Parrot Blues (17 page)

The police and paramedics came down the hallway. I heard their equipment slapping against their hips. The paramedics went right to work on Terrance, but he was dead when they got there and he remained dead. There were two detectives: Rosalia Hernandez and John Snyder. John was tall, fair-haired and distant. Rosalia was stocky, tough and to the point. Her hair was brown with a coppery tinge and fell in curls around her shoulders. She did most of the questioning. It was one variation of good cop, bad cop, and it worked for them. As I had suspected, they'd brought the Kid in with them, but not the parrots. Rosalia asked the obvious questions about who Sara and I were and what we were doing in Terrance Lewellen's bedroom.

“I'm his sister-in-law,” Sara said. “I got here about a half-hour ago and I found Terry like that.”

“I'm his lawyer,” I said, nodding toward Terrance. “I got here around fifteen minutes ago, and that's how I found my client. I'm
his
lawyer too.” I indicated the Kid. If they intended to question him as a suspect, I intended to shield him—and me.

“That right?” Rosalia asked the Kid.

“Right,” he said.

Rosalia was sharp enough to get to the heart of the matter. “Does the deceased have a wife?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Where is she?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you?” she asked Sara.

“No,” Sara said.

Rosalia rolled her eyes. She didn't believe us, but she let our stories stand while she and her partner made a visual inspection of the crime scene and recorded it with their video camera. The law of transference is that everyone who comes to a crime scene brings something, everyone who leaves takes something. The police aren't supposed to touch anything until the medical investigator shows up. It's a rule that's often ignored, but with the deceased's lawyer in the room they were careful to follow
procedure.
Their attention was drawn to the needle and the vial, as mine had been.

While they went about their video business, I thought about my obligation to my client. Anything Terrance had told me, he had told me in confidence. If he had committed a crime, I couldn't reveal it. If I had any evidence, I could not turn it over. If I knew that a major crime was about to be committed, I did have an obligation to disclose that, but it looked to me like the major crimes in this case had already been committed. If there were any more of them on the agenda, I didn't know what they'd be. There is a dead man's statute which says that communications from the deceased are hearsay and inadmissible, with the exception of a dying declaration. If there'd been one of those, Sara might have heard it, but not me. The trouble with this case was that the things I couldn't reveal—the kidnapping of Deborah Dumaine, the tape, Wes Brown's involvement, the handing over of the ransom, the person in the feathered mask—were all evidence that might help to locate my client's murderer, if he had been murdered. But my interpretation of the code of ethics was that attorney/client privilege obtains even after the client's death. The client's reputation and heirs had to be considered. Who were his heirs? I wondered. Did an about-to-be divorced wife qualify? His mother? Sara?

The natural course for a lawyer is to say as little as possible, and that's what I intended to do. I had decided, however, to tell the FWS about Wes Brown and turn over to them the tape I had of the smuggling operation. I wouldn't mind seeing Brown fall into the clutches of law enforcement. There wasn't anything on the tape that violated my agreement with Terrance Lewellen, incriminated him or ruined his reputation.

The medical investigator arrived, a brisk, gray-haired woman named Mae Capshaw. Medical investigators come from all walks of life in New Mexico, and my guess was that Mae was, or had been, a nurse. She was expected to touch and examine the victim and she did. If she discovered anything conclusive, she didn't reveal it. To determine the cause of death in a body as unmarked as Terrance's would require an autopsy, and it's standard procedure for an unwitnessed death. The autopsy would be done quickly, but toxicology, drug tests and stomach contents could take weeks. Mae's attention was drawn to the vial and the hypodermic just as everyone else's had been. She picked them up with gloved hands and dropped them in an evidence bag.

“What is it? Do you know?” I asked.

“Epinephrine, I'd say.”

“What's that?”

“Adrenaline. It's used to counteract anaphylactic shock, a life-threatening allergic reaction.”

“Why didn't it work?”

