Dead Canaries Don't Sing

by Cynthia Baxter

  “No, he just liked to be around people who had distinguished themselves in some way,” she said happily. “Like in high school? After a football game, he’d always make a point of sneaking into the locker room so he could hang out with the winning team. If our team lost, he’d go out partying with the guys from our school’s rival. After a school play, he’d wangle his way into the cast party, even though he’d had nothing to do with putting on the production.”

  “Sounds like he was kind of a hanger-on. Didn’t the other kids find that annoying?”

  “Are you kidding? They loved it! Tommee was always fawning all over them, telling them how great they were. In fact, that’s how he got started in the public relations business.”

  “Really? How fascinating!” Nancy Drew herself couldn’t have done better.

  “When we were still in high school—I think he was, like, a junior—Tommee started getting kids’ names in the local paper. Like if somebody won some poetry award or scored the winning point in a basketball game, Tommee would offer to call the newspaper and get some reporter to come over and take their picture. He was really good at it. He could talk anybody into anything.”

  “Did these kids pay him?”

  “He didn’t expect to be paid. All he wanted was their gratitude—and a way of being close to them. Here, let me show you. Take a look at our yearbook.”

  Proudly she held up the blue and white cover for me to see. It was embossed with the name, The Caumsett Commemorative.

  “You can practically open to any page and you’ll see Tommee standing next to some kid who’d just done something special.”

  To demonstrate, she flipped the book open. Sure enough: There was a photograph of the varsity soccer team carousing after a victory. Tommee—looking younger and thinner—hovered in the background, wearing a pleased expression.

  “This is the Debating Team, the time they won the Norfolk County Championship.” Six serious-looking students posed in front of lockers, standing at attention for the camera. Lurking a few feet behind was Tommee.

  Frankly, I found the whole thing kind of creepy. But Merrilee had that starry look in her eyes again. “He was so terrific with people. Tommee really had a special, special talent. And it took him exactly where he wanted to go.”

  I jumped as she slammed the book shut. “I still can’t believe he didn’t want to take me with him.” Her voice had become hard.

  After a few seconds, I broke the heavy silence that had fallen over the room. “It sounds like you’ve never gotten over him,” I said gently.

  Staring straight ahead, as if she’d forgotten I was in the room, Merrilee said, “To this day I believe I’m the only person who ever truly loved him.”

  My heart was pounding. I knew I was treading in dangerous territory, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “It must have been extremely hard, then, seeing him with other women.” I spoke softly and slowly, the way I talk to animals who are behaving erratically because they’ve been abused. “When you heard he was going to marry Barbara Delmonico—”

  “That bimbo!” Merrilee snarled. “She was only after his money. I mean, did you get a look at her? Showing up at his funeral dressed like some hooker, dragging that stupid dog along with her . . . She never loved Tommee. It was the money she loved!”

  Her shoulders slumped. “You know, I always thought he’d come back to me. Even after all this time, I never stopped believing that one of these days, he’d come to his senses and realize that all those other women were just a waste of time. That I’m the one who truly loves him.”

  I put my arm around her. I always seemed to be doing that. “I wish I’d had a chance to know him better.”

  She shook her head, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “If you really want to know about Tommee, talk to the people who knew him as a businessman,” she said angrily. “His job was his life. In the end, that was what he really cared about.”

  “I’m sorry to be asking you all these questions. I can see it’s difficult for you to talk about him. Besides, I’m sure the police have bothered you enough.”

  “The police? They haven’t been around. Although now that you mention it, you’d think they’d be a little more anxious to find out who killed my husband. He certainly knocked himself out for the Norfolk PBA, getting good press for the cops, working his butt off day and night—”

  “You know,” I interrupted, “I think we’re both ready for that coffee now. Would you like me to help?”

  “I can manage.” She swiped at her face, smearing her makeup once again.

  I followed a few paces behind, sensing she needed a chance to pull herself together. As we neared her kitchen, I braced myself for more domestic cuteness, something along the lines of checked curtains or maybe a rooster theme. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw hanging in the kitchen window.

