We’ll Always Have Parrots (22 page)

I glanced up at the balcony again and saw Foley’s partner appear.

“Of course, the sound quality’s probably pretty poor, but they can enhance that in the lab for the trial,” Foley said. “You want to say anything to your fans before we shut the cameras off and seize the tapes?”

“Shut the damned cameras off, Foley,” I said, sitting down on the stage. “What I have to say I don’t want on tape.”

“Yeah,” Foley said, nodding. “You can probably turn them off now, unless—”

“Freeze, Steele!”

We all whirled at the sound, and saw that Michael had burst out onto the ballroom stage from the door leading to the kitchens. He looked around at the half-dozen police officers aiming guns at him, glanced down at Steele’s unconscious body, and then his shoulders slumped, and he lowered the fire extinguisher he was holding.

“I thought I told you to stay out in the parking lot and let us take care of the situation,” Foley said, holstering his weapon and nodding to his troops to do the same.

“I would have, except your idea of taking care of the situation was to sit around watching while that lunatic killed Meg,” Michael said.

“Oh, Meg’s not as easy to kill as all that,” Dad said, following Michael onto the stage. “Though I would like to take a look at that cut.”

He was, of course, toting his small traveling doctor’s bag.

“Can you take a look at this guy while you’re at it?” the animal control officer asked, indicating Steele.

“How much longer will he be out, anyway?” Foley asked, glancing down at Steele.

“Beats me,” the officer said, shrugging. “We’ve never used the tranquilizer darts on a human before.”

“What kind of tranquilizer?” Dad asked.

While they fussed over Steele, Michael put down the fire extinguisher, walked over, and put his arms around me.

“Do you know how I felt when they told me what was happening?” he said.

“Hold that thought a second,” I said. “Foley! Are those damned cameras off yet?”

By the time Michael and I finished celebrating my survival, Dad had pronounced that the tranquilizer dart wasn’t going to kill Steele. Foley won his argument with the newly arrived ambulance crew who wanted to whisk Steele away to the hospital, Foley’s partner gave up trying to evict Walker, who managed to sneak in with the medics, and a uniformed officer had rescued the irate health department man from the closet.

“Now, let’s see that cut,” Dad said. “Yes, I think a butterfly bandage and a bit of gauze should take care of it.”

“Should we be staying here?” I asked. “Have they caught Salome yet?”

“Safely sedated, and they’ll take her back to her cage as soon as they rig a stretcher,” Foley said. “Although considering how much prime rib she ate in the restaurant, she’d probably just have curled up to digest anyway. So how long have you known that your business partner was actually Ichabod Dilley? Am I going to have to arrest you for obstruction of justice?”

“He’s not my business partner—we were just splitting a booth for the weekend,” I protested. “I didn’t know he was the killer until after Francis set the tiger loose, and then it was too late to tell you.”

While Dad continued to do necessary but uncomfortable things to the cut on my arm, and Michael went off with his cell phone to call Mother and reassure her that I would live, I explained how the scrap of paper the producer had given me led me to Steele.

“At least we were right about Dilley still being alive,” Foley said, filing away the now-battered paper in an evidence bag, “even if we all had the wrong suspects.”

“Okay, so Nate’s innocent, and Francis isn’t Ichabod Dilley,” I said. “Do we have any idea who Francis is? And why seeing the police sent him scampering off like someone who just got top billing on
America’s Most Wanted
?”

“Oh, yes,” Michael said, returning to the group. “He broke down in the parking lot and confessed everything. He’s a student radical who’s been on the run since 1970 when he and an accomplice burned all the files at the local draft board. The accomplice was arrested while disposing of the empty kerosene cans—that’s the other half of the Pasadena Pair he was shouting about. But Francis escaped and was never heard from again. Until today.”

“Wow,” Walker said. “So are they turning him over to the FBI?”

“Wouldn’t there be a statute of limitations on that?” I asked, glancing at Foley. “I mean, unless they killed someone, surely the FBI wouldn’t be all that interested after thirty years.”

“The FBI wasn’t all that interested after thirty days,” Foley said. “We did make a little progress on the case while you were swashing and buckling on stage here. Not only did the Pasadena Pair not kill anyone, apparently they didn’t even burn any draft board files.”

“That’s Francis all over,” Walker said, nodding. “Give him a can of kerosene and he still can’t light a fire.”

“Oh, he and his accomplices lit a fire, all right,” Foley said, suppressing a smile. “They just got the wrong office. Instead of the draft board they got the animal control office for a nearby town called La Cañada. Torched the dog license files.”

“That’s definitely Francis’s style,” Michael said, with a sigh.

“Apparently your friend just assumed he was a hunted man,” Foley went on. “Went off and created a new identity for himself. Been living a few miles from La Cañada for twenty years now and never bothered to look up his accomplice or check the newspaper records or anything.”

