Never Steal a Cockatiel (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series Book 9) (18 page)

“Why didn’t you call the cops? Or me?” Maura asked, sounding slightly hurt.

“The note said they’d kill him!” Leonard defended. “It said that if I told the police even
after
the bird came back, that they’d come find him again — or another bird of mine — and ‘wring its skinny little neck!’” He hung his head a moment. “I know I should have. But I just couldn’t. This guy means everything to me.” He put up his other hand and nuzzled the back of the cockatiel’s neck with a fingertip. “Don’t you, Opie sweet?”

Maura cleared her throat. “When did you get him back, Len?”

“Not until this morning,” he answered gravely. “I looked outside first thing, and there he was. The cage was hanging right where I’d left it. Every day he wasn’t returned I worried that something had gone wrong, that maybe he’d gotten away from them somehow… or worse. But I kept telling myself I’d give them just one more day, and
then
I would tell the police everything. Every day I kept hoping for a miracle. And finally, it happened!”

Leigh watched as the cockatiel closed its eyes and leaned into the curve of Leonard’s stroking finger. The bird purred happily.

There really was no doubt about it. The cockatiel they had all been pet sitting since Monday was definitely Leonard’s bird. Which didn’t make Leonard a suspect. It made him another victim.

“Three thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Maura said soberly.

Leigh knew what she was thinking. Leonard lived in a modest house in a modest neighborhood with a whole lot of birds. To ask for so much, the petnapper must have known not only that Leonard was emotionally attached to his birds in general, but that he felt strongly about this cockatiel in particular.
And
that he could actually afford such a ransom. Otherwise, the risk of his turning to the police would be too great.

“It was worth it,” Leonard insisted, still caressing the happy bird. A tear slid down his cheek. “He missed me, I think.”

“I’m sure he did,” Leigh agreed sincerely.

Leonard straightened and turned to Maura. “I can’t lose him again,” he said firmly. “If I cooperate with the police, can you promise me I won’t?”

“I’m not God, Len,” Maura replied. “But we’ll certainly do our best to be discreet. Do you have the ransom note?”

He shook his head. “They wanted it left with the money. But I took a picture of it on my phone.”

Maura smiled. “Good work. Can you send it to me?” She pulled a card out of her wallet and gave it to him. “I’ll need to explain the situation to the local PDs. There’s a couple different jurisdictions involved. But I’ll make sure no black and whites come to your house. You can meet the officers elsewhere, if you like. But with your help, maybe we can finally get this guy.”

Leonard’s answering smile was uneasy. “I hope so.”

The ride back to the animal hospital was a quiet one. Leigh was absorbed in her own not-so-pleasant thoughts, and Maura seemed equally contemplative. No one spoke until the van was parked on the street outside the clinic. “You should go back and help Grandpa the rest of the afternoon like we planned, Allison,” Leigh advised.

Allison unbuckled her seatbelt, but rather than getting out, she leaned forward between the front seats. “Whoever wrote that one tip letter has a point, you know,” she said evenly. “So far the petnapper has a pretty amazing record of targeting owners who care about their pets, who have the money to pay him, and who won’t go to the police. Anybody who works at the clinic would know that stuff.
If
they pay attention.”

Maura looked at Leigh and nodded. “She’s right, Koslow. To look at Lenny or his house, you’d never guess he was a professor at CMU who could come up three grand over a weekend. Ginny cares as much about Lucky as Len does about Opie, but she’s been living on social security for years. Three hundred was the most anyone could possibly squeeze out of her. If they asked for too much, she’d have no choice but to go to the police. Our petnapper knew that.”

“Even I could come up with a list of good targets, and I’m only there every once in a while,” Allison added.

“You wouldn’t have to work at the clinic to know those things,” Leigh protested, still not wanting to believe that any of her father’s current employees could be so secretly cruel. She turned to Maura. “You knew both our victims so far, didn’t you? And their circumstances?”

Maura tilted her head from side to side. “Maybe. But I didn’t know Len was so gaga about birds.”

“I did,” Allison insisted. “And I knew he was a professor. I didn’t know he was especially attached to the cockatiel, but if I worked down there all the time, I bet I would. He comes in a lot. All the bird people do. All the most devoted clients do!”

