How the Finch Stole Christmas!

by Donna Andrews

  Cats.

  The world couldn’t possibly contain so many cats. Well, maybe the world could, but a room this small shouldn’t. It was a tiny room, and the well-worn, old-fashioned furniture filled it just a little too tightly. Or maybe it only seemed that way because of the overabundance of cats. There were cats sitting on the chairs and the sofa. Cats on the end tables. Cats on the coffee table. Cats on the mantel. Cats basking in front of the fireplace. Cats atop the old-fashioned tube television. There were even half a dozen cats draped over the white-haired little old lady sitting in her wheelchair in the middle of the room. Luckily, her back was to me. She held the TV remote with one hand and absentmindedly patted a cat with the other.

  In one corner of the room stood a lopsided Christmas tree, largely devoid of ornaments, swaying gently under the weight of the dozen or so cats that were perching in its limbs or using its trunk as a scratching post. A small plastic nativity scene stood on a sideboard, surrounded by cats. At least half of the figures were missing or askew. The two surviving wise men shared a lone camel, not a single shepherd watched over the miniscule flock, and Joseph appeared to have been bowled over with astonishment and was lying flat on his back behind the stable with a tiny bit of its sphagnum moss roof draped over his eyes like a cold compress. Perhaps the missing cast members were on the floor, being batted back and forth along with what I hoped were unbreakable plastic ornaments from the tree. But the stable wasn’t unattended. Half a dozen cats sat solemnly in a circle around it, creating the eerie impression that a delegation of Easter Island heads had come along to join the adoration of the magi. Although the effect was rather spoiled by the fact that one of the cats was scrabbling at the manger with his paw, attempting to extract baby Jesus.

  I backed away from the window and took a couple of deep breaths. Not because I could smell anything—the window was tightly shut against the outside cold, thank goodness—but because I could imagine all too well what it was like inside.

  “It’s the trifecta of animal welfare issues,” I murmured. “Cat hoarding, a puppy mill, and private ownership of wild animals.”

  I realized that I might need some proof to show Chief Burke and Animal Welfare. So I slunk back to the window, pulled out my phone, and took half a dozen shots. I circumnavigated the house, peering in all the windows, spotting more legions of cats and snapping more pictures, but the old lady seemed to be the only human occupant.

  I stopped at the barn to take a dozen or so shots of the menagerie there—the parts of it I could see, anyway. At least a third of the barn wasn’t visible from the windows I could reach. Who knew what other creatures were hidden there?

  That would be a job for Animal Welfare. And possibly also for Chief Burke. I tucked my phone back in my pocket and began slipping along the fence again. As I disappeared into the woods, I heard the tiger roar one last time and had to talk myself out of breaking into a run.

  Chapter 9

  I was glad to see my car still there, and obviously unmolested since it was evenly coated with about an inch and a half of new snow. Definitely time for me to be getting back to town. I checked my phone—no signal now. So I cleaned off the snow and climbed inside, wishing I had a pair of dry socks to change into. Then I carefully eased my car back onto the road and headed for town.

  After a couple of miles, I heard the ping of an incoming text. I pulled over to check it out.

  “Farm belongs to a Venable Pruitt,” Randall had texted. “But he’s not living there now. Probably renters. I have some cousins over that end of the county—I’ll see what I can find out. Want to meet me at the courthouse to discuss?”

  “Meet me at the police station,” I texted back. “We have a lot to discuss, and for some of it we’ll need Chief Burke. If you get there first, let him know I’m on my way.”

  “Roger.”

  But since I was pulled over anyway, I opened up my email program and sent off half a dozen of the most interesting animal pictures to Chief Burke. Then I called the non-emergency police number.

  I got Debbie Ann, the dispatcher, anyway.

  “What’s wrong, Meg?” she asked.

  “Any chance I can speak to the chief?” I asked. “If he’s not sure he wants to talk to me, ask him to check the email I just sent him.”

  “Will do.”

