Unless, of course, he’d taken on this case expressly to take me on.
“I don’t know anything,” I told him truthfully. “What happened?”
“I think you know,” he said. “Another murder, Ms. Ballantyne. And somehow, you’re involved.”
I sighed and said, “So you’re not just visiting? You’re one of the detectives on this case?”
“I’m assisting on this investigation.”
“How—” I could see by the way his dark eyebrows rose that he wasn’t going to tell me.
“We’ll talk later,” he said. “Right now, I need to see the scene.”
“One thing I should warn you about,” I told him, then mentioned Gigi, whom I still heard shrieking in the background. “She’s highly excitable.”
“That’s the noise I hear?” Ned asked.
I nodded. “I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself, especially if you have Animal Services haul her off. Can you please just leave her here? There’s no reason to have her removed, let alone ‘humanely euthanized.’”
I used the term I’d learned before when referring to animals who’d supposedly caused a crime—like some ferrets I’d met during the last situation I’d sunk my teeth into that involved cops. Of course, ferrets are illegal in California to begin with, and those particular ferrets were considered murder suspects.
Fortunately, the ferrets hadn’t been euthanized, humanely or otherwise. They’d found a new home. Well, not necessarily new, but … Heck, no need to get into that, since its result might not have been fully legal.
In any event, Gigi wasn’t to blame here. All I knew from Elaine was that she thought Ezra had been shot.
“Please, just let some of us here continue to take care of her,” I finished. “Okay?”
“We’ll see,” he said, then stomped inside.
Since this had once been a restaurant, there was a paved patio to one side of the entry where patrons must have been sent to await their tables. I checked often on Lexie in the car, of course. Those who’d arrived so far all milled around the patio.
“Poor Ezra,” Mignon chirped sadly, in the middle of a group of support staff. “He wasn’t the nicest man, but he still—”
“Kendra!” Ned Noralles called from the door. “Come here.”
I couldn’t help swallowing hard in consternation. Being shown up as an awful amateur detective didn’t faze me … much. But what if Ned had decided to handle this homicide in the hopes he’d finally pin one on me after all?
I nevertheless obeyed his command and came near him. “What’s up?” I asked, striving to sound confident.
“You want to save that bird? Then you calm her down.”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“She’s screaming, beating her wings, and … can you help?”
I considered my first contact with Gigi and her shrieks in the night. Her continued squawking and how it had driven Ezra nuts. I thought about the visit from the expert Polly Bright yesterday, and how Gigi had responded to my whistle and singing—if you could call it that—better than to her macaw shrink stuff. “I can try,” I said slowly. “No guarantees. But you still promise to let her stay here?”
“If you don’t promise, I don’t. But come on.” Noralles gestured, and I followed him inside the building that still bustled with crime-scene investigators, then down the hall.
“Is Gigi still in Ezra’s office?” I asked, my anxiety increasing.
“Yeah. So’s the body. You okay with that?”
Not hardly—but I nonetheless responded, “More or less.”
In moments, that’s where we were. I tried not to face the part of the floor where investigators snapped photos and foraged for clues—where Ezra lay, on the floor beside his desk. Identification numbers were scattered about, each signifying where some piece of evidence had been removed. Judging by the number of numbers, there’d been a lot of clues.
Gigi was secured in her giant wire cage, screeching and flapping and shifting around as if she wanted to soar out of it. Ezra must have put her in it last night to take her home.
Only they hadn’t gone.
Elaine had been the only one with them when Jeff and I left … but I didn’t see Elaine as Ezra’s killer. I’d only say what I saw to Noralles if he asked. After all, he’d undoubtedly be interrogating Elaine anyway, since she was the one who’d found Ezra’s body.
“Do something!” Noralles shouted, his expression perplexed and even a little pleading. His tone grew commanding, though, as he insisted, “But don’t get too close. And don’t touch anything. We’re almost ready to let the coroner remove the victim, but this crime scene is still under investigation.”
What I wanted to do was to cover my ears, but instead approached Gigi. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled.
