Dead Canaries Don't Sing

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Bad stuff?” I interrupted eagerly. “What kind of bad stuff?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me that part. What she did tell me was that Tommee was about to turn state’s evidence. She said he expected her to stand by him, but she had no intention of doing that.”

  I had to struggle to keep from reacting.

  Claudia didn’t seem to notice. “The weird part— and this is so typical of her—is that I got the feeling she didn’t really care that he’d been involved in something shady. From the way she talked, I got the impression she’d known about it all along.

  “What she was upset about was the fact that he was going to stop. He said he was gonna clean up his act, and that meant party time was over. The fancy cars, the wedding with the caviar and the movie stars, the trips to exotic places and everything else she thought she was getting . . . it was over, all of it.”

  She laughed coldly. “If there was ever any doubt about whether she loved the guy or was after his dough, the things she said to me that day totally clinched it in my mind.”

  “So Tommee’s decision to turn over a new leaf put an end to Barbara’s idea of living happily ever after, with nothing to worry about ever again,” I mused.

  “When you said she was upset,” Nick asked, “what exactly did you mean? Depressed? Sad? Hurt?”

  “More like angry. Yeah, furious, even. She acted as if she’d been cheated out of something, something she was completely entitled to. She kept talking about how he’d humiliated her. Here everybody thought they were getting married, all these important people were expecting to come to the wedding, and bam, he ruins the whole thing by deciding to testify against the people who’d made him rich in the first place.”

  Claudia bit her lip. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, was Barbara mad enough at Tommee for screwing up her chance for a good life to kill him?”

  Neither Nick nor I said a word. Instead, we stood in silence, grimly contemplating the very question that Claudia had just put forth.

  “This—this is the really hard part.” Even though she spoke softly, I could hear the shakiness in her voice. “The last thing she said to me before she left was, ‘I’m gonna kill him for what he did to me.’ And then, like five days later, I read in the paper that he’d been murdered.”

  Nick and I looked at each other. I felt a sort of relief. But at the same time, I was overcome with a terrible sadness.

  “Thank you, Claudia.” I said it sincerely. “What you told us is extremely important. It was very brave of you to be so honest.”

  The heavy mood was shattered as a meticulously gelled head appeared in the doorway.

  “Hey, Peaches!” my pal Paul barked. “I don’t pay you to sit around all night yakking. Don’t you have a show to put on?”

  Claudia smiled apologetically. “The glamour of a life in the theater . . .”

  “Hey! Ya got five minutes!”

  He was gone as quickly as he’d appeared. “Thanks for your time, Claudia,” I told her. “And thanks again for being so honest.”

  “Hey, whatever happens, I hope they’re not too hard on Barbara. Sure, she used this poor guy, but it’s not like he was born yesterday. Seems to me he got exactly the kind of woman he was looking for. I’m not saying she was right to react the way she did when she found out he decided to come clean. But when you come right down to it, Barb was only looking for a way out of a life like mine.”

  Claudia dragged herself off the stool, then crouched down in front of the glass tank. As she unhooked the wire netting that served as a cover, she said wearily, “Come on, Clarence. Time to go to work.”

  “So what do you think?” Nick asked as we drove away.

  “I think we’ve found ourselves a murderer.”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  I watched the blinking red silhouette from the Silk ’N’ Satin fade from view in my side mirror before saying, “What happens now?”

  “I’ll give Harned a call tomorrow. That is, if you don’t mind me taking over.”

  “Be my guest. I don’t care in the least.”

  I meant it. Nick had been right. Back at the beginning, he’d warned me that this was a dirty business. I’d had enough of murder investigations. There was nothing glamorous or exciting about putting yourself in the middle of a horrible crime. All it did was expose you to the ugliest sides of human nature.

  I felt a guilty rush of joy over the fact that I’d chosen to spend my life primarily in the company of animals, even if most of them did have the bad judgment to cohabitate with humans.

  Yet unanswered questions still lurked at the back of my mind. Barbara had been furious with Tommee because he was about to change his lifestyle. But what had that lifestyle been? It had undoubtedly included some wheeling and dealing, which dovetailed nicely with his exceptional talent for wheedling his way into people’s good graces. But didn’t the fact that he claimed he was about to turn state’s evidence imply that whatever Tommee’s modus operandi was, it wasn’t simply “business as usual,” as Jimmy had suggested?

  I was too burned out to care. As far as I was concerned, this case was closed.

  When Nick pulled up in front of my cottage, he put the car into park but kept the engine running.

  “Do you want to come in?” I tried my best to sound casual. “I could make coffee. Or we could open a bottle of wine. You know, to celebrate.”

  “I should get going. It’s late.”

  “Right. Besides, you must have other things to do.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Look, Jess. Maybe it’s time for—”

  “I hear the dogs. You should probably go.”

  He turned to face me. It was too dark to be sure, but I felt certain his expression registered disappointment. “Whatever you want, Jess.”

  Watching him drive away, I realized that him leaving was the very last thing in the world I wanted. It wouldn’t even have been correct to simply say I wanted him to stay. I longed for him to stay. Part of me wanted Nick to turn his car around and jump out and take me in his arms, sweeping me off my feet as if he were the hero in some trashy romance novel. . . .

