Never Steal a Cockatiel (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series Book 9) (2 page)

Leigh stepped into the room, settled the cage just inside the door, and reset its towel covering. The cockatiel remained antsy, but was at least not squawking. Leigh checked to make sure the bird had water, then closed the door behind her with a yawn. Just a couple more hours of sleep. Then she would figure out what to feed them both. With luck, the bird would wake Allison first and the precocious young animal lover would have a detailed care plan ready to go by the time Leigh dragged her own butt back out of bed.

She looked down the hall to see the imperious Mao Tse standing in the living room doorway glowering at her.
You are no fun at all,
the cat’s gold eyes proclaimed.

“Yeah, I know,” Leigh cooed, scooping up the geriatric cat and scratching her under the chin. “You wouldn’t have eaten it. You only wanted to play with it a while. Sorry to disappoint.”

She put the cat down near her bedroom door, then moved to the kitchen to get sticky notes and a pen. After alerting whoever might rise first to the presence of their new guests and the inadvisability of letting either Mao or Chewie into the basement or Allison’s room, she at last returned to her pillow and settled down with a cat on her stomach.

Unfortunately, she was now fully awake.

She stared at her bedroom ceiling with frustration. Warren’s snores had progressed from chain saw to jackhammer. Even Mao’s purr seemed louder than usual. Worse still, she now remembered what day it was. Her mother was having some long-overdue surgery this morning — for bunions. Frances would be off her feet for two solid weeks, during which the other Morton women would be taking shifts to help her around the house. Leigh was first up.

Her eyes closed. She really,
really
wished this day was just a dream.

What was it that had been so odd about Mason, anyway? What was causing the uneasy feeling that only continued to increase the more alert she became?

Her eyes flew open. She propped herself up on her elbows, tilting an annoyed Mao Tse. “Apartment in Bellevue?” she whispered aloud. “
What
apartment in Bellevue?”

Leigh’s and Cara’s families lived in a suburb well north of Pittsburgh, but Bellevue was a small borough just beyond the city’s North Side. It was positioned between West View, where Leigh and Cara had grown up and where Leigh’s parents and Cara’s mother still lived, and Avalon, where Leigh’s father’s veterinary clinic was located. But for over a decade now, ever since Mason had returned to Pennsylvania and reunited with his daughter, he had lived nearly two hours away at his own family home in Jennerstown, where he supported both himself and his invalid sister by running a pawn shop. Trudy, a recovering alcoholic, had died of cirrhosis a year ago; but Leigh hadn’t heard a word about Mason moving to Pittsburgh. Was it supposed to be a secret?

She fell back onto her mattress with a frown. What exactly was Mason playing at? She couldn’t fault him for lack of devotion to his daughter and grandchildren — no one could. Even Frances had to concede that his willingness to drive into town on a moment’s notice for any and every event of significance in Cara and her children’s lives was nothing short of heroic. Furthermore, he had always treated Ethan and Allison as if they were his own grandchildren. The man never forgot a birthday, and his soft spot for baseball had brought him to nearly as many Little League games as Warren or Gil.

But he was definitely hiding something now.

Leigh considered his appearance. He had looked different somehow… more dapper. Mason had always been a handsome fellow, and age had done nothing to diminish his considerable charm. But he had never had any—

Leigh’s breath caught.
Money.

She knew the pawn shop was doing well, and had done well for years. But the family property in Jennerstown was run-down and in need of repair, and Trudy’s care expenses had been high. Mason had always managed for himself, never asking anyone in the family for help. But he had never been what you’d call flush, either.

Yet he had headed for the airport just now in the spiffiest outfit she had ever seen him wear. Business casual in the height of style. Everything Mason sported — including his shoes, if she remembered correctly — looked brand-spanking new and fit him like a glove. And unless he had sold the house in Jennerstown, the new apartment marked a second home.

Leigh sucked in an anxious breath. She wasn’t imagining things. The man had money. Where had he gotten it? And where was he flying off to in such a rush this morning?

