Cockatiels at Seven (23 page)

“Good,” Sandie said. “I suppose it’s wicked of me, but I do hope you find something. In fact—wait a sec.”

She rummaged in her purse and came out with a college key card.

“You can get into the building and our department with this. You’re on your own when it comes to getting into Nadine’s office, but at least I can get you that far.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Thanks!”

“Now you just go on,” she said. “And don’t worry about me. I brought my book. I’ll just sit here and keep an ear open for Timmy.”

She sat down in the living room. I peered out the front windows, to make sure Mother and Rose Noire weren’t still out there. No, I saw Rose Noire’s car chugging off.

I also noticed that Seth Early was already on guard,
lurking behind the hedge at a low spot in the road. Still watching for the swarthy man? Another mystery I was still no closer to solving—who was the swarthy man, and was he watching our house, and if so, why? And could I figure out something to call him other than the swarthy man, which sounded more melodramatic every time I thought it?

Of course, I could see why Mr. Early hadn’t had much luck accosting the so-called swarthy man. Unfortunately, it still hadn’t occurred to him that while his hiding place was concealed from our side of the street, anyone coming out from town could clearly spot him from the ridge. If anyone had been watching our house, he had probably already seen Mr. Early and chosen his hiding place accordingly. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

“I’ll see you later,” I told Sandie. “I’m going to check something in the yard and then I’ll take off.”

“I’ll be here,” she said, holding up the thick paperback she was reading.

I went out the kitchen door and set out across the backyard then down the hill as if planning to walk across the fields to Mother and Dad’s farm. I ambled along as if on a pleasure outing—Meg enjoying the scenery, and maybe relishing a break from childcare. Not that I expected anyone to be watching, but you never knew.

Once I reached the woods, I picked up the pace and circled around, heading for a place where the woods came right up to the road. I figured that would be the perfect place to cross the road. I could skulk through the woods on Mr. Early’s side of the road, climb up the back of one of the hills that overlooked our house, and keep an eye on him and our house at the same time.

But as I approached the road, I realized that someone had anticipated me. A dark blue Honda Accord was parked by the side of the road, just out of sight of our house.

I watched it for a while, until I was sure it was empty. Then I carefully approached it and peered in the windows. Neat and clean inside, and almost empty, except for a couple of books on the front seat. Books very familiar to the daughter of an avid bird-watcher:
The
Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America
and
Hawks and Owls of Eastern North America
.

So did this mean that the owner of the empty car was an innocent bird-watcher, out prowling the countryside in search of owls and other nocturnal birds to add to his life list? Or was that only the impression the bird books were supposed to make on a suspicious passerby? When Dad went bird-watching, he usually took his guides with him, along with a small pocket flashlight so he could consult them in case he ran into an uncommon species. Perhaps leaving your guides in the car was an act of bravado—the bird-watching equivalent of doing crossword puzzles in pen. Then again, I didn’t see any of the other detritus that usually accompanied Dad’s birdwatching forays—the water bottles, the snacks, the compass, the Tecnu in case he had to wade through poison ivy, the tripod and telescope, the dry clothes in case he fell in a swamp. Perhaps Dad went overboard on the paraphernalia, but still, the more I stared at those two books, placed with such artful carelessness in the front seat of the Honda, the more suspicious I found them.

Of course, since I’d been looking for a missing friend for several days, had discovered a dead body along the way, and was suffering from a slight case of sleep deprivation, maybe I was more paranoid than usual.

Not a puzzle I could solve by continuing to inspect the car. I wrote down the license plate number, then I crept along the edge of the woods for a way, until I came to a nice, climbable tree that gave me a good view of the Honda, the road in front of our house, and
Seth Early. I found a comfortable perch and settled back to watch all three.

I realized that I could have kept tabs on Mr. Early even without seeing him, since the sheep flock tended to hover near him, and there was a constant trickle of sheep coming to him to be petted and then returning to the main flock to resume grazing. Must have made the wait more amusing. From a distance, though, the sheep were less amusing. Did they really have some kind of sleep-inducing qualities? Or could I blame Timmy for the fact that I kept almost nodding off and then jerking awake just as I was about to slide off my perch. I positioned myself so the stump of a dead branch would poke me in the chest if I started nodding off and resolutely avoided looking at the sheep.

