Fine-Feathered Death (2 page)

The dark gleam in those small black eyes was emphasized by the discrete field of small white feathers surrounding each of them. Her chest and belly were plumed in gold. And though I could certainly term her back blue, that was as descriptive as calling a rainbow an attractive arch. The feathers fluffed about the back of her head were lighter than the deep royal blue of her body and the dark navy of her long tail.

My clothes paled in comparison, which was no wonder, since they were beige and bland. Months ago, my hair had returned to its basic, blah brown when I could no longer afford to have it highlighted blond and beautiful. It now just skimmed my shoulders. My face? Okay after I added makeup, but even so, essentially ordinary.

Gorgeous girl? Hah!

I took a seat in an uncomfortable antique chair beside the beautifully hued bird. Ezra apparently liked old stuff, since the desk, outsized for the cramped quarters, was a big, carved monstrosity. Even Gigi’s huge cage appeared antique. Fortunately, it crouched on wheels, since carrying it would doubtless be difficult.

Beside it stood a large metal doodad that I discerned must be Gigi’s official perch when she wasn’t pent up in her cage. The edges of Ezra’s office were lined with neatly labeled cardboard crates that confirmed he hadn’t fully settled in yet.

“When did Ezra bring you here?” I asked Gigi. “I was around most of the day, and I’d surely have heard everyone talking about you. Did you come in earlier this evening, when I was out doing my pet-sitting rounds?”

Her only response was to shift her weight from one of the claws gripping her perch to the other.

“You know, I work as a pet-sitter on the side these days. I’ve never had a bird like you to tend. If you became my client, would you tell me how to take care of you?”

She opened her beak, and the sound she made was rude by human standards.

“I’m really pretty good at pet-sitting,” I protested. But I doubted she’d care if I explained the origin of my alternate career. See, I’d been accused many months ago of serious breaches of attorney ethics—which, believe it or not, isn’t always an oxymoron. Though ultimately I was able to prove I’d been framed, the State Bar had nevertheless decided I had to pass the MPRE—Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam—before my suspension from the practice of law was lifted.

As a consequence of the initial allegations, my career had been put on hold, along with my income. I’d had to file for bankruptcy, with no means of making ends meet. My good friend Darryl Nestler, owner of the Doggy Indulgence Day Resort, had suggested that I take up pet-sitting so Lexie and I would be able to eat in the interim.

To my surprise, I’d enjoyed it—enough that I still indulged in pet-sitting, even though I had recently resumed practicing law.

Fortunately, Borden Yurick, a partner in my former law firm Marden, Sergement & Yurick, had decided around the time I’d gotten in trouble that he’d rather have fun practicing law than hang around the stuffy firm. That had caused his uncomprehending and unforgiving partners to assert he’d had a nervous breakdown.

After a cathartic globe-circling expedition, Borden opened this office, where he’d promised his newest associates, mostly old-time attorneys, that they’d enjoy what they did for a living. He’d invited me to join them, agreeing I could continue pet-sitting if I wished. I could even take on pet advocacy cases. In fact, I could pretty much practice law as I pleased, as long as I assisted him on cases he chose to handle.

“It was definitely a good deal for me,” I related aloud to Gigi. She bobbed her blue head twice, as if she’d read my thoughts and agreed.

I laughed. And then I looked at my watch. “Sorry, my friend, but I need to finish part of a brief I was working on, then head home. My dog Lexie’s waiting for me. So’s her friend Odin, the Akita we watch when his owner’s out of town.”

That owner would be Jeff Hubbard, a private investigator and security expert who also happened to be my sometime lover—when he wasn’t withholding important facts about his background from me.

“Anyway, I’ll see you around, okay?”

Gigi regarded me skeptically but said not a word.

I did hear some words, though, as I exited the open office door. Nothing as sinister as I’d interpreted Gigi’s earlier shriek, but definitely human voices, drawing near from the reception area.

Raised human voices.

I wondered if I was wrong about the nonsinister part.

I soon recognized who was shouting. Unsurprisingly, one was Ezra Cossner. I’d figured he wouldn’t simply leave lovely Gigi by her lonesome all night. He was probably here to take his pretty pet home.