An uncomfortable ache arose in her middle, just underneath the purring cat. No one, least of all Mason himself, could deny that for the first half of his life he had been somewhat “ethically challenged.” Although he didn’t have a violent bone in his body, he had served time in a federal penitentiary for counterfeiting, and with his long and unhappy history of get-rich-quick schemes, if he were any less wily he probably would have served more. Prison had had the desired effect, however; he had emerged a changed man who went to great effort to avoid so much as bending the law. Ever since Leigh had known him, he had been — if not the soul of propriety — a model ex-con.

So why did his newfound wealth make her so nervous? Did she not believe him capable of earning it honestly?

That depended. Who was this mysterious Kyle person? She tried to remember exactly what Mason had said.
He asked me to take care of her if anything — I mean, if he went out of town.

Mason obviously hadn’t expected that “the boy” would go off at this particular time, leaving the cat without warning and without food. But both of them must have known that Kyle’s sudden disappearance was a possibility. Otherwise, why give Mason a key?

And where the hell had the cockatiel come from?

The nonsense of it all continued to swirl in Leigh’s head, maddeningly and unproductively, until some time later she was roused into full consciousness by a raucous avian squawking, followed closely by the delighted squeal of a young girl and the indignant woofs of a suddenly protective corgi.

“Don’t let Chewie in here!” Allison ordered from her room. “He’ll scare the bird!”

Ethan’s mattress squeaked and the house vibrated as his heels hit the floor. “What bird?”

Warren awakened with a start, running a hand through his bushy head of hair and looking annoyingly refreshed. “What’s all the yelling about?” he asked curiously.

The alarm on Leigh’s bedside table erupted with piercing beeps.

From the basement below came the muffled sound of a feline howl. Mao Tse’s claws sank into Leigh’s abdomen.

“Leigh!” Warren exclaimed suddenly, staring at her. “My God, what happened to your face? Did Mao do that to you?”

Leigh shut her eyes and breathed in slowly.

Her day had officially begun.

Chapter 2

“But where did the bird come from?” Allison demanded, staring at her mother across the kitchen table a few minutes later. “Did you put it in my room because Mao freaked out? Who brought it here?”

Leigh took a sip of cola — straight up. Her coffee was still percolating; she couldn’t wait that long. Her son and husband both stared at her expectantly. The bird in the bedroom continued to squawk.

“It was an old friend of mine,” she answered hesitantly. She would tell Warren the full story later, of course, but for now it seemed best to keep Mason’s name out of it. She could hardly ask the kids
not
to mention to their second cousins, Mathias and Lenna, that the animals had come from their grandfather. And if Mason said it was better that nobody knew…

“She agreed to pet sit for someone else, but then she had a family emergency of her own and had to take an early flight this morning.”

Warren threw his wife a skeptical look, but said nothing.

A hiss from Mao Tse drew their attention to the basement door. The Persian had planted herself at its base, much to the consternation of the corgi, who whined pathetically as he paced in semicircles a safe distance away.

“Oh,” Leigh said dully, fingering the scratch on her cheek, which extended from just below her eye nearly to her chin. It was shallow, but had gotten tender and swollen overnight. “There’s a cat, too. In the basement. Her name’s Peep, and she seems perfectly sweet. At least when she’s not being hissed at and dragged down a staircase.”

Allison blinked at her mother with disbelief. Then she sidled carefully around Mao Tse and slipped through the basement door.

“Chill, Chewie,” Ethan soothed, scooping up the near-frantic corgi and carrying him toward the back patio. “It’s just another cat. Let’s go throw the ball.”

Leigh breathed out a sigh of relief as Warren collected the first drips of coffee into a cup and handed it to her. “So what’s the real story?” he demanded quietly, sitting beside her in the now-empty kitchen.

She drained the half inch of coffee, then shared what she knew, being careful to keep her voice nearly inaudible. Allison’s powers of eavesdropping could not be overestimated.

“Did you know Mason had an apartment in town?” she whispered.

Warren shook his head. “The whole thing does sound a bit shady. But Mason’s kept his nose clean for ages now. He’s given us no reason
not
to trust him.” His brown eyes focused on her intently. “Unless, of course, there’s something else I don’t know.”

Leigh shook her head thoughtfully. “No… not this time.”

Warren frowned at her just as Allison’s squeal echoed up the stairwell. “Mom! Her leg is gone!”

