Parrots Prove Deadly (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“What, no pizza?”

I’d gone home after leaving County, the better to figure out what my next step should be. Wallis had been waiting for me, tail neatly coiled around her white forepaws. I’d been thrilled to see her. The anxiety of the morning had come rushing back as I’d approached my own front door, but I knew better than to fuss. Instead, I’d started telling her about my day—and about my latest predicament. Wallis is a wily old soul, and while she’s not keen on either birds or raccoons, she’s also not one to back away from a fight. Before I could tell her everything, however, the doorbell rang. Creighton, looking as tired as I felt. And not, it appeared, here on a social call.

“Pru, can we talk?” Those big blue eyes melt me, usually. Tonight they made me pause. Had Gaffney sicced Creighton on me already? What would the charge be, exactly—harboring dangerous wildlife? Harassment by raccoon?

“Sure.” I didn’t see any way out of it, and so I let him in. He walked past me without even an attempt at a kiss and collapsed on my mother’s old couch. Wallis, that fickle girl, jumped up right beside him. “Want a beer?”

“Sure.” Okay, it couldn’t be that bad. By the time I returned, two longnecks in hand, Wallis had flopped down beside Creighton, and he was stroking her tiger-striped fur. I took a seat opposite, so I could watch his face. Wallis looked over at me, her green eyes cool. I couldn’t read either of them, not yet, and so I waited.

“You’re still working with that parrot, right? Over at LiveWell?”

Jim knew this. “I only started a few days ago.”

“This is the old lady who you think didn’t die naturally?” I nodded again. “Pru, have you told anyone your suspicions? I mean, anyone besides me?”

I was suddenly glad my conversation with Doc Sharpe had been interrupted. “I told Wallis.” I forced a smile. If he wanted to think I was making light of his question, so be it. “That’s it.”

“Hell.” He ran his hand over his face. Took a long pull of the beer. “Well, you’ve made an enemy somehow. There’s been a complaint.”

“If this is about that raccoon, I have my own complaints—”

Creighton raised his hand to silence me. Since that hand had been petting Wallis, she looked up. I stopped talking. She placed one paw on his thigh.

“Please, Pru. This is my job. It seems some family heirlooms have gone missing. And I have been told that you have been left alone, more than once, in the late woman’s apartment.”

I could have slapped somebody. Not Creighton, though. He looked too drawn. “Look, Jim, I told you something was off with that family.” I kept my voice even, aware that Wallis was watching me with interest. “That parrot is repeating things no bird should even know about. And I haven’t said anything, but everyone in that family—and a few of the LiveWell staff, too—has heard him. It’s eerie, Jim. Truly.”

A deep sigh. “I’m not going to question a parrot, Pru.”

“I wish you’d come by. At least listen—” Then it hit me. “The bird isn’t even in LiveWell anymore. He’s at County. He got sick. I think someone might have tried to poison him.”

He didn’t have to voice his skepticism.

“Seriously, Jim. What if I file a complaint? A suspicion of animal cruelty report? Wouldn’t you have to investigate that?” If it would work with the parrot, maybe I could use the same strategy for the raccoon. My mind was getting ahead of me.

He was shaking his head. “You know that’s not my territory. That’s Albert’s area.”

“Jim, animal cruelty is a criminal act.” If I could just get him over to County…

“Bring me evidence, Pru, and I’ll see about it.” He finished his beer. “Same with the old lady’s death. Until then, maybe you can make nice with these people?”

“Jim—” He was on his feet, shaking his head. I walked him to the door and stood there as he bent over to kiss me on the forehead.

“Proof, Pru.”

“I heard you.” It was that chaste kiss that did it. Either he was tired, or something was very, very wrong. I watched him drive off and replayed the brief visit. The consummate cop, he hadn’t named the source of the complaint. Marc, I’d bet—but I couldn’t be sure. Jane had been shaken—by her brother, by the doctor. By the parrot. Hell, maybe one or the other of the siblings had complained to LiveWell management, and someone in the upscale care facility had wanted to shift the blame from their residents—and their employees—onto me.

I stood there, looking at the empty drive and considering possibilities until I felt the soft brush of fur. Wallis, twining around my ankles.

