Parrots Prove Deadly

by Clea Simon

  “Understood,” I let him off, as Wallis flopped on her side. “Now, are you going to eat that, or let it get cold?”

  A half hour later, we’d finished most of the pie, and I’d filled my guest in on my unusual new client. Since he was here, I shared some of my suspicions, too. “Something’s wrong with that family,” I’d concluded. “Something besides grief.”

  That was when Wallis had broken in: “A bird. What’s next? A dung beetle?”

  It was her tone as much as the words, and I’d had to catch myself before responding out loud. To Creighton—to anyone really—she probably appeared to be just another dumb animal, grooming her neat tiger-striped fur after a special treat of cheese. I knew better.

  I also knew that Creighton had some suspicions about me, about my gift. He’d picked up enough—and given me some funny looks. I didn’t want to go there. Instead, I pressed my point. “I think something happened with the old lady. Something besides an accident.”

  “Haven’t you had enough of murder?” His voice was soft. The look I gave him wasn’t. I’d been involved with some bad types recently. It wasn’t an experience I’d choose to repeat.

  “I know you’re busy, Jim.” I held his gaze. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I just wanted to—” I paused. What did I want? “I wanted to talk this over with someone beside Wallis.” Let him think that was a joke. “And I’m not imagining this. You know me.”

  “I do, Pru, I do. It’s just that I really don’t know if you should give much credence to what you hear from a parrot,” Creighton said, echoing Wallis so closely that the tabby and I both paused and turned toward him. “I mean, they make noises, right? They repeat what they hear.”

  “That’s the thing.” I started picking pepperoni rounds off the last slice. Wallis isn’t as young as she thinks she is. “Usually, parrots learn by repetition. They mimic what they hear often, which is useful in training.” Every now and then, I throw that in, just to remind Jim that I have a rational reason for my “hunches.” “But I’ve been doing some reading. There are some new studies that suggest they may also pick up sounds that make an impression—sounds that are loud, scary, or stressful, for example. That they’re not just mimics.”

  I’d already told him about Alex, the famous parrot who seemed to be able to form simple sentences. “There’s evidence they understand what they’re saying.”

  “You’re seriously saying that this parrot witnessed a murder?” Creighton reached for his beer, but he kept his eyes on mine.

  “I’m saying there’s something off. That someone broke in—or the old lady thought someone was there—and that’s why she fell.” I didn’t say what I really felt, that she was pushed. The basic principle of any training regimen is to go one step at a time.

  “And you think this because the parrot told you so.” Creighton was fully dressed again, but he wasn’t drinking. He was watching me.

  “The parrot would have no reason to link those particular sounds without reason.”

  “Pru, this is a bird we’re talking about.” He took a drink finally. A long one. “A bird.”

  “Told you so.” Next to me on the sofa, Wallis began to purr.

  A tactical retreat was in order. “How do you explain what it did keep repeating, then?” I’d stopped stacking the pepperoni, and Wallis leaned forward to sniff at it, and I put my hand on her back to restrain her. The purring stopped. “I mean, ‘stop,’ ‘what are you doing?,’ ‘that’s mine’? That all sounds pretty suspicious to me. Besides,” I reached for my knife—my dinner knife—as I made my point. “The son said they’d had some problems with theft.”

  “Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t.” Creighton had collapsed back into the sofa, beer in hand. “For all we know, the old lady was dotty. Maybe she misplaced things—and then assumed they’d been stolen. You know what old people can be like.”

  I nodded. “But it was the son who told me.”

  “Sounds like the daughter was the one who was around more.” He had a point, and he knew it. That was probably why he offered me a bone. “But look, why don’t you speak to the aide? Maybe she, ah, knew something.”

  Like that the old lady was paranoid. Or that her job was time-limited, and she had to feather her own nest. “She might be able to help me with the retraining.” I gave him that. “She was there long enough, she could probably tell me about the bird’s routine.” I began scraping the cheese off the slice.

  “And the daughter’s.” Wallis looked up, eyes glinting. I nodded back. Exactly.