The other voice was female, and also familiar. It belonged to Elaine Aames, another senior-citizen law associate Borden had hired to have fun practicing law. She didn’t sound as if she was having fun now. Her voice remained too distant for me to make out what she said, but its shrillness suggested fury.

They came into view in the hall. Ezra, somewhat stoop-shouldered, had a partially shiny pate and wore a light sweater over baggy slacks. Elaine was shorter and slighter, with neat silver hair and a shocking pink blouse beneath a subdued suit.

Ezra’s shout was angry and audible enough to make my ears ring—and cause Gigi, inside her cage, to flutter her long blue wings and start squawking in response. Disconcerting.

Disturbing.

And definitely menacing.

Over Gigi’s noise, Ezra yelled, “You’ll buy that house over my dead body!”

Chapter Two

SURE, THAT THREAT can be a simple figure of speech. Only sometimes it’s not so simple—like when someone sincerely means it.

Okay, maybe I’m a little sensitive lately, having had so many murders mushrooming around me. But still—

Both Ezra and Elaine spotted me at the same time. Elaine smiled—sort of. A classy older lady who adored her specialty of estates and trusts, she was in her late sixties, with laugh lines that suggested she spent a lot of her life in mirth. She dressed like an old-school ladylike lawyer, usually clad in skirted suits. We were of similar height, but she wore her five-foot-five so much more elegantly.

“Why are you here so late, Kendra?” she asked. Whatever her gripe with Ezra, it was gone from her voice as she spoke warmly to me. The look she shot him from the edge of her eye suggested strongly that they keep their disagreement to themselves.

Which was fine, as far as I was concerned. Except that I was curious.

“I was working,” I responded with a smile of my own. “Until Gigi gave me a start. I didn’t know she was here.” I sure did now, though. Her cries continued, carrying raucously through the open doorway.

Ezra apparently didn’t like the noise. He approached his office and shouted inside, “Shut up!”

The bird complied . . . for all of two seconds. And then she started up again.

Ezra repeated his ignored order, then slammed the door shut. He was well into his seventies. I’d heard he’d had health problems a decade ago that he’d fought off like an embattled homeowner exterminates ants. They’d left him with stooped shoulders and, I’d imagined, added to the forest of wrinkles on his wizened face, but he seemed healthy to me.

Now, arms folded, thin brown brows flexed and head angled back, he stared with suspicion from the bottom part of his bifocals, as if he could read the awful answers about me on my face. Well, I’d emerged from his office, but I had good reason to be there. And I thought my explanation was self-evident, especially after his attempt to silence his still-squawking bird.

Even so, he sputtered, “What were you doing in there?”

Though I’d met Ezra only yesterday, his reputation had preceded him. Borden had warned us all that it wasn’t easy to warm up to the eccentric, edgy Ezra, but that he was a damned fine attorney—and he was bringing a damned fine portfolio of clients who’d stuck with him when he was forced to retire from his prior firm.

Clients who apparently saw through his grumpy side to his lovably successful lawyering.

“Oh, I just used Gigi as an excuse to snoop through all the boxes in your office,” I said with a smile.

Elaine’s eyes widened. She shook her head slightly, as if in warning. Maybe no one who knew Ezra well dared to tease him.

I held my breath for an instant, awaiting the inevitable explosion. Instead, to my surprise, he smiled back. Then he opened his flat lips and guffawed.

I glanced at Elaine. Her grin looked more relieved than riotous.

Feeling on a roll, I continued, “I didn’t find anything of interest, though, darn it. Except for your bird. She’s beautiful, Ezra—even if she likes to hear herself talk. And screech.” Which she still did from behind the door, ad nauseum. “She said her name was Gigi. Is that right?”

“Sure is. And don’t be so hasty about saying you didn’t find anything of interest. Borden said you work on matters for other attorneys in this firm, and that you’d help
me.
In fact, I expect to use your services on one big bugger of a case I’m involved in right now. Maybe more, if you do a good job with this one.” He stood up straighter, as if to point out that he was several inches taller than me and many years my senior, both in age and in experience.