  A birdcage. With three canaries.

  “Yes, more pets,” Merrilee said, in response to my involuntary gasp. “Tommee and I got those before we got Dobie and Maynard. We decided to start small. You know, to practice being pet owners?”

  I swallowed. “So you went out and bought three canaries?”

  “Six. We started with six.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Oh, you know how it is with birds. They’re always dying.”

  She sighed, her eyes glazing over as she stared at the trio of bright yellow birds, bobbing and chirping in their prison.

  “It’s funny,” she said, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. “I can’t look at them without thinking of Tommee. I remember the day we got them like it was yesterday. We were so happy, and the birds were so pretty . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. That heavy silence hovered in the room again for a few seconds.

  And then she turned to face me, forcing a smile. “How do you take your coffee? Milk or sugar or both?”

  My brain was swimming with caffeine and suspicion as I made my way back down Merrilee’s driveway. Knowing that I might have just sat at a coldhearted killer’s kitchen table, discussing the merits of the Home and Garden channel and commiserating about how bad Long Island’s traffic was getting, left me with a dazed feeling I expected would stick with me for a very long time.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Hell-o-o-o!”

  I glanced up and saw a woman in a pair of turquoise sweats and a faded yellow Bon Jovi T-shirt rushing toward me from the house next door. Despite her casual outfit, her hair looked as if it had just baked in a dryer for an hour after being wrapped tightly around plastic rollers. Given the airy bubble on top and the swirls on both cheeks that looked dangerously like spit curls, I wondered if Frenchie from Grease was her hairdresser.

  Cradled in her arms was a fat orange cat. Even though he looked as if the color of his fur had come from the same bottle as her hair, I suspected his was natural. Not only did the animal look like Garfield; his body language communicated the fact that he also shared the cartoon cat’s point of view: this feline clearly ruled the world.

  The woman was out of breath by the time she reached me. Up close, I saw that the arched eyebrows that made her look continually surprised were simply drawn on. Her pussycat, meanwhile, had a look on his face that clearly indicated he didn’t exactly relish being treated like a baton in a relay race.

  “I don’t have an appointment,” she said in a gravelly voice that told me cigarettes constituted one of her four basic food groups, “but d’ya think ya could look at my cat anyway?”

  This kind of thing happens to me a lot. People see my van parked outside someone’s house and assume that the kind of mobile services I offer are just like the ice-cream man’s.

  I rarely have the heart to turn anyone away, even when I have another appointment to rush off to. Today, given the fact that I was still trying to comprehend what made Merrilee Frack tick, how could I help pouncing on the opportunity to talk to one of her neighbors?

  “Sure,” I told her. “I’m Dr. Popper.”

 
“Joan Devlin. And this here is Caesar.”

  I learned long ago not to ask for the stories behind the names. In most cases, the explanation takes longer than the examination.

  Instead, I reached over and fondled Caesar’s ears. “What’s the matter, fellah? Not feeling so hot?”

  His owner answered for him. They always do.

  “It’s his ear. He keeps scratchin’ at it. And it’s got this yellowish goo coming out of it. I think maybe he’s got an infection or something.”

  “Poor guy! We’ll have to take care of that right away. Come on, Caesar. Let’s have a look.”

  Inside the van, I stroked Caesar’s back to let him know I was trying to help. I put him on the examining table, then handed Joan a clipboard with an information form to fill out. She started writing, but glanced up every few seconds to watch as I took out my otoscope and examined her cat’s ear.

  “You’re okay, Caesar. No one’s going to hurt you . . . Any changes in eating or drinking habits?” I asked. “Any vomiting or diarrhea? Coughing or sneezing?”

  “No, he’s been fine, except for the ear thing.” Anxiously, she added, “Y’see anything in there?”

  “His eardrum is intact. That’s good. Now I’ll just take a sample of this discharge and put it under the scope . . . There you go, Caesar. You’re a real trouper.”

