The Real Macaw

by Donna Andrews

  I tried sitting down again. This time I gripped the chair’s arms and lowered my body with excruciating slowness. Even with the upper body and arm strength I had from my blacksmithing work it was a grueling process, but I congratulated myself that I’d eliminated nearly all the noise.

  I was about ninety percent lowered when my grandfather spoke up.

  “Just sit, dammit,” he snapped. “Hell and damnation! It’s like listening to someone torture a balloon.”

  I sat. But unless I sat perfectly still, the chair seat continued to make indecorous noises. It squeaked when I crossed my legs. It hissed when I leaned over slightly to see if Grandfather was asleep. Bending down to get something from my purse produced a miniature encore of the original breaking-wind noise. I gave up.

  “If you’re awake when Dad comes back, tell him I went down to the cafeteria,” I said, softly enough that Grandfather wouldn’t hear me if he was asleep.

  “Hallelujah,” he muttered.

  I stopped outside his door to scribble a note for Dad and tuck it behind the metal room number plate on the door. Then I headed for the cafeteria, which was on the ground floor at the other end of the hospital. It probably wouldn’t be serving hot food at this hour on Sunday night, but the vending machines would be working. And if I picked a booth that emitted unseemly squelching noises when I sat down, no one would care.

  I had to turn on the lights when I arrived. The buffet section was empty and scrubbed so well it shone. But there was a large bank of vending machines. I decided on hot tea.

  I settled back into a booth to drink it. I closed my eyes and took a few of the deep relaxing breaths I’d learned in yoga class. This was definitely one of those moments Rose Noire kept talking about, when instead of being bored and fretful, the wise person relaxed and turned what could be wasted moments into a relaxing mental haven. For once, there was no one here demanding anything of me—if you didn’t count Dad asking me to cool my heels until he was ready to be chauffeured home. The boys were safely asleep, with enough milk stockpiled to feed them if Dad took longer than expected—always a strong possibility. No one was asking me to feed, groom, walk, or clean up after an animal. If she were here, Rose Noire would probably have attempted to lead me in a few restorative yoga poses, but thank God she wasn’t, and I could enjoy this rare moment of total peace and quiet in my own way.

  After about ten breaths, I opened my eyes and looked around for something to do.

  I fished in my purse to find that once again the fat paperback mystery I’d been working on since the boys were two weeks old wasn’t there. I’d probably left it on my bedside table. I’d been reading myself to sleep with the opening page of chapter three for the last week.

  No book, but I did find Rob’s little pocket video camera. I turned it on and began figuring out how to use it.

  Not hard. Not that I expected it to be, since my mechanically inept brother seemed to have no difficulty using it.

  I sipped my tea and started at the beginning of the camera’s memory. Lots of pictures of Rob’s feet. One long sequence showing the corner of the refrigerator while Rob and Rose Noire tried to figure out why the camera wasn’t on. Their dialogue was muted, but audible in the silent, empty cafeteria.

  “Wait a minute!” he said. “It’s been on all the time! Great!”

  “Do you know how you turned it on?” Rose Noire asked.

  Apparently not, because the next sequence showed wildly gyrating scenery and an occasional glimpse of Rob’s jeans-clad legs as he strolled along, swinging the camera in one hand, unaware that it was filming.

  But after a while his camerawork improved. A sequence of Rose Noire trying to feed both boys at the same time really captured the insanity of life with twins. Though if I were Rose Noire, I’d have made him stop filming and help. I would have to confiscate the sequence of Josh, unwisely left diaperless, happily peeing into the air—and onto his nearby brother. It was cute, but I didn’t want Rob sharing it with the immediate world on YouTube.

  And then videos of the animals began to appear. Puppies frolicking on our living room rug. A trio of cats grooming themselves in unison like a feline precision drill team. A lot of footage of Tinkerbell, the wolfhound—I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she became a permanent resident. And then some footage of the macaw.