“Don't know yet.”

Part of the medical investigator's role is to consider history and circumstances and to examine
witnesses.
“Did he have any known allergies?” she asked us.

“He was allergic to pollen,” Sara said. “He went to Dr. Talbert for shots.”

“He was allergic to parrots,” I said.

“How about bee stings, antibiotics or food?”

“I don't know,” Sara said.

“His breakfast food is in the kitchen,” the Kid said. “He ate that cereal. What do you call it?”

“Granola,” I said.

“I'll take a sample,” said Mae.

“How long does an allergic reaction take to kill somebody?” I asked.

“Could be hours. Could be a few minutes,” Mae said. “Did he have any other life-threatening medical conditions that anybody knows about? Was he seeing any other doctors?” She looked at me, then at Sara.

“No,” said Sara.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Did he have a nicotine addiction?” she asked, indicating the patch.

“Testosterone,” I said.

“They're putting that in a patch now?” she asked.

“Right,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don't have any further questions for the witnesses, do you?” she asked Hernandez and Snyder.

“Not now,” said Hernandez, “but I could be bringing you in for questioning when I get the OMI report.”

I gave the lawyer's standard response. “I have nothing to say. And neither does he.” I indicated the Kid. That was his right and my obligation.

“We'll see about that,” said Rosalia. “Take my card. You might want to get in touch with me.”

I took a couple of them, but I had no intention of calling Detective Rosalia Hernandez myself.

Sara cried as the paramedics bagged and tagged Terrance and put him on a stretcher. The detectives were vacuuming for fibers and dusting for prints when we left the room.

******

“How'd you know about the granola?” I asked the Kid once we were back in the pickup with the birds.

“I saw it in the kitchen when I took
Perigeo
outside. I gave him some.” The Kid looked out the window. He was embarrassed, and he had every right to be. This was a man, after all, who'd recently said
granola
was not fit food for a bird.

“What a soft touch,” I said.

“Perigeo
likes it. You think that granola stuff could kill somebody?”

“God knows,” I said.

11

T
HE NEXT STEP
was to return Perigee to the lab. As soon as we turned into UNM, he knew where we were headed. It meant back to the cage, but he didn't care; he was about to be reunited with his mate. The squawks and flaps, which had escalated once we turned the corner, became overwhelming when we opened the lab door. Colloquy heard Perigee coming, and she beat the bars of her cage. The perfectly matched pair were now separated by only the cage and the Kid's hands. I wished they didn't have clipped feathers, could meet in midair and fly off into the sunset together. Their regal size and royal racket were better adapted to high palm trees and cliffs than to a gray lab at UNM. The Kid and I made a halfhearted attempt to take off our shoes and put on the plastic booties, but the emotion of the reunion was too much.

“Oh, screw this,” I said.

“
Claro,
” said the Kid. He ran across the lab holding Perigee above him. The ruckus had jump-started all the other parrots into a barrage of sound.

Rick opened the door to the cage, and the Kid tossed Perigee in. The reunion was dramatic and touching. I was sorry that Deborah wasn't here and that Terrance wasn't alive to see it. I couldn't imagine two humans getting so worked up over being reunited, but we don't have brilliant blue feathers, beaks that can shear a nut in two or wings to fly us above the canopy. Compared to macaws, our lives are lacking in sound and color, and we don't necessarily mate for life. What we have is our big brain and the ability to build weapons and light a fire. That's why the indigos were on the inside looking out and we were on the outside looking in.

That they were not flying free in the Raso muted the joy of the reunion for the Kid and me, but Rick was thrilled to have the indigo back under his wing.

“This is fantastic,” he said, grinning and gripping the bars of the cage.