My smile sagged as I waited for the punch line, but the smugness settling into the lines on his skinny face told me there wouldn’t be one. Hmmm. That would teach me to tease a guy with a cantankerous reputation.

“Er . . . what kind of case?” I inquired.

“I’ll tell you about it when it’s not so late.”

Good entrée to change the subject. “Why are you here at this hour?” I asked.

“Elaine and I lost track of time over dinner.” Ezra shifted a telling look toward his companion, only I couldn’t read what it told her. “We’re old friends. We got to talking and—Well, never mind.”

“So I heard,” I blurted.

I watched Elaine’s pale face flush pink. “Sorry,” she said. “No one was supposed to hear our little disagreement.”

“I figured,” I replied, my gaze on Ezra. He reddened, too. “What house were you talking about?”

“No big deal.” I admired how airily Elaine attempted to talk, though the rapid way she respired suggested that it was, indeed, a big deal. “I’m selling the condo where I’ve lived since I was widowed ten years ago, and only recently found a house I’d like to buy. Ezra doesn’t like it. He says it’s too big, too San Fernando Valley. Too architecturally ordinary. Just too . . .
too.
But it’s my decision.”

“Of course,” I agreed, though I had the distinct impression, from the tomato tint to Ezra’s complexion, that he wasn’t used to anyone disputing his demands.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Ezra growled.

“Right,” I agreed, staring daggers back at him. And this guy wanted me to work with him on a legal matter?

“We’ll talk tomorrow about my case,” he continued, his tone not a lot lighter, “since I need you to dig right in.”

I wouldn’t tell him to go pound sand till I’d talked to Borden, who was, despite his easygoing approach to practicing law, my boss. But work with this ill-mannered ass of an attorney? Unlikely.

Besides, I had cases of my own to complete.

I equivocated. “I was here late working on a brief I have to file tomorrow,” I told him. “And until—”

“Fine,” he interrupted. “File it. Then talk to me.”

Suddenly, the exhaustion I’d been setting aside all evening seemed to settle into my weary mind. “Let’s discuss it tomorrow,” I said, stifling a yawn.

Maybe, by then, I’d have thought of a good excuse to evade Ezra’s case.

 

AFTER GOODNIGHTS TO noisy Gigi and silent, unsmiling Elaine, I headed home.

Rather, I aimed my nine-year-old BMW toward the Mexican ranch-style house in Sherman Oaks where I was hanging out this week. And had been for a lot of weeks, on and off. It was the place I’d been invited to move into. Permanently. I had even considered it . . . briefly.

Before I’d found out that my dog-sitting client, host, and would-be live-in lover, Jeff Hubbard, had lied to me.

Okay, an exaggeration. He simply hadn’t told me the whole truth.

I pulled my Beamer into Jeff’s driveway and parked, turned off his security system, and slipped into his house, where I was greeted effusively by my little furry tricolor Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Lexie, and by bigger, sleeker white and red Odin, an Akita.

Gad, did that ever feel good, to have the dogs go wild just because I was there. I stooped and hugged them. “How ’ya doing, guys? I’m glad to see you, too.”

If they’d spoken English, I was sure they’d tell me about their evening, since I’d walked and fed them earlier, before finishing my day’s pet-sitting rounds and heading back to the office. They’d probably complain that I hadn’t stayed home to snuggle with them on the sofa and watch TV.

After I accompanied them on their final constitutional of the night, and just before I prepared to plant my exhausted bod in bed, the phone rang. It was Jeff.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Other than being nearly scared to death by a scream in the night, just fine.”

My smile at his initial silence felt deliciously evil.

“What—?”

I didn’t let him get far before I explained about Gigi.

“Glad it all worked out, darlin’. I’ll be home tomorrow, so think about me in bed tonight.”

It was a way he often ended our conversations when he was traveling—which was a lot of the time. The hell with my ambivalence about the guy. I grinned as I hung up, and the dogs leapt on me. We roughhoused for a full five minutes, till my exhaustion told me I’d better head for bed or I’d wind up sleeping with the pups on the floor.

I felt damned good, thinking about Jeff after I lay down.

Until my Ezra dilemma popped back into my head.

No matter. I’d handle him just as I’d handled all of my many problems as of late.