She hardly looked at me as she continued her crazy movements and even crazier screams. If she kept it up, she’d not only deafen the investigators but also upend her cage and injure herself.
Sighing because I was undoubtedly about to make an ass of myself in front of the dour detective and his assemblage of investigators, I started singing at the top of my voice, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall …”
No change. She didn’t even start repeating her vocal repertoire about bottles of beer.
I went through a couple of choruses before giving up. “I think we’d better call in the expert,” I finally said.
FORTUNATELY, POLLY BRIGHT made fast emergency office calls. She promised to be there in half an hour.
I’d looked in again on Lexie, still locked in my car. It was January and overcast, so I hadn’t had to find her some shade. I could also see her from my office window and all seemed well. I knew her ears were sensitive, though, so I wondered whether they were being assailed long distance by Gigi’s endless cries.
I spent the time waiting for Polly in my office, an investigator in attendance, as soon as Noralles gave me the go-ahead. I was permitted to pull some of my files to work on outside the Yurick offices while the investigation continued.
Speaking of Yurick, Borden had arrived, too, and stood out on the patio with other attorneys—William Fortier and Geraldine Glass, both senior citizens who’d joined up with Borden after retiring from other firms. Also the rest of the secretaries and paralegals, including Corrie Montez, who’d come with Ezra from his former firm. All had been initially interrogated by Noralles and his investigators, I learned when I went outside with Ned at my side. I believed that all those who’d finished going through the wringer had been permitted to leave for the day. Corrie, crying softly, had stayed.
I considered fleeing, too, but figured someone who’d met Polly ought to greet her. I only wished I could plug my ears, even as I stood outside.
Eventually, she arrived. By then, I’d gone back to my office. A cop poked his head inside and asked me to meet her in the reception area—and not to touch anything on the way.
I joined Polly there. Her plumage—er, clothing—seemed equally colorful as yesterday. She wore a multicolor neon scarf over her brilliant green blouse and matching peasant skirt.
Her eyes were huge, her skin pale. “Ezra’s dead?” she rasped, as if she somehow hadn’t believed what she’d been told.
I nodded. “And Gigi’s going nuts. I was told one of the crime-scene investigators tried to take fingerprints from her cage and she stuck her beak out between the wires and bit him. Fortunately, he saw it coming so he wasn’t hurt. But the poor bird hasn’t stopped shrieking.”
“I noticed.” There was a slight wryness now to Polly’s tone. “Let’s go see her.”
I was glad to discover that Ezra was no longer in his office. Noralles was, and I introduced him to Polly. The parrot expert approached the rocking cage that contained Gigi and began speaking softly. Unsurprisingly to me, Gigi didn’t calm.
“First thing, let’s remove her from these surroundings,” Polly said. “But not too far. Please help me move her to someplace quiet in these offices. Any su
ggestions?” she asked me.
“Well, there’s what used to be the restaurant kitchen. We still use it as a coffee-and-lunch room. It’s fairly remote and we can keep people out of it.”
“Sounds perfect.”
I looked at Noralles. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah. It looks like the homicide took place in one location. The victim wasn’t chased around the building, so his office is our main focus. The kitchen’s been checked already for evidence, and we’ve conducted some interrogations there.”
“Good,” Polly said. “But we’ll need a little help.” She looked pointedly at Noralles. “A strong police officer to push her cage would be just the thing.”
Meekly—for him—Noralles followed her orders. A burly uniformed officer pushed the large wheeled cage containing the upset macaw down the hall and around a couple of corners.
The kitchen was quiet and dimly illuminated from a window with miniblinds till we turned on the lights. There were gleaming metal counters containing a sink, coffee-maker, and microwave. There was also a full-sized refrigerator. The room had already been preliminarily probed for evidence, so no one was likely to bother Gigi here. Once tables were pushed out of the way and the macaw’s cage slid into the center of the room, everyone left except Polly and me. Was it my imagination, had my eardrums atrophied, or was the bird finally crying less loudly?
