The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery)

by Boneham, Sheila Webster

  I made the call and Norm was delighted to have “the boys” for a couple of hours. I ran back in and got Leo, and to sweeten the deal, we swung by the Cookie Cottage and got a mixed box. Norm was a sucker for the animals, and Bill was a sucker for cookies. It runs in the family, but I managed to control my white-chocolate-macadamia lust, breaking off a smallish piece and giving the rest of the yummilicious thing to Tom.

  thirty-one

  Shadetree Retirement Home looked like I remembered Elmhurst High School on prom night. The lobby was decked out with crepe paper streamers and helium balloons, and big band music filled the air.

  “Wow!” I said as we approached the door to the dining cum recreational event room. The music was much louder here, and, it turned out, was live. The singer appeared to be about sixteen, but he was doing a reasonable cover of the old Bing Crosby classic, “Swinging on a Star.” I knew it from Going My Way, one of my mother’s favorite old movies. The crepe-paper-and-balloon theme was repeated here, with strings of tiny white lights making everything sparkle, including more than one pair of elderly eyes. Several couples were dancing, while others occupied chairs and a few wheelchairs around the perimeter of the room. One or two appeared to be asleep. A long table held finger food and a punch bowl.

  Jade Templeton waved and grinned from the row of chairs to my right, where she was talking to a resident who didn’t seem to be as happy as the others were. I looked around for my mother and finally spotted her on the far side of the room, dancing with a white-haired man in white slacks and shirt and a startling purple jacket. I elbowed Tom and pointed, and he grinned.

  The band struck up a new number, an instrumental, and Tom leaned toward my ear and said, “In the Mood.”

  I couldn’t stifle a giggle. “Not here, Tom. I mean, most of them won’t remember by tomorrow, but still …”

  “The song, Janet, the song, although …” He chuckled as he draped his arm across my shoulder and steered us toward the punch bowl, then spoke low into my ear. “How long did you say we have to stay?”

  I handed him a cup of what appeared to be sherbet-and-ginger-ale and said, “Here, let me punch you.”

  A short fellow I had seen before at Shadetree was reaching for the ladle, and Tom passed his cup to the man. Then he bowed slightly and gestured toward the dance floor. “Shall we dance, m’dear?”

  “Oh, I, uh …” Holy cow, I really am at the prom, I thought, recalling that less-than-stellar event of my teenhood. I glanced down at my wide-soled running shoes, fluorescent-green anklets, and denim capris. “I don’t know, Tom. I forgot my dancing slippers and frock.”

  He just grinned at me and held out his hand.

  “Oh, why not,” I said, and we joined the other dancers just as the tune ended. I tried to turn back but the vocalist said, “Now we’re going to slow it down a bit, so grab your sweetheart,” and Tom did just that.

  He pulled me close and I was once again astonished at how easily our bodies fit together. A reasonable rendition of “Unforgettable” coiled like audible smoke around me. I closed my eyes and let everything go except the movement, the music, and the man. When the music stopped, we just stood like that for a moment. Then the band launched into “Rock Around the Clock” and broke the spell. I declined to jitterbug in my clodhoppers, so we turned back toward the punch bowl.

  Neil Young was standing with an elderly woman in a lovely floor—length pink gown and firmly sprayed blue hair. He was speaking to her but looking at me. Tom said, “My, your friend gets around, doesn’t he?” He sounded almost as annoyed to see Neil as I was.

  “Let’s go see Mom,” I said, changing course and circling the dance floor.

  She had disappeared.

  “Back to the punch bowl,” said Tom, nodding in that direction. My mother was standing by the table, loading finger food onto a little paper plate. The woman in pink had vanished and Neil was beside my mother, smiling his high-school-heartthrob smile. He leaned in to say something. By the time we got there, she was giggling.

  Neil nodded at me. “Janet,” he said, and held his hand out to Tom. “Neil Young.”

  “Tom Saunders.”

