Never Steal a Cockatiel (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series Book 9) (11 page)

“No, no, baby boy!” Olan crooned, taking quick hold of the bird before its beak could reach the vet’s knuckles where they rested on the tabletop. Morgan swooped in from behind and placed her own hands around the bird’s neck and feet, securing it as Olan himself let go. Leigh looked on, impressed. All of the techs knew how to hold birds if they had to, but few took to the task as effortlessly as Morgan, who had been a volunteer at the National Aviary. Her skill with birds was fortunate, as it was probably the only thing keeping her employed.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask,” she chirped to Olan as Randall stretched out one of the cockatoo’s giant white wings. “Are you straight or gay?”

Randall emitted a loud sound somewhere between a throat clearing and a strangled choke. “Morgan!” he said sternly.

“What?” she asked lightly, blinking her pretty dark eyes.

Allison and Kirsten suppressed giggles.

Olan chuckled himself, albeit awkwardly, then turned to Leigh. “I know that
some people
in this town don’t approve of wing clipping,” he began, changing the subject. “But
my
first priority is the safety of my birds. It’s fine to say that birds need to fly, but what good does that do them if they fly right outside and die of starvation or cold?” His voice gained strength as he launched into the familiar argument. “I know a Quaker that broke its neck flying into a window, and it had lived in that same apartment for years! And don’t even get me started about the toilets. The one time someone leaves the lid up will be the one time disaster strikes!”

Leigh nodded patiently. Olan had preached the same sermon with every wing clip since the nineties, when his beloved blue and gold macaw, Ollie, had escaped through a flimsy patio door, never to be seen again.

“I just don’t know what I’d do if I lost one of these guys,” Olan continued. He pulled a handkerchief from a back pocket and mopped his brow, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “I saw the sign out front asking for anonymous tips. That’s a good idea. I do hope
somebody
cooperates with the police! We’re all scared to death, you know. Even Skippy!”

Randall continued his work. “Yes, that seems apparent.”

“I don’t think my birds are in any danger,” Olan declared, the tremor in his voice belying his words. “I never leave them outside, you know. Except Zeus here. He gets to be in the patio cage in nice weather. But it’s bolted down tight, and no one could snatch him out of it without losing a finger, that’s for sure!”

Leigh did not doubt it. In the next instant the cockatoo struggled against Morgan’s hold and uttered a shriek that made Leigh’s eardrums vibrate.

“You’re okay,” Morgan and Olan crooned simultaneously.

“He
would
take a finger off, you know,” Olan said affectionately, rubbing his own finger along the back of the bird’s head. “You be good, and when we get home I’ll give you a juicy piece of fresh mango. Eh, boy?” Olan grinned at the girls. “He loves fresh mango. He’ll sing the Macarena for it.”

Olan’s smile faded suddenly, and his face reddened. “I would die if I lost Zeus, Doc,” he said soberly. “I mean it. I would just
die.
You have to help the police find this fiend!”

Randall met his eye. “I’ll do what I can.”

Morgan smiled sweetly at Olan. “So if you died, who’d get your birds?”

Chapter 10

Leigh walked out the front door of the clinic and turned towards her van, savoring dreams of home and bed. But before her feet hit the sidewalk, she noticed a dog limping up the street. The medium-sized, spotted black and white mutt was unaccompanied by a human and wore no collar. A green nylon leash was loosely lassoed around the dog’s neck, while the hand loop dragged along the pavement. Puzzled, Leigh turned and approached the dog, expecting to see its owner sprinting along somewhere behind it. But although she could see all the way down to the Ohio River Boulevard, there were no pedestrians in sight.

“Where’d you come from, fella?” she asked. The dog wagged its tail and ducked its head submissively, and she squatted down to pet it. Very gingerly, it lifted a front foot, and Leigh was disturbed to see a smear of blood on its toes. The poor thing had worn its nails to the quick, and one was still actively bleeding. The pads of the paw were rubbed raw. Leigh didn’t need to lift the dog’s other paws to know that they were likely in the same condition. She had seen such paws many times before — whenever a house pet suddenly found itself running for miles on hard pavement.

“Well, you came to the right place, didn’t you?” she praised. “What a smart boy! Follow me.” She picked up the lead and led the dog the last few feet into the clinic. “I have a drop-in,” she announced. “A runaway with some seriously sore paws. Anybody recognize him?”