Leigh groaned beneath her breath. She really,
really
did not want an employee of the clinic to be involved. What a terrible situation for her father!

“If we are dealing with a petnapper inside the clinic,” Maura theorized, “or even just an informant feeding information to somebody else, they’ll certainly be aware by now that you and I are looking into it.”

Leigh groaned again, this time audibly. The back door of the van opened. Allison was getting out.

Leigh felt a sudden flare of panic. “Allison, wait,” she warned. She turned to Maura. “If this person knows we’re on to them, should she even be going in there? What about the boys?”

“Who says the perp knows we’re on to
them?”
Maura reasoned. “All they know is that you’re aware of the petnappings and are trying to get information from clients. If we’re lucky, that alone will make them think a little harder before trying it again. But they have no reason to think we suspect anybody inside the clinic. Not yet, anyway. The best thing to do would be to carry on as normal. Wouldn’t it look more strange if Allison
stopped
helping your dad now?”

“I suppose so,” Leigh grumbled.

“Mom,” Allison drawled with typical preteen exasperation, “I’ll be fine. I am
not
going to make anybody suspicious of me. They’ll never even know I’m listening. You never do.”

Maura chuckled.

Leigh frowned. “I’ll pick you up at five.”

Allison smiled and skipped on into the building, now looking every bit of six years old.

“That child will put me in an early grave,” Leigh lamented.

“Well, what are kids for?” Maura quipped, taking a quick look at Eddie in the back seat. He was kicking his tiny legs and drooling on the terry cloth strap covers of the car seat. She smiled indulgently.

Then she turned back to Leigh, and her expression sobered. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Allison,” she said heavily. “But you do realize that we now have evidence that Mason Dublin handed off stolen property?”

Leigh felt her chest constrict. The thought had been there, at the back of her mind, ever since she’d seen the familiar cockatiel fly onto Leonard’s hand. But she hadn’t wanted to face it. “He didn’t know,” she defended. “I’m sure he didn’t. He told me himself, that morning, that he didn’t know where the bird had come from. That he’d never seen it before.”

“That’s good to hear,” Maura replied. “That’s what he told me on the phone, too. But it doesn’t change the facts. Kyle had a stolen bird in his apartment. For all we know, the cat could have been stolen, too.”

Leigh’s angst ratcheted up another notch.
Crap.
“Lenna is head over heels in love with that cat already!” she opined. “I was already dreading having to return it to Kyle. Surely she’s not stolen. Mason said that Kyle was crazy about the cat. He must have had it for a while!”

Maura raised one eyebrow. “And of course we have
no reason
to doubt anything that Kyle might say about the pets in his possession.”

Leigh sighed.

“We already know Kyle needed money,” Maura continued. “Can you think of any link he might have to the clinic, besides Mason?”

Leigh shook her head firmly. “Mason has nothing to do with the clinic. He and my dad get along okay, but they’ve never been buddies, and Mason avoids my mother like the plague. Up until a few weeks ago, he lived in Jennerstown! As for Kyle Claymore, I’d never heard the name before all this started. Living in Bellevue, he could be a client, but I don’t know. You’d have to ask my dad.”

“I suspect the police will do just that,” Maura said thoughtfully. “But under the circumstances, I’ll see if I can get them to interview him at home, rather than at the clinic.” She cleared her throat. “As for Mason, he told me he’d likely be rolling back into town sometime tomorrow. For his sake, I hope he does.”

Leigh felt slightly sick again. “I mean it, Maura,” she repeated. “I really don’t think Mason had any idea that the bird was stolen. I know he’s an ex-con, but he’s got a good heart. He wouldn’t have anything to do with a petnapping ring. I know he wouldn’t.”

Maura’s baby blue eyes shone with sympathy. “If it makes you feel any better, Koslow, I don’t think he had anything to do with it, either.”

Leigh exhaled with relief.

“But it’s not my call,” Maura added ominously. In the backseat, Baby Eddie squalled. “Nap time,” she announced. “Would you mind running us home?”

Leigh dropped off Maura and the baby at their house, her thoughts drifting in an unpleasant fog as she drove away. She
did
believe in Mason’s innocence. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t in trouble. And trouble, for an ex-con, always came with a capital T.

