The Real MacAw (23 page)

I wasn’t sure whether he meant the Great Migration, as Ms. Ellie had started to call it, or the birth of the kittens, in which he’d begun to take an almost paternal pride.

I thought of suggesting that he could borrow our video camera, but Rob was notorious for losing anything smaller than a basketball.

After I’d pumped milk and spoiled everyone’s fun by determining that the boys were getting cranky and needed to be put down for a nap, I decided to head back to the library. I checked to see if Mother needed a ride.

I found her standing in the living room, looking around. I noticed that some of the wicker furniture from our sunporch had migrated into the living room to take the place of the missing items. And she’d brought a cheerful indigo-and-white batik tablecloth to throw over the macaw’s cage in place of the rather utilitarian canvas tarp that had been there before.

Still, she had that look. The decorating look.

“Perhaps we should repaint while everything’s out of the room,” she said.

I was about to point out that everything wasn’t out of the room. They’d only removed about a fourth of the furniture. Of course, Mother would counter that the burly cousins could come back for another hour or two. I thought of a more practical deterrent.

“Why repaint now?” I asked. “We could just touch things up a little. As soon as the boys start crawling, it’s open season on the walls. Makes more sense to repaint after they’ve had a chance to mess them up.”

“That’s why I was thinking of repainting,” Mother said, with a delicate shudder. “We could use one of those paints that clean up easily with just soap and water. Like the one we found for the nursery. So much more practical for a room where small children will be playing.”

I looked at her in astonishment. When had Mother begun taking practicality into account in her decorating?

“And I’ve never been entirely happy with the shade,” she added. “We can adjust that when we repaint. I’ll bring you some paint chips later this week.”

Aha. She wasn’t turning practical; she was using my focus on the practical to talk me into some minor redecorating.

Still, not a bad idea.

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said aloud.

She nodded absently. She was still gazing around. I braced myself. She was probably going to suggest that as long as the living room was all torn up anyway, perhaps she could add a few more decorating touches.

“I have to say,” she said finally. “I like this macaw much better.”

I pondered this a moment. Did she mean that she liked it better than she had before—that the macaw had grown on her? Or that she preferred the macaw to some of the other animals we were fostering? Or …

“Better than what?” I asked finally.

“Better than that other macaw.”

“We’ve only ever had the one macaw,” I said. “Multiple dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, and even rabbits, but only one macaw.”

“I think you’re mistaken, dear.” She wasn’t really trying to argue—she was using the tone of exaggerated patience that all of my family had taken to using with me. A tone I’d begun to find very, very irritating, because it seemed to suggest that due to the hormones and possibly the sleep deprivation, my brain was on a leave of absence.

I walked over to the mantel and picked up a stack of papers.

“Here’s Clarence’s inventory.” I began running my fingers down the list and flipping through the pages. “First page is all dogs. So’s the second. More dogs, Then cats. Then the rodents.”

Mother shuddered delicately, as she usually did when rodents were mentioned.

“Here,” I said, flipping to the last page. “The birds. Not a lot of them. Three canaries, which I don’t remember seeing, so I suppose I should inspect all the cats’ whiskers. A pair of racing pigeons. And one macaw.”

“Clarence must be mistaken, then,” Mother said. “You must have two macaws. Perhaps they’re hiding some of the animals from you.”

I sighed. That seemed more than possible. Maybe it wasn’t just my imagination that the number of animals seemed to have grown larger every time I went out to the barn. Last night’s adoptions didn’t seem to have made as much of a dent as I’d hoped. Maybe they were importing them from other nearby shelters to take advantage of public sympathy.

Well, if it helped get homes for the animals … I’d worry about that later.

“What makes you think this isn’t the same macaw?” I asked aloud.

“The color, dear. The macaw you had yesterday was mostly a very harsh Prussian blue. It didn’t fit your living room decor at all. This new macaw is a very lovely shade of turquoise instead. Very nice. Matches the upholstery.”

Mother beamed at the macaw. The macaw ruffled its feathers slightly, and I braced myself, hoping it would only say something rude and brash, like “Hiya, toots!” instead of something from the X-rated end of its vocabulary.

The macaw only emitted a soft squawk and began preening its feathers.

