Fine-Feathered Death

by Linda O. Johnston

  I motioned her out into the hall, where, after I closed the door, Gigi’s screeches were somewhat muted. “I was worried about Gigi. I wanted to make sure she was okay for the night.”

  “She’d be a lot better if she simmered down, but she’s safe and away from the worst of the excitement, at least.”

  “Maybe,” I acknowledged. “And how are you doing?”

  The older attorney seemed to have aged a lot more since Ezra’s departure. She was still well dressed in a white blouse and navy blue skirt, but both were rumpled, and her suit jacket was somewhere else. The exaggerated wrinkles wedged around her eyes and mouth looked like anything but laugh lines tonight. Her silver hair, usually with seldom a strand out of place, had wilted as if water-soaked.

  I figured that Detective Ned Noralles or an equally insistent crony had put the poor older lawyer through the wringer with one of their nastier inquisitions. I might not have looked as wilted after something similar, but I was around half Elaine’s age. Or maybe I had looked as bad and had deluded myself otherwise.

  “I was worried about Gigi, too,” Elaine said. “And myself, if I can be candid.” She sighed as I nodded my encouragement to her openness—while wondering what I was letting myself in for. “I spent most of the day at the West Valley Police Station, answering questions about my relationship with Ezra, my argument with him over the house, how I found him dead … But I figure you know how that goes. Borden told me over the phone how you were unjustly accused of murder a few months ago, and once he mentioned it, I remembered hearing about it in the news.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Fortunately, the truth came out. Of course, I had help. I hope you had a good criminal attorney with you.” I was wondering whether Elaine was yet another suspect to whom I’d need to refer my good friend Esther Ickes, who’d helped me not only through my State Bar proceedings and bankruptcy, but also when I was suspected of murder. I’d suggested her to my tenants, too, when they were unjustly accused of aiding and abetting fatal ferrets.

  Elaine assured me she’d had someone with her from her former firm—an attorney I’d never heard of, but she was satisfied with the young guy’s representation and counseling concerning cops.

  “Anyway, after I checked with Borden and he said most of the building had been released by the police, I came to pick up my briefcase and other things I’d left earlier,” Elaine said. “And of course, to look in on Gigi. She was quiet, but when I put my hand on her cage, she immediately tried to bite my fingers. Then she started screaming again.”

  Hmmm. If Darryl’s suggestion was sound, might that mean Gigi had seen Elaine bump off Ezra? But the bird started shrieking so often, and for no obvious reason, I couldn’t use that as a clue to suppose the worst of Elaine.

  “I talked to Polly Bright,” Elaine continued. “She promised to stay on call and help us get Gigi through this terrible situation. She mentioned she had been here earlier today. I asked her to stop by again tomorrow, if she could.”

  After my discussion with Darryl, I itched to ask Elaine, who’d spent at least part of this evening in Gigi’s company, if the bird had said anything at all that smacked of significance—like whom she’d seen slay Ezra … again assuming it wasn’t Elaine herself.

  In the interest of discretion, though, I said, “I heard you tell Gigi you might want to adopt her.”

  “For Ezra’s sake,” Elaine said, nodding as she winced once more at Gigi’s continued shouts from behind the kitchen door. “I might have fought with the guy, but I really cared for him.” She lifted her thin, wrinkled hands as if to stave off anticipated amazement. “Yes, I know he was abrasive and even nasty at times, but inside he was really quite sweet—once you got to know him.” Tears suddenly flooded her eyes. “And now you never will.”

  I was slightly surprised when I grew similarly misty. But heck, I had seen another side of Ezra Cossner now and then. Maybe he would have grown on me even more had he lived.

  “Anyway,” Elaine sniffed, “Ezra hasn’t much family left, and he was mostly estranged from the remaining ones.” Big surprise. “I don’t know whether he made arrangements for Gigi after his death—even if he didn’t anticipate it happening so soon, macaws can live a long time—but I’d love to adopt Gigi if I could get her to be more friendly with me. If I can’t even touch her cage, though, let alone move her outside it to a perch, I don’t think it would work for either of us. And those noises …”

  As if on cue, Gigi’s screams seemed to intensify. Was she about to make some huge revelation about what she’d seen? I nearly yanked open the door. But then she started into a medley of “Gigi, gorgeous girl, gorgeous girl,” combined with wolf whistles. I sighed. If that was some kind of clue, I, for one, didn’t get it.

