Of Birds and Beagles

by Leslie O'Kane

  Drat. Now I was going to have to speak out of turn if I had any hope of helping to end this spat. “She and her boyfriend broke up recently.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Aha. Mr. Norfolk saw the light, finally. I wasn’t sure they’d truly broken up. His dog’s always over there.”

  “I’m glad you mentioned that. She said the barking bothered you and your dog. She asked me to help her with training the dog not to bark.”

  “I don’t mind the barking dog. Squirrels can escape from the dog. It’s that damned bird that worries me. She’s training it to be a hawk. She wants it to eat squirrels.”

  “I’m not familiar with the diet of macaws, but I really doubt raw squirrel meat is on their lists of edibles.”

  Shirley snorted with so much venom I half expected her to spit on the floor. “That woman should have a crow on her shoulder, instead of a parrot. She’s lovely to look at, but she’s ugly on the inside. I think that’s why she hates soft, furry little creatures. She has no use for any living creature that is simply sweet and gentle...and that can’t be taught to worship her.”

  “Can I at least assure her that you’re not going to harm Magoo?”

  She scrunched up her features in an odd expression that I couldn’t decipher. On a fretful dog, though, it meant: Yes, I realize I broke the rules while you were gone, and this is me, looking thoroughly ashamed.

  “Sure,” she said. “You can tell her I won’t hurt the damned bird. No telling what I’ll do to her though, if I see her overgrown parakeet hurt a squirrel.”

  I muttered a few more conciliatory statements. The end result was that my mission had been a wasted effort. Shirley had no intention of accepting Kelsey’s olive branch and seemed to believe that Kelsey’s actual intention was to poke her in the eye with it.

  Frank, who had been listening silently to our conversation, offered to walk me to my car. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. I was not typically the matchmaker type, but my mother would find him really attractive, and he seemed really nice.

  “So you’re a handyman by profession?”

  “No, by choice. I’m retired. I work on elderly folks’ houses as a volunteer. They call the central office when they have tasks that are too hard to handle around the home and property. Gives me something to do now that the wife died.”

  Hmm. He was a handsome widower, probably loosely in his early sixties, and a dog lover. Mom would kill me if she found out I was trying to fix her up, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  “Do you ever do electrical work?”

  “As in rewiring homes?”

  “As in a minor glitch with a particular light fixture. My mother has been having problems with the light on her deck. It seems to have a loose wire. It flickers when you open or shut the sliding glass door. It seems like something too simple to require a visit from an electrician, but my boyfriend is always forgetting to fix it. Is that something you might be willing to look into for us? Off the record? You could come and bring your dog. In exchange for your trouble, I’ll make dinner for you both.”

  “For me and Luna?”

  “No, I meant for you and my mom.”

  “Ah.” Frank grinned at me. “You’re trying to fix up your mom with a fixer-upper man?”

  I winced. “It was that obvious?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, but not in an annoying way. Just in a hard-to-miss kind of way.”

  “In other words, a squirrel-tail-in-your-eye obvious?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. But a soft, furry tail.”

  “Well, I have one of my mom’s business card in my pocket.” I patted my khaki pockets and found the one with the card. It was a happy coincidence that I’d happened to have it. Mom was a pilot and gave flying lessons. A client I planned to see this afternoon had asked about flying lessons, and I’d planned to give that to him. I’d simply get her another card. “She’s pretty great. I just...have the feeling you’d like each other.”

  He pulled out a pair of his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and read the card. “She gives flying lessons?”

  “At the Longmont Airport. She lives in Berthoud. I already wrote our home address on the back. Are you free tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. “I’m free the day after that...Wednesday, right?”

  I told him that would work, although I wasn’t actually certain about mom’s schedule.

  “Easy to lose track of days of the week when you’re retired. I’m willing to come by and maybe fix the wobbly porch lamp. But I don’t want to put your mother in an awkward position. Let’s just have me give her a hand with her light, not force her to commit to a full evening with some old guy she’s never even met.”