  As I peered through my microscope, Joan said in an oddly casual tone, “I noticed ya just came out of Merrilee’s house.”

  So I wasn’t the only one who was incurably nosy. “That’s right.”

  “Everything okay in there?”

  “Oh, sure. The dogs are both fine. They just need a little time to—”

  “I wasn’t talking about the dogs. I meant Merrilee.”

  Her bluntness caught me off-guard. “I guess you heard about her ex-husband?”

  “Sure. The whole neighborhood’s talking about it.”

  “Everyone must be pretty upset.”

  “Upset?” She sounded surprised.

  “Wait. We’re talking about Tommee Frack, right? And the fact that he, um, recently passed away—”

  “You mean the fact that he was murdered.” Joan shrugged. “Sure, it’s a shock. I mean, it’s kind of weird, seeing the face of the guy ya lived next door to for years plastered all over the front page of Newsday . But to tell you the truth, nobody around here is exactly cryin’ their eyes out.”

  Even though I was still absorbed in peering down a microscope, my posture must have registered my astonishment.

  “Look,” she went on, “I know the newspapers and the TV coverage are full of what a great guy Tommee Frack was. Successful businessman, entrepreneur, friend of the community, blah, blah, blah. But everybody in this neighborhood knew the guy for years. And we could see for ourselves what the bastard did to poor Merrilee.”

  “I thought Merrilee adored him.”

  “Oh, she did! That was the problem. She was much too forgiving about the way he carried on.”

  “What do you mean, ‘carried on’? What was he doing?”

  She laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made it clear that what she was about to say wasn’t the least bit funny. “You kiddin’? Even when Tommee and Merrilee were still married, the guy had more women than Hugh Hefner. Hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean, just look at him. You’ve seen his picture, right?”

  I’d seen more than that, but I didn’t feel like pointing out that I had been the one to find what was left of the PR mogul moldering in the woods.

  “Looks aren’t everything,” I pointed out. “From what I’ve heard, he could be incredibly charming.”

  “Charming? That’s a laugh! He was the biggest oaf you’ve ever met! I mean, sure, there was kind of a sweet quality to the guy. But he was basically the most socially awkward person you can imagine. You just knew, when you met him, that he’d been the school nerd. Y’know, the fat kid who never got picked for teams or invited to parties.”

  I thought of the Who’s Who I’d seen on Merrilee’s wall, along with Joan’s insistence that Tommee was busily tom-catting around Centerview, and was more puzzled than ever. “Then why did women find him so attractive?”

  “Three guesses.” Joan rolled her eyes. “Look, the guy liked to spend money on the ladies. He was no dummy. He knew what it took, that there’s a certain kind of woman who’ll hang out with a guy just because he’s loaded. He was always buyin’ them gifts, takin’ ’em out to the fanciest restaurants in the city, even on weekend trips. Anything to get laid.”

  “Maybe this was late in the marriage?” I suggested. “After things had already started falling apart for him and Merrilee?”

  Joan shook her head. “It was no secret that Tommee was runnin’ around almost from the time him and Merrilee first got married. In fact, it wasn’t long after they bought the house that Eddie and me started noticing the hours he kept. Eddie was workin’ really late in those days, moonlightin’ as a bartender. We’d just bought our house, and we were a little strapped . . . Anyway, Eddie would come home at three, four in the morning. Even if I wasn’t actually waitin’ up for him, I found it hard to fall asleep until he came home, y’know? So I’d sit in the living room with the TV on, which also gave me a first-rate view of the Fracks’ driveway.”

  “And Tommee was a night owl?”

  “That’s an understatement! It got so Eddie and me used to kid around about who’d come in later the night before, him or Tommee.”

  “It’s possible that Tommee was working late, though, isn’t it?”

  “Hah! You obviously never heard the screamin’ matches him and Merrilee used to have.”

  It was difficult to picture Merrilee screaming at anyone, much less the man she adored.