  “Hi,” said a voice from around the reception area, loud enough to be heard over Gigi’s continued chorus. “I didn’t know you were here, Kendra. Is everything okay?” I turned away to see Corrie Montez standing there. She was clad in a sweater and jeans and a slew of file folders. Well, maybe the folders weren’t part of her outfit, but in the few times I’d seen the youthful paralegal since she’d joined the firm along with Ezra a few days ago, she’d always seemed to be clad in a bunch.

  Corrie had short black hair, huge brown eyes, a largeish nose, and a small, ever-lipsticked red mouth. Ezra had stolen her from his former firm—another reason for them to be peeved with him.

  I thought about Jonathon Jetts, the partner who’d shown up here yesterday and assailed Ezra for waltzing away with his former firm’s clients. Coming here with Corrie could have provided icing on the ill-willed cake. Could Jetts have been mad enough to murder Ezra?

  “Everything’s as fine as it can be for the moment,” I assured Corrie. “We were just talking about Ezra, of course.”

  “Of course,” Corrie repeated with a raw sigh. “I only wish …”

  “What?” I encouraged.

  “Well, I think Elaine really knew him.” She aimed a brave smile at the older woman, whose tears now tumbled down her cheeks. “But most people didn’t. He was a good guy, deep down. He really was.” Her stark stare at me both dared me to deny it and pleaded with me to believe it.

  “I didn’t get to spend much time with him,” I told her tactfully, “and he seemed under a lot of pressure about the T.O.-Vancino matter, so he didn’t get a chance to show me much of his softer side. But I saw he really cared about Gigi. And I got a hint of his sense of humor.”

  That sent both of Ezra’s former friends into sheer sobbery. And I have to admit it was contagious.

  A shriek startled us out of our sobs. No more singsong chorus from Gigi. I opened the door to look in at her and found her flapping her wings—as much as she could within the confines of her cage. She screamed three times more, and I didn’t stop my hands from enveloping my aching ears. And then she started shouting out, “Ezra, Ezra, Ezra,” in her own squawking voice.

  It didn’t provide any clue as to who killed him, but it sure got all three of us girls gooey again.

  ELAINE LEFT BEFORE I did, but Corrie remained, though she’d soon apologized her way out of the kitchen and back to her own office, near Ezra’s. She’d mentioned that many of Ezra’s files were confiscated by the cops as possible evidence in his murder—at least those boxed in his office at the time. I wouldn’t know, since his door was still sealed shut by yellow crime-scene tape—the only room still off-limits in this small building.

  Fortunately for the firm, Corrie had some of her own files, and a lot of her own knowledge, about clients Ezra had carried from their old firm. She was, at Borden’s phoned request, making as reliable a reiteration as she could, logging clients and their concerns so this firm could step in and take over for Ezra.

  Assuming the clients stayed with us.

  I managed a few minutes alone with Gigi. Amazingly, she’d quieted down somewhat. “Anything to tell me, girl?” I asked. “What did you see last night?”

  “Ezra, Ezra, Gigi, gorgeous girl,” sh
e squawked in reply. “Bottles of beer.” And then she started additional screaming and flapping around her cage, as if she wanted to get out and fly off. I couldn’t get her to stop. Corrie couldn’t get her to stop.

  In desperation, I resumed an encore chorus of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer,” but it only made her screech all the more. I finally gave up. So did Corrie. We turned out the kitchen lights with Gigi still flailing and vocalizing.

  “I hope she doesn’t hurt herself,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Corrie agreed. “I’ll be here a little longer, so I’ll check on her.”

  I was glad Corrie hadn’t stayed so long last night, or maybe Ezra would have had company in extinction. Unless Corrie … Nah, why would she have killed her boss? Because he’d brought her to the Yurick firm?

  Or—

  My cell phone rang. I’d just climbed into the Beamer beside an excited Lexie. I noted the number on caller ID: Jeff’s.

