Parrots Prove Deadly (11 page)

I didn’t see how any of it related to the parrot, either. For all I knew, Randolph had made himself sick. Bird physiology wasn’t my strongest point, but the progression from overpreening to some kind of autoimmune collapse seemed reasonable, if pitiable.

What I did know was that there were discrepancies in what I heard. Rose seemed to consider Polly her dearest friend, and seemed quite friendly with her parrot, too. Marc clearly considered the blind neighbor a leech. And Genie, who seemed to genuinely like Rose, disliked the bird.

As I walked down the hallway yet again, a stray thought hit me. Could Genie be afraid
for
Rose? If the aide had heard Randolph repeat something—something that would get her blind charge in trouble—she’d have motive to hurt the parrot. It was farfetched, I knew that, and as I knocked on the door of 203, I tried to think of a next step. Pinning Marc down about his accusations would be a start.

I was out of luck. There was no answer. Even Jane seemed to be taking a break from her constant packing. Unless she was lying there, too. Cold and unresponsive.

I knocked again, and started at a noise behind me. It was Rose, with Buster, and Genie taking up the rear.

“Pru! It’s Pru, isn’t it?” The dark shades turned up at me, and I was struck by that uncanny sense that she could see me. “Are you coming to lunch, dear?”

“No, Rose. I was just looking for Jane.” Above her head, Genie gave me a more quizzical look.

“Oh, she won’t be back till later, dear.” Rose had already started down the hall, Buster moving her slowly but purposefully toward the elevator. “Something with the hospital,” she called over her shoulder. “A meeting about poor Polly, I believe.”

I turned and exchanged looks with Genie. Neither of us said anything, but she turned briefly and checked to make sure Rose’s door was locked.

Chapter Twenty-one

When in doubt, listen to the animal. It’s not just basic training in my profession, it’s common sense. And since I had played all the cards I could think of at LiveWell, it was time to hit up Randolph again.

Maybe, I thought, as I walked by Nancy once again, the hospital stay would have loosened the bird up. Then again, as my cheery “bye” went unreturned, maybe he would have taken a turn for the worst, and my job would be over.

Thinking of this, I gunned the engine. Out on the highway, my car is my therapy. People, they can drive you crazy. And animals I care too much about. Wallis would have me see the world as she does: divided into predators and prey, with death and suffering a natural part of the rhythm of things. She thought me weak, I knew that, but it was more than weakness. Too much of that suffering, too much of that death, was caused by my kind, by humans. I had to do what I could to stop it. Which meant that only when I was driving could I find something like peace. Since the latest round of engine work, my old muscle car’s engine purred like Wallis on a catnip high, and I felt the knot of tension in my back relaxing. Even the setting was perfect. The wet day had driven off some of the leaf peepers, even as it magnified the colors. I had the road to myself.

Or nearly. Out of nowhere, a pickup appeared, rocketing unseen from some feeder road. Its bright yellow sideboards flashed and swayed like a hazard sign, and I slammed on the brakes as the truck fishtailed from its own sharp turn. For a moment, things looked iffy—I was close enough to see a crease in the rear gate, where the paint had peeled off. But I slowed, and the truck took off. I could feel my car slide on the wet newly fallen leaves and eased off the brakes. A baby of this vintage, its better to let her find her own way, and she did, rocking a little as she settled out. Up ahead, the acid yellow truck was disappearing against the softer hues, and I cursed both the driver and my own complacence.

“Bastard.” I’d been careless. But my mood was shattered, and the road had lost its allure.

Driving somewhat more slowly, I made my way to County. Whatever peace I had regained was lost as I walked into the waiting room. The uproar of barks, mews, and crying children was enough to disturb a normal human. For me, the cacophony was full of anguish. Bow-wow became “ow, ow, ow” as a puppy pulled as far away as he could from his owner’s sadistic older brother. “Home! Home!” cried at least three cats, thrown into this unknown—and frankly terrifying—environment. It was all I could do to not cover my ears as I made my way to the front desk where Pammy, oblivious to everything but her gum, blinked up at me.

“Doc Sharpe around?”

She chewed and considered before nodding.

“Mind if I go back?” It was a formality, but with this many people in the waiting area, I assumed Pammy had locked the door to the examining rooms. From the way she nodded, however, I reappraised, and turned to go find the good vet.

“Pru,” she called after me. A thought must have surfaced. “Pru, are you taking that bird? Doc says we need the space.”