“Now that’s odd,” I said. Yesterday the bird had missed no opportunity to speak. I didn’t recall hearing it say anything this morning. Could Mother possibly be right?

And then I realized that of course she had to be right. Mother might have many strange notions and knowledge gaps, but she was absolutely sound on any subject even remotely related to decorating. And color was one of her passions. She had once spent an excruciating hour trying to explain to me the differences between purple, violet, lilac, mauve, heliotrope, magenta, lavender, orchid, grape, puce, pomegranate, Tyrian, wine, solferino, amaranthine, amethyst, fuschia, eggplant, and aubergine. And while other decorators usually carried swatches, Mother always relied on her color memory, which was the chromatic equivalent of a musician’s perfect pitch.

So if Mother said that the turquoise macaw had been Prussian blue yesterday, she undoubtedly knew what she was talking about.

But what had happened to the other macaw?

“The break-in,” I said aloud. “That’s what they were after. The other macaw.”

“Why would anyone want to steal a macaw?” Mother asked. “Particularly that rather unattractive one you had here yesterday?”

“Beats me,” I said. “I’m with you—I like this new macaw much better. But so far, the other macaw is the only thing missing. Unless you count Rob’s video camera, and I really don’t think the intruder took it.”

“What about the vase your aunt Penelope gave you as a wedding present?”

“It’s not missing,” I said. “The intruder broke it.”

Mother winced.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “She’s sure to notice it’s missing.”

“I’ll tell her I lent it to you.”

Mother winced again.

“She’ll never believe that,” she said. “Penelope will know I think that vase is hideous.”

“Then help me find a solution to the broken vase that doesn’t involve buying a replacement,” I said. “Because I thought it was hideous, too, and I’m sure it’s also hideously expensive, and I’d like to avoid spending a vast sum of money replacing something I didn’t want in the first place.”

“Don’t even think of replacing it,” Mother said. “If Penelope ever notices, I think you should just say that you’ve started putting the breakables away in the attic so they’ll be safe when the boys start walking.”

I opened my eyes and stared at her in amazement.

“That’s perfect,” I said. “I mean, in a couple of months, it will be true. In fact, we’ve already started putting all the breakables up high so the boys can crawl here.”

“And you may as well start childproofing now,” she said. “Put a few more breakable things aside to make it look plausible. They’ll be crawling any day now. You’d be amazed how it creeps up on you.”

I could tell from the faint wistfulness in her tone that she was still remembering the memorable day that Rob took his first tottering steps and made a beeline for a wobbly table holding a rare piece of Art Nouveau glass.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll start childproofing this room tomorrow. Or perhaps later today. I must run. A lot more plants to rescue! By the way, there are a few plants down at the town hall that are too much for the ladies to manage. Could you possibly drop by and help us with them?”

“Glad to,” I said. It would make a break from packing books.

“Thank you, dear.” She waved cheerfully and sailed away.

After waving back, I returned to pondering the mystery of the missing macaw. Much more interesting than the missing vase, not to mention potentially more important. Maybe Grandfather hadn’t been the intruder’s target after all. Maybe he’d only been collateral damage in the intruder’s quest to steal Parker’s macaw.

Which didn’t make the intruder any less dangerous.

I followed Mother out to the foyer.

“Don’t tell anyone about the macaw swapping,” I said. “It could help us catch whoever did it if they don’t know we know.”

“Of course not, dear.” She was arranging her lavender garden club hat at just the right angle in the mirror on our hall coat stand, completely ignoring two kittens who were playing tag on the stand, knocking things off its shelves and doing who knows how much damage to the coats with their tiny little razor claws.

I fetched a box and retrieved the kittens from their playground. Out to the barn with them. As it happened, I was going that way anyway. I needed information about the macaw. And with any luck, there should be at least one animal expert still hanging around the barn.

Chapter 19

I found Clarence out tending the animals. He seemed to have relocated his veterinary practice to our barn. A card table with a clean sheet over it stood ready for any patients who needed examining, and just inside the door, he’d set up half a dozen of the wooden folding chairs we used for parties. No one was waiting on them, fortunately. Clarence was just saying good-bye to an elderly man with a rather stout bulldog in tow. I waited until the two had waddled out the door before interrupting.