Amy was sitting behind the reception desk, and Paige was standing beside it writing something on a chart. The only client in the waiting room was Mrs. Gregg, a staple of the environment who brought in her giant Maine coon cat, Rocky, on a near-daily basis. Randall insisted there was never anything wrong with the cat, and the general consensus of the staff was that the middle-aged widow was simply lonely and liked hanging out at the clinic. This explanation was buttressed by the fact that she routinely waved any number of other clients ahead of her while she waited, and often showed up without either an appointment or the cat.

“Aww,” Amy’s freckled face cooed. “What a cutie!”

“Do you know who he belongs to?” Leigh asked.

Amy shook her head. “No, but he’s a cutie, isn’t he?”

“I know that dog,” Paige said speculatively, tapping her pen on her chart as she stared at him. “He was here not too long ago.” Today the tall and lanky veterinary assistant was wearing turquoise nail polish with pale pink lipstick, a typical fashion choice. She topped it off with dangly red earrings that were already tangled up in her frizzy blond curls. Leigh had suspected Phyllis Diller aspirations until she mentioned the name and the thirty-something Paige had no idea who she was talking about.

“Isn’t he Mrs. Ledbetter’s dog?” Paige asked, directing the question at Mrs. Gregg, who lived nearby and seemed to know everyone in Avalon. “Lucky?”

The dog perked its ears and turned its head toward Paige.

“Ginny Ledbetter?” Mrs. Gregg said. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

“Let me double check with the doc,” Paige suggested, taking the end of the leash from Leigh. She led the dog around the corner into the exam rooms.

“Ginny adores that dog,” Mrs. Gregg said in a frightened whisper. “I can’t imagine she’d let him get away from her. What could have happened?” She cuddled her Maine coon closer. “What if somebody tried to snatch him, too? What is this world coming to?”

“To hell in a handbasket,” Amy answered cheerfully. “That’s what my grandmother always used to say. To hell in a handbasket! Of course, Grandma said lots of other things, too. She had a million sayings. Like: ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’ She said that even before
Forrest Gump
came out!”

Leigh’s mind wandered, as it inevitably did whenever Amy opened her mouth. Mrs. Gregg, on the other hand, seemed fascinated to hear about every saying Amy’s grandmother had ever uttered, both the first and second times Amy told her about it.

Leigh was relieved when Paige reappeared with the black and white mutt in tow. The dog wagged its tail happily. “I put some styptic on the nail that was bleeding,” Paige reported. “But those paws are going to be sore for a while. Doc wanted to know if you could walk him home before you go, Leigh. Mrs. Ledbetter is just up the street — he said to tell you she’s two houses down before your friend Maura’s.”

Leigh sighed a little as the vision of her soft bed at home withdrew further into the future. “I’ll just pop him in the van and drive him up,” she agreed, taking the lead.

“No!” Paige said quickly, startling her. “You can’t pick him up. He’s a total sweetheart most of the time, but he
hates
being held tight or having his belly touched. You pick him up without a muzzle and he’ll take your face off.”

Leigh looked down at the angelic appearing canine, who was straining on the lead toward the exit. He doggie-smiled up at her, wagging his tail eagerly and whimpering in anticipation. “Oo-kay,” she said skeptically, heading for the door. “Think you can make it just a little farther, boy?” she asked.

The dog practically sprang up and down.

It was Lucky who did the leading as Leigh found herself pulled up the cobblestone street. Randall needn’t have bothered giving Leigh directions, as the dog knew exactly where it belonged. The mutt trotted nearly to Maura’s house before turning up the sidewalk of a similar duplex, then bounding up onto the porch. It scratched at the door with both front feet — sore as they were — and gave an impatient woof.

The door burst open within seconds. An elderly woman gave out a strangled cry, then fell to her knees to envelop the squirming, whimpering dog. “Lucky!” she cried. “Oh, you came back!”

Only some time later, after the dog made clear that the reunion was over by skirting past Ginny and on inside the house, did the woman bother to look up at her other visitor. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice wary.

“I’m Dr. Koslow’s daughter, Leigh,” she explained. “I found Lucky outside the clinic and they told me he lived here.”

Ginny’s eyes, which were already puffy from crying, began to water. She faltered a bit as she stood.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Leigh suggested.