I nodded and kept walking. Well, that sounded like the parrot was in good shape. Unless, of course, the vet had stored a corpse. But when I went back into the first cage room, I saw what Pammy had meant. Every available cage was full. One wall held cats, the other dogs and what looked like an adult monitor lizard. On the table, three carriers with their pets still in them waited like their people outside.

The small-animal room was no better. Spring is supposed to be bunny season, with Easter gifts bearing surprises of their own, but from the number of rabbits I saw against one wall, I could only assume that house rabbits had become trendy again. I would need to brush up on leporidae issues—dental and digestive, as I recalled—if this kept up. In smaller cages, I saw a variety of rodents: hamsters, guinea pigs, an ancient gerbil. Some budgies occupied the upper row. The buzz in here was quiet, most of these animals were used to living in their personal space, and having the outer world change wasn’t a big deal to them.

What I wasn’t seeing was a parrot, and so I continued on in search of Randolph or someone who could explain where the bird had gone.

“Pru, good to see you.” Doc Sharpe looked as harried as he ever does, his white hair fluffed up like a new chick’s plumage. “We’re a bit busy.”

“I’ll say.” Like any good Yankee, the vet was prone to understatement. “Is this all because of the new condos?”

He ran a hand over his hair and only succeeded in messing it up more. “The condos and that new development over by Amherst. Plus, all the weekenders. Vacationitis, you know.”

I nodded. People on vacation tend to forget that their pets do better with routine. Feed Rover too many treats or take a day off from changing Dolly’s cage lining, and pretty soon you have a sick pet. Sometimes, of course, the animal is simply disoriented or scared by the change in behavior or setting, in which case, bringing him or her here did more harm than good. Try telling the human that, though, when Bailey won’t stop barfing.

“Do you need me to lend a hand?” I didn’t have time, not really. I was hoping to settle the raccoon issue today. Doc Sharpe is the source of most of my referrals, though, as well as a decent guy.

“No, no.” Now it was the glasses that he was fussing with, taking them off to rub his eyes.

“Doc, is something wrong?” Like I said, I like the guy.

He put his glasses back on before answering. “I don’t know, Pru. I feel that things are changing. Maybe I’m just getting too old.” He looked up at me and smiled, as if caught by surprise by his own confession. “Nevermind me, Pru. I’m simply a bit tired. But there is one thing.”

I waited. For the old vet to have revealed that much was a sign of a greater disturbance.

“I could really use the cage space back. That parrot, the Larkin bird? As far as I can see, he is fit as a fiddle.”

I nodded, thinking. Doc Sharpe is a good vet, and I trust him. But birds are tricky, and Doc Sharpe was clearly distracted. Besides, I didn’t know just how safe the Larkin unit would be for the big parrot. Randolph had gotten sick there, and whether that had been by chance, accident, or intent, I hadn’t decided. Still, I didn’t want to add to the vet’s problems.

“May I leave him here a few more hours, Doc? I need to make some plans.” Not that I knew what those were. “And, Doc, where is he?”

“Sure, sure. A few hours should be fine.” He turned to walk away and then stopped. “Oh, he’s in the dispensary,” he said, fishing a ring of keys from his pocket. “I had him in my consulting room, but—ah—he was proving a bit disruptive.”

“I bet.” That got me a tired smile, as I took the keys and the old vet slumped off to see yet another patient.

***

County may be the biggest and best equipped animal hospital around, but its dispensary is basically a large closet. That doesn’t mean it was a bad place to put the parrot: as I unlocked the door, the lights came on and I stepped into what was one of the cleanest rooms in the building. Almost everything in here was behind glass; some controlled substances under the additional protection of locked cabinets. But the temperature was kept constant and the air purified. There was no view, but, really, it might have been the safest place for Randolph.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Hey, how are you doing?” I approached the cage, which had been placed on the work table where Doc Sharpe prepared various compounds. Randolph had his head tucked beneath his wing, as if he were asleep. That could have been because the room had been dark until I came in. For some reason, I doubted it.

“Bugger off.” Randolph stirred enough to be heard. “Ignorant slut.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” I leaned against a ceiling-high shelf. “You were pretty sick there for a while.”

“Squawk!” Randolph straightened up long enough to shoot me a sideways look, then he started preening. I couldn’t help but think of Wallis.

“So, are you ready to go home again?” It wasn’t the best idea, but I was hard pressed to think of an alternative. The thought of Wallis had extinguished the one other option I’d been halfway considering.