  I couldn’t tell whether they were squeezing the feeling out of each other’s hands, but the grip seemed to last a long time. Or maybe time was just losing its shape and oozing around like a Salvador Dali clock. They reminded me of a pair of male dogs posturing. The body language was right, both standing as tall as they could. And the direct stare. I almost looked around for a chair to set over one if a fight broke out. I saw Marietta Santini do that once at Dog Dayz when a couple of dogs got into a squabble. She pinned one down with the rungs under the chair while somebody pulled the other dog away. I watched the men’s faces, hoping one of them would give in and feeling a little tremor of hope that it would not be Tom.

  It wasn’t. Neil retrieved his hand and turned toward me. “So what are you doing here, Janet?”

  “Visiting my mother.” I nodded toward Mom, who was busy loading her plate with olives. I was sure I had told him she was living at Shadetree. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see my aunt.”

  Something about that bothered me, but I couldn’t think what, so I focused on my mother. I touched her arm and said, “How you doing, Mom?”

  Her mind might be flickering on and off, but her reflexes still work. She let out a screech that rattled my earrings and whacked at me with her paper plate, launching a dozen olives into the air. One of them hit Neil square in the silk hankie and another lodged in my hair.

  “Ma! Calm down!” I made a move toward her and she backed into the table.

  “Get away from me! I don’t know you!” She sidled along the edge of the table, then looked blankly at Tom and spoke to Neil. “Do you know this person?”

  I’d like to say I was getting numb to the impact of having my mother react as if I were an axe murderer, but I’m not sure that will ever be true. My heart was pounding in my ears and my eyes stung. I felt strong hands moving me a step away from the direction my mother was headed and I heard Jade Templeton’s soothing contralto. “It’s okay, Janet. I’ve got her.” And she did. She put her arm around Mom’s shoulders and said, “Mrs. Bruce, let’s go sit down for a minute, okay?”

  Mom looked sideways at Jade and pursed her lips and stiffened her backbone, but she let herself be led to a chair by the wall. A young woman who looked to be about sixteen appeared with a whisk broom, dust pan, and towel, so the rest of us moved out of her way. Tom extricated an olive from my frizzy hair. “You okay?”

  “I’m great.”

  Neil folded his olived handkerchief and put it in a pants pocket. “Sorry, Janet. That’s tough. How long has she been like that?”

  “A while. She’s been here since May, but it started, I don’t know, a year or so …” My voice petered out under the weight of recent events and I changed the subject. “Neil, what is going on at that Treasures on Earth place?”

  Tom cleared his throat and a look like he had been slapped moved across Neil’s face, but he recovered almost before I saw it. “What do you mean?”

  “Janet, maybe this isn’t …” Tom started, but I cut him off.

  “The parrots, for one thing, Neil. What’s with the parrots?” I heard my volume rising but couldn’t seem to reach the controls. “You people all have parrots, Neil. What’s up with that?”

  Neil took a step back and looked around, but no one seemed to be paying any attention. That’s one advantage to raising your voice in a nursing home, I supposed. Half the residents can’t hear you.

  “Janet,” said Tom, gripping my elbow and trying to turn me toward the exit. I tried to pull away but he tightened his grip and whispered, “Janet! Not here, not now.”

  I craned my neck for a last look at Neil, but the good doctor had already bolted for the other door, so I went with Tom, shrugging him off my arm when we got to the building exit. I pointed toward the other side of the parking lot. Neil was unlocking a car. Black. Bee
tle-like. “Tom, is that the car we saw on Tappen Road last week?”

  “Probably not. Come on, Janet, why would your doctor friend …”

  That hit me all wrong and I snapped, “What, you don’t still know any women you knew in school?”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. But why would Neil be skulking down Tappen Road like that? There are lots of black cars.” We watched Neil pull onto South Anthony and Tom said, “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “You didn’t know what the one on Tappen Road was, either.”

  We sat in the car without speaking for a long couple of minutes, but glaring through the windshield so hard I half expected it to crack. Tom broke the silence.

  “Come on, let’s take Leo to my place and then take the dogs for a walk. Then we can all go to Zesto’s for a cone. I’ll save some for Leo even.”

  I was a little steamed that he thought he could distract me with ice cream. I was more steamed at myself that he was right.

  thirty-two

  We had planned to sleep in Sunday morning for once, but a bright flash followed by a roar that sounded like a mountain being dragged across the roof landed two dogs on us when there was just enough light to see shapes in the room. One of those shapes was Leo. He was hunkered down on Tom’s dresser.