This time, when Polly started speaking to Gigi, she sounded more persuasive, as if this was a training session. She commanded the macaw to say, “Gigi, gorgeous girl. That’s you. Now say it, Gigi.”
Amazingly, after half a dozen reiterated orders, Gigi stopped squawking and started talking. “Gigi, gorgeous girl, gorgeous girl.”
“You did it!” I exclaimed softly, forbearing from giving Polly a great big hug.
The parrot pro turned to me and smiled proudly.
BEFORE POLLY LEFT, I made sure she, the expert, instructed Noralles that Gigi was not to be shuffled off to an animal shelter.
“This bird will undoubtedly get even more upset in wholly unfamiliar surroundings,” Polly assured Noralles. “I know she was present at a murder scene, but in the interest of keeping her as healthy as possible, she must stay in a soothing environment. Like this kitchen.”
“I’ll allow it for now,” Noralles said irritably, but the way he hazarded a reluctant glance at Gigi, I suspect he was relieved he had an expert’s directive to allow him not to deal much with the emotional bird. “But I’ll still have to clear it with Animal Services.”
Of course, Noralles used the sudden quiet to remember that he hadn’t finished interrogating me. I told him all I knew about Ezra, his friends, acquaintances, and enemies—that latter including, after last night, the entire community of Vancino.
Eventually, Ned released the Yurick gang. He insisted that we stay out of the building for the rest of the day while the Scientific Investigation Division dudes concluded their scrutiny, but said he’d try to have everything but Ezra’s office cleared for use again tomorrow.
I figured that Lexie and I would head for home-sweet-garage—our apartment on the grounds of the big, beautiful house I now leased to Beggar’s owner.
But there was somewhere else I wanted to stop first.
KNOWING THAT BOTH Lexie and I could use a little TLC—Tenderness, Loyalty, and Canines—I aimed my Beamer for the Doggy Indulgence Day Resort, a day-care facility on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City owned by my dearest friend in the world, Darryl Nestler.
Thin, lanky Darryl was at the front desk of the domain over which he reigned as alpha male, despite his beta-sweet demeanor.
As I walked in the door, Darryl gave me one of his big, open grins. As usual, he wore one of his signature Henley-style green shirts with the Doggy Indulgence logo on the pocket. “Kendra! Lexie! I’m glad you’re here.”
As I headed into his outstretched arms and accepted a well-needed hug, I saw the sideways glance and eye roll from one of his canine caretakers: Kiki, a blond bombshell and starlet wannabe.
“Glad to see you, too, Kiki,” I said. “Lexie sure is.” I’d let my Cavalier off her leash, and she leaped on the reception counter, as if asking permission to peel off to one of the resort’s multiple play areas for pets—including a corner containing all sorts of doggy toys, and another with lots of people furniture to veg out on.
“Come on, Lexie.” Kiki walked with my Cavalier over the shiny, spotless pine floor toward the area where employees were engaged in endless games with ecstatic doggy charges.
“Believe it or not, she’s one of my best employees,” Darryl said.
“I believe it,” I acknowledged. “She might be awful to owners, but she’s great with the dogs. Have time for a chat?”
“About the latest murder?”
“You heard?”
“It’s on the news—a lawyer at your new firm. Soon as I was assured it wasn’t you, I wondered how you were involved.”
I sighed. “Yes, I do seem to be a murder magnet these days. Wish I could figure out a way to demagnetize myself.”
“Come into my office,” Darryl said. “I want to hear everything.”
I tailed him into his domain with its cluttered desk, and dumped my dejected self into the plush chair facing it. I gave Darryl a rundown of all that had happened starting from yesterday, omitting complications that could be considered attorney-client privileged.
As I finished talking about how Gigi finally quieted down, this time thanks to the advice of macaw maven Polly Bright, Darryl said, “Do you read mystery novels? Or watch detective shows on TV?”
I blinked. “Who has time?”
“Well, something struck me as you were talking. If your life was fiction that had taken these turns, know what?”
“What?” I was decidedly peeved and sounded it, since I knew Darryl was building up the drama. But heck, he was my friend. If he wanted to have some fun with my frazzled psyche, why not?