  “You’re trying to make more work for me, aren’t you?” Creighton was joking, but I could hear the edge in his voice. He knew there was something going on that he wasn’t party to. He’s a smart guy. “You want it to be a murder.”

  “That’s pushing it, Jim.” I scooped the cheese onto my plate, and pushed the plate toward Wallis. “I didn’t know the lady. I have no reason for wanting her death to be anything, natural or otherwise.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Pru. I’m just wondering if, well, if you’ve gotten caught up in the idea of solving crime. If, maybe, what you’re doing—you know, the animal training and, well the rest of it—” He was too polite to say dog walking—“isn’t enough to occupy your mind these days.”

  I didn’t respond, and he stumbled to fill the silence. “I mean, you’re too smart to spend your days talking to animals. And, hey, are you really going to give all that cheese to Wallis?” We both looked up at that. “I mean, isn’t she kind of stout already?”

  “Down, girl! ” I heard the voice in my head. “Isn’t it time for you to leave? ” I swear, I didn’t know which of us was talking.

  Chapter Five

  Finding the aide was simple. I called LiveWell first thing in the morning and found out that Jean Sherry was working with other residents. Apparently, the aide was a longtime employee of the center, which spoke well for both her honesty and for a lack of financial duress. Not that I assumed “senior care aides,” as the receptionist had called her, were that well paid. If LiveWell was placing her with private clients, LiveWell was taking a cut. Still, it made it more likely that the aide hadn’t fled the state with the Larkin silver, and that I’d be able to find her when I went over for my afternoon session with Randolph.

  Before then, I had my regular clients: two dogs and one confused dogcatcher. Okay, in truth Albert was more than a dogcatcher. As I pushed through the glass doors of our town pound, I had to remind myself that the bearded lug behind the desk wasn’t some homeless guy or—considering our semi-rural surroundings—a lost mountain man who had stumbled into civilization. The flannel-clad man-lump seated behind the desk was the animal control officer for the town of Beauville. Not that he seemed to know it.

  “Hey, Albert.” The beard bounced off this year’s plaid, and I realized he’d been sleeping. “Too early for you?”

  “What? No.” He sat up straighter and blinked. “I was cogitating.”

  “Cogitating, huh?” The pound was quiet at this hour, and I pulled up the guest chair to sit down. I was hoping to spy a glimpse of Frank, Albert’s pet ferret. “Hope you don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so.” He sputtered. “I mean…”

  I smiled. Frank liked to collect shiny things, too. Only his command of the things he found was better. And I was pressed for time. “Never mind, Al. You called about a consult?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I did.” He shuffled some of the papers on his desk, as if looking for notes. “It’s about a raccoon. A problem over at Evergreen Whatsits?”

  “Evergreen Hills.” I knew it. A condo development carved out of the woods. Longtime residents wouldn’t have called Albert about a raccoon problem. They’d trap it themselves. Or shoot it, I realized. Maybe having Albert here had some benefits. “Young male, right?”

  “Seems so.” He gave up with the papers. I doubted he had legible notes anyway. “They were calling it ah, um—a ‘home invasion,’ I think.”

  I r
olled my eyes. Autumn and the young animals leave the nest. As the weather gets colder, they start looking for new places to stay. And as we encroach on their territory, they return the favor. “Got into the attic, huh?”

  Albert nodded, his beard bouncing on his chest. “I used the box thing and got it out.” Humane trap, raccoon, I translated. “The peanut butter really worked.” He chewed his lip at the memory, and I wondered how much had made it into the trap as bait. Enough apparently. “Thanks.”

  “And where did you release the animal?” I don’t know why I bothered asking.

  “Mile away.” He paused. “At least.”

  He’d let it go around the corner. “And it came back?”

  He nodded. Of course it did. To a young animal out on his own for the first time, those showy dormers looked as good as they did to the city folk. “The manager called. Again,” he said, his voice low. Someone had been angry.

