The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery)

by Boneham, Sheila Webster

I closed my eyes and let the back of my head clunk against the wall behind me. A voice came from a distance and I realized that I had dropped the hand holding the phone to my lap. I brought it back to my ear.

  “Janet? Janet? What’s going on? Are you there?”

  “You just scared the crap out of me, Jo.”

  “What?”

  “I thought it was Tom.”

  “Oh, jeez, Janet, I’m sorry. No, no. Jeez, I never thought you’d think that. You okay?”

  “I am now.” And then suddenly I wasn’t. Anderson Billings had called from the lake the previous evening.

  “No, I just, well, you were so sure something weird was going on out here and I didn’t take you all that seriously, really, well, you know, I was annoyed about having my first date in a thousand years interrupted the other night and … jeez, sorry.”

  “Jo, does he have I.D.?”

  “I can’t tell you his name until we notify next of kin. Why?”

  “Anderson Billings?” Somewhere deep inside knew I wasn’t asking.

  “You know him?”

  I tried to answer but couldn’t get anything out. The phrase it’s happening again chased its own tail through my brain.

  “Janet?”

  I cleared my throat, then managed, “How?”

  “Can’t release anything yet, Janet.” She paused, then said, “I should have guessed you’d know him. He had quite a camera.”

  “You found his camera?”

  “In his car. One of those ginormous lenses like you have.”

  Something didn’t make sense, but my mind was too numb to sort through my own confusion and shock. I told her how I knew him, and that he had called the night before. I also told her how his last message had been cut off.

  After I closed my phone, I sat frozen for a day or two, or maybe just a couple of minutes. Jay managed to crawl up so that half his body was on my lap, and Leo strolled in and sat staring at me. I opened my phone again and checked the time. Seven fifteen. I pushed number two and the send button, heard two rings and then, “Good morning, Starshine.”

  “Hi.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I … Nothing, really. I just wanted to say good morning.”

  Tom chuckled. “Great morning now. How about breakfast? I’ll spring for it.”

  In spite of myself, I smiled. “You keep feeding me, I’m going to blimp out worse than I already have.”

  “More to love. And you’re not blimped out.”

  The axis of my priorities had tilted with Jo’s call, so despite the pile of work I had waiting for me, I said I’d meet him in half an hour. I fed the fur boys, let Jay out while I dressed, quickly policed the yard and the litterbox, smooched Leo, let Jay back in, and took off.

  I managed to keep myself together long enough to order coffee, but when Tom had ordered and the waitress had gone, I fell apart. I finally managed to pull myself mostly together and get the basic story out.

  Tom looked stricken. “I had planned …. Maybe if …” He paused, then went on. “What happened?”

  “I guess they can’t release that either.” I blew my nose, then said, “I thought you were planning to go out last evening to train?”

  “Oh, Tommy called and we talked awhile, and then I decided to stay home and read.” Tommy, his son, didn’t call often. “Jeez, if I’d gone last night, maybe he’d still be alive.”

  I stared at him but didn’t say what I was thinking. Or maybe Jo would have found your body, too. As usual, the man read my mind.

  “Oh, come on, Janet. It must have been an accident.”

  The inconsistencies of Anderson’s story were starting to line up in my mind. That twinge in my gut told me that whatever had happened to Anderson Billings, it was no accident. Still, I was much calmer by the time I left Tom and headed for the vet clinic to continue the photo essay on “a day in the veterinary life” of Dr. Kerry Joiner. I thought about canceling, but decided that staying home wouldn’t help Anderson, and work was probably my best hope for maintaining balance.

  The rest of the morning was uneventful and busy enough to keep my mind off Anderson’s death. By eleven o’clock Dr. Kerry had given three sets of puppy vaccinations, coached the owner of a fat elderly Basset Hound on canine weight loss, trimmed sixty-four canine nails plus four dew claws, and treated a very unhappy cat with an abscessed tooth. Ava, the most unusual patient of the day, was ushered into the exam room at 11:05.