“If this was a novel, and a parrot was in the room where a murder was committed, all you’d have to do is to keep asking the bird some questions. In mysteries with parrots, they always reveal the clue that gives the killer away.”
Chapter Six
I WASN’T SURE whether Darryl was pulling my leg. On the other hand, he hadn’t said that birds of the parrot persuasion truly provided solutions to murders they’d witnessed, only that certain creative mystery authors asserted they did.
Might actual avians similarly repeat sounds, even words, they overheard in excessively emotional circumstances? As absurd as it sounded, it was an avenue I couldn’t omit exploring.
The hour was too late to leave Lexie in the excellent paws of Doggy Indulgence, so she and I headed off to my pet-sitting visits. I made sure to lavish ample attention on each of my charges. It wasn’t their fault that my mind churned around traumatic topics like Ezra’s untimely, ugly death, the dissatisfied client whose work I’d at least temporarily take over—and whether macaws might in actuality be able to disclose the identities of murderers.
As soon as I’d seen to my last canine customer, I aimed my auto back toward my office. “I hope that’s okay with you,” I said to Lexie. “But I really need to see Gigi as soon as I can.” Lexie wagged her tail and woofed her approval, so I felt guiltless as I drove westward.
It was nearly eight at night, so I figured no office staff would be around. But since we’d been promised access to the office building tomorrow, crime-scene investigators could still be there en masse. I doubted Noralles would still be around, nattering all night about how all nuances of the investigation should go. But without his otherwise unwelcome presence, I couldn’t be positive I’d be permitted inside.
I’d elicited parrot-care instructions and a cache of food from Polly before she’d pranced out of there, so I’d known what to feed the then-placid Gigi before I’d left. But I was still concerned about her. Blame the pet-sitter part of me.
I wasn’t surprised, when I arrived at the Yurick offices, to see lights on inside the
onetime restaurant building. Or cars in the parking lot, too. Two.
No black-and-white cop cars, though, or L.A.P.D. Scientific Investigation Division vehicles. Nor were vans carrying media vipers still around. Thank heavens. Reporters of all meddling types had appeared soon after I had this morning. They’d hung about all day, trying to get someone to give them the scoop on the slaying inside the law office. I’d listened to some of the results on the radio while in my car. Lots of hype and innuendo—of course. But there’d been no hints of any eyewitnesses at all, let alone one with wings.
Somehow, I couldn’t buy that I’d get Gigi to testify about what she’d seen. In any event, the lights inside and cars in the lot proclaimed that others were present. The vehicles were familiar, so I doubted they were unmarked wheels of investigators. Plus, the entryways were unencumbered by crime-scene tape or dire keep-out caveats. Maybe the structure had already been released back into the law firm’s hands.
But who was here? Someone else concerned about Gigi? Or had some of the firm’s senior citizen attorneys grown guilty about being behind in billable hours?
Turned out to be kind of a combination of the two—and the second involved a paralegal, not a lawyer.
After assuring Lexie I wouldn’t be long and as always enlisting her unsurpassed skill in guarding our car, I headed inside. When I rambled behind the reception area toward the kitchen, my ears were once again bombarded by a blast of screeching emanating from that direction, so loud that I nearly missed hearing the soft, soothing sounds in the background.
The former, not unexpectedly, originated from Gigi. The quieter voice belonged to Elaine Aames. She stood outside Gigi’s cage, talking to the macaw, her shoulders hunched beneath the bird’s brow beating. “What are we going to do with you, gorgeous girl?” she said. Gigi didn’t slow her squawking as she hopped from one claw to the other. “You’ll need a new home now,” Elaine continued, “and I’d love to offer it to you, but I can’t unless you calm down.” Even that amazing invitation didn’t quiet Gigi. Elaine raised her voice. “Please, girl. You’ve got to—” Elaine shook her head in apparent disgust, and mid-shake she spotted me. “Hi, Kendra,” she called. “What are you doing here?”
Fine-Feathered Death Page 5