  “Hi,” I said. We hadn’t spoken much that day, although I’d called first thing to inform him about Ezra.

  “Hi,” he repeated. If I could read his mood behind that one quiet word, I’d have said he sounded exhausted. He soon confirmed my calculated guess—and the reason behind it. “It’s been a hell of a day, Kendra. I’ve spent most of it in the new building at one of my old haunts—the West Valley Station.” Jeff had been an L.A.P.D. cop before he became a P.I. Long story, but it had involved a game of one-upsmanship with his former friend and current foe—who just happened to be on my list of least favorite people, too: Detective Ned Noralles. Jeff had won the game but his victory had resulted in his resignation from the force and commencement of his successful career as a private investigator.

  “Why were you there?” I asked, shivering a smidgen as I anticipated his answer.

  “Being interrogated by the lead detective on the case, Candace Schwinglan, a pleasure I owe to her temporary volunteer assistant from a fellow Valley Bureau station, Ned Noralles.” His tone suggested he’d ingested something extremely distasteful—like crow. “He heard about my argument with Ezra—and he made it clear to Schwinglan that I’m number one on his suspect list.”

  Chapter Seven

  OKAY, SO I’M a big softy. Or perhaps my sex drive was stuck in overdrive. Regardless of the rationale, Lexie and I spent the night at Jeff’s. And not in his guest room. His bed is much cozier. So are his arms. And the rest of his body? Well, he certainly knows how to use each and every erogenous part.

  And I tactfully kept to myself my interminable testiness about his ex-wife Amanda’s intrusions into his life.

  Not that Jeff and I indulged only in fun and games. The next morning, after our habitual hound walk with Lexie and Odin, we dissected all we knew about Ezra’s murder over our usual breakfast of eggs and toast.

  “I’ve already started my list of suspects,” I said as we sat at the round wooden table in his small, functional kitchen. Jeff knew my penchant for producing lists. I hand-wrote a copy for him, and he vowed to have his chief computer geek Althea check out each person in his P.I. firm’s boundless databases. I’d included Jonathon Jetts, the vocal people at the VORPO meeting the night Ezra was snuffed, and even Elaine Aames and Corrie Montez, who’d known him prior to working for Borden.

  “What about Borden himself?” Jeff asked. When Lexie and I showed up at his doorstep last night, he had looked as spent as he’d sounded, his blue eyes bleary, his six-foot-tall body bent a bit in dejection. This morning, though he’d not gotten a lot of sleep, he appeared more optimistic. Hopefully, I had something to do with that.

  “Include Borden if you want,” I said, “but we know a lot of what Althea’s likely to find on him anyway. He’s a prior partner at my old firm Marden, Sergement & Yurick. His supposed mental breakdown was manufactured by unforgiving former partners to explain his defection from what they considered the perfect law firm. But if she can find anything about prior connections between Borden and Ezra, she might as well try. Although Borden’s enough of a sweetie that I can’t imagine him offing Ezra. Especially when the guy was in some ways saving our overstaffed firm, or at least some of the staff”—mostly me—“by boosting the client base. There’s no guarantee the new clients will hang around now that Ezra’s gone.”

  “Any other ideas?” Jeff asked.

  “If I had any, they’d be on my list. But it’s absolutely expandable, and I intend to keep eyes and ears open.” And to ask lots of questions of anyone likely to have answers. And as a litigator, I was one hell of an interrogator.

  One thing I’d resolved not to reveal to Jeff was Darryl’s theory that the macaw might hold a clue to the murder. Although his suggestion might work well in fiction, it was implausible in real life. Of course, if Gigi happened to drop a clue, along with whatever else she dropped in her portable cage …

  I glanced at my watch. “Time for me to go.” I stood, and so did Lexie. “I have pet clients waiting.” Not to mention people clients who’d need my legal skills later at the law office.

  “Will you be back tonight?” Jeff asked. For a big, strong guy who was almost always supremely self-assured, he sounded a smidgen plaintive. Poor P.I. Being a murder suspect did awful things to the ego. As I well knew.

  “That depends,” I said, not committing to another delightful night despite my hormones hounding me to shout, “Hell, yes!”

  “On what?” he asked.

