“Shhh!” Clarence hissed. He was peering out one of our front windows. “It’s the cops!”
Everyone froze—even the animals, who seemed to sense danger.
I strolled over to the window and looked out.
“It’s only Chief Burke,” I said.
“Oh, no!” Dad wailed.
“We’re lost,” Clarence muttered.
“Get rid of him,” my grandfather said.
The chief was getting out of his car. I hadn’t heard a siren, but I could see that he had the little portable flashing light stuck on his dashboard.
“If he were just calling to see the babies, maybe I could.” I glanced at my watch. “But the chief doesn’t usually make social calls at two thirty in the morning.”
“Then stall him while we move the animals,” Dad said.
“Move them how?” Clarence asked. “All the pickups are out front where he’s probably already seen them.”
“Put the animals in the barn till Parker gets here,” my grandfather said. “I’ll call him again.”
He grabbed our phone and began dialing. Dad leaped off the sofa, picked up a puppy in one hand, and grabbed the macaw’s cage with the other.
“All gone!” the bird trilled.
“I wish,” Clarence muttered.
The windows were cracked slightly, to let in a little of the mild April air—or possibly to prevent the smell of the animals from becoming overwhelming. I could hear the staccato sounds the chief’s shoes made on our front walk.
“There is no way in the world I can stall the chief while you move all these animals to the barn,” I said. “And even if I could, do you think they’d go quietly?”
As if to prove my point, one of the dogs uttered a mournful howl, and several others whimpered in sympathy. I even heard a faint bark from the porch.
“Besides,” I added, “the chief has probably already spotted the dog you left outside.”
“What dog?” Dad asked.
“I thought they were all accounted for.” Clarence was fishing in his pockets for something. “We have an inventory.”
“Dammit, Parker, pick up!” Grandfather muttered.
The dog on the porch barked again.
“Just let me handle it,” I said. “The chief’s an animal lover. He probably won’t approve of your methods, but I’m sure he shares your concerns. Let me assess what kind of a mood he’s in. Maybe we can work something out.”
Clarence and my father looked at each other, then back at me.
“What else can we do?” Dad said.
The dog outside barked.
The doorbell rang.
Upstairs, Josh erupted into howls.
“Damn,” I said, pausing halfway to the door. “I was trying to let Michael sleep.”
“I’ll take care of the baby,” Clarence said, bolting for the stairs. “You deal with the chief.”
“Why doesn’t the bastard answer his phone?” Grandfather growled.
“Hiya, babe!” the macaw said.
“Put a lid on him,” I said to Dad, as I turned back to the door.
He scrambled to pull a tarp over the cage.
Upstairs, Jamie joined the concert.
“I’ve got it,” Michael called from upstairs.
“I’m almost there,” Clarence called, from halfway up the stairs.
I opened the door. The dog outside barked again, but I pretended not to hear him and didn’t look around to see where he was.
“Good morning, Chief,” I said. “What are you doing up at this hour, and more important, what can we do for you?”
The chief held up a cell phone. I looked at it for a moment.
The cell phone barked. Clearly it belonged to a dog lover. No one else would choose such an annoying custom ring tone.
“I’m investigating a murder,” Chief Burke said. “And I came over to ask why for the last couple of hours, you’ve been trying to call the dead guy’s cell phone.”
Chapter 2
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Tried to, anyway.
Upstairs, the babies were wailing, and Michael had begun reciting “The Hunting of the Snark” to them. I hoped his trained actor’s voice would have its usual calming effect.
“Ms. Langslow?” the chief said.
Ms. Langslow. As if I didn’t already know this wasn’t a social call. These days, the chief usually just called me Meg. Reverting to formality was his way of signaling that he was on a case.
Spike had begun to bark, and the dogs downstairs joined in, accompanied by frantic shushing noises.
“Dammit!” I heard my grandfather say. “Pick up, you damned fool.”
I heard an unearthly howl and opened my eyes to see what had caused it. A gray tabby cat streaked out of the living room and toward the kitchen, caterwauling all the way, with two beagles in pursuit and Rob bringing up the rear, hissing, “Shh! Stop that! Come back here!”
The cell phone barked again.
I took a deep breath.
“It’s Parker Blair, isn’t it?” I asked. “Your murder victim with the barking cell phone.”
“How do you know Parker?” the chief asked.
“I don’t,” I said. “Grandfather’s the one who’s been trying to call him. Though I have no idea how he could have been calling from our phone for two hours. I thought he just got here.”
“I beg your pardon,” the chief said. “You’re correct. The calls were originally coming from Dr. Blake’s cell phone. Apparently he switched to your home phone approximately twenty minutes ago. That’s when we headed over here.”
“Makes sense. I’ll let Grandfather explain.” The nosy part of my brain noted that the crime scene must be no more than twenty minutes’ drive away and began trying to figure out where it was. I tried to squelch those thoughts. Odds were I’d find out soon enough. I stepped aside and gestured for the chief to enter.
I also squelched a pang of guilt at betraying the animal rescuers. This was a murder. Grandfather and his accomplices couldn’t very well expect me to lie to the chief in the middle of a homicide investigation.