  “All right, Frank. But do bring Luna over. We have a huge yard, and he’ll be able to run around with my dogs, and with Sage, Mom’s collie.”

  “Thanks for the invitation, Allida. I’m sure Luna and I will have a good time running around in your deck and back yard.”

  Frank walked me as far as Kelsey’s driveway, then headed back toward his own white Subaru. Just as I opened my car door, Kelsey came outside and trotted up to me. “How’d things go next door?”

  “I met Shirley. It’s remarkable how many squirrels are in her house! She says she won’t harm Magoo, but that you shouldn’t harm any squirrels, either. She says she doesn’t have any sunflower seeds and has never tossed them over the fence.”

  “She’s lying. And when those seeds she threw in my yard run out, the squirrels will stay, hoping for more, then start eating my wood siding again.”

  “You know, we have quite a few squirrels in our yard up in Berthoud, too. We had that early winter that killed a lot of berries and grapes. That’s why you’ll see trees with branches missing their bark. Squirrels will eat fruit and even meat before they’ll go for bark or nibbling on your house’s siding and roof.”

  “Huh. Magoo eats fruit and nuts and seeds, the same as squirrels. But not meat.”

  Confused by her remark, I said, “I wasn’t suggesting that you share Magoo’s food with the squirrels.”

  “Of course not. If I were stupid enough to feed them, they’d just go forth and multiply.”

  “All I’m saying is: last year was a particularly rough year for squirrels’ food supply. This year’s growing season was milder. I doubt you’ll see the same problem.”

  “That’s useful information,” Kelsey said. “Thanks.” Her smile could only be described as devious. I drove off, actively trying to dismiss the notion that Kelsey had some sort of an evil plot in mind for the squirrels in her yard.

  Chapter 8

  That afternoon, when Russ and I were in our offices, my phone rang. “Allida Babcock?” a perturbed, elderly voice asked. “This is Shirley Thorpe. I live next door to Kelsey Minerva.”

  “Yes. Hi, Shirley.”

  “You didn’t have any doggie treats with you when you came over today, did you? From Kelsey’s house, maybe?”

  “No, I didn’t. Why? What’s going on?”

  “My dog found a meatball in our yard. That witch nearly poisoned him!”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Luckily, I saw him sniffing at it and grabbed his muzzle just as he tried to scarf it up. I managed to pull it out of his mouth. So I brought it down to Toofroo’s vet to have it analyzed. They discovered it had been soaked in anti-freeze. My happening to spot the meatball the same time as Toofroo was probably the only thing that saved my poor dog’s life.”

  “That’s horrible, Shirley! Thank goodness Toofroo didn’t swallow it.” I paused, mulling over my last conversation with Kelsey, and how she’d said that Magoo doesn’t eat meat. “Why did you think I would ever have brought a poisoned treat to your dog?”

  “I thought Kelsey might have tricked you into taking them. You’d just come from her house, and all.”

  “No, I would never accept meatballs from a client. And Kelsey isn’t even a client of mine. We’d just agreed to meet that one time this morning.”

 
; My side of the conversation was odd enough that Russell pushed back his desk chair so he could study me through the open doorway. I grimaced and rolled my eyes, trying to let him know that this phone call was bad news.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Shirley continued over the phone. “It was a foolish question. I guess if I’m being honest, I’m trying to alert you to the terrible thing she’s done. As I told the police, I’m ninety-five percent sure she tossed the poisoned meat in my yard. For your sake, you should mean it when you say she isn’t your client. If I were you, I would never again have anything to do with that terrible person.”

  That would be my preference as well. I suspected Malcolm was right; Kelsey was trying to get into Russ’s life through persistent contact with me. Furthermore, my outrage at the concept of poisoning someone’s dog was weighing heavily on my mind.

  After we said our goodbyes, I hung up the phone, once again mulling Kelsey’ statement that Magoo wouldn’t eat meat—right after my telling her that I thought squirrels might. “Oh, crap!” I said.

  “What?” Russ asked.