“Ha!” Randolph sat up and fluffed his feathers, and I was reminded once again just how big he was. “Ignorant.”

“I don’t know, Randolph.” It seemed like he was just repeating words, but I couldn’t shake the sense that we were having a conversation. Just in case, it seemed sensible to act as if we were.

“Good girl!” With a whistle, Randolph jumped to the side of the cage and wrapped his powerful beak around the wire.

“You want out, don’t you?” Another whistle, as I started to formulate a plan. “And I’m willing to spring you. But first, you’ll have to give me something.”

The low whistle that followed could have been an interrogative. It could have been nothing. If Doc Sharpe came in right now, he’d be locking me away in another kind of room soon.

“I need you to tell me what happened that night.”

A whistle and that horrible noise—“ka-da-KLUMP!”—convinced me that I wasn’t crazy. As the parrot shifted from foot to foot, I tried to catch one of his eyes. At moments like this, I felt so sure that Randolph was aware—that he did have some higher sense of himself, of me, and the world. That ran counter to everything Wallis would say, but I had to try, and as I caught one eye—that separated vision was unnerving—I focused my thoughts. Birds have excellent vision: they’re better at seeing movement and amodal perception, “filling in the blanks,” than we are, and I felt that Randolph’s eyes were key. Or eye, as I stared into the little black pupil.

I don’t always have luck reaching out with my thoughts, but I did my best now.
“What was that? Can you tell me?
”
It would be so easy for me to project onto this poor animal, to ascribe a human sense of tragedy and loss. I’d seen that too often with my clients. Still, parrots have excellent memories and they are known to bond with people. He might be repeating noises, nonsense sounds. Or his vocalizations could mean more. I had to know.
“Randolph—if that’s your name—are you trying to tell me something?
”

“Be quiet!” Randolph’s voice was loud and strangely deep, and it startled me, coming as it did just when I’d been focusing so much on the silence. I don’t like to be taken off guard, but I must have jerked back and in the small room that had consequences. I hit the shelves behind me, sending a wall’s worth of vials and bottles rattling. Instinctively, I reached back, only shaking them up more, and, it seemed, disturbing the parrot. “Shut up, won’t you?” Randolph shifted on his perch, staring at me. “Shut up!”

“Randolph.” I worked to keep my voice level as I stepped forward, away from the shelf. “Are you telling me off? Or are you repeating something you heard someone else say?”

“Shut up.” His voice was quieter now, almost distant. I paused. I was reaching, and I knew it. He could have learned this particular phrase anywhere. Dozens of people had probably told this foul-mouthed bird to shut up. Perhaps Doc Sharpe had, here, when he’d tried to house the bird in his consulting room. “Quiet.” A soft whistle, and I waited. I had to figure out some way to ask. To find out. With all these drugs around us, you’d think there would be something that would help, but I was on my own.

“Randolph—” Before I could say anymore, I heard the crash. Something—a vial, a bottle—had rolled to the floor and the splintering of glass was unmistakable. I turned, and with that, the bird erupted: flapping those large wings, almost throwing himself against the cage. “Randolph!” I kept my voice steady, but I was looking around for something, anything, to cover the cage. If he kept up this way, he was going to hurt himself.

“No!” He yelled in his frenzy. “Stop!
Stop!
”
The last word was almost a shriek, as I peeled off my jacket and wrapped it around the cage. “Ka-da-KLUMP.”

The bird was still, at last. It was my turn to be agitated. I’d been pressing Randolph, verbally and mentally, to tell me something—anything. But I was a relative stranger, in a decidedly strange place. Plus, the way I had jumped back must have been scary. Only one vial—an individual dose of an antibiotic—had broken, but it had startled me. I’d worried briefly that the wall of shelves was going to come down. To a parrot, it might have seemed like his small world was collapsing.

The coolest part of my mind dismissed what I had heard, analyzing it as I cleaned up the broken glass. I had agitated an animal that was already under deep stress. It had acted like an upset parrot, spewing phrases from its distinctive vocabulary, perhaps incorporating words and phrases it had heard recently.

But I couldn’t entirely dismiss another thought, one that nibbled at my mind like that powerful beak at the cage’s wire. I had asked the bird some questions, and he may have answered them. Had my actions helped liberate a thought or a memory? It was possible. After all, I didn’t see Randolph as a creature who would scare easily. And his world, as he knew it, had already collapsed.