  The original macaw. I could see now that it was a completely different blue from the one we had now, a darker blue with overtones of gray and maybe a slight tinge of purple. I’d have to take Mother’s word for it that this was Prussian blue.

  Clearly Rob was amused by the macaw’s blue language. I watched several scenes in which the bird swore like the proverbial sailor with Rob giggling in the background. In the first two, the camera jiggled in time with his laughter, but he soon learned the trick of setting it on a piece of furniture. This not only improved the quality of the video, it allowed Rob to get into the action, feeding straight lines to the macaw.

  In one shot, I could hear Mother’s voice in the background.

  “Rob!” she exclaimed. “What in the world are you teaching that poor bird?”

  “It’s not my fault,” Rob said, turning off-camera to look at her. “The bird already knew all that. Parker must have done it.”

  “Parker, Parker,” Mother said. She was still off-camera, but I could almost see her shaking her head in gentle, sorrowful reproof.

  The macaw echoed her, repeating Parker’s name.

  Wait a minute. The bird wasn’t just echoing her. Parker’s name appeared to have triggered something.

  “Oh, Pahkeh,” the bird said. “Oh, yes, Pahkeh. Ohhhhh! Pahkeh! YES!”

  Rob dropped out of the picture, though his giggles could still be heard. Make that guffaws. Apparently he was so overcome with laughter that he had to roll on the floor. Mother presumably tsk-tsked and left the room, head high, pretending not to hear the macaw.

  But the video kept rolling, and the macaw kept repeating Parker’s name in what was clearly the heat of passion—and in a strong, nasal New England accent.

  Francine’s accent. She’d said it herself—she stuck out like a sore thumb because no one else in the whole county sounded like her. And judging from the cries and moans the parrot was uttering, I’d bet anything that Francine knew Parker a lot better than anyone had suspected.

  Hadn’t Rob recognized her voice? No, Rob probably hadn’t met Francine. Even if he had, her accent wouldn’t have struck him as strange. His staff at Mutant Wizards were a multicultural lot, so he was used to hearing accents from Brooklyn, Mumbai, Sydney, and yes, no doubt from Boston’s Route 128 tech corridor.

  I found myself remembering something. Francine’s face at the T-Ball game, when the other mothers were laughing over Parker’s many girlfriends. I’d assumed her facial expression was disapproval. What if it was jealousy?

  And no wonder she’d been fretting so about her accent. She probably knew that the parrot imitated her. Perhaps she and Parker had laughed about it when he was alive. But once he was dead, the parrot might be the only witness to their affair.

  What if both Vivian and Louise had been telling the truth? What if someone really had planted both earrings, one in each of their purses? Who better to do it than Francine? She could have had access to Louise’s purse while visiting her husband at the town hall, and here at the hospital, she was always flitting about, largely ignored by the medical staff.

  She obviously had a very strong motive for stealing Parker’s macaw before anyone overheard its imitation of her. And now she knew Grandfather was conscious and might start remembering things any minute.

  I scrambled out of my seat and started running.

  Chapter 25

  Halfway down the long, echoing corridor to the lobby, I realized that I should be calling for help, not racing to the rescue. As I ran, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911.

  “Hey, Meg,” Debbie Anne said. “What’s up now?”

  “Tell the chief to get back here to the hospital,” I
said. “My grandfather could be in danger.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “I think Vivian and Louise were both framed,” I said. “Francine Mann is the real killer, and she’s somewhere here in the hospital. She’s probably going after my grandfather, and—”

  Just then I noticed that my phone had gone dead. Not uncommon here in the hospital. Should I run out into the parking lot, where reception was sometimes better? The key word was “sometimes.” Did I want to be out in the parking lot, waving around my cell phone and cursing Caerphilly’s substandard signal towers while something happened to Grandfather?

  Unnecessary. No matter how much of what I’d said had been cut off, Debbie Anne had heard the first sentence. She knew Grandfather was in danger.

