Dead Canaries Don't Sing (11 page)

“Jessica! You’re
just
the person I wanted to talk to!”

“Another dance recital?”

“Even better. I have an important decision to make and I need your help.”

She pulled me into the front parlor where at least a dozen slick travel brochures were strewn across the silk-covered Victorian sofa. Colorful photographs of calm, blue seas and white sand beaches were interspersed with pictures of majestic lions and tigers, staring out from behind dense foliage.

“I simply cannot decide where to go in January,” Betty said with an exasperated sigh. “On the one hand, the South Pacific is calling to me. Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora . . . lounging on the beach, surrounded by handsome men in loincloths fanning me with palm fronds . . . Can you believe I haven’t been to Polynesia since that USO tour in the early fifties?

“On the other hand, I haven’t gone on safari in ages. Jessica, there’s nothing like watching the giraffes and the elephants run wild and free!” She threw her arms out dramatically, making her leopard skin earrings swing wildly. “Of course, the last time I was in Kenya, one of those elephants charged our tent and nearly trampled us to death. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life.”

I sank into a chair. “I envy you, Betty. You’ve led the kind of life most people only dream about!”

“To me, the world is a magnificent smorgasbord, stretching before us with an infinite number of wonderful things to choose from. I’ve certainly done a lot of things I never could have imagined back when I was still living in Altoona.

“Then again,” she went on, her tone becoming wistful, “there are some things I always assumed would be part of my life that never came my way. Things most people take for granted, like the feeling of being truly cherished, of being the most important person in someone else’s life . . .”

“What about Charles?” I protested. “You two had something so special!”

“What we had was a honeymoon. Two short years. I barely got to know him.”

“But you loved him.”

“I absolutely adored him. But I never had the chance to
grow
with him. We never weathered the hardships life dishes out or learned to put up with each other’s flaws, along with the virtues.” Shaking her head, she smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything. But I never stopped wishing I could share them with someone who
really
mattered.”

Even though we went on to discuss the pros and cons of lying on a tropical beach versus stalking rhinos with a camera, Betty’s words stuck with me. I’d heard her stories about her passionate love affair with Charles more times than I could count. Yet she rarely let me see how much losing him had hurt her.

I couldn’t help feeling she was sending me a message. But at the moment, it was one I was in no mood to hear. Not with my breakup with Nick, and the reasons behind it, still an open wound—and the topic of independence versus living happily ever after with Prince Charming too damn hot.

I’d spent my entire life working my butt off, making sure I’d get to the place I so desperately wanted to be. In high school, I’d stuffed my schedule with as many classes as I could, even sacrificing lunch period in order to squeeze in an extra lab science. In college, I spent a lot more Saturday nights studying than partying, wanting to make sure I’d ace Monday morning’s exam. As for vet school, it had been nothing short of grueling: four more years of pressure and exams and all-nighters, fueled by caffeine and determination.

But I’d never considered doing things differently. Not only did I love both animals and science, so that the idea of combining them into a career seemed like heaven on earth, but being independent, getting myself into a position where I never had to rely on anyone else for
anything
—emotional support included—was at least as important. I had no intention of ending up like my parents, trapped in a life that made them absolutely miserable. My father, working as a middle manager at an electronics firm, hating his job and taking it out on everyone around him, yet insisting that in the abstract, at least, family was sacred. My mother, bitter about being stuck in an unsatisfying marriage but having neither the education nor the self-confidence to even imagine a different life.

I found the prospect of compromising the independence I’d knocked myself out to earn nothing short of terrifying.

“So what do you think, Jessica?” Betty finally demanded, her sapphire blue eyes bright with expectation.

A wave of exhaustion came over me as I surveyed the glossy booklets covering the couch. “I’m sorry, Betty,” I said with a sigh, “but I’m afraid I just don’t know.”

The look on her face told me she was perfectly aware that I wasn’t only talking about her vacation plans.