  I knew she was dying of curiosity, but she didn’t stay to interrogate me. So while I was waiting for the chief, I forwarded my email with the photos to her.

  “Meg.” The chief came on the line just as I was pushing the SEND button. “What in blue blazes is this? And please tell me that cat house isn’t here in my county.”

  “Sorry, but it is,” I said. “And I’m not sure the barn the rest of the animals are in is heated, so we could have a serious animal welfare issue. I’ll fill you in when I get to town.”

  “Blast. What is the—?”

  The rest of his sentence was lost to a long blast of static, and then the call dropped completely.

  Rather than call back, I texted “talk to you at the station.” Then I put my phone away and started the car. Easier to bring him up to speed in person. I eased the car back onto the road, now covered with several inches of snow that was fortunately still light and fluffy, and headed for town at a suitably reduced speed.

  I was relieved when, a few miles outside of town, I encountered recently plowed pavement. And then the snowplow itself. Probably with Randall’s cousin Beauregard Shiffley driving—Beau’s plow had an impressive set of ten-point antlers mounted on top of the cab, and this time of year he draped them with a set of battery-operated multicolored Christmas lights that twinkled merrily as he crawled down the road.

  I decided to opt for safety over speed. I pulled up a safe distance behind Beau, shifted into low speed, turned on my hazard lights, and relaxed, at least a little, for the rest of the way to the police station.

  When our festively lit procession reached the outskirts of town, I could see that the snow had slowed down the Christmas in Caerphilly celebrations—but only a little. Fewer people were plodding down the street carrying shopping bags, but the ones who were seemed cheerful enough. The start of the snow had triggered Randall’s inclement weather plan, which meant that the various carolers and strolling bands left their usual corners and routes to take turns performing for the tourists in the lobby of the town hall. As I passed the town hall, I could see that the tourists were spilling out of the front doors onto the portico, and there were even some standing on the steps, nursing steaming cups of coffee or hot chocolate.

  Good. The show must go on, even if Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating.

  When I got to the police station, I had to wait for a moment while a small snowplow, driven by Chief Burke’s oldest grandson, cleared the entrance. As I waited, I studied the cars. Randall’s wasn’t there, but he’d almost certainly walked over from the town hall. I spotted Dad’s blue sedan, which probably meant both he and Grandfather were here. And Clarence Rutledge, the local veterinarian who was also Caerphilly’s animal welfare officer, was just parking his white van at the far end of the lot.

  “Looks like a quorum,” I muttered to myself as I parked my car. “Let’s get this rolling.”

  When I walked in the chief was standing in the lobby, apparently waiting for me. “You can leave your boots there,” he said, pointing to a large collection of assorted snow boots lined up just inside the doorway. Right beside the boots was the bin for donations to the Caerphilly Food Bank’s special Christmas drive, and I felt a pang of guilt that I hadn’t brought anything. I reminded myself that this wasn’t the only bin in town, and that I’d already deposited more bags of food than I could count in one or another of those bins. And would be bringing more bags as the season progressed. Not today’s priority, though.

  When I’d shed my boots and hung up my heavy coat, I followed him down the hallway.

  “Meg’s here,” he announced as he opened the door to his office. He then stepped aside to allow me to enter. He’d
arranged a semicircle of four chairs on the guest side of his desk. Dad, Grandfather, and Clarence Rutledge were already seated in three of them. Dad and Grandfather were wearing what Grandfather referred to as expedition clothes—cargo pants and a khaki fisherman’s vest, with all the pockets of both garments bulging with objects they thought might be useful while hiking or birdwatching or whatever they’d been doing when the chief called them. Clarence was still wearing his white doctor’s coat, though as usual it looked incongruous with his denim and leather biker clothes beneath. Randall Shiffley, dressed for the weather in jeans and a flannel shirt rather than the suit in which he usually did what he called his mayoring, was perched in the windowsill. And my friend Aida Butler, who was one of the chief’s deputies, was standing beside the desk in her sharply pressed uniform with a notebook in her hand. And all of them except Aida in stocking feet, which probably accounted for the surplus of boots in the entrance.