  “I think Kelsey twisted a remark I made to her about squirrels eating meat if they were hungry enough. I think she tossed a poisonous meatball into Shirley’s yard in order to kill the squirrels.”

  “Who’s Shirley?”

  “Kelsey’s next-door neighbor. Her dog almost ate a poisonous meatball. But he’s okay, thank God.”

  “Kelsey wouldn’t do something like that. She’d have known the neighbor’s dog would get to it before the squirrels would. Besides, if she wanted to poison the squirrels, why would she put the poison in meat? Why not in a nut?”

  “Meat easily absorbs a lethal amount of anti-freeze. I doubt that’s true for nuts. Furthermore, Kelsey would have wanted to lace something that she was certain her macaw wouldn’t eat. Such as a meatball.”

  Russ widened his eyes. I took that to mean that he, too, agreed that Kelsey could be guilty. He got to his feet and strode toward me. “Allie, I’m starting to think you should let Tracy and Kelsey resolve their own differences without playing mediator.”

  “Yeah, me, too. But I’d really like to see if I can find out for certain if Kelsey’s to blame for the poisoned meatball.”

  “Let’s discuss it over dinner. I got a halfway-unexpected phone call an hour ago, and I’d like to—”

  He broke off as someone opened the main door to our office space. It was Baxter McClellan. “Hey, Allie,” he said. My eyes were already focusing on his four-footed friend on a leash, trailing a step behind.

  I couldn’t help but gasp a little in happy surprise. “Oh!” I cried. “You brought Barker!” I grinned at Russell, but his expression was positively dour.

  “I am such a total sucker for King Charles cavaliers that I decided years ago not to own one,” I babbled to Baxter. “I’m afraid that I’d dote on my cavalier and wreck the balance of my household’s canine pack.”

  “Personally, I feel sorry for the cavalier that you’ll never own,” Baxter said, “to miss out on being loved by you.”

  Russell cleared his throat.

  “Well, I did allow myself an escape clause,” I said, directing my remarks to Russell, who was undoubtedly unhappy at the specter of my getting a third dog at some point. “Pavlov and Doppler won’t live forever, and if I decide overcoming that sorrow might require desperate measures, I’ll revisit my no cavalier rule.”

  “It is a cute dog,” Russell said.

  “Isn’t he?” I replied, enthused that Russell had thrown me a bone, of sorts. “For me personally, a well-trained King Charles cavalier is the world’s most perfect dog.”

  Baxter chuckled. “You won’t get any argument from me. I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought it was high time to introduce you to Barker, the perfect dog.”

  “Hello, sweetheart,” I cooed to Barker. Unable to resist a moment longer, I ignored every iota of knowledge I’d accumulated regarding how to treat a new-to-me dog and rushed over and plopped down on the floor beside him. I patted my thighs with both of my hands and was delighted when Barker promptly wagged his stump of a tail and climbed onto my lap. I petted his eiderdown soft, gleaming reddish-brown-and-white fur. Thoroughly enchanted, I assured my beautiful new friend that he was a very good dog, while I allowed the men to greet each other without paying them any mind.

  By the time I looked up, Russell was rocking on his heels. That typically meant he was ill at ease with his present company. I realized then that I’d been woefully inconsiderate toward him. Reluctantly, I stood up and smiled at Russ. “It’s going to be reassuring to me that, when the terrible time comes that Pavlov passes away, you’ll be more comfortable living with a Cocker spaniel and a cavalier.”

  “Speaking of living with dogs,” Baxter said. “I also might have found the perfect house for you. Both.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded, beaming at me. “Nobody has seen this place yet, buyer-wise, I mean, but it’s just about to go up for sale. The owner died a couple of months ago, and I’m good friends with his grandson. It’s five acres, in Dacona. Used to be a small ranch. Horses, mostly. It would make an awesome place for a kennel.”

  “How long a commute is that from Boulder?” Russell asked. Meanwhile, my thoughts had immediately gone to how unlikely it was that I could afford a five-acre lot.

  “Just over thirty miles. I can usually make the drive in forty minutes.”