  The increasingly frenzied sound of Max’s and Lou’s barks snapped me back to reality.

  “Get a grip, girl,” I muttered.

  I stomped to my front door and stuck the key in the lock.

  I noticed immediately that it turned much too easily.

  Did I leave the house open? I wondered. Was I that distracted over the idea of confronting Claudia Martin about her friend Barbara Delmonico again?

  But it was the sound of a plaintive meow that made my blood run cold.

  “Cat?” I looked down and saw her ambling around the side of the cottage, her body tensed against what I suspected was nearly excruciating pain.

  Cat was outside. Yet I never let Cat outside.

  “What’s going on, Cat?” I asked, scooping her up and cradling her in my arms. “What are you doing out here? Something’s very wrong.”

  I hesitated before stepping inside and switching on a light. The moment I did, my two dogs plunged into their usual Return of the Long Lost Master routine. As reassuring as their behavior was, I still sensed that the cottage felt different.

  My heart was pounding so hard I suspected the feline in my arms could feel it. I glanced around wildly, searching for more signs that something was amiss. I sniffed the air like one of my animals, certain I detected a subtle smell that was out of the ordinary. My eyes were immediately drawn to smudge on the rag rug in front of the door, an irregular, dark half-circle that looked like it had been left by a shoe—one much larger than mine.

  Somebody had been inside my home.

  “Come here, Maxie-Max. Hey, Louie-Lou.” My voice sounded edgy as I crouched down to canine level. “Did you have company while I was away? Some guy in a ski mask, maybe? Carrying a big bag over his shoulder?”

  If they knew anything, they weren’t telling. Max was leaping up and down as if he were
spring-loaded, stopping only to grab his hot pink plastic poodle in case anybody was up for a game of Slimytoy. Lou stood a few feet away, barking. Neither of them let on that anything out of the ordinary had happened in my absence. Even Prometheus had nothing to say, for a change.

  “You could all throw a wild party while I was out and none of you would ever let on, would you?” I said, sighing with frustration.

  I was suddenly struck by a chilling realization: that whoever had broken in might still be here.

  I began walking around the house, taking slow, silent steps. Cat was still in my arms and my dogs were at my side. In fact, I’d begun thinking of Max and Lou as my bodyguards. I peered around corners and opened closet doors cautiously, the sound of my own adrenaline-infused blood reverberating in my head as I tried to brace myself for the possibility of coming face to face with an intruder.

  “Awk! Damn you, damn you!” Prometheus screeched from the living room, sending me jumping into the air at least ten feet. “Damn you! Awk!”

  “Same to you,” I muttered.

  As I checked each room, I became more confident that whoever had been here was gone. I surveyed my possessions, anxious to discover if anything was missing. Lou pranced beside me eagerly, probably wondering why it was taking me so long to suggest a romp out back. Max kept slapping my leg with the pink rubber poodle dangling from his jaws.

  “I can’t play with you guys right now,” I told them distractedly. “But I’m sure glad you’re here.”

  I began with my jewelry box. Not exactly the Crown Jewels, but an obvious target for an interloper. I braced myself for something frightening—maybe along the lines of another canary feather. Instead, I found everything in place: the string of pearls I’d gotten for my sixteenth birthday and had yet to wear, the tiny diamond earrings my mother had given me when I graduated from college, even the emerald stick pin that had belonged to my grandmother.

  Next I tried my top drawer. My heart was pounding as I pulled it open. The envelope was right where I’d left it, and the delicate yellow feather was still tucked inside. Nothing else appeared to have been moved, either. My practical one hundred percent cotton underwear was still neatly folded, and the panty-hose I kept around for times I was expected to dress like a grown-up were exactly where I’d left them. Even my pitiful cash stash lay untouched.

  Next, I looked in the kitchen cabinets and even the refrigerator. Nothing appeared to have been taken . . . and nothing new had been added.

  But wasn’t the clock near my bed closer to the edge than I was likely to put it? And the drawers weren’t all completely closed. The upholstered chair in the living room was placed at a strange angle, as if someone had bumped into it. Minor things, the kind I never would have noticed if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’d found Cat outside.

  I had to dial the cell phone number three times before I could get my fingers to work right.

  “Come on, answer,” I growled. “Please, just pick up—Nick? It’s me.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think somebody broke in while we were out this evening.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “I don’t know if that’s necessary. I just—”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  I waited impatiently for him to return. The fact that I had four eyewitnesses in front of me only added to my frustration.

  “Come on, guys,” I pleaded. “Who was here? Was it a man? A woman? What’d they do? What’d they take?”

  All I got was woeful looks, wagging tails, and another invitation to play tug of war with Lou’s decrepit tennis ball.

  I didn’t have to ask Nick any of those questions. I could tell by his worried look that he’d asked them himself as soon as he got my call.

  “What’s missing?” he demanded above Lou’s greeting. “Jewelry? Cash?”