“Aren’t we the little housecat?” I was in no mood. She’d gotten more petting than I had. “Did you forget who feeds you?”

She sat back on her haunches and appraised me with those cool green eyes. Then she started washing, wiping one white mitten over her dark-tipped ear.

“You have your methods, I have mine.
” Her voice rang in my head, loud and clear. “
Don’t you want to know what I found out?
”

Chapter Seventeen

One of the tricky things about my gift, I’ve learned, is that I cannot make any assumptions about priorities. One animal’s treat is another’s trash, and neither species is really capable of understanding the other’s viewpoint. Therefore, I didn’t get too excited as Wallis preened, fluffing up her snowy bibb in anticipation of enlightening me. As much as she and I have come to understand each other, I wouldn’t have been utterly surprised to hear her tell me that Creighton had fish for dinner. Or another woman on the side.

“Huh,
” Wallis huffed.
“As if I cared about that.
”

I looked at her, curious. Wallis is both spayed and unsentimental, but I had my suspicions. The round tabby had been openly critical of other men in my life, and I didn’t think she’d only cozied up to Creighton to pick up clues.

“Well, do you want to hear what I found out, or not?
”

“Sorry, Wallis.” I returned to the living room and took a seat on the couch, waiting while she jumped up and kneaded the sofa cushion beside me to her satisfaction. Cats do like their drama.

“So?” I said finally. Wallis might have started off trying to build anticipation, but after a few minutes, I was pretty sure she was nodding off.

“
Organizing my thoughts, rather.
”
Those green eyes opened to stare at me. “
Something you could do more of. Especially in this case.
”

I bit my lip, waiting.

“To start with, he’s worried about you.
” Wallis was watching me, so I nodded. I’d kind of figured this out.
“He doesn’t think you know what you’re getting involved in,
”
she responded.
“Or not enough, anyway. There’s a cage in there, somewhere, and it scares him.
”

That one startled me. Was this about the raccoon? We hadn’t discussed it, and I hadn’t thought he’d been aware. Then it hit me: “cage” didn’t mean the same thing to Wallis as it did to me.

“Does he think I’m in danger of getting locked up?” He’d said there had been accusations. I didn’t see how quickly one could follow on the other, but then again, he hadn’t gone into detail.

“Yes, that’s it.
” Wallis started purring, an involuntary response. She liked being understood.
“Cages. But not…sticks? Fire sticks?
”

“Candlesticks.” I tried to visualize a pair, tall and silver, to explain myself to Wallis. That had been what Marc Larkin had been talking about.

“Not him.
” The purring stopped.
“Fat, bull man.
”

“He’s not fat, just—solid.” I was getting distracted, I knew. Still, I couldn’t erase the image of the stocky little man from my mind, and Wallis turned away from me in disgust. “I’m sorry, Wallis. I know, you were telling me about Creighton. I was just—” I didn’t know how to explain. “I think Creighton is worried because of Marc, the bull man.”

“Stupid people.
”
Wallis tucked her nose under her tail, leaving me with a view of her tiger-striped back.
“Not fat man, not fire—not
candle
stick. Stupid.
”

“Wallis, I don’t understand.” She was pissed off, I could tell. What I didn’t know was whether that was because she had been caught out not understanding something—or because I hadn’t been wowed by her revelation. Either way, I had only moments before she drifted off to sleep. “Please, Wallis?”

I don’t often beg. Neither of us is the type, and my plea—or maybe its novelty—caused her to open one green eye and peer over her shoulder at me.

“Please?” I tried to keep my mind blank and open.

“
Nothing to do with the stupid sticks.
”
Her voice, even in my head, was growing fuzzy, drifting toward slumber.
“It’s the poison that worries him. The poison and the cage.
”

With that she shuffled, the black line of fur down her spine rippling once as she readjusted, and fell asleep, leaving me to decipher not only her words but her intent.