Without conscious thought as to where she was going, Leigh found herself parked back outside the animal clinic. The phenomenon was an oft-rehearsed one. From the day she had gotten her first driver’s license, her father’s clinic had been her port in a storm.

She got out of the van and walked inside.

Chapter 17

Leigh went in the back door of the clinic and waited outside the exam rooms for a chance to catch her father alone. When she saw Allison head out of the room to fetch something, she scooted inside and found a chow and its owner just leaving.

“Dad,” she asked swiftly. “Important question. Do you remember a patient that’s a youngish shorthair cat, dilute tortie, with its left front leg amputated?”

Only after she asked the question did she notice that her father was standing up on one leg, leaning against the table. He looked tired and a little pale.

“Dad!” she chastised. “You’re supposed to be keeping that foot elevated.”

Randall exhaled loudly. “I know, I know. I just get so tired of sitting all the time.”

“Sorry,” Leigh said genuinely. It would be a tough couple weeks for Randall, who was used to working long hours in his veterinary domain, then escaping to his basement workshop at home to putter. Enforced rest and excessive togetherness with an equally incapacitated Frances would surely take their toll. Leigh resolved to take him out for a long drive over the weekend.

“To answer your question,” Randall replied, “no. I can only think of two feline amputees that are living now. One’s a Persian that had cancer and the other is a black shorthair that got run over by an ATV. But as I told Allison, one of the other vets could have seen the cat.”

“Allison?” Leigh asked. “When did she ask you about it?”

“A couple days ago.”

Of course she had.
Most likely Allison had also already asked the other vets about Peep,
and
checked the computer to see if Kyle Claymore was in the client database.

Paige entered from the waiting room leading an older woman who carried a geriatric dachshund wrapped in a blanket. Leigh nodded a farewell to her father and scooted out the other exit, just passing Allison as the girl hurried back to the exam rooms with a new box of syringes. Leigh walked down the stairs, hoping to find some relative quiet in her father’s office. She passed by the refrigerator and nearly tripped over a pair of legs sticking out in the floor beside it. “Ethan?”

The boy sat up. He had been wiping down the side of the fridge with a rag. Leigh smiled to herself. “Jared getting near the end of his list, huh?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “I hope so. Jared’s a nice guy, but geez. He’s as bad a clean freak as Grandma!”

Leigh chuckled. That was a strong statement, indeed. “What’s Matt doing?”

“Wiping out the bottom of the freezer,” Ethan answered. Then his face soured. “Man, is he in a mood.”

“What happened?”

Ethan’s eyes rolled again. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “
Kirsten,
of course. Her boyfriend picked her up.
In a car.”

“Ouch,” Leigh agreed, feeling her nephew’s pain. With good looks and a rich family to his credit, Matthias was ultimately unlikely to suffer much in the romance department. But there was only so much a guy straight out of the eighth grade could do when his competition had a driver’s license.

“Carry on,” she advised, moving into Randall’s office. She plopped down in her father’s chair and closed her eyes.
Kyle Claymore.
He lived in an apartment in Bellevue and played professional poker. She got the impression from Mason that he was young, maybe in his twenties. She’d had the same impression of the guy who broke in the kitchen window. Mason said he was in financial straits, perfect motive for moonlighting as a petnapper. But how had he known that the cockatiel was at her parents’ house? Mason hadn’t even known.

Kyle had to have some connection to the clinic. Most likely, a willing accomplice.

Leigh went over the payroll in her mind, starting at the top. Her father’s two associate veterinarians, Dr. McCoy and Dr. Stallions, were above suspicion. Both women had been with her father for over a decade, and both were in their forties and married. She also ruled out Jeanine, who had been with Randall since the dinosaurs roamed. Nora, the other longtime technician, was also above suspicion, even if she hadn’t been on vacation the last week. And of course Jared was innocent. He was far too honest to cooperate with such a scheme willingly, and anyone trying to pry information out of him by trickery was doomed to disappointment. Jared had the importance of privacy drilled into him at an early age by his overprotective little sister Nicki, and any question he deemed the slightest bit suspect was met with a firm and mechanical, “I’ve got nothing to say about that.”