  I could see that the chief had printed and handed out to everyone the photos I’d sent.

  “Shall I fetch another chair?” Aida asked as the chief followed me in.

  “I’m too restless to need one,” Randall said, waving his hand in dismissal.

  “If you’d like one yourself.” The chief took a seat and opened his own notebook.

  “I’ll be dashing back and forth,” Aida said.

  “Very well. Meg,” he went on, looking at me. “I took the liberty of contacting Dr. Blake, Dr. Langslow, and Dr. Rutledge. I suggested—”

  “Where the blazes did you find this tiger?” Grandfather demanded, as if the chief’s mention of his name had been a starter’s gun. “And those finches?”

  “Did you get a chance to examine any of the animals?” Clarence asked at the same time. “What was their condition?”

  “Did you speak to that poor woman in the wheelchair?” Dad asked. “Does she need anything?”

  “What about—”

  “How can we—”

  “Quiet!” the chief shouted. He so seldom raised his voice that we were all startled into silence.

  “Let Meg tell her story,” the chief said. “Where she was, how she happened to be there, and what she saw. Then we can decide what we need to do about it.”

  I related my afternoon, from the moment I spotted Haver trying to sneak out of the theater to my own furtive departure from the farm.

  “So I did not check on the little old lady,” I said as I drew my story to a close. “Partly because I didn’t want to alert Haver’s bootlegger that we’re on to him and partly because technically I was trespassing, and some people get rather touchy about it, and that far out in the country a lot of them keep shotguns around. I didn’t find out much more about the animals, for much the same reasons.”

  “Based on what Meg has told us, plus the evidence of her photographs, it seems to me that we may have need of an intervention,” the chief began.

  “A raid!” Grandfather’s tone sounded both belligerent and cheerful. “How soon can we start?”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time,” the chief said. “So what do we know about the human occupants of this farm?” The chief looked up at Randall as he spoke.

  “Man by the name of John Willimer,” Randall said. “Not from around here. Moved in about ten months ago, him and the old lady, his mother. And they’re renting the farm—it actually belongs to Venable Pruitt.”

  “It would be a Pruitt,” the chief muttered.

  “Yeah, there’s no love lost between the Pruitts and all the people here in town that they used to boss around.” Randall was looking at Grandfather as he said this, since he knew the rest of us were well aware of the longstanding enmity. “And the farm isn’t really much of a farm—only five acres. Not anything you could easily live off of unless you were doing some kind of pretty specialized farming, like raising fancy organic herbs or something. And there’s been no sign of that.”

  “And we know this how?” the chief asked.

  “My cousin Threepwood, who has a farm a couple of miles away. Venable’s place was vacant for two or three years until Willimer and his mother moved in. Threepwood made a few neighborly visits but didn’t feel his efforts were much appreciated, so he gave up and left them alone, which seemed to be what they wanted.”

  “Did you ask him if he noticed any animals about the place?” the chief asked.

  “I did.” Randall leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. “He said Willimer had a couple of half-grown dogs that you might mistake for redbone coonhounds if you hadn’t seen the real thing for a good long while.”

  “Did the dogs look as if they were mistreated?”

  “No. Not well trained and not all that friendly, but they were healthy enough. He’d have said something to Clarence here if he’d thought otherwise. Threepwood’s right partial to dogs, especially hunting dogs. And those were the only animals he saw.”

  “That actually corresponds with what little information we have about Mr. Willimer,” the chief said. “This spring—which would have been shortly after he arrived—we received several complaints from Mort Gormley, whose farm is also nearby. He claimed Mr. Willimer’s dogs were attacking his sheep.”

  “I remember that,” Randall said. “You sent Vern out, and he followed the tracks from the latest dead sheep to a coyote den.”

