The Real Macaw(14)

It was on stationery from the mayor’s office. The heading read “EXECUTIVE ORDER!!!”—not only in all caps but in boldface, in type several sizes larger than the body of the document.

It was barely light, and yet already the mayor had not only found out about the animal shelter burglary, but had presumably rousted several hapless civil servants out of their beds—one to fetch the animals and one to type this document. He hadn’t done it himself. The lack of typos and spelling and grammar errors was a dead giveaway. But whoever had typed it could do nothing about his ghastly style.

I had to read the text two times to realize that underneath all the bombast and persiflage was an order directing that the animals should return to the shelter. I had a brief, improbable vision of the animals gathering around to read the proclamation, and then forming an orderly procession to march back to town and surrender themselves. Under other circumstances, I might have found the whole thing funny. Of course, presumably the mayor was aware that even if the animals could read his order, they weren’t likely to comply, so he’d sent this kid to collect them. I recognized the uniform he was wearing now—the little logo on the pocket said, “Caerphilly County Solid Waste Department.”

“You work at the county dump,” I said. “You’re not taking the animals to the dump, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Back to the animal shelter. All three of the shelter employees quit this morning, so the mayor sent me.”

“Quit or got fired?” I asked.

“Quit,” the kid said, with the ghost of a grin. “He called them up before dawn and told them to come out here to collect the animals or he’d fire them, and they all up and quit before he could do it.”

Interesting. The animal shelter was technically owned by the county, but the county board allowed the town council to handle day-to-day operations. They did that with most of the county facilities located within the town limits because otherwise the council members had almost nothing to do, and spent way too much energy tweaking town parking zone restrictions and speed limits. But the county ran the dump directly.

So the mayor was giving orders to county employees. Did that mean he and the county manager were working together on the animal shelter problem? Or had the mayor simply given an order whose authority the kid hadn’t thought to question. I could see either happening. Not something I could find out from the kid, who looked as if doing anything more complicated than loading trash might be an intellectual leap. No sense giving him a hard time. But I couldn’t let him take the animals. Inspiration struck.

“Well, this seems to be in order,” I said.

Shouts of “No! No!” “Traitor!” and a few more rounds of “Hell, no! We won’t go!” from the barn.

“Just one more thing,” I said. Why not? It worked for Colombo; why not for me? “I have to call someone to clear this. Won’t take long.”

The kid had clearly learned to exercise patience in the face of bureaucracy. He leaned against the side of his truck and folded his arms to wait. Realizing that I might be up to something useful, the Corsicans in the barn shut up again.

I walked around to the side of the house to a point where I could see the front yard. As I’d suspected, the chief’s car was no longer parked on the road near our front walk.

So I called the police station. The nonemergency number. Debbie Anne, the stalwart police dispatcher, answered both, so it wasn’t as if I’d get a slower response than on 911. And even in an emergency, I often called the regular number. Less stressful for Debbie Anne.

“Hey, Meg,” she said. “How are you holding up with that whole menagerie in your barn?”

“Reasonably well,” I said. “The Corsicans are here in force to take care of them. The animals are the reason I’m calling. Could I talk to the chief?”

“Is it urgent?” she asked. “Because you know how he gets when he’s on a case.”

“This could be related to his case,” I said. “I don’t know yet. And while I’m not positive he’d find it urgent, it’s definitely time-sensitive.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I should be getting back to town with those animals,” the kid called out. It was a token protest, with no real sense of urgency behind it. I returned to the barn door. He was slumped back onto the tailgate of the truck.

“This won’t take long,” I told him.

He sighed as if he’d heard that before.

“Ms. Langslow?” The chief. “Is there something I can do for you?”