Maybe the chief would be too busy solving Parker’s murder to worry about their raid on the animal shelter. Or if not, at least it sounded as if they’d all been trooping around together for the last several hours, and would be alibied for the murder. Not that I suspected them of murdering their wayward getaway driver but the chief couldn’t be expected to share my confidence in them.
I followed the chief into the living room, where my grandfather was still muttering at the phone.
Grandfather looked up to see the chief holding the cell phone. It barked again.
“That’s Parker’s phone,” Grandfather said. “How did you get his phone? Is he under arrest?”
“No,” the chief said. “He’s dead.”
Grandfather slowly hung up the phone. His face fell, and for a moment he looked every one of his ninety-some years. The chief turned Parker’s cell phone off and put it into an evidence bag. Grandfather heaved himself up and glared back at the chair he’d been sitting in. I’d had to negotiate with Mother for weeks when she decorated the living room, but except for that one chair, every piece of furniture was either comfortable or practical or both. I’d only allowed her to get away with the small, elegant, backbreaking side chair by the phone because I figured it would discourage visitors from settling in for long, leisurely calls.
“What the hell happened to Parker?” Grandfather sat on the sofa and thumped the Afghan hound on the rump a couple of times. “The fellow wasn’t even forty. Healthy as a horse. Did he wreck that damned truck?”
The chief was stripping off the gloves he’d been wearing to handle the phone. He stuffed them into his pocket as he took a few steps toward the front door.
“Sammy!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir!” Heavy footsteps raced up our walk and clomped across the front porch. Deputy Sammy Wendell appeared in the foyer. Unlike the chief, who appeared perfectly normal and w
ide awake, Sammy had clearly been roused from a sound sleep and hadn’t yet combed his hair, which was sticking out in all directions.
“Ms. Langslow,” the chief said. “I gather you and Mr. Waterston have been home with the babies?”
I nodded.
“And your grandfather and his party arrived about twenty minutes ago?”
“No idea,” I said. “We were all either asleep or upstairs feeding the kids with the white noise machine on. It was about fifteen or twenty minutes ago that the racket from the animals got loud enough for me to hear it.”
“Who else is here?”
“Well, apart from Rob, I expect Dad is out in the barn,” I said. “Clarence Rutledge is upstairs helping Michael with the babies. My cousin, Rose Noire, and our houseguest, Timmy Walker, are upstairs asleep, unless the noise woke them. That’s all I know about.”
I was assuming, of course, that “who else” didn’t include four-legged visitors.
“Dr. Blake, Dr. Langslow, Dr. Rutledge, and Mr. Langslow.” The chief had taken out his notepad and was scribbling in it. “Dr. Blake, was there anyone else with you?”
“No,” Grandfather said. “Damn! I guess I should take back some of the harsh things I’ve been saying about Parker for the last couple of hours, when I thought he was just being feckless.”
“Sammy,” the chief said. “Round them up and keep them in the kitchen.” He looked at me. “If that’s acceptable.”
I nodded.
“Or you can use the library, if you like,” I said. “Or both.”
“Keep them in the kitchen, Sammy.” The chief glanced down at his notebook and appeared to be studying something. “I’ll just talk to them here. Now, Dr. Blake. Where—”
He stopped and glanced down. One of the kittens was loose and had begun climbing the crisply pressed left leg of his uniform trousers as if it were a tree. He blinked, then forced his eyes back to Grandfather.
“Dr. Blake, where were you for the last couple of hours?”
“It wasn’t just an accident, was it?” Grandfather asked. “Someone knocked him off.”
The chief nodded. He winced as the kitten’s razor-sharp little claws dug into his skin. The chief shook his leg slightly in an attempt to dislodge his attacker. The kitten thought this was fun, and scrambled a little higher.
“And you want to know if we have alibis,” Grandfather said. He glowered for a moment. Clearly he was reluctant to admit what they’d been up to. Understandable, but this was not the time to clam up.
“Clarence, Rob, James, and I were all together,” Grandfather said finally. He glared at the chief as if daring him to ask where.
I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out as quietly as I could.
“During what time period?” the chief asked.
Another kitten had joined its brother or sister in scaling the chief’s pants leg.
“Since about ten o’clock,” Grandfather said. “We were supposed to meet Parker at midnight at the intersection of Little Creek Road and the Clay County Road.”
“By the old churchyard?”
Grandfather nodded.
“We got there about five minutes to midnight, and stayed until maybe one forty-five A.M.”
The chief was trying to shoo the kittens—three of them by now—off his trouser legs without looking at them. I suddenly realized why. He was trying not to look at the kittens because if he took notice of them, he might have to deal with the whole shelter burglary thing. And right now he didn’t want to do that. Maybe he was in sympathy with Grandfather’s protest, or maybe he just felt the murder was more important and didn’t want to be sidetracked.
I decided to help him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Rose Noire’s new kittens aren’t very well trained yet.”
“Trained?” Grandfather snorted at the thought. “You can’t train cats.”
“You can make sure they know that climbing on people is not acceptable,” I said as I plucked one of the kittens off. “And you could help me with this. I’ve only got two hands.”