  I had reached the elevator lobby. No one behind the desk. I punched the elevator call button. Nothing happened. One elevator was gaping open, and the call button didn’t light when I pushed it.

  Someone had hung an “Out of Order” sign on the open elevator.

  Out of order? Or turned off by someone with access to the keys?

  I raced for the stairwell.

  I emerged on the second floor beside the nurses’ station. The vacant nurses’ station. What had happened to the replacement for Vivian? If I was right, and Francine was the killer, she could have canceled the request for a replacement once we were all out of the way. Or just waited to make it until after she had done something to Grandfather.

  I slowed down to a fast walk on my way to my grandfather’s room. I kept glancing left and right as I passed the other rooms on the hall. All were dark. Presumably part of the buffer zone they’d established around Grandfather. Whose idea was the buffer zone, anyway? Was it really something the nurses thought necessary for the other patients’ comfort, or had Francine instituted it to make sure my grandfather was as far from help as possible when she made her move? Should I dash into one of the empty rooms and use a land line to call 911 again? No, Debbie Anne knew enough to sound the alarm. I could call again from Grandfather’s room.

  I paused at the door of 242. No one in sight up or down the hall. I walked in as quietly as I could and paused at the curtain. It suddenly occurred to me that Francine could be armed—after all, they hadn’t found the gun that had killed Parker. I bent down and peered beneath the curtain. No feet anywhere in sight. I breathed more easily.

  Of course, that didn’t mean the danger was over—only that I’d reached Grandfather before Francine had. But I was sure she’d be coming.

  And since I’d arrived here before she had, maybe I should see if I could catch her in the act. I could hide along the wall beside the bed and leap out when she came in. Or better yet, in the bathroom—the door was between the inner curtain and the outer door, so I could see her as she crept in.

  I was turning to slip into the shadows inside the bathroom door when I heard a familiar noise. A soft “pffffft!” from the whoopee cushion chair.

  I parted the curtains slightly and peered in. Francine was standing on the chair and fumbling at the ceiling. I could see her face in profile. She was calm and frowning slightly as if in concentration.

  I pulled out my cell phone, turned it on. Wonder of wonders, the wayward signal was back, so I pointed it toward Francine. She moved one of the ceiling tiles aside. There was a space between the drop ceiling and the real one. She was reaching in and pulling something out.

  A syringe and a medicine vial.

  I snapped a picture of her doing it and hit the button to send it to the baby e-mail list, the one we’d set up so that with one click we could send cute pictures of the twins to dozens of friends and relatives. Good; one bit of evidence safe.

  Then I called 911, set the phone down on the floor, and stepped through the curtains. Francine was standing by Grandfather’s IV bag, filling the syringe from the little vial.

  “You can put that hypodermic needle down now,” I said as loudly as I could.

  From the floor, I heard faint noises from my phone. Debbie Anne, I hoped, asking what the hell was going on.

  “I don’t think so,” Francine said. She squirted a little bit of the liquid from the syringe, and the drops caught the light and glittered as they landed on the sheet covering Grandfather.

  I was racking my brains for something to use as a weapon—and kicking myself for not having stopped to find something on my way. Of course, if I’d stopped to search for a weapon, by the time I’d gotten here, Francine might already have done whatever she was planning to do to Grandfather. Maybe I had something in my purse that I could use.

  Or maybe I could just keep her talking until help arrived. As long as I kept her away from Grandfather.

  “What were you planning to do to Grandfather?” I asked. “Put potassium chloride in his IV? Or maybe succinylcholine?”

  She looked startled for a moment, then her frown deepened.

  “Hey, remember, I’m a doctor’s daughter,” I said, shrugging. “I know a few things. Just as you do, in spite of what the nursing staff think. And speaking of them, were you going to frame Vivian for the theft of whatever’s in that vial, or just let the blame fall on the whole nursing staff?”