  “What do we have here?” The thrill in Dr. Kerry’s voice reflected my own feelings as I looked at the stunning creature on the exam table. She stood about a foot high and cocked her head, obviously sizing up the two of us, then shook out her wings and refolded them.

  “Wow. She’s gorgeous.”

  “She is, isn’t she?” The woman who had brought the bird in wore a white silk tank top, pale green silk slacks, and expensive-looking white sandals. She was tall and well-muscled, her hair short and chic, and her makeup flawless. “I’ve only had her about a week, but I just love her.” It struck me that her tone didn’t carry the same enthusiasm as her words.

  “I can see why,” I said. “Beautiful.” The upper part of Ava’s head was bright crimson, her breast, body, and wings a yellowish green with dark blue peeking out from her folded wings. She made a full turn on the table, fanning her tail feathers as she went, then let out a scream that reminded me why I didn’t want a parrot. “What kind is she?”

  Ava’s owner just stared at me, and Dr. Kerry said, “Oh, sorry, I should have introduced you.” Which she did.

  “Persephone Swann. Are you related to Giselle Swann?” I asked.

  Persephone sniffed. “Cousins. Haven’t seen her in years.”

  “Ah. I know Giselle from dog training.”

  “She’s an Amazon parrot,” said Persephone.

  “Giselle?”

  Even though I was smiling, Persephone gave me a look that said I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was. Still, I was curious about Ava. I know just enough about birds to be dangerous, but “Amazon parrot” didn’t narrow the possibilities much. “Right. I just wondered what kind, you know, what species.”

  The bird bobbed her head at me. Her owner pursed her lips and said, “Just an Amazon parrot.” Which struck me as about as precise as, say, “just a Midwestern dog.” I remembered reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine or somewhere that said there were between twenty-five and thirty known species of parrot in the Amazon, some of them severely endangered by habitat loss and poaching for the pet trade.

  Dr. Kerry and I exchanged a look, and then she said, “Let’s take a look at this girl.”

  Ava waddled to the edge of the exam table and looked at the floor, then turned back to the middle of the table and spread her wings. I raised my camera and got several clicks off before Persephone grabbed at my lens and said, “Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry.” I pulled my camera out of her reach and capped the lens, making a mental note to check it for fingerprints. I looked to Kerry for help, and she explained about the photo essay, but Persephone was adamant that I not photograph her bird. She also wanted me to delete the photos I’d taken. “I never use photos of people’s pets without written permission, so no worries.”

  “Be that as it may, please delete the photos you took.”

  Rather than stand and argue, I deleted most of them while she watched, then excused myself from the exam room and got a bottle of water from the fridge in the back of the clinic. Twenty minutes later Dr. Kerry joined me, shaking her head.

  “What the heck was that all about?” I asked her.

  “No clue. My fault. I should have cleared it before you met her, but it never occurred to me she’d object so violently. Or at all, really.”

  Persephone was the first client to object. Most people like to see their pets in published articles and books, or on websites.

  “No problem. It would be cool to have a bird in the mix, but no biggie.”

  “Two more days,” said Kerry, twistin
g the top off a bottle of pop. “Never know what will walk in.”

  “Didn’t it seem odd, though, that she doesn’t know what kind of bird she has?”

  “Said she’s only had him a week.”

  “Him?”

  Kerry laughed. “Yeah. She’s not too steady on several details about her new pet. Ava is definitely a boy. I did suggest she consider changing his name.”

  We chitchatted for a few minutes, then I gathered up my camera and notebook and headed home where something was, once again, waiting for me on the porch. A bouquet. Another one. I went in through the garage, let Jay out back, and brought my flowers in through the front door. They were stunning—big white daisies, peach-hued roses, blue delphiniums, some kind of pom-pom looking things. I shoved some papers and books out of the way on the dining room table and set the vase down, then pulled the card out of the plastic holder and read, “Thank you so much for the beautiful photos of our Shadetree family. Jade, Percy, and the Rest.”