“That’s Francis,” Michael and Walker said, in unison.

“There’s just one thing,” I said. “If this all took place in La Cañada, how come they called themselves the Pasadena Pair?”

“Well, what were we supposed to call ourselves?” Francis said. “The La Cañada Two? Oh, that’s really catchy.”

Apparently he’d entered the ballroom while Detective Foley was talking.

“Besides, if we called ourselves the La Cañada anything, the newspapers wouldn’t print the tilde, and everyone would think we were some kind of radical Quebec separatist group. So,” he added, turning to Foley, “am I free to go?”

“As far as Loudoun County and the FBI are concerned,” Foley said.

“So Francis isn’t in trouble after all?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too disappointed.

“That’s California’s problem, not mine,” Foley said, shrugging.

“I imagine there will be repercussions,” Francis said, lifting his chin and straightening his back. He strode over to where Michael and Walker stood.

“Kids,” he said. “I hate to do this. I’ve enjoyed working with both of you. But it’s not fair to you. I don’t want my notoriety to rub off on you, and I don’t want to take the chance that my legal troubles could distract me from handling your careers properly. I think it would probably be best for all concerned if you sought representation elsewhere.”

They all shook hands solemnly, and Francis strode off, head high, eyes fixed on the horizon.

“What do you think?” Walker said.

“Humphrey Bogart, last scene from
Casablanca
,” Michael said. “‘Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of.’”

“Nah, Ronald Coleman,” I said. “As Sidney Carton. ‘’Tis a far, far better thing I do—’”

“I meant, do you think he’s pulling our leg?” Walker asked.

“Sounded serious to me,” Foley said. “Crazy as a bedbug, but serious.”

“Who cares?” Michael said. “We don’t have to fire him; he fired himself in front of witnesses.”

“True,” Walker said. “Cool. I’ve got to go make some phone calls.”

He ambled off, looking very pleased with life.

“Don’t you need to make some phone calls, too?” I asked Michael.

He shook his head.

“I already made my phone calls,” he said. “My old agent is getting bored just running the restaurant. She jumped at the chance to take me on again and get back in the business.”

“That’s great!” I said. The one time I’d met her, I’d liked Michael’s former agent—now, thank goodness, once again his agent. “And does she think she can solve your contract problem or—oh no!”

People were still on edge. Everyone whirled at my exclamation, and the cops kept their hands near their weapons. But I was the only one who ran out into the hall where the uniformed animal control officers were hauling the sedated Salome along on an improvised tiger-sized stretcher.

“Careful,” one of the officers warned. “We don’t know how deep she’s under and—what are you doing?”

They probably weren’t used to seeing tigers that often, and they certainly weren’t prepared for the sight of a civilian sticking her hand into the tiger’s mouth and removing something trailing from Salome’s teeth like abandoned dental floss. Although this something was considerably more substantial than dental floss.

“Isn’t that Spike’s leash?” Michael asked, coming up beside me.

“She’s eaten Spike,” I muttered.

I stared down at the leash. The last foot of it, the part that should have been attached to Spike’s harness, was missing. A wave of guilt washed over me. I hadn’t even stopped to worry about Spike after Salome’s escape.

“We’ve got to do something,” I said. Sounding rather fierce, I suppose. The nearest officers stepped between me and Salome as if to protect the sleeping tiger.

In spite of my best efforts, neither Dad nor the animal control staff seemed to understand the importance of performing an emergency Spikectomy on Salome. I followed the stretcher out into the parking lot, fuming.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Michael said. “There’s no way he could survive being…um…whatever. I’ll break the news to my mom.”

“I’m sure he didn’t suffer,” Dad said, patting my shoulder.

“Michael! There you are!”

Chris Blair was running over to see us. Michael turned to greet him, but I continued watching as the animal control officers dragged Salome back into her cage. Maybe when they had her safely in the cage, they’d stop watching her so closely, and I could do something. If I stuck my arm down her throat, would she cough up Spike? Or was she more likely to wake up and eat my arm for dessert?

“Is that okay with you, Meg?”

“Is what okay?” I asked, turning reluctantly to see what Chris wanted. Didn’t anyone else care about poor Spike?

“Can you rehearse the combat demonstration with Michael now?”

“Now? With Michael?” I said, my eyes still drawn to Salome’s cage.

“Yeah, he’s good enough with a sword to take my place.”

“What happened to you?”

I emerged from my obsession with rescuing Spike long enough to notice that Chris was sporting a large bandage on his right hand.

“Didn’t you hear a word I was saying? That evil little mutt of yours tried to take my hand off when—”

“Evil little mutt!” I exclaimed. “How can you call him that, after what happened to the poor little thing?”

