Parrot Blues (19 page)

“If you get an agent down to Door right away, you may be able to get Brown's records before he thinks to dispose of them.”

“I'll do that.”

“I'd check with the DEA too. I believe Brown was prosecuted for dealing drugs. He may be on probation.” All that information would be on a government computer, but the computer wouldn't release it unless someone asked. The various branches of the federal government were not known for communicating with each other. I handed her my lawyer's card. “We have a strong interest in this case. Will you let us know what develops?”

“Of course,” she said. “Thanks a lot for your help.”

The guy from the front desk came into the office and handed Vi the tape and the copy. Vi gave me back my original. “I'm really grateful for this,” she said.

“It's nothing,” the Kid replied.

It's a lot, I thought.

The time had come to turn the thick-billed over, and the Kid was sad to see it go. Perigee was big and beautiful, but the Kid's heart was with the stray.
Mimar,
one of my favorite words in Spanish, means
to
pet, and that's what the Kid was doing to the parrot. The thick-billed was wary, but it did let him stroke its head.

“He'll be in good hands. Don't worry,” Vi reassured him.

“Maintain,
lorito,”
the Kid said.

******

Before we left the FWS office I'd looked at the time on the wall: five-thirty. It had only been yesterday that we'd left for Door, but it seemed like a month. I'd used up all my adrenaline hours ago and was running on empty. I was so tired, downtown Albuquerque wavered like a poorly propped-up movie set. You know you're either tired or hallucinating when Albuquerque looks like anything but a cow town downtown. My office was only a few blocks away on Lead, but when the Kid asked me if I wanted to go there I said no, that I wanted to go home and mix up a batch of Jell-O shots but I knew I'd be asleep before they jelled. The near-death experience had made me want to make love. Real death made me want to pull the covers over my head. Alone in my own bed. When we got to La Vista the who-goes-where moment came up.

The Kid rubbed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. Maybe he wanted to be alone too. “I think I will go home now, Chiquita,” he said.

Out of the depths of my peripheral vision I had a glimpse of Alice of the long blond hair, but I considered that an unworthy thought and banished it into the darkness from which it had come. “Okay. I'm really tired,” I said.

“Me too,” he replied.

******

I was too tired to eat or drink or even to smoke. I took a long, hot eucalyptus oil bath while burning a candle at the edge of the tub. I stared at the flame until I could reproduce its shape exactly with my eyes shut tight. That was the kind of focus I'd need to solve this case. The minute I hit the bed I fell asleep and dreamed of a flickering fire, a royal blue macaw, a red-headed woman and a dead white man. When I woke up after midnight, the wind was rubbing against the window like a giant disembodied feather. I considered turning on the TV but I knew what I'd find there—Ron Bell in a black leather jacket, Cliff Vole selling cell phones and the same thing I'd been seeing in my dreams—murder. What are the things people kill for? I asked myself. Love, hate, money, revenge, gold chains, running shoes. Wes Brown might have been collaborating with Terrance Lewellen. He might have killed Terrance to protect himself and keep the money. He'd proved he didn't have the
cojones
to kill someone face-to-face, but Terrance's death—if it was murder—had been murder by remote. There'd been no mess, no bloodshed,
and
quite possibly no confrontation. I wondered if the distance would lessen the killer's sense of guilt. It didn't change the fact that my client was dead, that I'd given up his money but hadn't gotten back his wife, that I'd tied up Wes Brown but not tight enough.

******

It was morning when I woke up again. I went to the window and paid my respects to the wind goddess, who was dove gray today, silhouetted against a sky of robin's egg blue. Something was burning in the Heights, and the black smoke rose as straight as a signal fire. The wind goddess didn't even bother to puff it away. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe she was tired from a night spent rattling people's windows.

I was starving and went to the refrigerator, which was, as usual, a case of hope triumphing over shopping. I should have known there'd be nothing there but a cold burrito from Arriba Tacos left over since when? I had a cup of Red Zinger tea and a handful of blue corn chips and went to work.