  I sighed. A local would have been easier to reason with: if animals get into your house, you find out how—and block the entrance. Some of these new people didn’t get that. They just wanted the problem fixed. At least it wasn’t nesting season. I wasn’t as easily cowed as Albert, but I wouldn’t want to explain to some irate vacationer that Mama Coon got to stay while her kits were growing.

  “You want me to remove the animal?” I didn’t get paid to do Albert’s job, but I’d help him out. Hell, I’d be helping the animal, too. At some point the manager would probably poison it if it came back. I pushed out of the chair. “Traps in the back?”

  He scurried to follow me. “Actually, Pru, the raccoon is back there. I went back and got him.”

  That manager must have been furious. That said, I wasn’t sure why Albert had called me in. He bit his lip again, and I waited.

  “They say it might have rabies.” He paused. I didn’t know what he was thinking. My gift doesn’t work with people. I knew I was getting angry. Yes, rabies in raccoons is epizootic—the animal equivalent of an epidemic—and zoonotic, which means it can be transmitted to people. But sick animals act like sick animals—they charge at you. They look like hell. From everything I’ve heard, this poor creature was only trying to find a safe place to spend the winter. “I had to take it.”

  That was that, then. “Did you send in a sample?” Our little pound doesn’t have the facilities for medical testing.

  “A sample?” Albert blinked up at me. The idea of him at a microscope almost made me smile.

  “Of the brain matter.” Another blink. “You know, the animal’s head?”

  “Oh, no.” He looked over his shoulder. “I was hoping you’d handle it.”

  I closed my eyes. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t be paid for this; it was that I couldn’t be paid enough to do it. “I’m not killing a healthy animal, Albert.”

  “Killing?” For a big man, his voice sure could squeak.

  “That’s how they do the test.” My curiosity was aroused. “So, when you said you ‘took it…’”

  “I mean, I took it in the trap. It’s in the back.” He motioned toward the pound area, and when I opened the door he made to follow me. “Alive.”

  “Albert.” I turned and he raised his hands in surrender.

  “Sorry. I just…” He had no excuse, and I felt for him.

  “Look, the animal is probably freaked out as it is. The fewer people who go back there, the better.”

  He nodded and returned to his desk. As he did, he pulled open a drawer and a familiar masked face popped out.

  “Frank!” I did my best to keep my excitement out of my voice. “I didn’t know you were here today.”

  “Cave, cage, locked in…” The ferret was not happy at being confined.

  “I was going to start cleaning the cages when you came in,” Albert fumbled for an excuse. “I wanted him to be safe.”

  “Uh huh.” He’d been napping and didn’t want his companion eating his lunch, more likely.

  “I ate the pistachios already.” Frank stood, his nose twitching. The little mustelid had more need of food than his person. “Half the donut, too.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Frank, at least, could take care of himself. That raccoon, though—he might be in trouble. Still, while I was here…

  “How’s the cute little boy?” I spoke out loud to explain why I was bending over Albert’s desk, reaching my hand out for the ferret to sniff. I had barely touched the parrot during my visit, unable to find an excuse to take him out of his cage. And I had showered this morning, so even any lingering traces would be gone. Still, it was the only way I had of cluing the ferret in. Help me, I was saying. I need your expertise, your particular animal skill. Silently, I was visualizing the parrot. The gray smooth back, the roughed-up belly feathers. The cursing.

  “Nest—birds. Big bird means big nest.” I held my breath. The children, I’d known something was hinky with them from the start. “Big nest means…big eggs!”

  “Sorry, Frank.” I swallowed, my own mouth suddenly full of saliva. “No treats for you today.” So much for that idea.

  Chapter Six

  Twenty minutes later, I was on my way. Beauville—deep in the Berkshires—was in peak color, the maples sugar red, the birches gold, but even though the scene was gorgeous and my car, a vintage Pontiac GTO, was purring like a kitten, I couldn’t focus on foliage.

  For starters, I’d promised Albert I’d help him with the raccoon. The animal certainly couldn’t help himself. A young male, as I suspected, he’d seemed as healthy as I was. And although that’s no guarantee of anything, there were so many other reasons for the young animal’s behavior that I couldn’t see euthanizing him just to make sure.

