The Telltale Turtle (The Pet Psychic Mysteries)

by Jim Lavene;Joyce Lavene

  "Thanks, Mary Catherine. I wouldn't really get rid of Zack. I'll try what you said."

  Mindy pointed in her direction and Mary Catherine took her second call. "This is the Pet Psychic. What can I do for you?"

  "Sorry about your dogs," the voice said. "I guess the Meaty Boy taste test failed. I hope nothing else happens to them."

  This is Devon from Boston.

  If you can really talk to animals, tell a bird to fly over our congressman's house and drop a bomb on his head.

  'nuff said.

  FOURTEEN

  "WHY DON'T YOU TELL me what you know about that," Mary Catherine encouraged the caller.

  "I think I've said enough for now. I think you know why this happened. I don't need to spell it out for you."

  "You're wrong. I have no idea what you're talking about. If you were a dog, we might be on the same wavelength, but as a human-"

  Corey made the cut sign, telling her the phone line was dead. Mary Catherine nodded and pressed the button for the second phone line. The caller was a teenager worried about her Lab puppy who didn't want to play. Shaken, but determined not to let the psycho caller ruin her show, Mary Catherine continued through that call and five more before the show was over.

  She picked up Baylor and took him out of the sound booth with her. She was trembling with anger, but not willing to give the psycho caller the satisfaction of knowing it.

  Angellus was already there. "Why didn't you tell me about all of the things happening around the clinic?"

  "Because I couldn't see where they had anything to do with Ferndelle's death and that's what you're investigating."

  Colin joined them. "We're getting slammed with phone calls about Meaty Boy dog food. What's going on, Mary Catherine? I know the station owner is going to call and want to know too."

  "I don't know what to tell you. The dogs Buck brought in and the three dogs I brought for the taste test were all sick last night. Jenny said it was the Meaty Boy food, but it was just some extra fat he put on the food to make the dogs like it. Of course he cheated to make himself look better."

  "That's just great." Colin threw up his hands.

  "All of the dogs are fine this morning. Jenny thinks they can come up with a formula using that idea to make the food better. Buck is paying for testing and giving us a nice donation for the clinic. Or at least he was going to if we kept this quiet."

  Angellus shook his head. "I think we've gone beyond the Jamison murder case. I don't know what's happening yet, but between finding your cat in a cage, and your threatening caller, something's wrong. I didn't even know about the dog food."

  "Don't forget somebody cut the brake line on her car yesterday," Charlie added as he got off the elevator.

  "You!" Mary Catherine flew at him. "You have a lot of nerve showing your face here. You sent my cousin pictures of my home and the clinic." "

  I took pictures" Charlie defended himself. "But I haven't talked to him since I got to know you."

  "So you quit the case?" Angellus asked.

  "Not yet," Charlie admitted. "But I was getting around to it. Since I was spending time with her, it was a conflict of interest."

  "Like I believe that!" Mary Catherine turned her back on him. "He's probably my psycho caller. Ask him where he was when that man called my show a few minutes ago."

  "That's easy," Charlie said. "I was downstairs getting coffee, listening to your show. I knew you'd need a ride home"

  "You bet that's easy," Angellus told him. "Let me see your cell phone."

  "My cell phone? There are sensitive client numbers on my phone. I can't just hand it over to you.

  "That sounds suspicious to me," Colin pointed out.

  She raised her chin, conscious of all the men in the room looking at her. "He was there. He was there when Baylor ended up in the cage too. He was right there when my brakes failed."

  Angellus nodded. "That sounds suspicious to me too. Dowd, I think you and I need to have a talk at the station."

  Charlie spun Mary Catherine around to face him and held her arms. "I thought we had an understanding about all this." He kept his voice low, his eyes focused on hers. "I thought you understood the other part of me that knows when there's trouble. You don't really believe I had anything to do with what's happened, do you?"

  She refused to look at him. "I don't know what to believe right now. All I know is that you've told me you were working for my cousin who wants the building I inherited. His lawyer showed me the pictures you took. What else can I think?"

  "Come on," Angellus urged him toward the elevator. "I think you've become an unwanted member of this group now and we'd like you to be a member of our ongoing party at the station. Move, Dowd!"

  Charlie tried to shake Angellus off. The detective threatened to put him in handcuffs if he didn't cooperate. With a last look at Mary Catherine, Charlie left with Angellus.

  "Wow!" Colin sat down on one of the green plastic chairs. "That was intense. I don't know why he'd want to hurt you, Mary Catherine. It doesn't make sense."

  Mindy came out of the engineer's booth and put her hands on Colin's shoulders. "I think Corey got a fix on the number that called you, Mary Catherine. We could try calling it back again and see who answers."

  The three of them, with Baylor looking over Mary Catherine's shoulder, looked at the cell phone screen as she dialed the number. The person who answered was Teddy, who said he was working first shift at a local convenience store in Landfall Park, about twenty minutes from downtown.

  Teddy didn't sound anything like the psycho caller. After twenty years of taking phone calls, one thing Mary Catherine knew was voices. "Was there anyone else using the phone at the store?"