Anna was at her desk, but Brink hadn't shown up yet. Anna's hair was approaching Lyle Lovett's pompadour in height and in slickness; the altitude looked better on her than it did on him. She'd added a few more inches by wearing her hooker's shoes. I didn't think the shoes were right for her, but I hadn't gotten around to telling her that yet.

“How'd it go?” she asked me.

“The good news is that we got the macaw back. He's with his mate now and in bliss.”

“That's great.”

“Yeah.”

“So what's the bad?”

“Terrance Lewellen is dead.”

“Yow! What happened to him?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “We took Perigee there first and found Terrance flat on his back in his bed. Dead. The medical examiner thinks it might have been an allergic reaction.”

“To what?”

“Antibiotics, food or a bee sting.”

“You think a bee sting could kill
him
?”

“It's possible,” I said, but I didn't believe it either.

“He was tougher than a boot heel, but I kind of liked the guy. He brought me a rose one time when he was in here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He had a soft side.” For younger women he did. She stretched out a skinny leg and looked
at
her ankle-strapped foot.

“I don't know about those shoes, Anna,” I said.

“What? They're not right for the office?”

That was a part of it, but not the whole story. “You go around looking like a hooker, everybody's going to be hitting on you. There's enough trouble out there without asking for more.”

“I was at Nob Hill last night and some guy on a bike asked me for change. When I told him I didn't have any, he called me a fucking white bitch.”

“What did you do?”

“Called him an asshole.” She had
cojones,
I'll say that.

“He might have been carrying a weapon. Did you ever think of that? If they'll kill you for a gold chain, they'll do it for a swear word.”

“You think he hit on me because of the shoes?”

“Who knows? He could hit on you for wearing combat boots, but if you'd had on running shoes you could have gotten away faster.”

“Okay, I'll think about it.”

“Any messages?”

“Roberta Dovalo called. She said she can't make the appointment tomorrow. She's thinking about gettin' back with her Jimmie.” She imitated Roberta's cowgirl twang. She wasn't as good at it as the Amazons, but I got the message. “‘Damned sorry about that, ma'am.'”

I wasn't
that
sorry. “Is that it?”

“One more. Charlie Register at BankWest.”

That was no surprise. “Look up a couple of numbers for me, will you? ABC Security and Dr. Talbert. Talbert's an allergist.”

“You got it.”

I went into my office and crossed Roberta Dovalo off the calendar. It could be months before I heard from her again—if I ever heard from her again. The indigo feather made an arc in my cup. I took it out and ran my fingers down the barbs. Cowboy, Indian, hooker, soldier, scientist, bird. There's a costume for every actor (good or bad) in New Mexico. Something about the altitude or the air or the space here makes people want to dress up and act out. What would look ridiculous in some gray city looks normal in our movie-set scenery. I'd made the mistake of choosing one of the drab, brown bird roles myself—lawyer. Try as I did not to dress or act the part, it stuck to me like Velcro.

I called the other brown bird professional who had a role in this drama, Charlie Register.

“I hear that Lewellen died,” he said.

“He did.”

“
What the hell happened to him?”

“I don't know yet. The OMI is investigating.”

“Did you get Deborah back?”

“No.”

“Where is she? Is she all right?”

“I don't know that either.”

“Can we talk this afternoon?”

“How about tomorrow?” There were some other people I needed to talk to first.

“All right. Here? First thing in the morning?”

“I'll be there,” I said.

Anna came in with the phone numbers I'd requested. The first one I called was Dr. Talbert. When I told the receptionist I was Terrance Lewellen's lawyer, she put me through immediately, indicating that Terrance's death had made the news.

Talbert got right to the point, which I should have expected from a doctor; they're too busy treating and billing patients to shoot the shit. “What happened to Lewellen?” he asked me. “The newspaper said he was found dead in his bed.” There was plenty of drama in the subject matter, but his voice was as soothing as still water. I hadn't expected
that.
Usually, if there's anyone with a bigger ego and a louder voice than a lawyer, it's a doctor, and there's no love lost between the two professions in this age of malpractice suits.