“What do you mean, after what happened to him?” Chris said. “You mean the fact that I single-handedly rescued him from the tiger or the fact that he’s sitting in Maggie’s van right now, stuffing himself with ground sirloin?”

“Salome didn’t eat him?”

“He’s fine,” Chris said. “I, on the other hand, was rather badly bitten, and probably won’t be able to work for a couple of weeks, which means tonight’s show is off unless someone can take my place. Which Michael has agreed to do, provided we can get in some rehearsal time.”

“No problem,” I said. “Just tell me when and where. You can’t imagine how grateful I am.”

“I have a very good imagination,” Chris said, waggling his eyebrows. “Any chance you’d be grateful enough to—”

“To rehearse your stage combat demonstration, yes,” Michael interrupted. “Half an hour from now in the Shangri-La Room.”

Chris laughed, and strode off to find Harry.

“So Spike is safe,” Michael said. “Shall I assume, from the touching concern you just showed for his welfare, that I can tell my mom we’ll be happy to adopt Spike, now that she’s found out she’s allergic?”

“No, but just because I don’t want to adopt him doesn’t mean I don’t care about his welfare. Here, Dad,” I said, handing my father the truncated leash. “Go stick this back in Salome’s teeth. Just in case she has charmed any fans into thinking tigers make nifty house pets.”

“Good thinking,” Dad said, and trotted over to Salome’s cage.

“Dad, I was kidding,” I began, but he was already out of earshot. “Of course, I can’t believe I just blew the chance to weasel out of doing another stage performance,” I said, turning to Michael.

“What? You’d rather act with Chris than with me?”

“I’d rather not act at all, thank you,” I said. “I get stage fright.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“I don’t plan to do enough acting to get over it,” I said.

“Not even to solve my contract problems? While your dad was bandaging your arm, I got another call from my agent. Also your agent, if you’re interested.”

“Why would I need an agent?”

“Apparently all this weekend’s publicity has convinced the network to renew. And our agent thinks once they see the footage of your sword fight, they’ll probably want to arrange a guest appearance on the show.”

“Me?” I squeaked. “On the show?”

“Only if they agree to meet all our contract demands,” Michael said. “Which will include a schedule that doesn’t interfere with my teaching responsibilities.”

“Is that possible?”

“Dead easy,” said a voice at my elbow. I turned to see Nate, looking up owlishly from the yellow legal pad on which he was scribbling words and whole chorus lines of stick figures. “I can probably have scripts for the whole season done by the end of next week without the QB’s interference, and odds are we can get signoff pretty quickly and come up with an efficient shooting schedule. Is your dad around? I need some names.”

“Over there,” I said, pointing to where Dad was standing with the business end of his stethoscope pressed against Salome’s tawny flank. Mother was circulating through the crowd with the jar in which Brad had been collecting donations for Salome’s upkeep, and from the looks of it she would soon need a second jar.

“Walker’s staying with the show,” Michael said, as Nate wandered off in search of Dad. “With the QB gone, they need as many of the old cast as possible. And Maggie’s coming back—Nate’s still figuring out how. She’ll insist on a tight shooting schedule. She doesn’t want to spend any more time than necessary away from her animals.”

I spotted Maggie nearby, talking to Brad.

“And we have a very good benefit program,” I heard her say.

“Maggie’s hiring Brad?” I murmured to Michael.

“To keep Salome happy,” Michael said. “Or didn’t you hear—Maggie’s buying Salome. Oh, and apparently she’s convinced the animal control folks to do something about the monkeys and parrots.”

He pointed to where the head of the Amazon security guard and the hotel’s acting manager were talking, apparently simultaneously, to one of the animal control officers. The officer was writing something in a notebook. A citation, I suspected, as he tore off a page and handed it to the Amazon, who looked at it and stopped talking.

I moved a little closer so I could hear.

“And as for you,” the officer said, turning to the hotel manager, “you should have called us Friday, as soon as you knew you had a problem.”

“Go ahead,” the manager said. “Fine me, throw me in jail—I don’t care. Just get those things out of my lobby, will you?”

“We’re working on it,” the officer said, and began writing again.

“I want you to arrest them!” someone shouted nearby.

We turned to see the man from the health department talking to a uniformed officer.

“I understand, sir,” the officer said. “But unless you can give us a better description—there must be fifty people here wearing space suits and carrying ray guns.”

“You haven’t heard the last of this!” the health department man shouted, storming off into the crowd.

“Where’s Foley?” someone said behind me.

I turned to answer, and then realized that a passing cop was speaking into his radio.

“Roger,” he said. “Tell Foley we secured the suspect’s car. Had all his stuff in it—looks like he was about to make a run for it.”

“Well, that answers another of my questions,” I said, as the cop strolled out of earshot.