  “On Lexie.” I looked at the Cavalier in question. “Want to hang around to keep Odin company?” Her response was to wag her tail and wriggle in glee. Of course it was a loaded question. My enthusiastic Lexie acted equally excited about each iota of attention I administered to her.

  Still, using my beloved Cavalier as a convenient excuse to come by later didn’t necessarily mean we’d stay the night.

  I bent and hugged the pups adieu, then turned and gave Jeff a hug, too, followed by a heck of a kiss to remember me by for the rest of the day.

  Then I left to start pet-sitting rounds.

  THE YURICK & ASSOCIATES offices were as hushed as a ghostly graveyard when I arrived a while later—a too-apt analogy, I thought with a sigh. When Mignon whispered a greeting as I entered, I realized the silence was so noticeable because our resident macaw was uncharacteristically quiet.

  “Is Gigi okay?” I said softly to the young receptionist. Elaine had alleged that no one in Ezra’s family wanted anything to do with him alive, but I suddenly wondered if an heir had appeared and absconded with his pet.

  “Kind of,” Mignon said, “but she’s gnawing on her cage and snapping at everyone who enters the kitchen for coffee.”

  I ventured that direction for my own caffeine fix—also an excuse to check on the mad macaw. Gigi was indeed silent, but I was graced with the sight of her attempting to spring herself from her cage by breaking it apart with her beak.

  “If you stay calm,” I told her, “I’ll see how soon we can put you on your perch in Ezra’s office, okay?”

  She stopped only long enough to stare at me for an instant before returning to her thankless task.

  As I passed Ezra’s office, I noticed that the yellow crime-scene tape was gone. “Are the cops already done in here?” I inquired of Corrie, who, file-laden as usual, edged into the office door.

  “Yes, they said it was okay to start cleaning the room. They even recommended a crime-scene cleaning company. Of course, they haven’t given back any files they confiscated. Borden said he’s going to talk to you about getting a court order to get them returned, on grounds of attorney-client privilege.”

  “Can I get you to research the issue?”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed.

  I went to see Borden after putting my purse into a desk drawer in my office. “It’s going to be a hell of a day, Kendra,” he said after greeting me. He looked tired as he peered blearily over his bifocals. “Not as bad as yesterday, of course. But we need to get the client files the cops took returned as fast as possible.”

  I assured him I’d spoke
n with Corrie about it and that she’d start the research.

  “Then there’s that whole T.O. fiasco. I need for you to speak with Brian O’Barlen and find out his schedule. Then contact that attorney for VORPO—what was his name?”

  “Michael Kleer,” I said. “Both those calls are on top of my to-do list for today. I’ll set up a meeting to learn what VORPO really wants. We’ll see if there’s any common ground around that Vancino property to avoid litigation over T.O.’s proposed development.”

  “I knew I could count on you, Kendra,” Borden said with an optimistic smile almost lighting up his sad, skinny face.

  I only hoped his tune wouldn’t degenerate into a critical dirge as the day wore on.

  MY PHONE WAS ringing as I reached my office. “This is Kendra Ballantyne,” I answered in my formal lawyerly voice.

  “Michael Kleer,” responded the male voice at the other end. Ah! VORPO’s attorney. This would save me from making the topmost call on my to-do list.

  “First, let me extend my condolences and those of my client on the passing of Mr. Cossner,” Kleer continued somberly. “That said”—his tone shed its sympathy—“we want to discuss the issues raised at last night’s VORPO meeting as soon as possible. Since you were present, can I assume you’ll take the lead as T.O’s legal counsel regarding its proposed development in Vancino?” He emphasized the word “proposed,” verifying—as if he needed to—that VORPO was dead set against it.

  Hmmm … another exceedingly appropriate phrase. Was someone in VORPO so dead set against the development that he or she had been willing to render Ezra dead in an attempt to preclude it? If so, it might have been better to eliminate O’Barlen—not that I wished such a miserable fate on the man.

  “I’ll need to verify with our client that my handling of the matter is acceptable,” I replied to Kleer in my stilted professional tone, crafting my customary notes on a yellow legal pad as I spoke. “As far as this firm is concerned, though, my involvement has been confirmed.”