  “That’s pretty distant from downtown Boulder,” Russell said. “I’m not really all that keen on the concept.”

  “But the place is affordable,” Baxter countered. “And the seller’s super motivated. He said they were looking at seven hundred.”

  “Wow. That is a great price,” Russ said.

  “But that’s still out of our league,” I said.

  “I was thinking that it might be affordable if the kennel can get into full swing,” Baxter countered. “I mentioned you and your idea for the kennel. He’s pretty psyched about the possibility. He’s a major animal lover, and that might encourage him to work with you on the price.”

  “So the property owners already know about us before we’ve given the place the slightest look?” Russ grumbled.

  “I also told him flat out that you might want to go in another direction, and that I had no authority whatsoever to speak for you,” Baxter replied. “Also that, for all I knew, you were already close to signing on some existing property contract’s dotted line. He just said that, even if you were in the beginnings of another purchase, he hopes you’d check out his property, too.”

  “Just to let you know,” Russ interjected, “since we’re buying a place together, it has to work for both of us.”

  “Of course.”

  There was an awkward pause. I suppose I was at fault for Russell’s surly mood because of my all but forgetting he was in the room the instant I caught sight of Barker. Any dog lover would understand, but Russ was not tuned into that wavelength.

  “Whereabouts do you live?” Russ asked Baxter.

  “Just across the street from the place. It’s really not a bad commute to Boulder.” He gave Russ a winning smile. “I think you’d both really like living in my little town.”

  Russell looked slightly pained and massaged the back of his neck. “Things are really in flux. So I don’t know what we’ll decide to do. Thanks for letting us know.”

  I studied Russell’s features. We were in flux?

  “Hey, no problem.” He gave me a big smile. “I just hope it works out. I’m sure Barker and his friends would love having you guys in the neighborhood.”

  Russell continued to rock on his heels.

  “Also, Allie, seeing as you’re a fellow professional in the field, I wanted to tell you my great idea for an upscale product for dog owners. It’s a doghouse within a doghouse. Technically a crate within a doghouse, so that you don’t need to buy two bulky structures for your dog. Until I get a patent, I’ll need you to keep everything on the down-low. I’ve alr
eady made a prototype. Want to see?”

  “Sure,” I replied with genuine enthusiasm. He was already paging through his phone, which he handed to me.

  The photo showed Barker sitting in the doorway of a miniature house shown at an angle so that you could see the shutters on the open window on one side, and its shingled roof with a chimney. “That’s adorable,” I said. “It’s kind of like a fancy dollhouse, built for a dog.”

  “Exactly. There’s a hinge on one side of the roof and a latch on the other, so you can open it from the top, too. And that’s where my idea comes in. It’s sized so that you can fit most commonly sized dog carriers inside, and just lift it out through the roof. I’m also planning to manufacture a sturdy carrier, with a nice dog bed, and so forth. Customers can just buy the shell, or the full dog-carrier-within-a-doghouse package. And, for the really wealthy gotta-have-it-all customers, I’m going to offer a customized package that will look like a miniature of the owner’s house.”

  “I can see that being a hit in Boulder.”

  “Me, too. Thanks! All of this occurred to me just yesterday, at the pet expo. But like I said, I’m going to have to apply for a patent before I go much farther with it.”

  Happy to have found a way to include Russ in the conversation, I said, “Russ has several patents. He could give you some advice.”

  “The application forms are available online,” Russell said, his voice flat. “They’re pretty much self-explanatory.” He made a show of jangling his keys. “We were just about to leave for dinner. Once you email Allie the details, we’ll let you know about the property near your house.”

  Baxter straightened, obviously picking up on Russ’s brushoff. “Yeah, okay. I’ll send that to you in a little while.” He put away his cell phone and grabbed Barker’s leash.

  “Thanks so much for coming by and telling us about the property.” I forced myself to smile as if his hasty exit was his own idea. “We’ll keep you posted when we get the chance to see it.” I reclaimed my chair. “Thanks, also, for bringing Barker. He’s adorable.”

  Baxter said, “You’re welcome,” and left.