The Real MacAw (16 page)

Michael’s phone went to voice mail immediately, so I left a brief message and hung up. Then I spent the next forty-five minutes inspecting all the rooms but to the chief’s disappointment I couldn’t identify any major changes. In fact, the only change I found at all was one that I’m not sure the chief even believed, much less saw as significant.

“Someone moved this,” I said, pointing to a small wooden tray about four inches square that was one of the half-dozen items neatly arranged atop Parker’s dresser.

“It wasn’t on the dresser when you first came in?”

“It was on the dresser, but square with the edges,” I said. “This is askew.”

He looked up from his notebook and peered over his glasses at me.

“I’m serious,” I said. “Everything is organized. The books are alphabetical. The Hawaiian shirts are arranged by color. The beers and sodas in the refrigerators are lined up by brand like soldiers on parade. The few prints on the wall are framed identically and they’re all precisely the same size and the same distance from the ceiling. By the time I peeked in here, I was expecting patterns. So I noticed that the book on his nightstand, and that little square wooden thing were both perfectly aligned with the edges of the furniture they were on. He was maybe a little OCD. I could relate.”

He nodded.

“And I could have sworn it had more earrings in it when I came in.”

He paused and looked up from his notebook with a wary look on his face.

“Earrings?”

“He wore an earring, you know,” I said. “And I guess he dropped them in that little tray when he wasn’t wearing them. I have something similar on my dresser. Mine’s an antique satin glass box Rose Noire gave me a few birthdays ago, but it serves the same purpose.”

“His earrings.” The chief’s voice was flat, and he was staring at me. “Been talking to your father lately?”

“I talk to him often,” I said, but I could tell right away that my innocent act wasn’t fooling him. “I figured out from something he let slip that Parker’s earring is a clue of some sort, if that’s what you mean, but I haven’t told anyone.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “One of the ambulance crew who took the body to the hospital spilled the beans before I could warn him off. Apparently the
Clarion
has picked up that tidbit, so the twelve or thirteen people in the county who haven’t already heard about it will know by Monday.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It could have been useful. Speaking of useful—I took a copy of this for the Corsicans.”

I handed him the second copy of the list of people who were to have received the animals.

“Ah,” he said. “Thank you. Mr. Blair had a folded document in his pocket that’s rather too stained to be easily readable. But this appears to be a clean copy.”

“I figured it could be useful,” I said. “Of course, I suppose it’s a long shot that any of them are strong suspects.”

“Yes,” the chief said, as he studied the document. “If they didn’t want to be saddled with a litter of puppies, they could just say no.”

“I found something else that might have something to do with the murder,” I said.

I led him to Parker’s office, opened up the file cabinet, and handed him the file containing the contract and the article.

He began reading, or at least skimming. After a minute or so, he looked up at me.

“So Randall wasn’t just having another attack of anti-Pruitt paranoia? There really is something to this mortgaging the town thing?”

“It looks that way,”

“Lord help us,” he muttered. “I was hoping it was all a mix-up. Judge Shiffley’s family are all downtown emptying the courthouse and hauling everything out to her farm, while she’s up in the mayor’s office, yelling to beat the band. I’m starting to wonder if I should send a swat team up there to pull him out before she hauls off and kills him.”

“Can’t you hold off till she hurts him a little?” I asked.

He smiled faintly.

“I should get back and figure out what’s going on,” he said. “See if I’m going to have a police station to finish this case in or if I’m going to be working out of someone’s barn like Judge Shiffley.”

When I got out to my car, I took a deep breath and tried calling Michael.

“Hey,” he answered the phone. “Where did you put the llamas?”

“Our llamas?” I asked.

“Of course, our llamas. Why—were there any llamas at the shelter?”

His voice had taken on an acquisitive tone that worried me. Weren’t four llamas enough?

“No, and the last time I saw our llamas, they were down by the fence, spitting at some trespassers, with my blessing.”

I explained, as briefly as I could, about the surveyors.

“Do you suppose they could have left the gate open?” Michael said. “Accidentally, if they were a little spooked by the llamas?”