I put the kittens back in what was normally Spike’s pen and now appeared to be serving as a cattery.

“Clarence, could you come to the house and look at the macaw?” I asked.

“Why?” He looked anxious. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Long story,” I said. “And I’d rather you just look at him first.”

Clarence bustled toward the house so fast I could barely keep up with him. When he reached our living room, he examined the macaw with infinite care. The claws. The beak. The eyes. The inside of the mouth. Under the tail. The macaw bore it all stoically, without saying anything.

“Seems healthy enough,” Clarence said. “Not much of a talker, though, is she? Where did you get her?”

“She came with the rest of the animals from the shelter, remember?”

“Impossible,” he said. “The macaw from the shelter was a male blue hyacinth macaw. This is a female blue-and-yellow. Completely different species, not to mention the wrong sex. Although I suppose a layperson can’t easily discern the gender.”

“Not without getting a lot more familiar with the macaw than I ever want to be,” I said.

“Hyacinths are endangered in the wild and very expensive as pets,” Clarence went on. “Blue-and-yellows are common both in the wild and in captivity.”

“You’re positive it was a hyacinth macaw you got from the shelter?” I asked. “Is there any possibility that you could have been mistaken—given the bad light and all the commotion?”

“I’m positive,” Clarence said. “Because it wasn’t just any hyacinth macaw. It was Parker’s. He loved that bird.”

I pondered this for a few moments.

“Okay,” I said finally. “I give up. Why did Parker dump his beloved, expensive hyacinth macaw in an animal shelter that had just changed its no-kill policy?”

“He didn’t. We had one of the Corsicans take the macaw to the shelter, claiming she’d found it in her backyard. The shelter would have had to keep it for a reasonable period to see if the owner claimed it, so the hyacinth was in no danger.”

“And just what was the point of this whole maneuver?”

“To reconnoiter,” he said. “Get the lay of the land, and so forth.”

“But you’re the shelter’s vet,” I said. “You must have been there a hundred times.”

Clarence’s face fell.

“Apparently I’m not very good at reconnoitering. When I tried to draw a floor plan of the building, it made no sense at all, and I couldn’t remember a thing about the locks and stuff. So we sent in Millie with the macaw. She can walk through someone’s house in five minutes and then draw you a floor plan to scale. And as it turns out, we didn’t even need her floor plan, because they left her alone in the office long enough for her to borrow a spare key.”

“Useful skill,” I said. “Just what does Millie do when she’s not volunteering for CORSICA? I gather she’s not a seasoned burglar, or you would have recruited her for the caper.”

“She’s a real-estate agent.”

Okay, that made sense.

“Getting back to the macaws,” I said. “If this isn’t Parker’s macaw, whose is it?”

Clarence studied the macaw for a few seconds. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“Hello, Jerry? Clarence Rutledge here. How is Martha Washington doing today? No, but could you check on her now?”

He tapped his fingers on the table as he waited for Jerry to report.

“Martha Washington is a blue-and-yellow macaw?” I asked.

He nodded and held the phone away from his mouth.

“Lives in the breakfast room at the Caerphilly Inn,” he said. “They have her trained to say genteel things like ‘More tea, madam?’ and ‘Have a lovely day, ducks.’ He used his falsetto and a plummy English accent as he imitated the macaw. “Only blue-and-yellow in my practice,” he went on in his normal voice, “and I haven’t heard of any others in the county, either. What’s that Jerry? That’s great. Give her a grape for me.”

“Ask him if they could use another one,” I said, low enough so Jerry shouldn’t be able to hear me.

Clarence frowned in puzzlement.

“We’ve got to get rid of her—er, find a home for her sooner or later,” I said.

He nodded.

“By the way, Jer, remember that conversation we had about Martha’s feather plucking? Loneliness, yes. They’re accustomed to living in flocks, you know. Well, I may have found a companion for her. Yes, another blue-and-yellow who is probably going to be available for adoption. I’m looking for a good home, and I thought of the inn, and poor lonely Martha. No, a first-quality specimen, quite healthy, but the owner … left her behind. That’s right. If you’re interested, I’ll put you first on the waiting list.”