  “A remarkable animal, the coyote,” Grandfather exclaimed. “Since the regrettable extermination of the wolf in many parts of North America, the coyote’s range has expanded considerably, and it has showed an admirable ability to adapt to changing circumstances and coexist with human beings.”

  “This pair didn’t manage to coexist too well with Vern,” Randall said. “And after that the sheep attacks stopped, but I’m not sure Vern ever convinced Mort it had been coyotes and not some kind of big, shaggy, grayish-brown dog coming over from Willimer’s place.”

  “We’ll keep our eyes open in case he’s acquired some shaggy, grayish-brown dogs in the meantime,” the chief said. “If his farm’s too small to live off of, do we have any idea what Mr. Willimer does for a living?”

  “Not really.” Randall shook his head. “Threepwood had a notion maybe Willimer was doing a little business in the used car line—buying old beaters, fixing them up just enough so they’d run, and selling them to people who didn’t know any better. You’d usually see an old car or two around the place.”

  “No sign of any when I was out there today,” I put in.

  “They’d be under the snow by now,” Randall pointed out.

  “Making large used-car-sized lumps that I would have spotted,” I said. “There weren’t any.”

  “Could be he gave up on it, then,” Randall said. “Didn’t look to Threepwood as if he was getting rich on it anyway. And Willimer was hardly ever there in the daytime, so maybe he was commuting to a job somewhere. Just not here in Caerphilly.”

  “Maybe he’s making a living selling puppies and exotic animals,” I suggested.

  The chief looked up at Aida.

  “Can you go get Debbie Ann started seeing what we can find out about this Mr. Willimer?”

  Aida nodded and bustled out.

  The chief turned back to the rest of us.

  “Seems to me we have valid concerns about the welfare of these animals. I think we need to go in there.”

  Chapter 10

  Everyone sat up straighter, as if the chief’s few quiet words had been a bugle call.

  “We also need to think about the welfare of that poor woman in the wheelchair,” Dad said. “You can see from Meg’s pictures what a completely unhygienic condition the house is in. I think we need to involve Adult Protective Services.”

  “Oh, Lord, do we have to?” Randall muttered. “That woman could give St. Peter homicidal urges.”

  “Meredith Flugleman, the county social worker,” the chief explained for Grandfather’s benefit. “She can be a little overwhelming, but she means well. I’ll do the liaising with her if you’d like, Randall.”

/>   “I’ll owe you one,” Randall said.

  “We don’t have any county ordinances regulating the number of domestic animals a household can have,” Clarence said. “Might be something we should consider for the future. But we do have the state animal cruelty statutes. From what I see in those pictures of the cats, it’d be a miracle if we went in and didn’t find violations. So we’re completely justified in conducting a search as long as Meg is willing to make a sworn complaint—”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Another thing—our records don’t show any validly licensed dogs at that address, or under the name of Willimer at any other address,” Clarence said. “At a minimum, we need to ensure that all those poor animals are disease-free and have been properly vaccinated.”

  “And Willimer doesn’t have a business license on file,” Randall put in. “He’d need one if he’s operating a kennel. And I can’t imagine any other reason why someone would have a whole blasted barn full of puppies.”

  “And just in time for Christmas,” the chief said. “I’m sure if we look hard enough we’ll find somewhere that he’s advertising puppies for sale.”

  “We’ll also need to check with the state to see if Willimer has a permit to own that tiger,” Grandfather said.

  “And the monkeys, I assume,” the chief said.

  “No, Virginia’s laws on private ownership of wild animals are pretty lax,” Grandfather said. “You need a permit for bears, wolves, and big cats, but there’s no regulation at all on primates. But we should probably notify Fish and Wildlife about all the wild animals—including the finches. In fact, especially the finches. They’ve been battling an epidemic of Gouldian finch-smuggling lately. Maybe this Willimer acquired his finches and his tiger and all the rest of them perfectly legally, but you never know. Could have some connection to that big smuggling ring Fish and Wildlife has been investigating.”