  “Drake, you big weenie,” said Tom, but he wrapped his trembling dog in a securing arm and pulled him in close. He lay his chin on top of Drake’s head and grinned at me. “He doesn’t even flinch when we’re outdoors in a storm. I think it’s an excuse.”

  Jay wasn’t bothered by storms, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one. He had squeezed in between Drake and me and rolled against me into belly-rub position. Of course, I obliged.

  An hour later the storm had passed and Tom’s backyard radiated summer scents of wet grass, mulch, and a chorus of flowers. I breathed it all in so deeply that I could almost taste the roses, lavender, flowering tobacco, sweet alyssum, and more that fringed the back of Tom’s house. Jay and Drake were getting noses full, too, although they were more interested in following some sort of track across the grass and under the fence.

  A flash of red in the air made me jerk my head around. The image of a scarlet parrot flashed through my mind, but was quickly replaced by the male cardinal that had landed on a feeder in the neighbor’s yard.

  “Open the door, please, ma’am.” Tom was inside the sliding screen holding a tray with two steaming mugs and two plates bearing whatever he’d been heating in the oven. More inspiring morning scents hit me when I liberated him. Coffee, cinnamon, and yeast.

  “You baked cinnamon rolls?”

  “Sure,” he said, pulling a kitchen towel out of his pocket to dry the table and chairs. “Was up at four mixing and kneading and working my fingers to the bo …”

  “Frozen, right?”

  He held my chair out for me and said, “Refrigerated.”

  When we had finished eating, Tom took the dishes in and brought more coffee and I cranked up my laptop. We had already emailed my photos of the three parrots—Persephone Swann’s lovely Ava, the dead bird on the island, and the live one—to George Crane, the ornithologist Tom had contacted. We were both eager to see what he had to say, but first I checked my own emails for anything critical, then passed my computer to Tom. As he signed into his account, he said, “It’s too soon to expect anything, you know. His auto reply said he was gone for the weekend.”

  Jay and Drake raced onto the deck, a floppy flyer in one mouth and a tennis ball in the other. Dogs and toys were all sopping wet, mucky, and very close. “Not now, guys! Off ! Off !” I waved them away, curling my legs up into my chair to keep from getting slimed. They looked so disappointed in me that I almost caved in, but the sound of Tom’s phone saved me from having to do a load of laundry before I could leave.

  Tom got up to answer the phone and handed me my laptop. “You could leave more clothes here, you know, in case of wet dog attacks,” he said, touching my shoulder and grinning.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Reading my mind.”

  He was still laughing when he shut the door behind him.

  I looked at the dogs. They were still on the deck, Jay lying in sphinx position with the floppy on his paws, Drake sitting, his lip bubbled out where it was caught between tennis ball and tooth. “He does, you know. He reads our minds,” I said. They wagged their tails in agreement.

  The door slid open behind me and Tom said, “Janet, come here. Bring your computer.” When I turned I saw that he was gesturing for me to hurry, and seemed very excited. “Hang on,” he said into his phone, and pressed the mouthpiece against his shoulder. “Set it up and open my email again. Here.” He re-entered his password and opened his account, then spoke in the phone again. “Okay, downloading now.”

  There was an email with photos attached, and he opened the first one. It could have been a portrait of Ava, I thought, although I’d have to see the photos side by side to be sure. The lovely creature was perched on the shoulder of a grinning, bare-chested child with the bowl haircut characteristic of Amazonian Indians. Tom opened the second photo, then the third. Two more parrots, or possibly the same bird. In one shot, the crimson bird was perched on a branch, and the photo was obviously taken at considerable distance from beneath, meaning it was a very tall tree. The third photo showed a parrot in flight, and aside from the forest in the background, it might have been the bird flying around Heron Acres. But one small red parrot in flight looks pretty much like another to me.

  “What are we looking at?” asked Tom.

