Pushed to the Limit (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 2)

by Karen Chester

  She couldn’t help noticing that there were few pictures of Lorraine, her closest living relative. But there were plenty of a large, gray parrot, some of them taken inside the house, and others outdoors. Evidence that Faye adored her parrot…and thought more of him than her own sister?

  “Wark!”

  Emma jumped at the loud croak. She turned around. An arched entryway separated the living room from an adjoining dining room filled with more dark furniture. Near the window was a large domed structure shrouded by a plastic cover. This must be the parrot’s cage.

  She walked over and carefully lifted one flap of the cover.

  “Wark?” A beady black eye stared back at her.

  She pulled the cover off the cage and admired the parrot inside. He was larger than she’d expected, gray feathered with a black beak and a bright red tail. The animal cocked his head as if he was still making up his mind about her.

  “Hello, Pepper,” she said. “I’m Emma. I’m…well, I’m not exactly a friend of your mom’s, but I’m helping her out.” She paused, feeling silly for trying to converse with a bird.

  “Mommy’s home. Mommy’s home.” Pepper bobbed his head from side to side.

  Was he peering over her shoulder, looking for Faye?

  “Aw, you poor thing.” She found herself cooing. There was something about helpless animals that always got to her. As an only child, she’d been inseparable from her golden retriever. Shaggy had gone to doggy heaven when she was sixteen, and she’d never had another pet. Now that she wasn’t in New York anymore, maybe she could think about getting another dog. When she had her own home, of course.

  The newspaper lining the bottom of the cage was liberally soiled with bird poop and food debris. Three stainless steel bowls were clipped to the side of the cage. One held an inch of water, another held some gray-brown pellets, and the third contained a few wilted leaves. Hmm, it looked like parrots ate vegetables and maybe fruit as well as pellets. Should she give Pepper some fresh food? He’d probably be all right if she only replenished the bird pellets, but he deserved a treat after spending the night on his own.

  She returned to the kitchen and soon found a bag of bird pellets in a cupboard. Using her phone to access the internet, she read up on the diets of African grey parrots and discovered they enjoyed fruit, too. So she took an apple from the fruit bowl and cut it into small chunks. She gathered several sheets of newspaper from a recycling box in the laundry, filled a jug with water, and carried everything back to the dining room.

  “Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home!” Pepper squawked. He shunted up and down his perch, eyeing her closely as she approached.

  He wasn’t as calm as before, she noted. Maybe with the cover off, he was fully awake and expecting Faye. Instead, she was here, a stranger in the house, and he was probably getting agitated.

  “Easy there, fella,” she murmured, moving more slowly.

  She placed the newspaper, jug, bird pellets, and the bowl containing the cut up apple on the dining table, trying to do everything in slow motion. Keeping up a continuous murmur of reassuring phrases, she unlocked the cage door and reached in to remove the soiled lining.

  “Bad boy!” Pepper scolded her, bobbing up and down. “A no good cheat. No good. Cheat.”

  Who? Emma wondered. Who did Faye think was a no good cheat?

  “Dirtbag. Douche.”

  Oh dear. Pepper had picked up some salty language. From Faye? The idea made her want to giggle.

  The sheets of newspaper crackled as she drew them out of the cage. Pepper screeched, hopped off his perch, and sank his beak into the soft part of her arm. She shrieked and shook him off, scattering bird poop and lord knows what else far and wide. She snatched her arm out of the opening. With a volley of flapping wings, Pepper burst free of the cage and swooped upward to land precariously on a light fitting.

  “Damn it!” Emma cried.

  The copper pendant light swung from side to side as Pepper scrambled to stay upright. “Damn it!” he squawked back at her. “Bad boy.”

  “Yes, you are a bad boy. Look what you’ve done to my arm.” A red bite mark swelled on her skin, the pain a sharp throb. “You bit me.”

  Pepper lost his grip on the pendant light. Fluttering downward, he landed awkwardly on the dining table near her. “You bit me,” he accused her before leaving a generous dollop of greeny white poop on the shiny wooden surface.