  Three bouquets in three days. I couldn’t remember when I’d gotten three bouquets in three years. I freshened the water in the other two, brought Jay in, took off my shoes, and linked my camera to my laptop. Only as I waited for all my programs to open did I realize that no one at the clinic had made any rude references to my bitten behind. Maybe I’d escape the ridicule after all. I downloaded the two photos I’d kept of Ava and started a Google image search. Persephone Swann might not know what kind of Amazon parrot she had, but I was determined that I would.

  nineteen

  Wednesday evening is one of the obedience practice nights at Dog Dayz, where Tom and I train Drake and Jay. I may forget to comb my hair before I go out sometimes, but I like my dog to look his best when he’s out in public, so in the late afternoon I put my laptop to sleep, set up my grooming table in the garage so Jay could watch out the door while I groomed him, and got my box of tools. Jay hopped onto the table and stood patiently while I ground the tips off his nails with a rotary grinder, trimmed the straggly hairs on his tail, ears, and feathers, and brushed him out. When I let him off the table, he shook himself and spun around several times.

  “Yep, Bubby, I know you look good.” He wriggled his butt like a belly dancer and gave me his goofiest grin.

  I still had about half an hour before I needed to leave so I tried to call Bill but got his partner, Norm, instead.

  “Hey little sister! Bill’s at the gym. Has to keep his girlish figure, you know. I’m here baking peanut butter chocolate brownies to sabotage him. Want to come lick the bowl?”

  Norm’s peanut butter chocolate brownies are the best worst things in the world. “I’m not coming anywhere near your place until those are all gone.”

  “I’m crushed.” He made little sobbing sounds.

  “Hey, I have to get going, but tell Bill I called, okay? I need to talk to him soon. Important.”

  “Mom?”

  Norm had gone through the failing parent thing a couple of years earlier with his dad, and he’d been an emotional rock and a fountain of sensible suggestions and solid information as Bill and I negotiated these waters. “Mom.”

  “Right. You be home?”

  “After about ten.”

  “Setting the alarm clock now.”

  “Thanks, Norm.”

  Twenty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot behind Dog Dayz, grabbed my training bag, and got Jay out of his crate. I spotted Tom’s car at the far end of the lot and felt a happy little tingle dance its way through my body. As I walked up to the back bumper of Giselle Swann’s beat-up green Yugo, I stopped and stared. Last time I saw that bumper, it was covered with stickers extolling the wonders of Wicca and the superiority of the Maltese, Giselle’s dog of choice. I ♥ my Maltese and It’s hard to be humble when you have a Maltese were still there, but all references to witches were gone, a new affiliation in their place. What the hell? I asked myself as I read “Treasures on Earth Spiritual Renewal Center” and took in the cross with half hearts dangling from its arms.

  Jay apparently decided that we had delayed our entrance long enough and pulled me toward the back door of Dog Dayz. I don’t let my dog drag me around, so I had him heel and walk into the building like a gentleman, albeit a wriggly bouncy gentleman. Tom waved from the far practice ring, where he was watching Drake search among six metal dumbbell-shaped articles for the one that smelled like Tom. On the other side of that ring, someone I didn’t know was trying to get her Miniature Schnauzer to do a sit-stay, but every time she turned her back, the dog stood up. Just when I hoped that someone would help her, I saw Marietta Santini, owner and chief instructor at Dog Dayz, walking her way.

  Collin Lahmeyer stood in the center of the biggest ring with his Curly-coated Retriever, Molly, lying at his feet. “Okay, people, let’s warm up with some heeling,” he said. I pulled my fanny pack full of treats out of my training bag, strapped it on, and entered the ring with Jay prancing in heel position at my left side. “Forward!” commanded Collin, and we were off. He followed up with frequent changes of pace—“Fast! Normal! Slow!”—and changes of direction that kept us, dogs and people alike, thinking and moving. After ten minutes or so of the group heeling, Collin assembled us into two lines for recalls. I spotted Precious, Giselle Swann’s Maltese, in one of the lines, but I didn’t recognize the woman holding his leash. Unlike Giselle, who was three hundred pounds if she was one, this person was more like my size, which is to say she could lose a few pounds. Okay, forty. But she wasn’t ungainly, and her black slacks fit well and were slimming. Giselle tended toward baggy or too tight. Besides, Giselle’s hair was long, stringy, and usually a day late for a shampoo, and this woman had a nice, shiny, layered bob. Still, I was sure that was Precious. I have a good eye for a dog, and while some people may think that all silky-haired little white dogs look alike, it isn’t true. I’d photographed Precious enough times to know his face, his size, and his way of moving on sight.