  The voice on the other end of the line was speaking fast and sounded agitated. I couldn’t make anything out, but Tom’s forehead had puckered up in his worried-and-potentially-angry look. I’d have to settle for the retelling, I guessed, so I went into Tom’s office and turned on his printer. I’d loaded the printer software onto my computer a week or so earlier when I needed to print something. I found some photo paper on a shelf, so once I slipped it into the feed tray we were all set. I went back to the computer and sent all three photos to print, then opened my own parrot photos and printed them. At least we could compare them side by side.

  “No, really, plenty of room,” Tom was saying into the phone. “In fact, you can have the house to yourself if you like.” He winked at me. “Great. See you Tuesday.” He paused, then said, “Right. Nothing until then. Thanks a lot.”

  I retrieved the photos and spread them on the counter.

  “Wow,” said Tom, frowning and shaking his head.

  “He’s coming here?” I was leaning over the pair of Avas. “Do you have a magnifying glass handy?”

  “He wants to see the birds for himself, but he’s pretty sure …” He disappeared down the hall and came back with the magnifier.

  “Sure of what?”

  “Two endangered species,” he said.

  I raised my head and gaped at him. “What?”

  “That’s what he thinks. This one,” he said, pointing at the photo of the bird that looked like Ava, or whatever his name was now, “is an endangered Amazonian parrot. He’s emailing us the names, but wants us to keep it to ourselves until he gets here. And these,” he pulled the other photos toward himself, “are, he thinks, a critically endangered African species.”

  “So Anderson was right. Something is going on out there.” I looked

  at the photos, trying to take it all in. “You know, that dog I met at the vet’s, the wildlife dog, his handler said bird smuggling is pretty active around here.”

  “Some greedy s.o.b.’s will do anything for money.”

  “No wonder Persephone didn’t want me to photograph Ava. Although come to think of it, I think she said ‘they’ didn’t want the birds photographed.”

  “‘They’ means whoever is placing the birds with people. Treasures on Earth. Moneypenny.” Tom got up and let the dogs in. “Janet, if they are smuggling endangered birds, there’s a lot at stake—mone
y, possibly big money, and criminal prosecution if they get caught. They have a lot of territory to defend.” He stood in front of me, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my eyes. “Please don’t go snooping around out there alone.” He paused. “Or at all. Leave it to the cops.”

  “Okay.”

  “At least be careful, will you?”

  “Okay.” I started to collect my things, preparing to go home.

  “You’re coming back, right?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. I have a lot to do at home. Laundry, mowing, fun stuff like that.” And besides, I’m terrified to give up my autonomy, so back off, Bub!

  As he does so often, I think the man read my mind. “I know, you need your space.” There wasn’t a trace of snark in his tone, but I looked at him to double check. He just grinned at me and said, “That’s one of the many things I love about you. But if you change your mind, the door is always open.”

  A few hours later, I decided that being alone might not be such a hot idea, so I loaded the critters up and went back to Tom’s house for the night.

  thirty-three

  Monday, Monday. The Mamas and Papas were rocking it out when I stepped out of the shower. Maybe it’s because I work for myself, but Monday doesn’t seem any less trustworthy than any other day to me. Mondays do tend to be busy, though, and this one promised to be

  a doozy. I had a lot to do, including some of the things I had planned

  to do the day before, and I had to go home to do a lot of it. First, though, I needed some exercise to fight back at the white chocolate macadamia cookie I’d eaten on Saturday. Okay, that was just a mouthful, and if I stuck to just a mouthful of things I like, I wouldn’t be constantly trying to drop twenty pounds. I had eaten too well over the weekend and I needed a long walk.

  Tom was starting breakfast when I got to the kitchen, but I declined. “I’ll get something later. Want to go for a jog before it heats up.” I gave him a kiss, keeping a hand on his chest to make sure that’s all it was, and left. A quick stop at home to drop Leo off, and ten minutes later Jay and I were jogging east on the River Greenway along my favorite stretch of the muddy Maumee. There’s a bend there in the river, and the path descends into a shallow dip maybe forty feet across before it rises again. The elevation loss is no more than three feet, but it’s cooler there, more moist, and on a bright day the early sun through the leaves colors the air a warm gold-green. I always breathe a little more deeply as I pass through what I think of as “the green bowl.”