Fine-Feathered Death (29 page)

I commenced my preparations for the anticipated event the next day—and night, when I returned to the offices once again after everyone had left.

The following day was Saturday, and as I wasn’t yet ready, I resorted again to the same routine.

Sunday, I considered a visit to Darryl’s resort, since Lexie was being left home alone an awful lot, mostly at odd hours. I did the obvious thing and asked my pet-sitting protégée Rachel to care for my Cavalier. Both acted elated.

And me? Yes, my horrendous schedule was becoming a habit, but there was no help for it.

Although I expected that the end was in sight. And I felt surer of it late Sunday, when the breakthrough I’d been betting on finally occurred.

That meant that I made several calls, come Monday. And then I was ready to rock and roll . . .

 

“GORGEOUS GIRL,” I crooned to Gigi near the middle of Monday night.

I’d moved her into the bar, the better to enjoy her company as I waited for what was to come.

I heard a knock at the door to the office building, and I took a deep breath beneath my oversized white sweater. Or tried to, considering how constricted I felt by the proceedings I predicted.

“Show time,” I said, sticking my hands down deep into the pockets of my pink denim slacks.

“Aawrk,” Gigi squawked in response.

I hoped she remembered her role. And then I went to admit the person I’d grown positive was the murderer.

Not that I truly needed to, since the killer had a key.

“Hi, Kendra,” said Polly Bright when I opened the door. As always—almost—the celebrated parrot psychologist was clad in flowing garments of garish shades—orange and purple and green this evening. A huge tote bag swung from her hefty shoulder. “How’s poor Gigi? I’m sorry to hear she still hasn’t settled down after all the terrible things she experienced.”

“Me, too,” I responded ardently. “Come in. I really hope you can help. I remembered what you said about startling her and shifting her environment to earn her attention, so I’ve relocated her to the conference room.”

Confess now,
I ordered nonverbally as I preceded Polly into the former restaurant bar. Naturally she didn’t blurt out that during two of her most recent visits, she’d shot people to death in this very building and also aimed at me.

Gigi was calm and stood serenely on her large wooden perch, surveying the two of us via one gleaming eye, then the other.

“She looks all right to me.” Polly appeared puzzled. She drew closer and eyed Gigi up and down from below, since the top of the evil bird expert’s head, crowned by her strangely shaded red-hued hair, was shorter than Gigi on her perch.

“Appearances can be deceptive,” I intoned. “The thing is, I had a visit from Jeff Hubbard today, and she became so nervous that I thought she would fly off her perch and nip someone. Namely me.”

“Oh. I see.” Polly nodded knowingly, and I nearly asserted my accusations when I noted the delighted twinkle in her ordinary brown eyes. I still hadn’t cinched it, but my certainty mounted that my theory was true.

“No, I’m not sure you do see,” I said with a sad pseudo-sigh. “Jeff and I were an item for a very short while. I really came to care for him, so I didn’t want to believe he could have killed Ezra and Corrie. But all the evidence seems to point toward him.”

“That’s what I gathered from the news,” Polly said solemnly, sinking her pudgy body onto the seat of the nearest booth. “What evidence have the police found?”

“A couple of things,” I answered evasively, sitting on the edge of the seat opposite her. “One of the things I wanted to talk to you more about is the ability of macaws to repeat things they hear during an emotional moment. Your books say they aren’t as good as, say, African Grey parrots at doing that. But you told me it is possible, right?”

“As I mentioned to you, every bird has a different personality,” she preached, her expression solemn, as if she imparted invaluable information to a sycophant who’d begged for facts. “My books also point that out. Most macaws don’t pick things up that fast, but obviously Gigi is different.”

An interesting observation, considering that the news vultures hadn’t been informed about that particular piece of purported evidence. Nor had anyone else.

Polly could have inferred my meaning, of course, but I hadn’t expressly mentioned Gigi while inquiring about emotional macaw repetitions. In fact, I had intentionally posed my inquiry to be nonspecific.

So how would Polly know that Gigi was so different?

