Never Steal a Cockatiel (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series Book 9) (12 page)

“I just found Ginny Ledbetter’s dog wandering up the street by the clinic with its paws all torn up,” Leigh explained. “I took him home, and Ginny told me he disappeared early this morning. After which, she found this.” She extended the paper.

“Lucky?” Maura asked with surprise, leaning forward.

Leigh nodded.

“Just set it down there,” Maura instructed, nodding at her coffee table.

Oh, right. Fingerprints. Shoot!

Leigh did as instructed, and Maura read the note. Then she swore. “I can’t believe anyone would have the gall to snatch a dog just two doors down from me! Who do they think lives here, a couple of nannies? Of all the—” She uttered a few more choice words, then rose and picked up her phone. “Who else knows that the dog came back?”

“People at the clinic,” Leigh answered. “I took him inside first.”

“Call your dad,” Maura ordered. “Have him tell everyone who saw the dog that they need to keep quiet about it, at least for twenty-four hours. If we’re lucky, our dognapper won’t realize that Mr. Lucky found his own way home.”

Of course,
Leigh thought with a smile. It wouldn’t matter to the petnapper if he had the dog, all that mattered was that Ginny thought he did. Unless he knew for a fact that Lucky had made it home, he would still check for his money tonight, wouldn’t he?

“I’ll call Ginny,” Maura announced. “We don’t want her spreading the word either, and she’ll have to keep the dog out of sight. The Avalon PD will take it from here.”

Leigh completed her assigned phone call and waited for Maura to finish hers. When the detective hung up, her face was flushed and shiny.

“I still can’t believe it. The nerve of those—” Maura cast a glance toward the nursery, then cut herself off. “Sorry. I’ve got to start watching my mouth now, don’t I? Crap, that’s going to be hard.”

Leigh started to chuckle, but Maura’s face had turned grim.

The detective dropped back into her chair. “There’s something I need to ask you, Koslow.”

The look in her eyes made Leigh’s pulse race. “Tell me this isn’t about Mason,” she begged.

“Sorry,” Maura returned. “Have you heard from him?”

Leigh explained about the missed call and the voice mail. “But I left him another message this morning,” she finished.

Maura looked thoughtful. “A Miami area code, you say? Can I see the number?”

Leigh hesitated. She hated being wedged in between Mason Dublin and the law. She knew Maura wasn’t out to get the man, but she also knew that if push came to shove, Maura wouldn’t protect him, either. For that matter, should Leigh? And why was she so worried in the first place? Did she really believe that Mason would risk everything now?

She didn’t think so. But was she sure?

Her jaws clenched. She pulled out her phone, looked up the number, and read it out. Maura punched the numbers into her own phone, punched in something else, then waited. After a moment, her brow creased.

“Well?” Leigh asked anxiously.

Maura put her phone away again. “I’m going to keep trying to contact him,” she announced, avoiding the question. “What I need to know is — are you aware of his doing any gambling lately?”

“Gambling?” Leigh repeated, taken aback. She thought of Mason’s spiffy outfit, covert new apartment, and mysterious flight to Miami. “Not that I’ve heard,” she answered honestly.

Maura exhaled. She flashed a look at Leigh that was pure sympathy. “The man really needs to start returning his calls. Soon.”

Leigh gulped. Being yelled at, threatened, or ordered around by one Maura Polanski was all in a day’s friendship. But when the detective started looking sympathetic?

That
was when you worried.

Chapter 11

Leigh intended to pull down her shades and crawl straight into bed. But her bedroom was Mao Tse’s sanctuary, off-limits to Chewie. And the bored corgi was so pathetically happy to see a human that he dogged her every step, twice now hovering so close that her heel clipped his chin. Leigh looked down at him with a sigh. The dog’s mournful brown eyes could make a sociopath feel guilty. “All right!” she conceded. “Fine. I’ll nap on the couch.”

She collapsed and kicked her shoes off, and the corgi settled contently beside her. “I know you miss Ethan,” she said with a yawn, scratching the dog’s giant ears. “He’d take you with him if he could, but we both know how much you
love
the clinic.”

Chewie’s eyes held hers.
Feed me.

“Don’t give me that,” Leigh admonished, rolling over. “You’ve had three treats since breakfast. Just take a snooze with me.” She closed her eyes.

