The Real Macaw(5)

He scrambled to pull a tarp over the cage.

Upstairs, Jamie joined the concert.

“I’ve got it,” Michael called from upstairs.

“I’m almost there,” Clarence called, from halfway up the stairs.

I opened the door. The dog outside barked again, but I pretended not to hear him and didn’t look around to see where he was.

“Good morning, Chief,” I said. “What are you doing up at this hour, and more important, what can we do for you?”

The chief held up a cell phone. I looked at it for a moment.

The cell phone barked. Clearly it belonged to a dog lover. No one else would choose such an annoying custom ring tone.

“I’m investigating a murder,” Chief Burke said. “And I came over to ask why for the last couple of hours, you’ve been trying to call the dead guy’s cell phone.”





Chapter 2




I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Tried to, anyway.

Upstairs, the babies were wailing, and Michael had begun reciting “The Hunting of the Snark” to them. I hoped his trained actor’s voice would have its usual calming effect.

“Ms. Langslow?” the chief said.

Ms. Langslow. As if I didn’t already know this wasn’t a social call. These days, the chief usually just called me Meg. Reverting to formality was his way of signaling that he was on a case.

Spike had begun to bark, and the dogs downstairs joined in, accompanied by frantic shushing noises.

“Dammit!” I heard my grandfather say. “Pick up, you damned fool.”

I heard an unearthly howl and opened my eyes to see what had caused it. A gray tabby cat streaked out of the living room and toward the kitchen, caterwauling all the way, with two beagles in pursuit and Rob bringing up the rear, hissing, “Shh! Stop that! Come back here!”

The cell phone barked again.

I took a deep breath.

“It’s Parker Blair, isn’t it?” I asked. “Your murder victim with the barking cell phone.”

“How do you know Parker?” the chief asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “Grandfather’s the one who’s been trying to call him. Though I have no idea how he could have been calling from our phone for two hours. I thought he just got here.”

“I beg your pardon,” the chief said. “You’re correct. The calls were originally coming from Dr. Blake’s cell phone. Apparently he switched to your home phone approximately twenty minutes ago. That’s when we headed over here.”

“Makes sense. I’ll let Grandfather explain.” The nosy part of my brain noted that the crime scene must be no more than twenty minutes’ drive away and began trying to figure out where it was. I tried to squelch those thoughts. Odds were I’d find out soon enough. I stepped aside and gestured for the chief to enter.

I also squelched a pang of guilt at betraying the animal rescuers. This was a murder. Grandfather and his accomplices couldn’t very well expect me to lie to the chief in the middle of a homicide investigation.

Maybe the chief would be too busy solving Parker’s murder to worry about their raid on the animal shelter. Or if not, at least it sounded as if they’d all been trooping around together for the last several hours, and would be alibied for the murder. Not that I suspected them of murdering their wayward getaway driver but the chief couldn’t be expected to share my confidence in them.

I followed the chief into the living room, where my grandfather was still muttering at the phone.

Grandfather looked up to see the chief holding the cell phone. It barked again.

“That’s Parker’s phone,” Grandfather said. “How did you get his phone? Is he under arrest?”

“No,” the chief said. “He’s dead.”

Grandfather slowly hung up the phone. His face fell, and for a moment he looked every one of his ninety-some years. The chief turned Parker’s cell phone off and put it into an evidence bag. Grandfather heaved himself up and glared back at the chair he’d been sitting in. I’d had to negotiate with Mother for weeks when she decorated the living room, but except for that one chair, every piece of furniture was either comfortable or practical or both. I’d only allowed her to get away with the small, elegant, backbreaking side chair by the phone because I figured it would discourage visitors from settling in for long, leisurely calls.

“What the hell happened to Parker?” Grandfather sat on the sofa and thumped the Afghan hound on the rump a couple of times. “The fellow wasn’t even forty. Healthy as a horse. Did he wreck that damned truck?”

The chief was stripping off the gloves he’d been wearing to handle the phone. He stuffed them into his pocket as he took a few steps toward the front door.