  When I’d gone back to see him, pacing back and forth in one of the pound’s large dog cages, I got the complete disorientation of an adolescent out on his own. He’d left home for the first time only a month before. After a few weeks of wandering—and some scrapes with other young males—he’d found what seemed to be the perfect burrow. Warm, high up, and dry, the attic was everything a raccoon could want, and this little creature was smart enough to know it—and to find his way back after being relocated once. What he couldn’t understand was his removal. He hadn’t even had to fight anyone to get in there. The space was empty; it should have been his.

  In a just world, it would’ve been. I didn’t want the poor guy to get in any more trouble, though. The condo residents might be city folk, but at some point they’d contact a local—someone other than Albert—who would rid them permanently of the raccoon. I knew the type. Those city folks wouldn’t want to see what was done, but they’d be happy the “problem” was “resolved.”

  As I turned onto the highway, pulling directly into the fast lane to avoid the leaf peepers, I decided on a plan of action. I’d drive over to Evergreen Hills later, talk to the property manager. I figured if I showed him the point of entry—despite the animal’s dazed state, I had a good visual image of a missing shingle under an eave—I could make a case for sealing it off. Then I could release the raccoon—I was sure Albert wouldn’t rat me out, especially if I was helping him out of a jam. As long as he stopped “invading” their space, there was little chance the residents would recognize the young male.

  I was thinking about communicating with the raccoon as I drove over to LiveWell. I hadn’t had much luck during my brief visit, when I’d stood and watched the poor animal pace. Back and forth, back and forth in what is usually a dog enclosure in the locked rooms behind Albert’s office, he’d been too anxious to relax. Which might be why I’d only gotten the little bit I had: just a few jumbled images that gave me the beast’s history, leading up to his current predicament. Other than that, it was all just a sense of a fit, young animal, confused by life. Of course, I could have been projecting. That’s the kind of thing I have to be on the lookout for, but what I hadn’t gotten was the usual jolt of comprehension—a voice, a sound, a feeling that let me know I was tuned in to the real thing.

  That may have been me. I hadn�
��t tried my usual method for jumpstarting communication: reaching out for the kind of physical connection that can sometimes share a shock of knowledge. Partly, I didn’t want to disturb the freaked-out animal any further. A wild animal—even a raccoon—was not going to find human touch comforting. Partly, I’ll admit, I didn’t want to get bit. I really did not want to kill him in order to test him for rabies. But I don’t believe in taking stupid risks, either.

  In truth, I didn’t know how much I could get from wild animals, those not socialized in our terms. Birds, I heard. They’re usually direct—they want to broadcast their message to everyone within earshot. And they could be noisy, especially out here in the woods. The occasional squeal of fear reached me when I was outside, too; prey animals reacting to the cruel realities of their world.

  More often, though, I found myself talking to domestic animals, usually the ones I came into contact with through my work. It gave me a leg up, helped me understand why they were acting as they did. And I’d told myself it also provided some insight into the animal brain. Maybe I was flattering myself, though. Maybe I could “hear” these animals because they were so attuned to humans, to how we communicate. Even birds, after all, know something about us. Maybe a raccoon was simply so foreign I didn’t know how to relate, not unless and until he wanted to.

  That, I decided, was a problem for a different time. For now, I’d settle for getting that hole closed up. First, I told myself as I turned into the LiveWell lot, I needed to focus on my latest paying gig. My car—baby blue and built to get the most out of its 450 cc engine—stood out among the Toyotas and Volvos scattered through the visitors lot anyway, so I took my cue from the one oversized SUV and pulled in at an angle, taking up two spaces. I’d only recently had her painted, and I didn’t want any dings. I could take some abuse from a crazy relative or two. My GTO? No way.

  “Nice! Nice! ” I picked it up as I walked away and smiled. No, it wasn’t a compliment about my car. Or for me, for that matter. Someone had lined a den with soft down. Someone else was appreciative.