We finished plucking the kittens off the chief and returned them to the large cardboard box where they belonged.
As I stood up from depositing the kittens, I jarred the macaw’s cage. The tarp that had been partly covering it fell all the way off.
“Hiya, babe!” the macaw squawked. “How’s about it? Just you and me.”
“Put a lid on it, bird,” I said.
The macaw responded with several rude remarks in language so blue they’d probably have bleeped the entire sentence on network television.
I stood staring at the macaw for a few moments, speechless.
When I looked around, everyone else in the room was also speechless and staring.
“Do that again, featherbrain, and I’ll wash your beak out with soap,” I said.
The bird responded with another string of off-color insults.
“No crackers for you, Polly.” I pulled the cover over the macaw’s cage. I could hear him muttering a few more four-letter words as he settled down for a nap. At least I hoped the cover would have that effect.
The chief—who always apologized if, under extreme provocation, he uttered the occasional “hell” or “damn” in front of a lady—was frowning severely at the shrouded cage.
“He’s new here,” I said. “And not staying.”
“I should hope not.” He glanced around the living room and shuddered. Mother would probably shudder, too, if she saw the room in its current state.
“I think I will take you up on that offer of the library,” the chief said. “Assuming it’s empty.”
“Of animals? Yes,” I said. “And it’s going to stay that way,” I added, looking pointedly at my grandfather.
“Could you send Clarence down to the kitchen when he’s finished babysitting?” the chief asked.
I nodded.
“Now, if you don’t mind, Dr. Blake.”
Grandfather and the chief disappeared into the long hall that led to our library.
I tried to shove some of the cats and dogs into crates and cages but gave up after a few minutes.
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” I said. “And sleeping cats, too.”
At least until I could task someone else with waking them up to crate them. I went upstairs to the nursery.
I peered in to see a heartwarming domestic scene. Michael, in boxer shorts and a tattered Caerphilly College T-shirt, was sprawled on the recliner, half-asleep, feeding Josh.
Heartwarming wasn’t exactly what I’d call the vision of Clarence in his full leather and denim biker’s outfit stretched out on the moss-green rug with Jamie sleeping on his well-padded stomach, but it was rather entertaining. I hoped Michael had captured the scene on the digital camera that he’d taken to carrying everywhere since the boys arrived. Yes, the camera was lying on the arm of the recliner.
Clarence looked up when I entered, his face anxious.
“The chief’s not here about the animals,” I said.
“It’s Parker, isn’t it?” he said. “Did he wreck the truck, or did some jealous husband catch up with him? Is he just injured or…?”
“He’s dead.” I reached down to take Jamie. “You’re very quick to assume that Parker met a violent end. Why is that?”
“Obviously you didn’t know him.” Clarence was trying to loosen the death grip Jamie had on one of the many chains dangling from his vest. “Parker was passionate about animal welfare. He’d never just blow off an animal rescue mission. So something serious must have happened. And the chief wouldn’t be coming here in the middle of the night if he’d died in his sleep, or just had an accident.”
Jamie woke up enough to release his grip, fussed a little, and dozed off again.
“Speaking of the chief,” I said. “He’d like you to go down and wait in the kitchen with Dad and Rob and Deputy Sammy.”
Clarence nodded.
I eased Jamie into his crib.
“If you could st
op by the living room on your way and make sure all the animals are secured, I’d appreciate it,” I said to Clarence. “I’d really like them out in the barn, but just having them caged or crated would do for now.”
He nodded again and went downstairs.
“All the animals?” Michael said, opening one eye. “You mean there really is a herd of animals downstairs?”
“You couldn’t hear them?”
“I was hoping maybe it was your grandfather watching some kind of animal video on the big-screen TV with the sound cranked up. How many dogs and cats?”
“I didn’t count.”
He winced.
“Only half a dozen guinea pigs and hamsters, though,” I said. “And only one macaw.”
“What did they do—rob a pet store?”
“Not a bad guess.” I explained about the animal shelter.
He shook his head.
“I don’t like the change in policy, either, but aren’t they overreacting a little?” he said. “They couldn’t just picket the place?”
I shrugged. It was too late—or maybe too early—to get into a discussion about why my relatives did what they did.
“Well, I don’t want to kick the animals out if there’s no place else for them tonight, but we can’t keep them here indefinitely,” he said. “Not even out in our barn. You’re going to want to get back to your blacksmithing eventually.”
“I already want to get back to it,” I said. “But I think it will still be a while before I have the time. And—”
I interrupted myself with a gigantic yawn.
“Go to bed,” he said. “That’s what I plan to do when I finish feeding Josh. If the animals aren’t in the barn by breakfast time, I’ll lay down the law to everyone. Meanwhile, let’s both get some sleep.”
“I will,” I said. “As soon as I pump some more milk for the boys’ next meal.”
Unfortunately, by the time I finished that, Jamie was hungry again. And by the time I’d fed him, I was wide awake. Dog-tired, but wide awake.
It was 5:00 A.M. The smart thing to do would be to lie down, and rest even if I couldn’t sleep.
Instead, I went downstairs to see what was happening.
The Real Macaw Page 2