The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery) Read online

  To the west was another expanse of semi-wild ground owned by the Treasures on Earth Spiritual Renewal Center, brainchild of one Regis Moneypenny. Tom and I had speculated on whether it was the man’s real name and decided it wasn’t. Whoever he was, he had attracted a well-heeled congregation, or clientele, or whatever they called themselves. The collection of Lincolns, Beemers, Lexuses, Caddies, Mercedes, and one bright red Jag I had seen in the center’s landscaped lot attested to that.

  One of the vehicles had apparently strayed onto Tappen Road by mistake. There was nothing but corn on one side and Guernsey cows on the other between where we stood and the dead end a half mile farther on, so no reason for anyone to drive down there unless they were lost. The curvaceous metal body crept toward us like a giant black beetle, the tinted windows watching like so many eyes. I expected one of them to open and reveal a human being in need of directions, but the sedan kept moving, barely, until it passed us. Then it slowly accelerated, making scuttling sounds in the gravel, headlights igniting as the car turned east onto Cedar Canyons Road.

  We looked at each other and shrugged in unison. “Creepy,” I said.

  Tom removed the empty bowl from Drake’s crate and shut the door. “Our turn. Can I buy you some supper?” And darned if the man didn’t wink at me just as I turned away.

  I suppressed the little tingle in my belly, walked to my van, and fished my cell phone from under a bag of desiccated liver in my tote bag. The number was ringing by the time I got back to Tom. He raised his eyebrows, and I answered his unspoken question. “Jo Stevens.”

  When I finished the call, I shoved my cell phone into my pocket and said, “I need to get home. Jay’s been locked up since mid-afternoon.”

  “So how ’bout I grab something on the way and meet you there?”

  It was after eight and I hadn’t been planning to eat more than some fruit when I got home. Fruit surrounded by Edy’s ice cream. As usual, hunger and hormones won the day, or evening, and Tom and I set out separately for the same destination.

  four

  Jay met me at the door. As I watched his bum wriggle and the light dance through his eyes, I remembered some know-it-all telling me at my last photo club meeting that bob-tailed dogs can’t express their emotions as well as their tailed brethren. I recommended she spend a few minutes with an Australian Shepherd and then get back to me. As if he’d read my mind, which I wouldn’t doubt for a nanosecond, Jay stood smack in front of me and bared his incisors in a goofy grin, his hips still doing the hula.

  I shoved some magazines aside and set my camera case on the kitchen table. Then I straddled my dog, wrapped my arms around his neck, and smooched the silky top of his head. It’s not a maneuver I’d recommend except for dogs and people who absolutely trust one another, but we qualify. After a few seconds we disengaged and crossed the room. “Out we go,” I said, flipping the deadbolt and pulling the back door open. The sensor picked up Jay’s movement and lights came on in the backyard. I’d had several new ones installed, all triggered by motion detectors and backed up with batteries, after I was attacked by a gun-toting intruder last spring. Granted, it was hardly a case of random violence, and was unlikely ever to happen again, but the lights still made me feel safer. The lights, and the new touch-pad locks that let me do away with the key under the geranium pot. And my vow to always, always listen to my dog and cat if they ever acted weird again.

  Jay stayed outside to patrol the yard and update his territorial notices. Back in the house, I looked around and was just gearing up for a tidying frenzy when my orange tabby, Leo, waltzed in and yawned at me, his long striped tail held high like a shepherd’s crook. He hopped onto the chair nearest me. I bent toward him and we bonked noses, feline for “Hi, where ya been?” and then I scooped him up, kissed him, and hugged his vibrating body, smooshing my face into his tawny fur.

  I could stay like that, glued to one of my animals, for the rest of my life, but a pesky whisper in my brain kept hissing about the state of the house, so I put Leo back on the chair and began triage. Tom kept his place so tidy that I’d become a tad more conscious of my disinterest in housekeeping, at least when I knew he was coming over. First, to the bedroom with the pile of clean undies I had set on the kitchen table earlier to make room in the dryer for Jay’s bedding. I grabbed my running shoes from beside my own bed and my lime-green gardening clogs from in front of the open closet and was about to toss them in when my old book bag caught my eye. It hung from a plastic hanger, and its size and deep red hue sent my mind racing back to Twisted Lake. Who leaves a canvas bag containing a feather and torn money on someone else’s private island? More troubling, what could possibly stain the canvas that rusty red? Blood. I was sure of it, no matter what Tom and Collin thought. A lot of blood, I thought, to saturate the fabric enough to survive the swim back to the mainland in Drake’s grip, even if the canvas was waterproofed.