  Emma groaned. The parrot took a couple of steps toward her, then stopped, as if he were daring her to make a grab at him. She wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that. Keeping still, she glared at him. After a few moments, he skittered across the table, plopped to the ground, and waddled out of the room.

  She had shut the back door when she’d entered, and the rest of the house was locked up, so she was confident the parrot couldn’t escape. She decided to leave him be while she cleared up this mess and replenished his food and water. Once his cage was fresh and attractive again, she’d think about recapturing him. Maybe she could lure him into the cage using a food treat or a new toy.

  She worked quickly. The bird cage was soon clean, the stainless steel bowls filled with fresh water, pellets, and diced up apple. Now she had to clear up the bird poop on the table and the mess on the floor. As she made her way to the laundry, she heard noises coming from the kitchen. Poking her head in, she gasped.

  The rascally bird was ransacking her tote bag. Notebook, wallet, coins, and makeup lay scattered on the table, while other objects had fallen to the floor. As she watched, he fished out her cell phone with his beak and transferred it to one claw.

  “Hello. Goodbye. Brrrippp!” He imitated a ringing phone with unerring accuracy. “This is Faye—wark!” He yelped as Emma marched up to him. He dropped the cell phone and flapped his way out of the kitchen.

  Muttering a few choice profanities, Emma held open her bag and swept a forearm over the table, gathering all her muddled belongings and depositing them into her bag. Faye’s green-and-yellow shopping bag was still on the table and appeared undisturbed, even though it had been right next to hers. Obviously Pepper had gone straight for the unfamiliar one. She dropped to her knees and scrabbled around for the rest of her stuff under the table. Darn it, this was her brand new lip liner, and now its cap was missing.

  She pulled her bag closed and deposited it on the deck just outside the kitchen door, relocking the door afterward. Then she hunted out rags, disinfectant spray, and dustpan and brush from the laundry. When she returned to the dining room, there was no sign of Pepper. She made fast work of cleaning the poop from the dining table and sweeping up the mess on the floor. As she straightened up, she caught sight of a hand-held perch lying on a side table. The perch had a plastic guard which would protect the holder’s fingers from the bird. That must be what Faye used to transport her parrot back into his cage. She picked it up, but before she could test it out, Pepper reappeared, his claws clicking on the floorboards.

  “Bad boy,” he said, and then miraculously he flapped his wings, whooshed across the room, and hopped straight into his cage.

  Emma blinked at him. “You’re full of surprises.” She banged the door shut, fastened the lock, and breathed a sigh of relief. This visit wasn’t turning out to be as easy as she’d first thought, and she hadn’t even done any investigating yet. She didn’t have much time either since she still had to gather the clothes and toiletries Faye had requested and drop them off at Lorraine’s place before three.

  She pulled out the list of items from the pocket of her shorts and hurried through to Faye’s bedroom. Underwear, pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown. She bundled them into a duffel bag she found in the closet. In the pink-tiled bathroom, she collected toothbrush, moisturizer, and hand cream. Okay. She was all done.

  But as she hurried down the hallway, she glanced into the room adjoining the bathroom and groaned as she caught sight of scattered papers lying on the floor. That pesky parrot must have got in here, too.

  This room was set up as Fay
e’s study, with bookcases, a desk and office chair, a personal computer, and a printer. She was surprised by the PC and printer. Faye didn’t seem to be the type for new technology, although she did have that fancy new cell phone she’d bragged about. Pepper the Pest had tossed everything out of the document tray which now lay askew on the desk.

  Bending down, Emma gathered up the sheets of paper. The last one was under the desk. She fished it out and jumped to her feet, preparing to dump everything back into the tray, but the image on the last piece of paper made her pause.

  It was a color printout of a photo, a little blurry but the features of the people in it were clear enough. Clear enough for her to see it was Councilman Kenneth Bischoff getting up close and personal with a full-figured woman who was most definitely not his wife.