As soon as I got home, I plopped down in front of my computer. I didn’t want to think about Nick. I didn’t even want to think about Jimmy Nolan. Instead, I intended to focus on a man who didn’t either make my blood boil with rage or my heart flutter with anxiety.

I logged on to my favorite search engine, then typed in the key words, “Tommee Frack & Associates.” My melancholy reverie disappeared when Cat padded over. I pulled her into my lap, then watched as she climbed up onto the computer keyboard. I couldn’t help but smile as she pranced over the keys, intending to make herself the center of my attention but sending my computer into a frenzy.

“We’ll have to get you a keyboard with paw-sized keys,” I told her, laughing as I maneuvered her down into my lap. The commotion we were making set Prometheus off. He launched into a hardy rendition of “Yo-ho-ho-
oh,
the pirate’s life for me!” A souvenir of Nick, whose boyhood passion for the book
Treasure
Island
had inspired him to teach my bird the entire song one night, after deciding to dress up as Captain Kidd the very next time we were invited to a costume party.

I pushed the memory away, giving Cat a quick kiss and retyping my request. My computer spent an unusually long time thinking. While I waited, I fondled the softest ears in the entire galaxy, taking care to avoid the nick, which had never stopped being sensitive. Finally, a stark screen with the discouraging words “Can’t Find Website” popped up.

“Hmm,” I muttered. “Somebody over there is on the ball.”

I needed something more general. I tried the key words, “Long Island Business.”

Within a few seconds, I discovered there was a website called
libusinessbeat.com
. When I clicked on it, it turned out to be the site of a weekly publication.

I scanned the home page, learning that
Long Island Business Beat
claimed to be the only magazine that completely covered Long Island’s business scene. “Works for me,” I said, typing in the words, “Tommee Frack & Associates.”

“Yes!” I cried when a dozen different entries came up on the screen. Cat’s ears perked up at my excitement.

Merrilee Frack had told me that if I wanted to understand Tommee, I should talk to his business associates—and that included his employees. And the numerous short pieces from the magazine’s weekly “People on the Move” column gave me the names of the people who had joined his firm over the past three years, along with their changes in title and responsibilities. It also contained short write-ups of the people who had left Tommee Frack & Associates, presumably to work at other firms.

I jotted down the names, along with the companies at which they currently worked. I also wrote down any other personal information that was listed, like what town they resided in. I knew, of course, that I couldn’t very well just call these strangers up and start asking them questions about the now-deceased PR mogul whose name happened to be on their résumé. Nick had been right about that.

But he had also underestimated me. Even though the man had shared my bed for over three years, he clearly had no idea just how devious I could be.

To prove my point, I dashed off a quick E-mail to Vanda Jackson, a friend of mine who worked in the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets in Albany. She’d been a great source of help to me in the past, and I was optimistic about her willingness to help me out now.

I clicked “Send,” muttering, “Nick Burby isn’t the only one with friends in high places.”

I logged off, listened to my voice mail and responded to half a dozen messages left by clients. I also followed up with several others whose animals I’d treated in the past couple of days. Midnight, I was glad to learn, was on the mend—and Mr. Sutter happily reported that he’d made a friend of his own at the park, a retired electrician who was teaching him how to play chess. My last call was to Skip, the manager at Atherton Farm, who reported that Stormy Weather’s fever had broken and the stallion was doing much better. By the time my dogs and I got on the road, I’d completely reshifted my focus to the afternoon of house calls that lay ahead.

I always enjoyed visiting Winifred Mack, the quintessential cat lady. In addition to the seven living, breathing cats sprawled across her doorstep, along her windowsills, and in her flowerbeds, every corner of her house was decorated with pictures, figurines, pillows, and mugs with a feline motif. She even had a stained glass cat hanging in her front window.

“Hell-o, Dr. Popper,” Winifred sang as she entered the van. Her abundant form was draped in a flowing purple caftan, and her jet black hair, lit up with dramatic streaks of gray, was piled in a loose knot on top of her head. An ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, dangled from a long gold chain hanging around her neck, while another necklace linked silver charms I recognized as symbols for all twelve signs of the zodiac. Her prodigious chest also served as the backdrop for at least half a dozen strings of colorful beads.