After fifteen minutes, I began to think better of my surveillance. After half an hour, I had decided it was a waste of time. But it was too early for the next item on my agenda, and when I thought of climbing down and going home, I reminded myself that at least it was quiet and peaceful up in my tree. Odds were I’d have an even harder time finding a babysitter the next time I wanted a Timmy-free evening. And the later the better for most of the other places I planned to prowl.

I settled back and concentrated on enjoying the unaccustomed solitude. I did my yoga breathing exercises—the ones that were supposed to bring clarity and energy, not the relaxing and falling asleep ones. Clarity and energy were proving elusive.

Then I spotted something at the house that woke me up a little. Rob, coming out the front door.

Rob, who refused to baby-sit because he was going
to be out all evening? Rob, who I thought had already left for his rendezvous with Ms. Wrong?

Well, maybe he was going out after all. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but he had a garment bag thrown over his shoulder. He was carrying something in his other hand, but I couldn’t quite see what.

He set the something down to stuff the garment bag into the Porsche’s almost nonexistent trunk, and I recognized the other piece of luggage—Spike’s carrier. Just then the carrier rocked back and forth slightly, which meant Spike was in there, hurling himself from side to side as he usually did to protest his imprisonment.

Rob squatted down beside the carrier, and leaned toward the screen in the door, as if speaking to Spike. Then he laughed and patted the top of the carrier—safer, most of the time, than patting Spike directly. He buckled the carrier into the passenger seat, got into the car, and drove off.

Where on earth was Rob taking Spike at this time of night?

While I was still pondering that dilemma, I heard a car engine off to my right. The Honda had started up. I couldn’t see its driver, but I watched in astonishment as it gently glided down the road, following Rob.

I might have assumed it was a coincidence if the Honda hadn’t been driving with its headlights off.

As soon as the Honda passed him, Seth Early leaped into action, running across the fields. I hadn’t seen that he had his truck stashed nearby, but I saw it join the spread-out caravan.

Aha! Apparently my fake bird-watcher in the Honda was also Seth Early’s swarthy man.

What the hell. I climbed down the tree again, ran back to the house the shortest way possible—along the now deserted road—and jumped into my car. Rob hadn’t been going that fast, so if they were following him, I should be able to catch up with them before they got too far.

After a couple of miles, I spotted Seth Early’s truck and slowed down to keep a safe distance behind it. When we came to a long, gentle curve, I got a chance to check out the others. Rob in the lead, cruising along a mere five miles above the speed limit. The Honda, its lights now on, following about ten car lengths behind him. Seth Early, about ten car lengths behind him. Since ten car lengths seemed to be the generally approved standard distance for tailing people, I made sure I was in sync with the rest of the caravan and tried to think ahead to any places where they could do something clever and lose me.

I don’t know why I bothered. Rob and Seth Early were clearly oblivious to the possibility that someone might be following them, and even if the Honda’s driver realized he was part of a parade, he probably couldn’t do anything about it.

Near town, Rob signaled way in advance before turning left onto the Clay Hill Road, and then again before his right turn onto Whitetail Lane. Did Rob’s errand have anything to do with Jasper Walker?

Seth Early and the Honda fell back a little on the small country lane, and I followed suit. I breathed a slight sigh of relief when we cruised past the Belle Glade Bird Farm sign without turning in. Still odd that Rob happened to be going out in this direction,
but at least it wasn’t likely to be anything connected with Jasper’s murder and Karen’s disappearance.

Then a few miles farther, we hit another long curve through open fields, and I realized that Seth Early must have fallen too far back. He was now lead car in a truncated caravan.

He cruised on, apparently oblivious. Or maybe he was speeding up slightly, assuming the others had merely gotten a little too far ahead of him and trying to catch up.

I turned around in the next driveway and hightailed it back to Hiram Bass’s house and the bird farm.