Wallis is not a simple creature. I knew that, for her, appearing both intelligent and knowledgeable were as important as actually conveying information that could be useful to me. It’s not that she didn’t worry about me, it was more that she trusted me to take care of myself, or so I believed. Plus, I couldn’t discount the fact that Wallis was getting on in years. I was grateful that she didn’t go out to hunt much anymore. The woods around Beauville held much bigger predators than my little domestic tabby. She was sensitive about any comments about aging or diminished ability, however, and might jump on anything that showed her in a more complimentary light, as a player, if you would, in my own particular hunt.

Therefore, I had a couple of things to work out. First, had Wallis actually gotten anything from Creighton that I didn’t know? If she had, was she correctly interpreting it as it pertained to me, or to our, affairs? Or was she stretching the little bit she already knew in order to make herself appear more important? And, really, how good a judge was my cynical tabby of the outside world?

The only way I could think of to approach it all was by looking at the details of what she’d said.
Poison.
I’d brought it up in connection with the parrot, but I didn’t think I’d mentioned anything about Gaffney threatening the raccoon. Same with the cage, although Creighton certainly knew the setup at the shelter. Still, cages might appear an awful lot like traps to an animal who was working off a visual impression from someone’s fleeting thoughts. Or Wallis could have been mistaken about those words, or misinterpreting. If “cages” could be “traps,” then—

I stopped, amazed at my own stupidity. Here I was, assuming my cat had misread a sign, when I was falling into the same old snare myself. Poison: I shook my head. What had Creighton been warning me about, but drugs? The drug trade, and whether any of my old “buddies” from high school were looking to get me involved again. I didn’t know whether my cop beau was having me followed, or simply had surveillance on Joey Gaffney, but clearly he’d gotten word that I’d been talking to Joey’s cousin. He must have thought that I was investigating, that the raccoon was a front, an excuse for me to go down to the condo development looking for one of the Gaffneys and to ask some questions.

Unless—I swallowed, another interpretation sticking like a peach pit in my throat—unless he thought I’d gone to the condos for another reason. He’d warned me about the drug trade, and what had I done? I’d gone directly to find one of the most likely culprits, meanwhile making up some cock and bull story about a nuisance animal. Could Creighton think I was in league with some local dealers? Or seeking to warn an old friend that the law was on his trail? Creighton knew I was hard up for cash; walking people’s dogs didn’t really pay enough to heat this old house and winter was coming in fast. Still, he couldn’t think that of me, could he?

“You’ve not given him much reason to trust you.
” I looked over. Wallis’ face was still hidden deep in the black tuft of her tail.
“And you haven’t been particularly welcoming recently.
”

“I’ve been busy, Wallis.” I swallowed again, to get rid of that lump. It was true that I hadn’t let him stay the night for a while. It was also true that Creighton and I had fallen into a routine, and routines, after a while, make me itchy.

“Maybe that’s the problem, Pru.
” My cat was drifting toward sleep again, her voice growing faint in my head.
“He knows you’ve been busy. He’s afraid of finding out why.
”

Chapter Eighteen

There’s only so much a girl can do. I’d told him, when he’d asked, that I wasn’t in touch with any of my former running buddies. And I’d told him, also, that I’d gone over to the new development because of a raccoon. If Jim Creighton didn’t believe me, then it was out of my hands.

I knew I was being defensive. I don’t like being suspected of things I didn’t do. Stupid things, the kind that hurt others. I also knew that I had precious little say about who or what Creighton chose to believe. I’d been involved with a cop before, back in the city, in my wild days. Some cops are a law to themselves; all of them like to see themselves that way.

No amount of willpower could keep me from worrying about the situation, though, and I had a restless night. Wallis didn’t help. Although I sensed her coming into the bedroom at some late hour, I wasn’t awake enough to hash it out with her. And in the morning, she was absent again. I’d never gotten the chance to tell her about the latest with the parrot. And by the time I’d gotten her egg and my own coffee ready, I was late for my rounds.

Tracy Horlick is a nightmare on the best of days. This one had started off bad, with a headache from the whiskey I’d drunk to make myself stop thinking and the dreams that had followed, full of suspicion and doubt. The way she was leering—I couldn’t call it a smile—as I started up her walk made me wonder if she had some psychic ability. Then again, maybe she was simply mean.

“Aren’t we bright eyed and bushy tailed?” She punctuated her greeting with an exhalation of smoke, and immediately took another draw on the cigarette clutched between her stained fingers. “Late night?”