“I found him yesterday morning,” I said. “He was fully dressed. His arm was stretched over the side of the bed and his hand was lying on the floor. There was a small, empty vial and a hypodermic needle on the bedside table.”

“Epinephrine,” he said.

“Was that a medication he used?”

“Only if he was having a life-threatening allergic reaction. The effects of epinephrine are intense. It'll make the heart race like a runaway train. No one would take it unless he had to.”

“What would have caused such an allergic reaction in Terrance?”

There was a pause while Dr. Talbert considered his options. Terrance's allergies probably fell into the area of doctor/patient confidentiality. I couldn't see any reason for that relationship to succeed the patient's death myself, but on the other hand, he didn't really know I was who I said I was or why I was asking. A patient of his had died, somebody might want to sue. “I'm not at liberty to talk about that,” he said.

“I have reasons I can't go into for needing to know as soon as possible what killed Terrance,” I said. “It appears to have been an unwitnessed death. At least, no witnesses have come forward yet. The
OMI
will be doing an autopsy, but a toxicology or a stomach contents could take weeks. The medical examiner has your name, and I assume someone will be getting in touch with you. If there is anything you could do to speed up the process, I'd appreciate it.” I figured he'd want to know what happened just as badly as I did.

“I'll look into it,” he replied.

“Thanks,” I said.

Next I called ABC Security and asked to speak to the manager or the president or whoever it was that ran the place. The voice I got belonged to Joe Brannigan. It had the slow-mo reaction time of someone who'd played football without a helmet for too long. “I'm Terrance Lewellen's lawyer,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“My client was found dead in his home, which was protected by one of your security systems.”

“Yeah,” he said again.

“He hired you to follow a person named Wes Brown who took some money out of the ATM at Midnight Rodeo last Friday.”

“Is that right?” Joe said this time.

“Yeah, that's right,” I said. “I saw it with my own eyes. Look, Terrance Lewellen was a good customer of ABC. I want to know what happened to him, and you're going to help me find out.”

“Can you prove you're his lawyer?”

“Yup.”

“Do it,” he said, and hung up.

The only proof I had of my relationship with Terrance Lewellen was a lock of red hair, a long blue feather, a ransom note and a retainer agreement. I took the retainer agreement out to Anna and asked her to make a copy.

Brink had shown up and was hanging around her desk, looking more relaxed that he had been of late. Could he have gained weight since I last saw him? I wondered. When was that? Four days ago? Maybe he'd gotten so relaxed he'd stopped trying to hold his belly up and in. The belly contraction had been Brink's manifestation of up talk, an attempt to appear more positive and appealing. “How's it going with Nancy?” I asked him.

“Great,” he said. “She's a good cook.”

What did it take to be a cook, anyway? I wondered. The time to buy food and a cookbook and to follow directions. It helped to have someone to cook for. It helped to like to eat.

“What kind of law does she practice, anyway?” I asked him.

“Probate,” he said.

That explained it. Probate was one of those niches in the legal profession where you don't have to
be
aggressive or quick. It's back-office work. It doesn't take you to Door and back and put you in life-threatening situations. You could come to work at nine, leave at five and take the time to plan for dinner. Half the conflict had gone out of that kind of law; the client was already dead.

13

T
HAT AFTERNOON I
went to ABC Security's office in a strip mall between the Valley and the Heights. If you ignore the background mountains, in mid-Albuquerque you could be anywhere in fast-food, string-of-mall U.S.A. There was one skinny and lonesome tree hanging over the mall's parking lot, but somebody had already parked under its six square inches of shade. I pulled up in front of ABC and left the Nissan to sizzle in the sun. I didn't bother placing a screen across my windshield; the sun never seems to be entering where the sunscreen is protecting. The storefront that housed ABC Security had a decal with the burnt edges of a brand in the corner of the window. They must have picked that name because A-l and AA were already taken. ABC would put them in third place in the phone book. Did that mean they were a third-class outfit? Having nothing to protect, I don't know much about security systems myself, but I wouldn't have expected Terrance Lewellen to go third class. Maybe the tacky strip mall was—like Terrance's infomercial salesman persona—a cover for a careful and subtle MO.