  The two times Emma had seen Kenneth Bischoff he’d appeared suave and slick. In the picture, despite his navy business suit, he looked a little more disheveled; his tie was missing, his hair messy, and his shirt wrinkled. His companion, a toned brunette in her twenties wearing a tight white dress that showed off her assets, was draped over him like a rampant vine, one arm twined around his neck, while the other hand disappeared suggestively into his partly undone shirt.

  Emma wrinkled her nose at the picture. She was no prude, but the woman looked almost young enough to be his daughter. There was nothing paternal about the way he was holding her, arms coiled around her like an octopus. The smirk on his lips made her stomach heave. What an oily sleazebag.

  The photo had been taken as the pair was walking outside a cream-colored building. In the blurry background she could make out the corner of a sign erected on a pole. “MO” was all she could read. Motel? Kenneth and his lover outside the motel where they met in secret? That seemed the most likely explanation.

  And Faye had caught them in the act and snapped a picture of them. Bischoff and his lady friend were so wrapped up in themselves they probably hadn’t noticed Faye. Who would think anything suspicious of an elderly lady seemingly going about her business?

  So this was what Faye had been alluding to at Richard’s retirement party when she’d dropped those hints about Kenneth Bischoff’s wife, and the councilman had gotten enraged with her. Faye had enjoyed his discomfort. Was that all she got out of this? A sense of schadenfreude? Or did she want more? Maybe Faye was trying to blackmail Kenneth.

  Emma rifled through the rest of the papers and paused when she spotted a bank statement. It appeared Faye was still old-fashioned enough to insist on paper instead of electronic statements, which made checking her financial situation a whole lot easier for Emma. A quick glance through showed a healthy balance and no suspiciously large deposits. No extravagant purchases either, just regular items like groceries and utility bills. Faye was a frugal person with assets and a healthy pension and no apparent vices. She didn’t need to try to extort money out of Bischoff.

  But she did enjoy taunting Bischoff about his affair. At the yard sale Bischoff had confronted Faye and warned her off, but Faye hadn’t been cowed in the slightest. Maybe after the yard sale Bischoff had come over to convince her to stay silent, and Faye had responded in typical blunt fashion, and Bischoff had flown into a fit of temper and shoved her down those stairs. Then he had forced his way through the bushes to the neighboring property and made his escape moments before Emma had arrived.

  Emma glanced at the incriminating photo one more time, then shoved it to the bottom of the pile. She set the papers in the document tray, picked up the duffel bag, and returned to the kitchen. She had so much to think about, and not much time to mull over everything. According to the clock above the refrigerator, it was already two thirty, and she had to get to Lorraine’s before three. She was so lost in thought that a few seconds passed before she heard the click of footsteps on the rear deck.

  She tensed up, apprehension screwing her muscles. Someone was outside, creeping about like they were up to no good. A shadow appeared in the gap between the back door and the tiled floor. She held her breath, caught by indecision. What should she do? Was this the would-be murderer returning for something? Was it Kenneth Bischoff?

  She stared at the door knob, wondering if the person outside would try it. Thank God she had locked the door. But as her nerves contorted more, she found a measure of strength from somewhere. She wasn’t going to cower here waiting for the intruder to break in.

  She gulped hard, then spoke out, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

  Whoever it was jerked away from the door and ran off, soft footfalls rapidly dwindling into silence. Emma peered out the window above the sink and verified that the deck and rear yard were empty before finally unlocking the door and stepping out. Only then did she remember her tote bag that she had put outside out of Pepper’s reach. It was still here, right by her feet. She snatched it up and made a quick rummage through it. Everything seemed to be there, though it was difficult to know for sure because she had so much junk in the bag. The essentials were all present—phone, wallet, keys.

  She let out a deep exhale. She really needed to get away from this place.

  She locked the back door and then kneeled down by the outdoor table to return the key to its hidden hook.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice barked out from behind her.

  Chapter Ten

  “Ow!” Emma bumped her head against the table as she scrambled around to see her interrogator. Her racing heartbeat slowed as she saw it was only Sherilee in her cop uniform. “God damn it, Sherilee! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

  The police woman lifted one eyebrow. “What’s made you so jumpy?”

  “I—I heard someone out here. While I was in the kitchen.”