  "I'm the only one here until noon every day," Teddy responded. "I went to the bathroom for a few minutes but the store was empty when I left."

  Mary Catherine thanked him and hung up. "I don't know who it was, but it couldn't have been Charlie. It would take him too long to get back here."

  "Who else would want to do something like this?" Colin asked. "Not that I'm complaining. Your ratings are gonna go through the roof."

  "I'm sure that's not what the caller had in mind," Mary Catherine said. "The question is: how does this person know so much? Charlie, Buck, Jenny, Danny, and I were the only ones who knew about the dogs being sick."

  "Maybe Charlie is keeping someone posted on this," Mindy added. "He's a private detective. Maybe someone hired him to do these things."

  "And the psycho caller is the one who hired him," Colin added. "That makes sense."

  I feel so stupid letting him into my life," Mary Catherine told them. "You'd think I'd know better by now."

  "You?" Colin laughed. "At least no one is trying to frame you for murder."

  "One thing I'm curious about," Mary Catherine said. "What made you come to Ferndelle's house the morning I found her? Was that a routine thing?"

  Colin shrugged. "Not really. I visited her once in awhile. We weren't especially close, even before my parents died. After the thing with the money, we only saw each other occasionally. Believe it or not, she was angrier about the money than I was. I went there that morning because someone called me and told me there was a problem. I thought it was the police when I found out she was dead."

  "Did you tell the police about this?"

  "I think so" He played with his glasses. "I'm pretty sure I did. I might've forgotten. It's hard to think when you're worried about someone beating the information out of you."

  Mary Catherine thought for a minute. "Did he call you on your cell phone?"

  "Of course! I don't have a land line. Those are so passe" He smiled at Mindy. "Only old folks have those now."

  "What are you thinking?" Mindy wondered.

  "I'm thinking if someone called Colin that morning to lure him to his aunt's house, we should be able to find out who it is."

  "How would we do that?" Mindy held Colin's hand. "I thought you couldn't trace a cell phone call."

&n
bsp; "Of course you can," Mary Catherine told her. "Even us old folks know you can look at calls made to your cell phone from your online account. Let's find a computer"

  Colin logged into his cell phone account, recalling about what time the call had come in telling him he needed to go to his aunt's house. "I just got off my treadmill after the Pet Psychic show was over and Buck had finally stopped complaining and left the studio. I think that must've been around 10:15 or 10:30."

  "There it is!" Mary Catherine pointed to the incoming phone call on his account. "Let me write that down."

  "You don't need to." Corey was watching from behind them. "That's the same number of the convenience store where the call to the Pet Psychic originated today."

  "Are you sure?" Mindy asked. "That would mean the two things are related."

  "That might mean I'm off the hook." Colin stood up and did a little dance. He stopped, red-faced, when he realized what he'd done. "I guess we should call the police."

  "I don't know about that," Mary Catherine disagreed. "I think we should pay Teddy at the convenience store a visit. Then if we find something important, we can call Detective Angellus. Otherwise I'm afraid he might ignore it."

  "I'm for anything that proves I'm not a killer," Colin said. "We can take the station van."

  "One of us has to stay here," Mindy said. "I'll stay, honey. You go out and prove you're innocent."

  Colin kissed her. "You're the best, sweetie. I'll call you if we find anything."

  Mary Catherine waited until she and Colin were on the elevator alone going downstairs. "You lied to me. You haven't told her yet, have you?"

  Colin squirmed. "I was all ready to tell her. Then I started thinking: is this the kind of thing I'd want to know about Mindy? I decided it wasn't. She's better off not feeling guilty about me turning to another woman."

  "Are you serious? Why would she feel guilty?"

  "Because women are like that, Mary Catherine. They don't always want to know the truth. Sometimes, they want to be coddled and protected from the harsh realities of the world."

  "If you were worth it, I'd kick you in the butt! You can't put this off, Colin. If you don't tell her the truth, I will. Every woman deserves to know the truth about the man she's going to marry. You might be telling yourself all that other hogwash, but don't ask me to buy it."

  "She'll leave me. I might even lose my job."

  "You should've thought of that before you started running around with Charlene and her egotistical poodle." Mary Catherine walked out of the elevator as the doors opened.

  "You don't understand." Colin followed her. "I don't think Mindy can take the truth. She might go off the deep end. She really loves me, you know."

  "And obviously she's a fool to do it." She looked down the street to find where the station van was parked. "I'm not kidding. If you don't tell her by this time tomorrow, I will."

  Colin pulled the keys out of his pocket as they located the van parked near the corner. "Okay. I'll tell her. But it's on your head if something bad happens."

  "I'm afraid not, my friend." Mary Catherine boosted herself up into the passenger seat after putting Baylor on the floor. "It's about time you grew up and took some responsibility. I suppose that's why your aunt kept the family money."

  "No, that was bad planning on my parent's part. They probably hadn't changed their will since I was a baby. As for being responsible, I graduated from Duke University the youngest in my class. I've worked at WRSC since I graduated and you don't even want me to go into how many charitable organizations I belong to."

  "None of that makes you emotionally responsible, Colin. That's what I'm talking about. What possessed you to sleep with another man's wife in the first place?"

