time I turned back around, Jay was racing around with a humongous stick in his mouth and Drake had scared up an abandoned tennis ball. To their credit, although they both love to swim, they had resisted temptation and stayed within about ten yards of me. “Okay, guys, lets go,” I said. As soon as I pointed toward the lake, they were off, and by the time I got to the beach, they were both soaking wet and giving me the big-eyed “Throw it! Throw it!” look.

  Which I did, for about ten minutes. Between tosses I looked toward the island, but there was nothing to see. The fallen log that had become our observation post was on the far side of the big old sycamore, and even if he were standing up, I didn’t think I’d be able to spot Tom. I wondered if by chance the prodigal parrot had gone after the food in the cage. If not, it could be a very long evening. The mosquitoes and gnats were bad enough out there in daylight, I thought, and absolutely vicious at dusk. I wondered whether I had enough diluted skin softener left in my van for the three of us. Great stuff for fending off bugs. Then I remembered that George had taken the van.

  I was not looking forward to telling Tom about his house, but at least Campbell was out of commission for the time being, and Moneypenny wasn’t around. I pulled my cell phone out to see whether it might have come out of its coma so I could call Tom and tell him I was on my way back out, assuming he had any reception on the island. Sometimes I long for the days when we didn’t expect to be able to reach people at all times. Expectations are so easily dashed.

  The dogs seemed to be winding down, so I walked them back to the x-pen, filled their water bowl from the jug I’d brought, and locked them in. I draped my solar sheet over part of the pen, reflector side facing west to deflect the setting sun. Then I fastened their crate fans
to the side of the pen and turned them on. With the breeze off the lake plus the fans, and the double shade of trees and solar sheet, they would be fine for a little while.

  “Good boys,” I said. “Take a nap.” Drake set about tanking up from the water bowl but Jay was standing still, ears erect and gaze focused on the island. He let out a low bfff. “Hear Tom out there, Bubby? Is he talking to that silly bird?” Jay glanced at me and wagged his nub. “You’ll see him in a little while. Lie down now. I’ll be back.” He sank slowly to the ground, his attention still on the island. He looked like a punk rocker with his wet hair sticking out in crazy directions. I started to walk away, but turned back when he let out a loud yip. “Quiet, Bubby, I’ll be back in a little while.”

  I figured I’d paddle out there and see what was happening with our little lost bird. If Tom wanted a break, I could spell him. Either way, one of us could come back and stay with the dogs for a while, and if it got late I could take them home and come back. I heard Jay whine behind me, but he didn’t bark any more, so I kept going.

  The breeze had died, leaving the surface of the lake level except where the kayak cut a path and left its small wake. An engine of some sort was running in the far distance, but other than that, the murmur of water against paddle and hull, and a background buzz of insects, all was quiet. The sun was about halfway between zenith and horizon, so not so tough an opponent as it had been a couple of hours earlier, but the humidity made up for it. I was dripping by the time I reached the island and dragged the kayak out of the water, so I took a moment to wet my face and arms before turning toward the old sycamore.

  Jay started to bark again. I turned to holler at him in time to see Drake stand up and join in. Nice duet, I thought, Jay’s occasionally squeaky tenor and Drake’s bellowing baritone. “Jay! Drake! Quiet!” I yelled, feeling like a bit of an idiot since I couldn’t reinforce the command, or reward compliance, from that distance. I felt the breeze in my face and was surprised that my voice had carried across the lake, but apparently it had. Both dogs were quiet, though their postures said they were still watching. They’d settle down when I got out of sight, I thought.