I parked my car on one of the vestigial side lanes, near the ruins of a cement truck, and made my way on foot.

The Bass place was deserted. No sign of Rob’s car or the Honda. I took the lane toward the bird farm. I was halfway there when I heard some faint ticking noises in the shrubbery. I wasn’t sure what caused them, but my car made those same sounds when it had recently stopped and the engine was cooling.

I followed the noises, trying very hard to avoid touching any vegetation, since it was too dark to tell harmless vines from the ubiquitous poison ivy. Sure enough, I found the blue Honda parked at the side of the road, the bird books still lying on the front seat.

I stood listening for several minutes, trying to discover where its occupant had gone.

Then I heard voices farther along. Up at Aubrey Hamilton’s house. I left the Honda and walked cautiously along the road, expecting the fake bird-watcher to leap out of the bushes at any second.

At the end of the lane, I saw that both the house and barn were illuminated. Rob’s car was parked at the side of the lane, near the barn. The voices seemed to be coming from the barn, so I headed that way.

As I drew closer, I heard Rob’s voice.

“Okay, I’m not sure it’s ready for prime time,” he was saying.

“Well, I told you this was harder than it looks,” a woman’s voice said. “And frankly, you couldn’t have picked a less promising subject.”

I felt incredibly exposed as I walked across the barnyard, and sighed with relief when I reached the shadows beside the barn.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Rob said. “But I like a challenge.”

“You could have fooled me,” I muttered. Maybe this wasn’t my slacker brother, but his long-lost industrious identical twin. I crept to one of the barn windows and peeked in.

Rob was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket. He had somehow managed to tie a red bandanna around Spike’s neck. Not the first time he’d done it either, to judge by the relatively calm way Spike reacted—he only turned around from time to time and growled over his shoulder at the offending fabric.

Rob took up a position beside Spike. Spike looked up at him and curled his lip. Somehow, with the bandanna, it
almost looked cute. Probably did look cute if you didn’t know Spike.

“Okay,” Rob said. “Hit it.”

Music blasted out—evidently the woman had turned on a tape or CD player. I recognized the crashing opening chords of George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ “Bad to the Bone.”

Rob immediately assumed a pose of utterly theatrical menace, narrowing his eyes, slouching with his left hand hooked into his belt loops while he snapped the fingers of the right occasionally to punctuate the opening bars. Then, he extended one finger dramatically down, pointing straight at Spike.

Spike leaped up toward the finger, jaws snapping shut with less than an inch to spare. Rob and Spike then proceeded to execute nearly five minutes of the most demented dance routine I’d ever seen. At least Rob was dancing—a skill I’d never seen him display before. Dancing and acting; if I hadn’t seen the transformation, I’d have had a hard time recognizing my brother Rob as the cool leather-clad troublemaker strutting around the barn floor. Spike wasn’t acting or dancing, though—he was out for the kill, leaping up and snapping whenever Rob extended a finger down toward him. And by keeping one finger or the other just out of reach the whole time, Rob deftly managed to lead Spike through some fairly intricate choreography. Spike wound around and through Rob’s legs, eyes always fixed on that elusive, teasing finger, occasionally twirling in a circle or leaping over an extended ankle.

I was amazed at how well Rob took Spike’s mono-maniacal urge to bite and channeled it into a really cute
routine. Cute even to me, and I knew all too well how close Rob was to losing those fingers Spike found so irresistible. As the music built to its final crescendo of guitars and drums, Rob even went down briefly on one knee, leading me to cover my eyes and hope he was smart enough to be wearing a hockey protector.

“Bravo!” came a voice. A spry-looking older woman with a mop of unruly salt-and-pepper curls came into view, applauding vigorously. “You’ve worked wonders with him! You’re definitely ready for the contest.”

Rob grinned, and Spike stood graciously accepting her praise, as if he’d done something really clever instead of spending the last five minutes attempting mayhem.

I actually had to remind myself that I was spying and probably shouldn’t join in the ovation. Their performance was a tour de force. Rob must have been working on it all summer. No wonder Jack Ransom and the guys at the office had been so undisturbed.