  "She was hot." He shrugged with a half smile. "And she wanted me, too."

  "That makes all the difference."

  "You don't get it!" Colin pulled the van smoothly away from the curb into traffic. "Women like that never want me."

  "Please stop or I won't care if someone charges you with murder."

  "How was I supposed to know Aunt Ferndelle would be murdered? Of all the people in the world to die a violent death, she would have been last on my list."

  "Did you know your aunt was dying from cancer?"

  "No!" Colin stared at her. "She never mentioned it. Did the police tell you that?"

  "Yes. I suppose it would be better for you if you'd known about it. There wouldn't be any reason for you to kill her if you knew she was going to die anyway." Mary Catherine looked out the window, too disgusted to talk to Colin for a few minutes. Baylor agreed that the boy had some growing up to do.

  They drove up Market Street toward the Landfall area of the city, which was booming with growth. Hotels and shops were crowded along the highway between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean. Expensive houses joined them for a few miles, their multitiered roofs set behind palmetto and oak trees.

  Mary Catherine was glad they hadn't built any of that along the river. She liked the old downtown area with its distinct flavor. She never attended town council meetings, but she hoped the town planners had enough good sense to keep it that way. The old brick buildings and narrow streets might not be good for Wal-Mart or some other big-box store, but it was perfect for everything else.

  "Here we are." Colin pulled the van into the convenience store parking lot. "There might be a phone inside. I don't see one out here."

  "If not, maybe Teddy has noticed someone suspicious looking hanging around." She got out of the van, telling Baylor to wait for her.

  The cat told her not to go without him. She'd never be able to tell if some human was lying to her the way he could. And he was sure he could identify his attacker.

  "I don't care. There's too much traffic and you aren't familiar with this area. I don't want anything else to happen to you. I'll be back in a few minutes." She patted him on the head, then locked and closed the door.

  Colin looked around at the swarm of people pumping gas and buying diet Pepsi. "How are we supposed to tell the person who called me from any of these other people?"

  "That's not the plan," she said. "The plan is to enlist Teddy's aid. I'm sure you can manage to make friends with him. We just called from the radio station. Tell him you're an FCC official looking for the psycho caller. He'll cooperate."

  "Great" Colin looked at her. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to look around a little and see if anyone else has seen or heard anything suspicious."

  "You mean animals, right? Have we truly established that you can talk to animals?"

  "We could establish it by me asking that bird over there to poop on your head." Mary Catherine smiled at him. "Would that take care of it?"

  "I'm going in! You don't have to threaten me!"

  "You know, Colin, if I'd ever had a son," she sighed, "I hope he wouldn't be anything like you."

  He grumbled, but finally went into the store. Mary Catherine watched him talking to the store clerk, probably the same one who answered the phone after the psycho killer. She walked around the exterior of the building. There were plenty of birds on the rooftop and the power lines, but she was hoping to find an animal who knew humans a little better.

  There was a half-starved, multicolored cat in the alley who was scavenging in the trash cans for food. She ran off as soon as she felt Mary Catherine's presence. Too bad. The poor thing probably needed help. She could've taken her back to the shelter.

  There were hundreds of rats around the dumpster and scurrying along the edge of the building. She could question them if she got desperate. The problem with rats was that they knew human beings too well and had taken on their unpleasant characteristic of lying. You could hardly believe a word from them.

  There was a single tree growing to the right of the convenience store. Mary Catherine heard some scratching sounds near it and was surprised to see a raccoon pop his head out. Raccoons were wild but had affiliated with humans long enough to converse easily. This
one had lived in the cottonwood tree for several years. He was waiting for the forest to come back, but it had been cut down to build the houses and shopping centers. In the meantime, he foraged what he could from the dumpster and the occasional handout from a kind stranger who was amazed to see a raccoon in an urban setting.

  Mary Catherine greeted the old raccoon. He acknowledged her and asked what she was looking for. If it was fish, the stream had long since gone with the trees and the other animals. This was good and bad in the raccoon's opinion, since being alone meant he didn't have to share his meager food source and had no natural predators.

  On the other hand, he was lonely and wished he could find a place to live where there was more than one tree.

  "I'd be glad to help you with that," she whispered to him. "I know some fabulous places with lots of trees and probably other raccoons. Would you like me to take you there?"

  The old raccoon was beside himself with joy. He gladly allowed her to pick him up and walk away from the tree. He confessed a moment of sorrow at leaving his home but was happy about the idea of spending his last days with others of his kind.

  "I know this may not make much sense to you, but I'm looking for a man who might have stood out here using a phone, like this one." She showed the raccoon her cell phone. She knew it was a long shot. Even if the raccoon had seen someone back there talking on the phone, how would she ever find him?

  But the raccoon, Cheetos, whose name was taken from some trash he fancied, had seen one man in particular in the back of the store talking on the phone many times. He believed the man worked there, since he was at the store for long periods of time. Cheetos was only there at night, like any normal creature would be, instead of the insanity of being out during the day as they were.

  Mary Catherine pointed him toward the clerk in the store, who was still talking to Colin. "Is that the man?"