“I see,” I said contemplatively. “You know, I’m not sure I believe you. I’ve read a couple of your books, and they appear to be drivel to me. I mean, how can a fraud like you make a living pretending you’re a parrot expert?” I smiled snidely at her. “You seem to change the facts to meet the situation. I don’t believe that Gigi picked up Ezra’s dying scream, ‘Stop it, Hubbard,’ the moment before he died.”

Polly’s pudgy brow pursed, and her double chins wiggled. “That’s not what she picked up. I mean—”

My wicked grin widened. “No, it isn’t. It was the sound of Jeff’s cell phone. How did you get Gigi to repeat it, Polly?”

She stood and stared furiously down at me. “How did you know?”

“I read your books and asked you questions. I worked with Gigi myself. And I believe now that even if macaws sometimes pick up sounds they hear once, they’re more likely to repeat things taught over and over. But when did you play Jeff’s cell phone ring to her?”

“Mornings,” she spat. The brightness of her cheerful demeanor and clothing now seemed awfully ominous as she loomed over me. “Very early mornings when the cops weren’t here and no one else had arrived yet. I had to get up even earlier than the birds, so to speak, but fortunately only a few times. Gigi is, in fact, pretty good at picking things up fast.”

“Dare I ask your reason for teaching her that tune?”

She gave a shrug that set her colorful robe swaying. “I was here the day Jeff Hubbard started his investigation of everyone who was around this office even occasionally. I had to turn things around on him to get him to stop. He’d gotten a call on his cell phone, so I knew what it sounded like. I downloaded it from the Internet onto my digital music player—I couldn’t find it as a ring tone. I took Elaine Aames’s set of office keys from her purse one day when I was here, had them duplicated, and put them back the next time I was around. And each time I came on my own, I played that damned tune over and over again till Gigi finally started repeating it. I just needed the cops to understand the implication, even from a macaw. They don’t reproduce sounds exactly, you know.”

I nodded. “You got your wish,” I told her. “The primary detective on the case understood what it meant.”

“Detective Noralles? Yes, I made sure he knew. He called me in as an expert to help with Gigi, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured,” I flung at her.

“Ah, but did you know you gave me the idea to teach Gigi that cell phone ring? That day you asked whether birds can repeat things they heard in moments of emotion—well, it started me thinking.”

Damn! I’d have to tell Darryl . . . “And you recognized Jeff’s sports coat so you ensured he’d be implicated in Corrie’s murder, too, by decorating it with a dab of her blood.”

Polly nodded. I noticed that one of her hands had disappeared into her oversized tote bag. A bad sign. Was she fumbling for a weapon?

I had a trick or two of my own up my slightly less massive sleeve, but I still had to stay observant. “All this is interesting,” I said, “and somewhat as I surmised, but what made you decide to murder Ezra in the first place?”

She stopped scrounging and stared down at me with sadness in her small eyes. “I’d done such a fine job for his friend Bella Quevedo—Mrs. Jetts now. Her beautiful Amazon parrot, Pinocchio, was such a dream to teach. When Bella, who was so nice, referred me to her friend Ezra Cossner, who’d just adopted a macaw, of course I had to try to help him out.”

I wriggled back in my booth when Polly’s expression turned thunderous.

“He was mistreating poor Gigi, encouraging her to do terrible things, like screech and bite,” Polly stormed. “I tried to be professional in the way I criticized him for causing her problems, and at the same time I tried to teach them both what was right. But Gigi is stubborn and smart.”

I nodded. I’d experienced her obstinacy firsthand.

“When she didn’t respond right away and behave better,” Polly continued, “Ezra yelled at me. Threatened to expose me as a fraud so I’d never be respected as a parrot expert again.” My neck was growing cramped, yet I still nodded. I’d heard a little of Ezra’s attempt at intimidation. “He said he’d do all he could to see I never was invited to speak again or work with parrots anywhere in the world, and that I’d never sell any more books. He was a lawyer. People listened to him. I was afraid he’d ruin me. And so . . . that awful night, when Gigi was so upset, he ordered me to come back here even though it was late. He yelled at me again, even as Gigi shrieked and bit at us, and, well . . . I somehow grabbed the gun from my purse and shot him.”