  I figured Giselle must be in the restroom or something, so I got in line behind Precious. I’d been hoping to talk to Giselle ever since the encounter with her cousin Persephone at the vet clinic, and now, after seeing the new Treasures on Earth sticker on Giselle’s car, I was even more eager for a chat. Jay and Precious are old friends and, although generally I discourage sniffing and greeting in training situations, I had Jay lie down so that Precious would greet him at his own eye level. Then the woman holding the little dog’s leash turned around and I nearly passed out.

  “Oh, hi, Janet. Umm, how are you?”

  I’m afraid I just stared for a few seconds before I could find my voice, and the woman smiled at me. I couldn’t believe that she was wearing soft pink lipstick and carefully applied, subtle eye makeup.

  “Have you had a good summer?”

  “Giselle!” I raced through my memory files. When had I last seen her? I realized it must have been in May at Greg Dorn’s funeral. Three months? Could a person change this much in three months? In any event, there she stood, a changed woman.

  My peripheral vision registered a man struggling with a Golden Retriever who wasn’t holding his stays. That’s what the practice time is all about—reinforcing training in the midst of distractions. They finally managed a short stay at a short distance, and rather than call his dog out of the stay at that point, the man returned to the dog and had her heel to the end of the line. Smart move.

  “I, umm, are you okay, Janet?” She squirmed a bit and pushed her hair to the side with her non-leash hand, gestures exactly like those of the Giselle I knew.

  I gathered my wits and said, “Wow, Giselle, you look fantastic. How on earth …?”

  “I’ve been away.” She smiled, a funny mixture of pride and embarrassment on her face.

  The line had moved along and Giselle and Precious were on deck, so I bit back my questions until after they did their recall and Jay and I did ours. When we were all back in line again, I said, “Giselle, really, you look fantastic. How …?”

  “My daddy helped me
. After, you know, all that happened, I was, you know, in a pretty bad way.” I did remember that. Giselle had found

  a murder victim. “My dad said he was worried and, you know, he offered to pay for me to go to fat camp. So I did.”

  “I’d say you went to skinny camp, the way you look.”

  Giselle blushed as red as Ava’s feathered forehead and scooped Precious into her arms for a security hug, so I suppressed my amazement at her makeover and changed the subject.

  “Giselle, I met your cousin yesterday. Persephone.”

  “You did? Where’d you meet her?” Giselle’s tone did not express affection.

  I told her about my project at the vet clinic. “I love her beautiful bird. I wanted to take some photos of her but she wouldn’t let me.”

  “Don’t know why she had to come back to Fort Wayne.”

  “Come back?”

  “Oh, she lived in, wow, I’m not even sure, somewhere in the East,” Giselle spoke slowly, looking at the ceiling. “New something.”

  “New York?”

  “Ppfff. No, silly, I know New York.” Giselle giggled. “I haven’t even talked to her, really, since she got back,” Giselle set Precious back down, then continued, “except, you know, at Treasures, I mean, I say hi, but we don’t talk.” She giggled again, but sounded more nervous than amused. “At least not to each other.” I was going to ask about that when she said, “She’s not supposed to let anyone take pictures.” She paused, then went on, “I might get a bird, too.”

  “Really? Wait, Giselle, hold that thought. What do you mean, ‘she’s not supposed to’ let me take a picture of her bird?” Giselle had a way of saying odd things, but that was one of the oddest I could remember.

  “It upsets the birds.”

  My encounter with Persephone flashed through my mind. Ava the badly named bird didn’t seem to give a squawk. It was Persephone who was distraught about my camera.

  “Giselle?” I thought about pressing the point but I could see that Giselle was beginning to fidget again, so I let it go. “So you’re thinking of getting a bird?”