Leigh sprang up and hustled down the stairs, seeing horrifying images of the tortie with a paw stuck somewhere, bleeding to death. It wasn’t until she reached the basement and saw Allison calmly cuddling the purring cat in the middle of the giant bean bag that she found she was able to breathe again. “
What
did you say?” she gasped.

“Look,” Allison said, holding up the cat to reveal its underside. “She’s an amputee!”

Leigh looked. Sure enough, the spot where the cat’s left front leg should be showed nothing but a tuft of fur. Now that she thought about it, the cat’s mad scramble up her person last night had seemed a bit clumsy. But whatever had happened to the cat, it had obviously happened a long time ago. “Oh,” Leigh exhaled with relief. “I see.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Allison mused, studying the tortie’s teeth. Playing veterinarian always made the girl seem much older than her eleven years, perhaps because in both looks and manner she was a carbon copy of her grandfather Randall. “It probably was an accident, rather than cancer or something. She’s only a few years old.” She looked up at her mother with a studious gaze. “Your friend didn’t tell you?”

Leigh whirled around quickly, hiding her eyes. She had never been a particularly good liar. “No,” she answered, starting back up the stairs. “It was a short conversation. She was in a hurry. Why don’t you open that new bag of cat food and offer some to Peep? Then we’ll figure out what to do with the bird.”

Three hours, a trip to the grocery store, and much chopping of fruits and vegetables later, Leigh at last sank back into a recliner with her second cup of coffee. She could only hope that the bird would become less finicky after settling in. Despite the veritable cockatiel smorgasbord she and Allison had prepared, the bird had turned up its beak at everything except a few of the seeds. Furthermore, it had kept up the irritating squawking at random intervals all morning, making Chewie so beside himself with curiosity that he kept accidentally invading Mao Tse’s personal space — a lapse which posed a very real risk to his eyeballs.

A knock sounded on the patio door, followed closely by the sound of the door opening. “Leigh?” Cara’s voice called. “Can I come in?”

“You may,” Leigh called back, grateful not to have to get up again. “I’m in here.”

A few seconds later, Leigh’s slightly younger cousin dropped onto the couch across from her. The forehead of Cara’s pretty, well-preserved face was furrowed. “I got a call from the police this morning,” she stated flatly.

Of course you did.

Leigh closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She knew she had no reason to complain. It had been months since the last time her name had appeared on a police report; clearly, she was due. The fact that whatever Cara was about to tell her would have to be dealt with in concert with Frances Koslow’s bunion surgery should — given Leigh’s spectacular relationship with bad karma — have been entirely expected.

“Go on,” she croaked, her eyes still closed.

“It was the Bellevue police department,” Cara continued, lowering her voice. “Where is Allison?”

“In the basement with Lenna.”

“Right. Let me know if you hear the door.”

“Will do.”

“Leigh, would you open your eyes please? That’s a nasty scratch you’ve got on your face, by the way.”

“I am aware,” Leigh sighed, opening her eyes.

“They were looking for my father,” Cara continued, her voice uneasy. “He’s not in any trouble or anything, they made sure to tell me that. But something happened at an apartment complex down there this morning, and… Well, they said they wanted to talk to him because he lives in the apartment next door.”

Leigh raised a hand to her mouth and started nibbling on a nail.

“The thing is,” Cara continued. “I didn’t know he
had
an apartment in Bellevue. He never said a thing about it. But the landlord is saying he’s been there two weeks.” She shot a look at her cousin, and her brow furrowed further. “You’re biting your nails. That means you know something. Spill it.”

Leigh pulled her hand down. Cara knew her entirely too well to attempt deception. “He tapped on my window at 4:30 this morning to drop off a neighbor’s pets he got stuck taking care of,” she said succinctly. “He said he had to catch a six o’clock flight to Vegas for a pawnbrokers’ convention.”

Cara stared at her a moment. Then she began nibbling on her own fingernail. “I didn’t realize his convention was this week,” she mumbled. “That explains why the police couldn’t reach him on his cell phone; he must have been on the plane. But it doesn’t explain why he didn’t tell me about the apartment.”