“Oh, yes. The guns. I know the cops used them to assist forming their conclusions that Jeff was guilty. A P.I. would be aware of places supplying weapons with no questions asked. But a parrot person?”

“I am highly aware of security issues,” Polly replied primly. “I visit people in their homes at all hours, alone with them except for their birds. In my many travels, I’ve gained access to weapons of self-defense from others who understand the need for discretion. I was sorry to have to leave them behind, but that was ever so much better than having them found on my person, with all the questions that would engender, even after I’d only used them as they were intended—in self-defense.”

“How—” With the self-righteous way she regarded me, I bit back my angry inquiry about how she’d convinced herself of that insane conclusion. I even forbore from retching at that ridiculous interpretation of reality. Instead, I said softly, “You needed more than one gun to protect yourself?”

“Why, yes,” she responded smugly. “I’m a great believer in belt and suspenders in duplicate, triplicate, and more. But now, sadly, there are two missing guns from my collection. I will need to replace them.”

“You knew enough to eliminate your fingerprints,” I stated, still keeping my criticism to my outraged self.

She nodded slowly, appearing exhausted now that she’d confessed her first crime. “I love those TV shows about investigating crime scenes. I figured that it was okay if my prints were around otherwise, since people knew I came here to help Ezra train Gigi.”

“What about the ammunition?” I asked. “No prints were found on bullets or casings. If the killing wasn’t premeditated—”

“I certainly wasn’t going to let anything so nasty come in contact with my skin,” she interrupted with a grimace. “I always use gloves when I load.”

I recalled her use of her own cup when visiting here, and other acts of eccentric primness, like personal preparation of parrot treats, which proved she was probably telling the truth. “And Corrie? Why did you kill her?”

Again Polly’s features contorted into a furious frown. “She knew Ezra had called me to come in that night. She suspected what had happened and came to my very own home to accuse me. She said she’d been planning to give up her career as a paralegal, and I was providing her with the perfect opportunity—or I would, when I paid her not to tell what she knew about me.”

“Blackmail.” I nodded knowingly. I’d suspected something like that but had hoped Corrie wasn’t really that kind of person.

Of course, a lot of people are opportunists, even accomplished paralegals.

“I went along with her the first time, figuring that would be that. Only that
wasn’t
that. She wanted more. I still had my office key, so I sneaked back in that night when she expected me, only later. And I did what I had to, to shut her up.”

“And shot at me!” I couldn’t help exploding.

“Only when you looked out the window. I was wearing ugly and drab, dark clothes, so I doubted you would recognize me, but even so . . .”

“And that’s also when you took advantage of Jeff’s jacket being abandoned here.”

She nodded. And then she drew a scary-looking silenced handgun from her handbag.

My heart started hammering so hugely that I was afraid it would get bruised beneath my rib cage. I swallowed, then said, “So how do you think you’ll be able to blame this one on Jeff?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said with a deep sigh. “And I’ve hated having to deal with all that blood. I know from the shows that there’s likely to be some residue in my car no matter how much I scrubbed it, though I was careful to dispose of my clothes from those nights by burning them. At least no one has suspected me. I think I may have to wreck my car, though, and buy a new one. And here goes yet another gun.”

“What a shame,” I snarled.

I shuddered in anticipation, yet even at that I felt surprised at the suddenness of her move. She drew the gun up and aimed it, even as I attempted to shoulder my way away from her and the bar booth.

Pudgy Polly was fitter than she appeared, and her strength, partly born of desperation, was enormous. I threw one hand up in a gesture of defiance . . .

And suddenly a loud siren screamed throughout the room.

“No!” Polly wailed as, startled, she failed to stop me as I shoved her out of the way.

I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a pistol of my own, as the siren continued—rather raspily, emanating from the mouth of the beautiful Blue and Gold Macaw. I ensured that the safety was off and aimed it at the cowering parrot shrink.

“Gorgeous girl,” I gasped to Gigi, who had come through with the sound I’d instructed her on over the last few nights.

Only then did two male humans insinuate themselves into this latest crime scene—also with weapons at the ready.