  The other eyebrow went up too. “And what exactly are you doing inside Faye’s house?”

  “Doing my neighborly duty,” Emma snapped. “Lorraine asked me to feed the parrot and pick up a few things for Faye.” She lifted the duffel bag. “She’s allergic to birds—Lorraine, that is—which is why she asked me.”

  “I see.” Sherilee rested her hands on her hips. “And while you were inside you heard someone on the deck. Did you see who it was?”

  “No.” She’d been so spooked she hadn’t been able to move, but no way was she going to admit that to Sherilee. “I called out, and whoever it was ran away. It happened so quickly I didn’t get a good look.”

  “And you have no idea who it might be?”

  It could’ve been Kenneth Bischoff returning to steal the photo or to clean up any evidence he might have left behind. But she had no solid proof, and Sherilee was still giving her the stink eye, so she decided not to tell her of her suspicions.

  “It might have been her neighbor.” Emma tilted her head in the direction of the overgrown property next door. “I heard Faye complaining the other day that he sometimes comes over and steals her peaches.”

  “If he’s after her peaches, why would he come up to the kitchen?”

  “I don’t know.” Emma lifted her shoulders impatiently. “Did you speak to him yesterday?”

  Sherilee’s smooth brow pleated into a frown. “I knocked on his door, but either he wouldn’t answer or he wasn’t home.”

  “Do you still think Faye’s fall was suspicious? Is that why you’re here?”

  “I can’t discuss police business with you.” Sherilee’s upturned nose made Emma grit her teeth.

  “But you’re here, so that must mean a yes, then.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I saw your car in the driveway, so I thought I’d investigate.”

  Meaning she thought Emma was up to no good? The bones in Emma’s jaw ground harder, and it took a few deep breaths to regain control. She was not going to let Sherilee wind her up. It wasn’t worth the aggravation.

  “Well, as you can see, I’m just doing my good deed for the day. Now I have to get going. Goodbye.” She strode off and tromped down the porch stairs.

  “Wait,” Sherilee called after her.

  Emma spun arou
nd.

  “Forgot something?” Sherilee held up Emma’s tote bag, a smirk on her face. “Consider that my good deed for the day.”

  Grimacing, Emma walked back, accepted her bag from Sherilee, and made her escape.

  ***

  “Please, come in,” Lorraine urged when Emma arrived at her door.

  Emma had assumed she’d simply drop off Faye’s duffel bag and leave, but Lorraine seemed a little flustered and eager for company, so she stepped inside the small cottage. The main living area featured soaring beams and plenty of windows and skylights which flooded the interior with natural light. A modest kitchen occupied one corner, while the rest of the area was given over to paintings and art supplies. Half-finished canvasses leaned against walls and couches. Paint pots, brushes, and rags crowded several table. Photos and pages torn from magazines and dried flowers were pinned on walls. Despite the clutter, the room gave off a vibrant, creative atmosphere. Coming as she had directly from Faye’s rather sterile house, Emma couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast between the two sisters’ homes. She knew which one she felt more at ease in.

  “Excuse the mess.” Lorraine gave a brief laugh as she waved a hand around the room. “As you can see, I’m not much of a housekeeper. I’d far rather spend my time painting or drawing than mopping floors or doing dishes.”

  “I’m glad you’re still painting.” Emma moved over to inspect a work-in-progress propped up on an easel in the middle of the room. The still-life of flowers in a vase might be a standard subject, but Lorraine imbued hers with a light, whimsical flair. “This is beautiful.”

  “Oh, it’s pretty pedestrian stuff.” Lorraine rummaged through the groceries crowded on her kitchen counter. Her hands bore traces of paint, and there was a smudge of charcoal on one cheek. Her loose jeans and T-shirt were crumpled and faded. She didn’t look ready for a hospital visit. “I’m running late,” she said, confirming Emma’s suspicions. “Faye will be waking up from her surgery by now. I can’t find those grapes she wanted. Oh, here they are.” She grabbed a bag of fruit and stuffed it into a straw basket. “I’m sure I’ve forgotten half the things she wanted.”