  “That’s what’s so weird, Nick. All my jewelry is still here. It hasn’t even been touched.” I paused to scoop up Max, who kept dropping the pink poodle at Nick’s feet and crouching expectantly, his tail in high gear and his eyes bright with anticipation. “And remember how I always keep a few twenties in my top drawer, just in case? They’re still there, too.”

  “Did you check around? Are you sure there’s no one here now?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he stormed through the cottage, checking the closets, pulling back the shower curtain, even peering under the bed.

  “Whoever it was is gone,” he finally reported. “So tell me how you know someone broke in.”

  I took a deep breath. “After you dropped me off, I found Cat outside.”

  Nick just stared at me, acting as if I’d just informed him I’d been abducted by aliens.

  “That’s it? That’s the reason you think you’ve been burglarized?”

  “I didn’t say I’d been burglarized! At least, not that I know of. But somebody’s been in here, Nick!”

  “Because your cat was outside,” he repeated drily.

  “Cat never goes outside! You know that! She’s strictly an indoor cat. Her arthritis is so bad that there’s no way she could ever defend herself—not even against a chipmunk!”

  “Maybe she got out on her own,” Nick argued. “Like through an open window.”

  “Do you really think I leave windows open in November?” I countered, totally exasperated. “It’s hard enough to keep this place heated! I’m telling you, Nick, the only way Cat could have gotten out is if somebody opened the door!”

  I sensed that he was still skeptical. His attitude only fueled my fury—and convinced me even further that I was right.

  “There’s more,” I continued. “Like I’m ninety-nine percent sure the front door was unlocked. I never leave it unlocked, no matter how much of a hurry I’m in. Then there’s a bunch of little things. The clock in the bedroom is moved, a chair is in a slightly different spot, there’s a footprint here on the carpet—”

  “That doesn’t look like a footprint. It looks like dirt.”

  “It is dirt, but the point is that it wasn’t there before! At least, I don’t think it was. Look, whoever was in here tried awfully hard to hide it.”

  I bit my lip. “I think there’s something else you should know.”

  Nick didn’t react as I told him about the canary feather someone had left on my windshield. But when I finished, he pulled off his jacket, then sat down on the couch and started taking off his shoes.

  Alarms went off in my head. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m staying here tonight. Don’t worry. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  I put Max down and halfheartedly tossed the pink poodle across the room. “Don’t you think that’s a little . . . dramatic?”

  “I promised Betty I’d do whatever was necessary to keep you safe.”

  “You can’t just move in here and sleep on my couch every night!”

  “It’s just for tonight. Maybe by tomorrow we’ll know more than we know right now, and I’ll feel better about leaving you alone. But for now, I’m not budging.”

  I was still trying to come up with a better argument when he stretched across the couch. Folding his arms behind his head, he commented, “Not bad. I’ll be comfortable here.”

  Something about seeing Nick Burby lying on my couch, looking like—well, looking like he belonged there, set me off.

  “That’s a relief,” I said crisply. “Especially since you barged in here, deciding you’d stay over without even asking me—”

  “First of all, I didn’t barge in here. You invited me, remember? In fact, you called me on my cell phone when I was already halfway home and dragged me back here.”

  “I didn’t drag you anywhere! I just—”

  “Second of all, I made a promise. And I try to keep my promises whenever possible.” He wiggled his hips, snuggling down into the upholstery. “Got any Zeppelin CD’s?”

  “No. You got them all, remember? I got James Taylor and U2.”

  “How about a blanket?” />
  “Would you like me to make you some warm milk, too?”

  “No, but thanks. That’s very thoughtful. You don’t mind if I watch TV, do you?”

  Max returned with the poodle, trying to entice me into another round by dropping the slimy toy on my foot. “Nick, it’s kind of late and I’ve had a rotten day. I’m beat. I’m going to read a while, then go to sleep.”

  “I’ll keep it down. I know you like it quiet when you’re trying to sleep.”

  I threw up my hands. “Be my guest.”

  Seething, I retreated to my bedroom. Cat abandoned me, choosing to doze on Nick’s chest instead of mine. But Max jumped onto the bed, bringing along a gnarled piece of rawhide that he chomped noisily. Lou stretched out next to him, as usual taking up three-quarters of the bed. At least they stuck by me. When it came to loyalty, there was nothing like the other members of your pack.

  “I have to leave the door open,” I called to Nick. “Otherwise, all the heat—what there is of it—will stay in the living room and I’ll freeze.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  As I lay in bed, I could hear the television next door. Every once in a while, Nick laughed or cleared his throat or moved around, causing the couch to creak.

  I had to admit, it felt kind of nice, having somebody in the next room.

  Having Nick in the next room.

  I pulled the pillow over my head.

  I was wondering whether I would fall asleep that way or suffocate when I heard a soft knock on the door frame.

  “Jessie?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Are you still awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  “What?”

  A long pause followed. “Is it okay if I take a shower?”

  “Sure.”

  “The noise won’t bother you? Or the light?”

  I noticed he didn’t ask me if having him parade around my home practically naked would bother me. I lay on my side, watching Nick walk back and forth between the living room and the bathroom in nothing but a towel.

  Damn, I thought furiously. He’s doing this on purpose.