“And what was that?” Michael asked.

“How Steele knew to come after me in the hotel when everyone else had evacuated,” I said. “I bet he wasn’t coming after me at all—he was coming to pick up his stuff from the booth.”

“I’m sure Foley’s happy you prevented his escape,” Michael said.

“Yes, I’m sure everyone’s happy,” I said.

“Almost everyone,” Michael said, pointing back toward the hotel entrance. The police were bringing Alaric Steele outside, and a police cruiser, lights flashing, was slowly making its way through the crowd surrounding the hotel’s front door.

“There goes Ichabod Dilley,” Michael said.

“No,” I said. “There goes Alaric Steele. It turns out Ichabod Dilley died a long time ago after all.”

I moved a little closer, so I could see his face, but the public mask was back on. Steele might look down on actors, but he had a little talent in that direction himself. He moved a little slowly—probably still groggy from the tranquilizer dart—but he stood with his head high, his back straight, and an expression of noble, resigned suffering on his face. He towered over the two uniformed officers on either side, looking like a patient Gulliver among the Lilliputians—couldn’t Loudoun County find any reasonably large officers to escort him?

Ichabod Dilley the younger hovered behind his uncle—trying to be helpful, apparently, or at least feeling he ought to show a little family solidarity. Though from the way he shrank when Steele glanced his way, I suspected his loyalty hadn’t met with the grateful response he probably expected. Steele merely pretended to ignore him.

As I watched, I felt a brief pang. Of what I wasn’t quite sure. Regret, perhaps, that someone so talented had so foolishly wasted his life. Or maybe self-doubt—I’d gotten to like Steele, thought I knew him, only to have him completely fool me and turn out to be a crazy killer. And I felt anger, definitely. Lots of anger.

I sighed.

“Feeling sorry for him?” Michael asked.

“No, just mad at myself for not seeing through the louse sooner,” I said.

“He put on a good act,” Michael said. “I’m just hoping they don’t broadcast his trial on
Court TV
. If they do, he’ll get proposals and propositions from dozens of impressionable women who can’t see past the handsome exterior to the warped mind inside.”

“Well, maybe the videotape will help,” I suggested.

“What, the part where he’s doing his Cyrano de Bergerac number up and down the stage in boots and that linen shirt with the long, flowing sleeves women seem to like so much?” Michael said. I glanced up to see that he was staring at Steele with a rather fierce frown on his face.

“Well, no; but maybe they caught a shot of him with the tranquilizer dart in his rump,” I said. “Or maybe—what’s that?”

That was the sound of glass shattering, as a luggage cart burst through one of the plate glass windows to the left of the hotel entrance. In the wake of the luggage cart, a throng of monkeys and parrots spilled out of the newly created opening and scattered. The parrots mostly fluttered toward the bushes while the monkeys scrambled to the roof.

To my delight, one of the monkeys raced over to Steele and tried to use him as a ladder. Steele brushed it away with his cuffed hands and then tried to kick the poor thing. He missed, and landed a solid kick on his nephew’s shin instead. But the crowd saw where he’d aimed the blow, and the police had to hurry Steele into the waiting police car when the crowd began pelting him with pine cones and empty soda cans.

“That was most satisfactory,” Michael pronounced, as we watched the car carrying Steele drive off.

“Yes,” I said, though I was looking at last night’s hapless newlyweds, apparently reunited and strolling hand in hand through the crowd. She now wore an Amazon guard outfit, and he looked quite dashing in a replica of the costume Walker wore on the show.

Back at the hotel entrance, the animal control officers had found ladders and were leading parties of Amazon guards and bellhops up onto the roof, in pursuit of the monkeys. You could tell already that the monkeys really liked this new game.

Parrot retrieval was proving less difficult, largely because most of the birds seemed to have grown fond of Dad, and would emerge from the bushes when he coaxed them. Although the process would probably take a lot less time if someone could persuade Dad to concentrate on capturing the birds. Then again, perhaps after a few hours, even Dad would grow tired of strolling around with a gaudy parrot on each shoulder, posing for the photographers, and muttering “Avast!” and “Shiver me timbers!”

“At this rate,” Michael said, “I think it highly unlikely that much will be happening for the next hour or two.”

“You call that nothing?” I asked, pointing to the chaos in front of the hotel.

“Nothing official,” he said. “Nothing that’s listed on the convention program. In short, nothing that urgently requires our presence. Under the circumstances, what do you say we—”

“There you are!” Maggie said, coming up between us and grabbing one of us with each arm. “You’re not just going to stand around wasting time, are you?”

“Actually—” I began.

“Come on then,” she said, dragging us back toward the hotel. “We need to catch those poor creatures for once and for all before they hurt themselves. It could take all night. And I’m not taking no for an answer; we need all the help we can get!”