  “I’m sorry you came here.” She didn’t sound sorry. More like annoyed.

  “Just drop the syringe,” I said. “You can’t get away with poisoning him now.”

  She sighed, held out her hands, and opened them. The syringe and the little bottle clattered to the floor.

  “You’re right,” she said. She took a fumbling step backward, as if she were about to collapse into the whoopee cushion chair.

  Then I realized that when I thought she was reaching back to grab the chair arm for support, she was grabbing something from the oversized pocket of her jacket.

  A gun.

  “Why bother fiddling with his IV when I can just shoot you both?” she said. “And no, I probably can’t get away with that, either, but I’m not sure I care anymore.”

  “Not since you found out that Parker Blair was only using you to get information about what the mayor was up to,” I said.

  She winced as if I’d struck her, and her face hardened. Maybe that hadn’t been the wisest thing to say. Then again, she seemed to be working up to saying something. Just keep her talking—that was the ticket.

  “And I thought you were my friend,” she said. “But now— Oof!”

  She suddenly lurched forward as if someone had shoved her.

  No, someone had kicked her. I could see Grandfather’s long, bony leg sticking out from under the sheets. He kicked her again and this time she fell down. As she hit the floor, the gun went off, and I felt a sudden sharp pain in one leg.

  “Get her!” Grandfather shouted. “Quick! Before she recovers!”

  I was already in motion. I landed on top of Francine and managed to grab her wrist and pin it down. She started shooting, but none of the shots went anywhere near Grandfather or me. One bullet did ricochet off the tasteful chocolate-brown wall and into one of the machines, which died with a small arpeggio of tinkles and beeps.

  The gun was now clicking empty. Francine began struggling wildly.

  An object sailed past us and struck the wall with a light thud.

  “Stop it!” Francine shrieked. “How dare you throw that bedpan at me?”

  “Wasn’t throwing it at you,” Grandfather said. “What’d be the use? Damned flimsy piece of plastic junk!”

  I was glad he seemed to be looking for a weapon, but I hoped he’d hurry. I was having trouble holding her down.

  “And you’re bleeding all over me!” Francine added. This appeared to be aimed at me. “Get away from me!”

  Yes, there was rather a lot of blood smeared on the floor where we were struggling. Apparently my leg was bleeding. I felt a momentary twinge of dizziness, and then snapped myself out of it. No time for that now.

  I punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, which had the double effect of halting her struggles and shutting her up. Thou
gh both effects probably wouldn’t last long.

  “Tie her up,” Grandfather said.

  “With what?” I’d twisted both of Francine’s arms behind her back and was sitting on her. I figured I could probably hold her down until help came. Assuming help didn’t take too long. She was getting her wind back and starting to struggle again. Desperation gave her more strength than I’d have expected and my leg was starting to hurt like hell. If I lost so much blood that I fainted …

  “Here.” I heard a ripping noise. Some small strips of tape landed near me. I glanced up to see him pulling the IV out of his arm.

  “Hey,” I said. “Even if you didn’t need that IV, there’s not enough tape here to hold her. And besides—”

  “Then tie her up with this.”

  He was waving the IV bag with its long trailing cord.

  “Great,” I said. “Except I’ve got my hands full here.”

  It was as much as I could do to hold Francine. And now she had begun kicking everything within reach, trying to knock something down on me. The IV stand barely missed me. Could I manage another stomach punch?

  “Damnation,” Grandfather said. “Let me do it, then.”

  To my astonishment, he looped the IV tube around Francine’s neck and began pulling it tight. Francine stopped trying to kick the furniture and began struggling wildly.

  “Don’t strangle her!” I shouted. “The chief will want a live suspect.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said. “Used to tackle Burmese dacoits this way.”

  Francine went limp. Grandfather immediately loosened the tube and began using it to tie her hands. I checked her pulse.

  “Okay, at least you haven’t killed her,” I said.

  “Better her than me,” he growled.