“I’ve got a lot of new clients.” I mustered a smile. I couldn’t afford to lose her, nor did I want to abandon Growler to his mean-spirited mistress. Still, I couldn’t sacrifice all my dignity.

“So I hear.” She stepped in front of the open door, crossing her arms. “Makes me wonder.”

“Oh?” I tried to peer around her, but her faded housecoat was flapping in the breeze. “Is Growler ready for his walk?”

“
Growler?
” I kicked myself.

“Just having fun,” I made the smile wider and blinked, for good measure. Standing in the doorway, three steps up, she was already taller than me, and I was damned if I was going to lie down, exposing my belly. “Bitsy is such a little toughie.”

The dog would forgive me. He’d done a few submissive gestures in his day, too, in order to appease old Horlick. From somewhere deep in the house, I heard a bark.

“Huh.” She threw her head back, blowing smoke out of her nostrils. The offering was accepted, and she turned. “You,” she said, “wait here.”

The sky was overcast, but the fresh breeze—smelling of rain—was preferable to her stale smoke, so I was happy to linger on the stoop as I heard a door open and the scurrying of small claws on old linoleum. Tracy Horlick reappeared, extending a claw-like hand. I took the lead from her as the little bichon bounded out from behind her ankles.

“See you later.” I batted my eyes again for good measure as the old bag retreated. As we turned onto the sidewalk, I caught a glimpse of her watching us, but the curtain whisked back as I waved.

“
Come on, walker lady.
”
Growler was all pent-up energy, and I knew our time would likely be his only chance to get outdoors all day.
“It’s hopeless, you know.
”

“I’m sorry.” I was. The spirited little dog deserved better.

“
Not
me.”
The white powderpuff stopped to sniff a tree and then to mark it.
“Where’s Gus been?
”
His black leather nose was working overtime.

“Is it something with Gus?” I only had a faint idea of who the German shepherd was, but I tried to get a picture, if only to allow Growler to express himself.

“What? No.
”
A short, sharp bark, and he pulled me forward. Not the ideal way for a dog to walk, and in another animal I would be trying to retrain him away from tugging at the leash. In Growler’s case, however, I was willing to give him leeway. He had so little control over the rest of his life.

“Like you do?
”
The button eyes were looking up at me.
“Smiley eyes?
”

“I was trying to humor her.” I didn’t think I had to explain myself to the bichon. After all, he lived with Tracy Horlick. “She was in a worse mood than usual, and I’m—well, I’m tired.”

“Huh.
”
Growler had moved on, digging briefly in a pile of new-fallen leaves.
“You’d do better humoring the other people.
”
I waited as he moved on, sniffed and sprinkled again.
“The ones who are talking about you. She just laps up what they spill
.”

Once we got to the end of the block, I let Growler off his leash. Again, while this was not my official policy, it seemed the least I could do. Besides, I wanted to think over what he’d said. Tracy Horlick was a world-class gossip, inhaling rumor and innuendo like smoke. That someone had told her I wasn’t to be trusted seemed likely. Coupled with her words—and the way she’d stood, guarding her front door—it seemed likely she’d heard about the thefts over at LiveWell.

I felt myself growing angry. It’s one thing to talk to a cop. If valuables go missing, you have a right to pursue justice. It’s another to cast aspersions. Add in that Jane Larkin had hired me—and that she and her brother were at odds—and I began to get really steamed. I didn’t know if anyone really suspected me. In cases like this, other people get dragged in as proxies for the principles. I did know that I wanted to put a stop to it.

“You ready, walker lady?
”
The air had gotten colder, and here, down by the river, the dampness was palpable. I had lost sense of time.
“Not that long,
”
said Growler.

“You
want
to go back?” I felt better. The fresh air and time to think had cleared my head—and given me the determination to set things straight.

“Ha!
”
Another short bark.
“As if.
” I got it. Growler had made his connections—and relieved himself. He didn’t want to aggravate his person.
“Not exactly.
”
I looked down at those button eyes, as the bichon waited for me to reattach the lead.
“I know you’re on the trail, and I don’t want you to lose the scent.
”