  A car door slammed outside and brought me back to the task at hand. I tossed the shoes into the closet and slid the door shut. Then I snagged the half-empty diet root beer can from the nightstand, whirled down the hall to the bathroom, tore the used towels off the shower and towel rods, raced back to the bedroom, and dropped them into the hamper. I also dropped in the root beer can, dousing the towels with the remaining fluid and making me mutter something I was trying to expunge from my vocabulary. I retrieved the can and crumpled it in revenge, slammed the hamper lid, and hustled back to the linen closet across the hall from the bathroom door. As I hung a pair of nearly matching towels on the towel bars, I heard the front door open, followed by Tom’s, “Honey, we’re home.”

  The scent of fried chicken and the bang-bang-bang of Drake’s tail against the wall lured me into the kitchen just as the back door flew open and Jay exploded into the room. The two dogs acknowledged each other with a quick sniff, but were more interested in the containers Tom set on the table. They positioned themselves shoulder to shoulder, noses twitching in the aroma that poured from the red-and-white bucket on the table.

  Tom wrapped me in his arms and kissed me, one of those delicious kisses that could have gone on and on and morphed into something more serious, but a terrifying image of our two dogs choking on chicken bones while we were distracted broke the spell. Besides, the antihistamine I took before I went to the lake was long gone and the one I took when I got home hadn’t kicked in yet, so I pried my lips off Tom’s and gasped, “Can’t breathe.”

  At the same instant, he said, “Chicken bones,” confirming that I am in serious trouble with this guy because we’re definitely on very similar wave lengths.

  Drake was nearly dry, but still too damp for carpet or couch, so I pulled a baby gate out of the laundry room and barricaded all of us into the kitchen. Piles of reading matter on every horizontal surface aside, I do have my limits, and damp dogs do have to stay off the carpets and upholstery. I turned to get some plates from the cupboard and tripped over the dogs, who were jockeying for the best view of what lay beneath the lid Tom was peeling off the bucket.

  “Okay, that’s it. Everybody out!” I pulled the door open and directed the two reluctant canines out to the backyard. Leo followed them. Tom tucked the bucket of chicken into the curve of his arm and grabbed the bag of sides. With his free hand he pulled two bottles of Killian’s Red from the fridge and scurried after the dogs, calling back over his shoulder, “Soup’s on!”

  All I had to do was shut the door and follow.

  five

  Tom and I sank into my Adirondack chairs with plates on our laps and the buckets of food on a side table between us. I’d bought the rusty old table at a garage sale a couple weeks earlier for a pittance and made it sing with tangerine spray paint. The bug lights by the back door cast an odd yellow glow over the yard and the three eucalyptus candles made it smell vaguely like vapor rub, but the neighborhood mosquitoes apparently found the atmosphere even more disturbing than I did and we weren’t eaten while we ate.

  “Leo, my man.” Tom set his plate on t
he table, gathered the cat like a baby into the cradle of his arms, and gently massaged Leo’s chin and chest. The cat squinted at Tom, his amber eyes aglow in the candlelight. He mrrowled and accepted the snuggle for a third of a minute, then wriggled free, sauntered to where Tom had told the dogs to lie down, bonked noses with Jay and tolerated a sloppy swipe of the dog’s tongue. Then he turned his attention to Drake. Leo sniffed the Lab’s damp head and legs daintily, giving the impression that he didn’t want to inhale too deeply. Drake kept his silvering chin pressed to the ground and his dark eyes on Leo, forehead furrowed as if he were waiting for bad news.

  “Not a big fan of eau de lake water?” Tom appeared to be addressing the cat.

  Leo gave Tom the “foolish human” look, then turned back to Drake, crouching to sniff the dog’s lips.

  “Wonder if he smells the blood,” I said through a mouth full of chicken.