Three minutes later, her cell phone rang. She flung a hand out and groped around on the floor where she had left it, then pulled it in front of her tired eyes.

It was from the area code in Miami. She sat up quickly and tapped to answer. “Mason? Where the hell are you?”

She heard nothing for a moment. “Somewhere I’d rather be doing things other than answering the phone,” he remarked dryly. “But apparently I’m a popular guy. I’ve got another message from you, two from Maura Polanski, and one from the Pennsylvania State Police. What gives? Should I be worried, here?”

Leigh let out the breath she’d been holding. He didn’t sound like he felt guilty. “Have you called Maura yet?”

“No,” he answered. “I only just got all these. Checking my phone every frickin’ hour wasn’t part of my getaway plan.”

Leigh knew he was joking, but under the circumstances, his word choice was poor. “You need to talk to the police, Mason,” she insisted.

“Nothing I’d rather do than shoot the breeze with a copper, as you well know,” he said sarcastically. “But I’m not talking to anybody until you give me a heads up about whatever it is that’s going on there. And make it fast, because this call is costing me an arm and a leg.”

Leigh made a mental note not to let him off the phone until he answered an equal number of her own questions. “It has something to do with your neighbor Kyle. He’s disappeared, and the state police are looking for him. Maura says they don’t think you’re involved necessarily, but that your leaving town when you did looks suspicious. They want to ask you something about Kyle, obviously.”

Mason was quiet a moment. Leigh jumped back in. “Now
you
tell
me
why you’re in Miami. And why I’m not supposed to tell anyone where these animals came from.”

“I’m not in Miami,” he said absently.

“Caller ID says you are,” Leigh retorted.

“Oh,” he replied. “I guess that makes sense. Did Maura say why the state police want to question Kyle?”

“Mason!” Leigh said sharply. “I told you everything I know. Now answer my questions!”

He sighed. “Kyle was afraid he might have to leave town on short notice. He’s a professional poker player, but he’s had a string of bad luck, and he’s in deep with a couple of loan sharks. Last I heard he had a game up in Erie Saturday night — hoped his luck would change. I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing it didn’t go well and now somebody’s threatening him. All I meant about the pets is — well, some of those guys will use anything to get to a man. Kyle’s crazy about that cat, so it’s just as well that nobody knows you’ve got it. You get what I’m saying?”

“I get it,” Leigh said heavily.

“I’ll call Maura,” he promised. “And the state trooper, whoever he is. Sorry to get you involved in all this, kid. But you really don’t need to worry about it. Kyle will come back when he’s ready. And the first thing he’ll do is look me up, wondering where the hell his cat is.”

“What about the bird?” Leigh demanded.

“I told you, I don’t know jack about the bird. I’ve got to go. I’m spending a fortune, here.”

“Why is this costing you so much?” Leigh pleaded, fearing he would hang up at any second. “And why did Maura ask me if you’d taken up gambling?”

There was another pause. “I’ll call her right now. Take care, kid.”

“Mason!” she protested. But he had already hung up.

Leigh tossed her phone down on the couch. How could the man be so damned charming and yet so infuriating at the same time? Actually, at the moment he was just infuriating. Why wouldn’t he tell her where he was and what he was doing? Didn’t she deserve that much for taking care of his blasted friend’s cat and his blasted friend’s blasted friend’s bird?

She wondered, suddenly, if the bird’s mysterious owner were as frantic to locate Kyle as the police were. Unless Kyle had explained the whole situation when he took in the cockatiel, that person would have no way of knowing that Mason had intervened.

Fabulous.

Should she let the Bellevue police know that she had Kyle’s pets? If the cockatiel’s owner came back to claim him, he or she would find Kyle’s apartment empty. If they couldn’t contact Kyle by phone either, what would they think? Would they hear about the break-in? Might they worry that their bird had been the victim of the pet snatcher, too?

Her tired mind reeled. Aside from Lucky in Avalon, she didn’t know where the petnapper’s other victims had come from. But the clinic saw clients from all the neighboring boroughs, and everyone seemed to have heard the rumors. It was possible that the poor bird’s owner had already called the Bellevue police, trying to find him. But the police wouldn’t have any idea what had happened to the bird. Unless Mason happened to volunteer that information during their chat on Monday.