“Or on purpose, just as likely. Yes, and I’ll hurry home to look for the llamas.” I figured an account of my afternoon’s adventures could wait until the llamas were safe and I had his full attention.

And of course my cell phone rang when I was halfway home. Normally I just let it ring while I’m driving, but when I saw Cousin Festus’s name on the caller ID, I pulled over into a neighbor’s driveway and answered it.

“Is this what I think it is?” he exclaimed.

“If you think it’s the smoking gun that might finally convince the town voters that Mayor Pruitt is a sleazy crook, then yes,” I said.

One of the neighbor’s horses ambled nearer and was stretching his neck over the fence, hoping for a treat.

“Where did you find this?” Festus asked.

“In the files of a guy who might have been murdered because of it,” I said. I turned my back to the horses so they wouldn’t get their hopes up.

“Do you have the originals?”

“No, the chief of police has the originals.” I glanced over my shoulder. Now all three of the neighbors’ horses were staring at me expectantly. I felt vaguely guilty. “I have a very clean photocopy. Shall I fax it to you?”

“No, just hold on to it for now,” he said. “I’m not going to wait till tomorrow—I’ll be down there in a couple of hours. This is fabulous! You just made my day.”

“I’m happy that you’re happy,” I said. “See you later.”

I waved at the horses and pulled out of the driveway. I was feeling happier myself. I had hated the idea that Parker might have been killed because of his involvement in the animal rescue mission. The notion that one of his ex-girlfriends had done him in was not an improvement, since it threatened to make CORSICA look less like a legitimate animal welfare organization and more like one of the steamier soap operas. I could imagine the hatchet job the media would do on it.

But if Parker had been killed because of his plans to become a whistle-blower, then his death seemed at once more heroic and more solvable. There were a limited number of people who had a vested interest in hiding the scam that the mayor was pulling, and most of them were far too stupid to be successful at concealing a murder.

It was nearly suppertime by the time I got back to our house. I noticed that the number of cars outside had increased. The backyard was abuzz with energy. Good; the Corsicans weren’t deserting their posts, just getting off to a slow start.

Mother was in the side yard, ordering Rob and Rose Noire about. They appeared to be measuring various bits of the lawn and garden so I deduced that the redecoration of the great outdoors was underway. By the time Mother was through, no one would be able to claim our property was blighted. We’d probably have trouble fending off requests from the Garden Club to open the place for their spring tours. And Rob should be grateful. Normally Mother’s tape measure marathons were followed by orgies of furniture moving, but even Mother couldn’t expect anyone to dig up and replant the trees and shrubs “just to see how they’d look in a different arrangement.”

I grabbed my tote and the hangers with Parker’s clothes and headed for the barn. Half a dozen people called out my name when I entered, but I waved at them and proceeded undeterred to my office.

Clarence was sitting at my computer, pecking away at something. He leaped up when I came in.

“I just wanted to type something up,” he said.

“Type away. Here.” I handed him the hangers.

“Wow.” He turned the suit and shirts from side to side and examined them with a faint frown, as if inspecting the strange and slightly unseemly native garb of an extinct tribe. “Nobody will recognize him in this.”

“I’d have dropped them off with Maudie, but I ran out of time,” I said. “I forgot to get a tie, by the way, but I expect you can supply one.”

“I’ll put these in my truck.”

While Clarence was loading the clothes, I went over to my own printer/copier. By the time he returned, I’d finished making several copies of the contract and Parker’s article.

“Here.” I handed him one set. “Just in case you were wondering, Randall was right. Parker was definitely on to something. I’ll leave it to the chief to figure out if this was why he was murdered.”

Clarence blinked, and began eagerly reading the document.

“Oh, and this is Parker’s list of who was going to foster the animals,” I said. “The chief would appreciate it if you’d give him twenty-four hours to check up on them before you contact them.”

I set that down on the desk. I glanced back when I got to the door and saw that Clarence was glancing from one document to the other and then back again, as if he couldn’t decide which to read first.