In her arms, she cradled James, a Himalayan-Persian cross with one of the most gorgeous coats of thick, smoky-gray fur I’d ever seen. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Winifred continued in her lilting voice. “You know I never call unless there’s a real problem. And something’s just not right with James.”

“It never hurts to check.” I focused on the cat in her arms. “Hey, James! How’s my favorite pussycat today?” I scratched him under the chin with one finger and was rewarded with deep, satisfied purring. “You said he’s limping?”

“He was lame on Sunday, but then he seemed just fine. But today is Thursday, and he won’t walk at all. You can see that his front leg is swollen.

“They talk to me, you know,” she confided, lowering her voice. “Oh, not the way you and I are talking. I’m not
that
looney. But my cats and I have a way of communicating. And James tells me he’s in great pain.”

You didn’t need a psychic connection to see that was true. The cat’s entire body was swollen. I already had a theory about the cause.

“Let’s put him on the examining table.” I picked him up gently, taking special care not to cause him any more pain than he was already putting up with. “What’s up, James?” I asked him in a soothing voice. “Your mommy’s very worried about you. You haven’t been fighting, have you?”

When I touched his spine, he let out a howl. Max and Lou, lying side by side in a small patch of sunlight near the front of the van, both pricked up their ears. Even I cringed, regretting that I’d hurt him and wishing I could explain that it was part of trying to make him better. At least he didn’t hold it against me. He was surprisingly cooperative about letting me take his temperature. It was high. A healthy cat’s temperature is 101, and James’s was 104.5 degrees.

“I think James has an abscess,” I told the anxious Winifred.

“Oh, dear,” she whimpered, her hands so fidgety that the dozen or so thin silver bracelets running up her forearm jangled. “That sounds serious.”

“It needs to be treated right away.”

“Whatever you say, Dr. Popper. I know cats’ souls, but their bodies are totally mysterious to me.”

“I’m going to anesthetize James. I’ll need you to hold him while I inject him with a sedative-analgesic cocktail. It’ll keep him from feeling any pain.”

Winifred winced as I stuck the needle into the cat’s thigh. I never liked causing my patients pain—and hurting their owners, even vicariously, was just as unnerving. But my initial suspicion proved correct. When I lay his limp body on the table and shaved off the fur on his leg, I found two punctures.

“Another cat bit him,” I explained, showing her the wound. “Are there any strays in the area? Or do you think he might have been fighting with one of your other cats?”

“I have noticed a big tomcat hanging around . . .”

I opened the puncture holes with a hemostat, gently, thankful that James couldn’t feel a thing. Thank God for the wonders of modern veterinary medicine. “I’m going to sew this piece of rubber tubing in place to drain out the pus,” I told Winifred, “plus give him a shot of penicillin. I’ll leave you with a two-week supply of pills, too. If he’s been fighting, he should be given a booster shot for leukemia and feline AIDS when his fever is gone. In the meantime, keep him isolated from your other cats. I’d like to do a blood test to see if he’s been infected with either.”

“Whatever you think, Dr. Popper.” She fluttered around me nervously. “You know I only want the best for my cats. They’re my
family
.”

After I’d revived James by injecting an antidote to the sedative, I had to fight off Winifred’s insistence that I come inside for green tea and a “nice long visit” with her cats. I still had several appointments ahead of me.

Still, I was glad to be keeping busy. In the back of my mind, the plans I’d made with Jimmy for Saturday night loomed ahead of me. An intimate dinner for two was one of those things that had seemed like a good idea when I’d first decided to do it, but was beginning to feel like more than I could handle.

It’s not a date, I reminded myself as I wrestled with a mascara wand while leaning over the bathroom sink the following Saturday evening at three minutes to seven. At least, not
exactly
.