Leigh scoffed.
As if.

She dropped her head back down on the couch. Now she was stuck. She knew it was the right thing to do to let the police know she had Kyle’s pets. But there was no way that doing so wouldn’t draw her — and now her entire household — even deeper into Mason Dublin’s mess.

Darn the man!

And he had the nerve to whine to her about his calls being expensive! Where the hell was he roaming, anyway?

I’m not in Miami.

Leigh sat up again. She looked at the number he’d just called from and copied it into her browser. She didn’t think a reverse search was likely to turn up a private listing. However…

“Aha!” she crowed, swinging her feet onto the floor and startling the sleeping corgi. She
had
gotten a hit on the number. It was listed on a website where people complained about calls from telemarketers. But this number didn’t come from a sales outfit. It came from a relay center for cell phone calls bouncing off a satellite… over the ocean.

“A cruise ship!” Leigh said out loud, her face reddening. “I’m stuck here in Pittsburgh cleaning cat urine off my laminate, and he’s gambling on a
cruise ship?!”

She stewed. Why on earth could the man not just tell her that? And why had he lied to Cara about where he was going?

She stewed some more. Then, very slowly, her ire diminished. Mason knew she hadn’t believed he was in Las Vegas. He also had to know she could check the number, if she had half a brain. And all of that was before he even knew the police wanted to question him. She had to wonder if, at some level, he
wanted
her to know where he was.

Was this just another gambling junket, or was he with a woman? Someone he wasn’t quite ready to tell Cara about? Or rather, the kind of woman no father would ever want to tell his daughter about?

It was possible. He had certainly seemed chipper for a man headed to the airport at four thirty on a Monday morning.

Leigh sighed. She had no desire to plumb the depths of Mason’s personal life. Having a nefarious paramour was better than running from the law.

She slipped her shoes back on. The nap wasn’t happening. She might as well power through until sunset. She would wait another hour, then call Maura. By then the detective would have talked to Mason herself. If the Bellevue police needed to know about the bird, Maura could relay the message. Kyle’s animals were in danger — theoretically — from loan sharks. Not the police.

She stood and stretched. Chewie rose and looked at her hopefully.

Feed me?

Leigh’s cell phone rang again. It was Cara.

“Hi, Leigh,” her cousin greeted. “You’re not still around West View by any chance, are you?”

“I’m home now. Why?”

“Dang. I should have called sooner. Never mind.”

Leigh yawned again. Ten to one odds she would soon be fetching her car keys. “Just tell me what you need,” she said tiredly. “There’s no way I’m getting any work done this afternoon anyway.”

“I was wondering, if you were going to be home the rest of the day, if you might take Lenna back with you and drop her off at the farm. She’s driving me crazy fretting over that cat, and she’s being a complete ninny about the bird. She’s afraid to go anywhere near it — she’s just been sitting in the kitchen looking teary and sighing every other second.”

“I’ll come get her,” Leigh said, pulling on her shoes. “I need to talk to you anyway. Outside, maybe.”

“Gotcha,” Cara replied. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

Twenty minutes later, Leigh pulled the van up to the curb outside her parents’ house. Cara popped immediately out the front door and came to meet her. Leigh rolled down the windows and invited her cousin to have a seat. It was a gorgeous, cool day — unusually cool for Pittsburgh in July.

“Well, hey there, Chewie,” Cara greeted as she closed the van door behind her. The corgi made no response. As soon as the van stopped moving, he had hastened to the back to lick any available crumbs out of the seat wells. Cara turned to Leigh. “You’ve heard from my dad, haven’t you?”

Leigh nodded. “I still don’t know what’s going on with his neighbor Kyle, but apparently Maura does, and she wants to talk to him about it. He said he’s going to call her.”

Cara’s eyes widened. “What does Maura have to do with the break-in at Kyle’s? She works homicide!”

Leigh considered a moment, feeling like an idiot. She tended to assume that Maura could and did hear about all sorts of crimes… but why would her co-worker “catch her up” on a case that
wasn’t
a homicide?

Holy crap.

“I don’t know,” Leigh answered weakly. “But I’m going to call her later and find out, I promise you.”