I was overdue for seeing the twins, to say nothing of pumping them some milk. So I tried to make my passage out of my barn as rapid as my entrance. But I couldn’t exactly ignore Caroline when she called out to me and beckoned me over.

“How’s everything here?” I asked.

“Busy,” she said. “CORSICA’s organizing a meeting to discuss this new problem—the whole thing about the mayor hocking the whole town and maybe trying to seize your land.”

“Why CORSICA?” I asked. “It’s not exactly an animal welfare issue.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You haven’t heard yet. CORSICA has broadened its focus. We’re now the Committee Opposed to the Ruthless Seizure of an Innocent County’s Assets.”

“Awesome,” I said. “Where do I join?”

“You just did.” She handed me a small wad of flyers. “Pass these out wherever you can.”

I looked at the top flyer.

“Town meeting, seven
P.M.
Saturday night,” I said. “Wait a minute—that’s tonight. You’re having a meeting here tonight?”

“In the barn, not in your house,” Caroline said. “Your father thought it would be okay. And Michael approved.”

“It’s okay with me, then,” I said. “How big a meeting do you expect it will be?”

“We’re hoping to rouse the whole damned county,” she said. “And the mayor’s helping, not that he’s trying to. Been calling up every department in the town and county government and telling them to go in and collect their personal belongings sometime this weekend, because the lenders will be taking possession on Monday morning.”

“The hell you say.”

“No one’s actually doing it,” she said. “Opinion’s split on whether the employees should haul in food and sleeping bags and prepare to occupy their offices, or whether they should move out every sheet of paper and stick of furniture and set up a kind of government in exile.”

“I hear Judge Jane Shiffley’s already picked option number two,” I said.

“And that carries a lot of weight,” she said. “But we’ll see tonight. Of course, first we have to convince some people that there’s even a problem.”

“Show them this.” I handed her a copy of the contract. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the nursery.”

I did my part for the meeting. As I was walking upstairs, I called Cousin Festus and told him about it.

“Excellent,” he said. “If it’s acceptable to you, I shall plan to attend. And who’s in charge of the meeting?”

I gave him Caroline’s cell phone number.

As I was in the bedroom, trading my shoes for slippers, I heard several brisk barks outside. I peered out the bathroom window and saw our llamas walking up the road four abreast, followed by the border collie and five cars.

“Good dog,” I murmured.

Then again, he bypassed our driveway and began herding the llamas up Seth Early’s lane. Well, at least they were safe and sound, and the llamas enjoyed hanging out with the sheep.

I went into the nursery, shut the door, and took a deep breath.

Michael was stretched out on the recliner, a sleeping twin cradled in each arm. He opened one eye when I came in.

“The boys are fine,” he said, and closed his eye again. “And the chief has an APB out on our llamas.”

“The llamas are safe at Seth’s,” I said. “His new border collie got a little carried away. We can fetch them later.”

“That’s a relief.” He looked exhausted. I wondered how long he’d spent running around looking for the llamas. And whether the surveyors or the border collie was to blame for their disappearance.

I glanced at the clock. Two hours until the meeting. The Corsicans were probably going crazy getting ready for it.

I picked up the nearest twin—Josh, as it happened—and settled in the rocking chair with him. I felt a brief twinge of guilt. My notebook contained a long list of tasks, and thanks to all the time I’d spent at Parker’s house, I’d barely crossed off a dozen items all day.

And then I shoved the guilt aside. List or no list, life would go on if I took the chance to cuddle one of my sons.

Chapter 14

I was back in Parker’s attic trying to figure out what was missing. There was a gap in the rows of neatly labeled bins and boxes, and an outline in the dust where something had been. Only a faint outline, because he really had been a very tidy housekeeper and there wasn’t all that much dust.

“Meg?”

And if people would stop calling my name and let me concentrate, I could probably figure out what used to be in that space.

“Meg?”

I’d figured out by now that I was dreaming, and someone was trying to wake me up, but even as the dream faded, I screwed my eyes shut and tried to hang on to it, because I was sure if I could just figure out the meaning of that clear space, the whole mystery of Parker’s death would be solved.