Eventually the indigos settled down on their perch and Colloquy rubbed her neck against Perigee's. The Kid went into the lab to look at the other parrots while I talked to Rick. As often as I give advice, it's rare that anybody actually takes it. Rick had gotten a new look, the look that I'd recommended. The granny glasses were gone. He'd cut his hair short—too short for me—and too square along the neck. It was not a great cut, but it did bring out the highlights and some curl. His eyes were more accessible when they weren't magnified by the back-off-I'm-a-genius lenses. He looked younger, brighter, more determined. He looked like his own person instead of a pale imitation of someone else's thirty-year-old rebellion. His clothes were the same baggy T-shirt and jeans, but you couldn't expect one
quick
and clandestine encounter to cause a complete overhaul. “I like it,” I said.

“Did you find Deborah?” he asked me.

“No.”

“What happened to her?”

“I don't know.”

“Where was Perigee?”

“On Wes Brown's boat in Door.”

Like a lawyer at a deposition, he continued his line of questioning. “What were
you
doing in Door?”

“Somebody sent me there. Look, there's something I have to tell you. As soon as I got back to Albuquerque this morning, I took Perigee to Terrance's house and I found him lying on his bed—dead.”

“Terrance is dead?” His hand went behind his neck, reaching for the ponytail that was no longer there. “What happened to him?”

“The OMI doesn't know yet. It could have been an allergic reaction.”

“To what?”

“Nobody knows. The autopsy should tell one way or the other.” I shifted into deposition mode myself, and my first question was, “What happens to the indigos now?” In captivity they have a human life span, which meant they might not outlive him but could easily outlive me. Some provision must have been made for their welfare. Four hundred thousand dollars would feed and house them nicely, I calculated.

“Terrance set up an endowment.”

“Who administers it?”

“Deborah. They fought all the time, but Terrance knew she was the best person to take care of Colloquy and Perigee. She's terrific with birds.”

“And if Deborah doesn't return? Who gets them then?”

Rick put his hands to his face in a reflexive move to straighten his absent glasses. Without the lenses his eyes were raw and full of ambition. Control of a rare pair of captive indigos would have to be a bright feather in his career cap. He looked away from me and peered down at his running shoes like he was searching for the source of the blush that was rising to the top of his forehead. “Me,” he said.

“Forever?”

“Well, yeah. For as long as they live. You can't keep changing handlers. Parrots get attached to people, and they hate change.”

“And who gets to run the lab?”

“I do.”

“
Does the endowment include money for the lab?”

“Yes. Terrance didn't support Deborah, but he supported the parrots.”

It was comparable to achieving tenure at age twenty-five. As long as the indigos lived and the lab functioned, Rick would be set up. It was a good gig, a little too settled and secure for me, but people in their twenties think differently now than I did. Times are tough, jobs and job security are hard to come by.

“I'm good with birds. I've been taking care of the indigos since I was an undergraduate,” he said.

“When they were still at Terrance's house?”

“Yeah. I have a doctorate in ornithology.” He was the bright student again, the student who would always be the first one to raise his hand in class, the last one to get a date. The student routine might not impress Alice, but control of the Psittacine Research Facility should.

“Have you ever met Wes Brown?” I asked him. I was pushing at the edge of attorney/client privilege by bringing up Wes Brown, but the edge is the place where the interesting discoveries are made.

“He came in here a couple of times, trying to sell Deborah birds. She believed they were smuggled, and she'd never buy smuggled parrots. I don't know why she wasted her time talking to him. Smugglers are the rottenest garbage on the face of the planet. Do you have any idea how many smuggled birds die?”

“Yes,” I said. “Brown's a good-looking guy. Deborah didn't have a great marriage. Maybe she found him attractive.”

“Him?” His eyes turned big and incredulous.

“Do you know Sara Dumaine?” I continued.

“I've met her.”

“Did she know Wes Brown? Were they ever here at the same time?”

“I think they were once. He likes to go to Santa Fe; he was asking her about it.”

I remembered then that there was a phone call I wanted to make. “Could I use the phone in Deborah's office?” I asked him. “I have to make a call.”