  “You mean she would accuse him of seeing other women?”

  “More like he’d rub her face in it. I remember him yelling stuff like, ‘You push me into the arms of other women because of the sloppy way you keep the house.’ Or he was always tellin’ her she was too fat. Like he was one to talk!”

  She shook her head angrily. “He was really some piece of work, that guy. Everybody in the neighborhood knew what was goin’ on. And the day after one of these big blowout fights at three o’clock in the morning, you’d see Merrilee out by herself, her eyes all red as she walked those two dogs. And they were his dogs, too. Completely devoted to him. But she was the one who walked them every morning and every night, carryin’ that stupid pooper-scooper thing around.”

  “I guess poor Merrilee had a lot to be angry about.” I didn’t mean it as a leading statement; I was just thinking out loud.

  “Ya’d think so. Instead, she worshipped him. You saw the inside of her house, didn’t you? She’s got so many pictures of him all over the place you’d think they were still married. Happily married, which of course they never really were.”

  As I pulled off my rubber gloves, she finally refocused on Caesar. “So how’s my little putty-tat?”

  “Caesar’s fine,” I told her. “It’s just a simple bacterial infection. I’ll give you an ear cleanser that’ll get rid of it. But keep an eye on him. If he keeps getting ear infections, he might need blood work or X-rays to figure out why. He might even need surgery.”

  I gave Joan a quick lesson in the delicate art of putting medicine inside a cat’s ear, showing her how to massage it to spread around the liquid.

  “Then clean his ears with some mineral oil,” I instructed her as I demonstrated. “Just soak a cotton ball in it, clean the outside of the ear canal and the inside of his ear like this . . .”

  “He doesn’t like it.” Joan bit her lip.

  “Cats never do. I have a feeling most people wouldn’t be crazy about having something cold running into their ear, either.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she admitted reluctantly, still wearing a pained expression.

  “There. We’re done.” Stroking the car’s soft fur, I added, “You were a great patient, Caesar. A real credit to your namesake.” I handed him back
to Joan. I don’t know which of them looked more relieved.

  After we settled the bill, Joan took a business card, informing me that I was now officially Caesar Devlin’s veterinarian. Then she nuzzled her cat’s furry little face, cooing, “Come on, Caesar. Let’s go home. You’ve had a very tryin’ day.”

  Once I was alone again, I sat down in the driver’s seat and made notes in the chart I’d just created for Caesar. Then I pulled out the spiral notebook I used to keep track of details like how many miles I drove each day and the cost of the fast-food lunches I grabbed on the way to calls in remote places. When you run your own business, every tax deduction counts.

  But my trusty little log book was about to take on an additional role. I suddenly found myself swamped with information about the life, loves, and business dealings of Tommee Frack, and I needed a way to organize all of it. I realized that keeping track of what I learned, when I learned it, who I learned it from, and what the implications might be was of critical importance in putting together the pieces of this puzzle.

  I realized something else, too. Although I was making some progress and already starting to develop a few theories of my own, I needed help.

  From a professional.

  Chapter 5

  “Romance, like the rabbit at the dog track, is the elusive, fake, and never attained reward which, for the benefit and amusement of our masters, keeps us running and thinking in safe circles.”

  —Beverly Jones

  As I drove away from Merrilee’s house, a black Jeep that had been parked halfway down the street during my visit began to move. I slowed, waiting for it to go ahead. Instead, it stopped to let me leave the cul-de-sac first.

  I waved a thank you, surprised by what struck me as an unusually considerate act. Long Island drivers aren’t exactly known for their politeness. But as I drove by, I saw that the driver had turned his face away.

  I headed toward Port Townsend, my mind clicking away, plotting a strategy. Merrilee had suggested talking to people who knew Tommee from his public relations business. I agreed with her off-handed comment: chatting with them was an excellent way of getting to know the dead man better. As for coming up with a reason for them to talk to me, that was a trifle more complicated. But I had some ideas about that, too.