  “What blood?” Tom clearly was not as obsessed with the bloody bag as I was. He watched the cat settle belly-down into the grass, tuck his paws under his chest, and wrap his tail along his left side with the white tip twitching next to his elbow. “Ever feel like he thinks people are too stupid to live?” Tom’s new to cats. In fact, he had told me a few weeks earlier that Leo’s the first cat he’s ever really gotten to know, and Tom had fallen hard for my little orange tabby.

  “Nah.” I tossed a chicken thigh bone onto the paper towel I’d spread for refuse. “He just doesn’t suffer foolish questions easily.”

  “Ah.”

  “Speaking of questions, what do you really think about that bag?” As I spoke, Jay and Drake swivelled their heads and aimed their ears toward the yard next door. My neighbor Goldie had just stepped through her back door wearing a caftan that glowed neon lime under her yellow porch lights.

  Tom followed my gaze and smiled. You have to smile when you see Goldie. Parts of her never left the sixties, when, true to Scott McKenzie’s song, she had gone to San Francisco, worn flowers in her hair, and changed her name from Rachel Golden to Sunshine Golden and, ultimately and legally, Golden Sunshine. She came back here a decade ago when her parents died within two weeks of each other, leaving her the house and a tidy pile of money. She had filled the yard with flowers and had been my friend through bad times and good.

  Jay looked at me, back at Goldie, back at me, twitching to go but obeying my command to stay. I told him he was a good boy, and free from the “stay” command, and he raced for the fence, Drake right behind. Leo jumped out of the way, glared at the dogs, and shook a paw as if flinging away his disgust at their lack of manners. Feline dignity restored, he trotted after them. The commotion caught Goldie’s eye and she waved. That was our signal to join the gathering at the fence.

  six

  “She doesn’t look good, does she?” I asked as I put the remains of the cole slaw in the fridge. I had been speculating on Goldie’s health all summer, to myself and to Tom. It was all I could do. I’d tried everything from conversational fishing to direct questions, and Goldie always insisted that I was being silly and then changed the subject.

  Tom dropped the chicken bones into a garbage bag, pulled it from the trash can, spun it, tied the knot, and looked at me, the closed bag dangling from his hand and a weary look on his face. “She’s not well.”

  “That’s what I think. She’s lost too much weight and her color is off.” I tossed Jay’s eyeless, one-eared squeaky bunny and a newish floppy-legged fleecy sheep into the living room to clear the kitchen of dogs and started a pot of tea. “I’ve asked and asked and she says she’s fine. Maybe she thinks she is fine. I just …”

  A hand on my arm stopped me mid-wish and I turned. “No, Janet, I mean, she’s not well.” Tom’s brown eyes, usually so warm and open they make me hungry, had gone a little murky, and a sliver of fear pricked at my mind. “I ran into her at the co-op a few days ago.” He hoisted the bag in his hand and turned toward the back door. “Let me take this out. Then we’ll talk.”

  I think my jaw dropped open, and I know my knees started to give. I sank into a chair at the table. The bunny and sheep appeared in my lap. The dogs watched me, mouths open in panting grins and eyes sparking with anticipation. I tossed the toys, but my heart wasn’t in it. Dogs know, they just know, and the next thing I knew I had a black chin on one thigh, a white paw on the other, and four worried eyes telling me that I was never alone. I ran a hand along each lovely skull, the black hair on Drake’s crisp and cool, the copper and silvery merle of Jay’s slippery as silk. I folded at the waist and laid my face between theirs and felt my eyes fill, not just for Goldie, whatever was wrong, but for all the sorrows that chip away at our souls.

  Tom let the door bang shut, breaking the spell. The dogs ran to him and I mashed the heels of my hands into my eyes to make my tear ducts behave.

  “Settle, guys.” Tom spoke softly and pointed toward a spot along the kitchen wall. In cooler weather I keep a big dog bed there, but in summer Jay prefers the cool vinyl, so the bed was stashed in the laundry room. The dogs looked at Tom and back at me, probably in hopes that I would countermand the directive. I shrugged at them and they went and lay down.