Ginny nodded and gestured for Leigh to come inside. They settled on a worn couch with Lucky curled up between them. The dog was excited and restless, dropping his head in and out of his owner’s lap and whimpering periodically.

“I was afraid I’d never see him again,” Ginny said tightly.

Leigh was assaulted by a sudden sick feeling. This was no simple runaway. “Did someone take him?” she asked gently.

Ginny nodded. One large tear dripped off the side of her nose and fell into her lap. “This morning. I put him out at first light, like I always do. He does his business in the yard and then naps on the porch till breakfast. But when I went to let him in, he wasn’t there. And I found this.” Her hand trembled as she reached out to her cluttered coffee table and picked up a folded piece of plain white paper. “Read it.”

Leigh unfolded the note. It was written in pencil, in a nearly illegible scrawl of print letters.

If u want dog back alive you put $300 cash in yellow bucket in woods behind Avalon park batting cage sunset TONITE with THIS NOTE. Tell anyone - dog dies. Tell cops - dog dies slowly painfully! Now or ever or I’ll come get him again!

In the bottom corner of the note was a scribbled signature — in the form of a drawing. It was a skull with a knife handle sticking out of one eye socket.

Leigh felt even sicker. She folded the note back up again. She put out a hand and stroked the dog’s furry neck. “I wonder how he got away.”

Ginny shook her head. “I don’t know how they got him in the first place. Unless they lured him with food. He’d follow anyone for bacon, that’s for sure. But they couldn’t pick him up! He’d take their face off!”

Leigh withdrew her hand. If there was a story behind that claim, she didn’t want to hear it. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said firmly. “Lucky’s home and he’s safe. And thanks to his escape and your saving this note, the police may finally be able to catch this devil!”

Ginny’s composure wilted. Her hands clutched at her dog. “The note says not to.”

“Well, of course it does,” Leigh argued. “Because the petnapper knows that if the police get involved, he’s going to get caught. But it’s the only way to stop him.”

Ginny thought a minute, then slowly nodded her head. “He’s got to be stopped. I can’t let anyone else go through this.” Her gaze drifted to her coffee table, and Leigh’s eyes followed.

Sitting amidst the clutter, in a neat stack with a rubber band, was a thick pile of twenty-dollar bills.

“I would have paid it,” Ginny whispered hoarsely. “I would have paid anything.”

“I know,” Leigh commiserated, imaging her own Chewie or Mao Tse in the clutches of skull-and-knife. Would she contact the police, or would she be too afraid of what would happen to her pets? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that after she caught up with said villain, the homicide squad would be looking for her.

“I’ll take him to my sister’s house for a while,” Ginny announced, straightening with determination. “She lives all the way over in West Mifflin, and she has a Jack Russell and a nice fenced yard. We’ll just visit a while. Until they catch this monster.” She raised her red-rimmed eyes to Leigh’s. “They will catch him, won’t they?”

Leigh smiled. “With this note and your help? Absolutely.” She rose. “With your permission, I’ll walk this piece of paper straight over to Detective Polanski and let her know what’s happened. She’ll take it from there. Just keep Lucky safe inside until you hear from her. Okay?”

Ginny nodded and bent over again to bury her face in the ruff of her dog’s neck. “Don’t you worry about that,” she said tearfully. “He’s never leaving my sight again!”

Leigh left the happy couple to each other’s company and hastened down the street to Maura’s house. Remembering the baby, she rapped gently rather than ringing the bell. The detective answered the door almost immediately.

“Koslow?” Maura greeted uneasily, studying her. “I know that look. Is this going to upset me?”

“Most likely,” Leigh answered. “Can I come in?”

Maura swung open the door. “Keep your voice down,” she ordered. “Eddie just went to sleep, and he had us up half the night. What’s going on?”

They settled into chairs. Maura looked as exhausted as Leigh felt. The county detective was obviously unaware of the Koslow family’s overnight adventures with the Ross Township police, which was not surprising. Bellevue and Avalon had their own small police forces, but on either side of those two municipalities, West View was policed by Ross Township and Ben Avon by Ohio Township. Maura’s county department covered the whole area, but only for homicides and other higher-level crimes. The smattering of break-ins and pet thefts Leigh had the misfortune to be associated with were split over four PDs that might or might not be talking to each other. Looking at the bags under Maura’s eyes, Leigh decided it was just as well the new mother didn’t know about the Koslow’s unwelcome visitor. One crisis at a time.