  The kettle began to whistle, so I got up and grabbed it. I poured a bit of boiling water into my ancient bone china pot, swished it and dumped it, drizzled in some loose jasmine green tea, and filled the pot to steep. I focused on taking deep, cleansing breaths to calm myself, and teared up again as I realized that Goldie had taught me to do that. Shake it off, MacPhail. I set the pot and two mugs on the table, sat down, and braced myself. Tom was about to tell me whatever bad thing he had learned about Goldie when the doorbell rang.

  seven

  “Wowser!” I said. “Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Jo?”

  The woman on my front porch wore a V-neck peach-colored silk blouse and a skirt three shades darker that draped softly around her slim form. Gold chandelier earrings sparkled beneath her wavy short brown hair, and a delicate gold chain hung just below the notch of her collar bones. Quite a contrast from her usual khaki chinos, white shirt, and navy blazer. “You have makeup on!”

  I was used to seeing Jo Stevens in her tough-cop guise and was surprised to see her cheeks go a soft rose. “Oh, come on. I dress like a girl occasionally.”

  “I’ll say!” Tom stood framed by the kitchen doorway, each hand in a dog’s collar. All three males had pretty much the same adoring look on their faces, although Tom’s tongue didn’t actually hang out. I realized with a start that my right hand was trying to fix my own messy hair, and I made it stop. Tom sent Drake and Jay to their spot in the corner, then bowed and gestured Jo into the kitchen, and I felt even frumpier as I watched her glide to a chair. But as she passed him, Tom turned and winked at me and bowed again. “Milady.” As I moved by him he pinched my butt, and I swatted at his hand with deep and unreasonable pleasure.

  Jo declined my offer of tea. She asked Tom how his summer research in New Mexico went, then got down to business. “So what’s up?” The notebook and pen she usually stowed in her breast pocket emerged from a drawstring pouch lavishly embroidered and beaded in shades of sea and sky.

  Tom excused himself to retrieve the canvas bag from his car while I gave my five-second rendition of Drake’s mysterious find and then asked, “Hot date?”

  Jo grinned at me.

  “Come on, girlfriend, give it up!” But Tom’s return put the kibosh on the juicy details. He handed Jo the plastic bag containing the canvas tote. She lifted it toward the ceiling light. “Huh.” The water pooled along the plastic seam still had the pink cast I had noticed at the lake. Definitely not a reflection of the setting sun.

  Jo glanced at Tom, then looked at me. “So?”

  “So, I think that’s blood on the bag, and there’s a torn bit of a hundred dollar bill inside. At least that’s what we think it is.”

  Tom added, “And a feather.”

  “Maybe a game bag?” She glanced at her watch. Not the big round face of the black-band
ed Fossil she usually wore, but a dainty little gold number that shared her wrist with a delicate gold bracelet. “I mean, if someone was out there hunting, they’d need a game bag to carry their victims home, right?”

  Tom and I looked at each other. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “That whole area is posted no hunting, so it’s unlikely,” said Tom. “And anyway, it was a long red feather, not from any local game birds I can think of.” He looked at the bag in Jo’s hands. “And that’s not a typical game bag.”

  I smiled at him, encouraged that he finally seemed to be on my side, and added, “Besides, why would a blood-soaked bag with part of a hundred dollar bill in it be lying out on a little private island like that?”

  Jay and Drake both lifted their heads and looked at me, attuned as always to shifting emotions in their human companions. For my part, I was attuned to Jo’s apparent lack of concern. Or maybe it was annoyance. She was off duty, after all.

  Jo sighed. “You have a permanent marker handy?”

  I produced one and she made some marks on the plastic bag.

  “Okay, I’ll look into it. It is a little weird, but there’s no evidence of a crime.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Tell you what. One of you meet me there tomorrow and I’ll take a look at the island. Right now, I’m off duty. Gotta go.”

  The dogs started to follow but Tom signaled them to lie down and stay, and they did. We walked Jo to the door and made arrangements for the next day, then watched her get into the passenger side of a nifty little sports car. Couldn’t tell you what kind, other than low and sleek and an indefinite color under the glow of the streetlight. I couldn’t see the driver, either.

  “Hunh.” I didn’t exactly want to be Jo’s age again, but still, another sprig of loss grew in my heart.