Cockatiels at Seven (20 page)

“No, but I seem to have convinced your father and grandfather to let me help with whatever they’re doing. I’m supposed to meet them in our barn at seven tonight, wearing dark clothes that are easy to run in.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “As if Dr. Blake should be running at all, much less after dark. Or Dad. You couldn’t talk them out of doing whatever it is they’re doing?”

“I couldn’t even talk them into telling me what we’re doing, even after volunteering to help and promising to keep their secret. But don’t worry; I’ll be with them, and I’ll look after them. And I’ll have my cell phone along. I’ll give you a call as soon as I know what we’re doing. Meanwhile, it’s time I left for work.”

He gave me a quick good-bye kiss and strode toward his car, draining the last of his coffee as he went.

I spotted Dad and Dr. Blake in the backyard, near one of the sheds. They seemed to be looking for something. They were scuffling along with their eyes glued to the ground, stooping to peer under the shrubbery from time to time. I strolled over nearer to them.

“Lost something?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” Dad said.

“Just one of the snakes,” Dr. Blake said.

“But not here,” Dad said quickly. “Back at the zoo.”

“And you’re only looking here because the light is better,” I said. “I see. What kind of snake? Is it poisonous?”

“No, it’s not poisonous,” Dr. Blake said.

“And we didn’t lose it in your yard,” Dad added, his tone desperate. “Did we, Dad?”

“Eh? Oh, no, of course not,” Dr. Blake said, finally catching on. “Left her over at the zoo, I’m sure.”

“We’re just making absolutely sure before we go back there to get him,” Dad said.

“Her,” Dr. Blake said.

“Okay,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, what kind of
snake did you not lose in my yard? In case I happen to run across any spare snakes in my travels.”

“Six feet long, bright green,” Dr. Blake said.

“It’s Jade,” Dad said. “The Emerald Tree Boa.”

“I thought she was going back to the zoo after she finished her shed,” I said.

“Yes, but she’s still retaining her eye caps,” Dr. Blake said. “The part of the skin over the eye. Dangerous for the snake, because when it thickens and becomes opaque during a shed, it impairs the vision. Snakes get irritable and unpredictable when they can’t see properly. But it’s treatable, and of course a fairly common form of dysecdysis.”

“Dysecdysis means a bad shed,” Dad explained.

“I was going to remove them today,” Dr. Blake said. “I will as soon as we find her—”

“Over at the zoo,” Dad put in.

“She’ll turn up when she’s hungry enough,” Dr. Blake said. “Very soon, I should think. She’s got a healthy appetite, Jade does.”

“So we have a half-blind boa constrictor wandering around somewhere feeling peckish and irritable,” I said. “Should I make sure Spike and the ducks are safely locked up somewhere snakeproof?”

They looked at each other.

“Probably a good idea,” Dad said. “Just as a precaution, you understand. In case we’re wrong about her being at the zoo.”

They shuffled off, searching the grass as they went. I realized that I’d completely forgotten to ask them if they’d also removed the birds they’d hidden on the third floor. Not that I’d get a straight answer out of them if I did.

I peered into the shed. Empty, except for a terrarium—presumably the one Jade was supposed to be occupying.

Spike wasn’t in his pen, though.

I hurried over to where Rose Noire was standing. Timmy was mounted on one of the sheep yelling “Giddyap!” and “Go horsie!” while Rose Noire wrung her hands anxiously. The sheep seemed unperturbed.

“Have you seen Spike?” I asked.

“Rob took him someplace,” she said. “Oh, dear. Do you think Timmy is upsetting that poor sheep?”

“I don’t even think he’s got its attention yet,” I said.

I hurried back out to the barn. Yes, Spike’s carrier and leash were gone. Of course, I found myself wondering where Rob had taken Spike, but at least he was safe.

Just then my cell phone rang. It was Jack Ransom.

“So you’re still sleuthing,” he said. “Any idea what these files are?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” I said.

“I can probably figure out eventually,” he said. “But some of them are encrypted, and the rest are in some kind of proprietary format. Possibly some kind of accounting data. Any information you have could save me some time.”

“Sorry,” I said. “All I know is that Karen put them on a thumb drive and hid them inside her son’s stuffed cat. I’m assuming they might be related to her disappearance.”

“This is your friend from the college financial department,” Jack said. “Are these files from her office, do you think?”

“Probably,” I said. “It occurred to me that they
might have something to do with the embezzlement scheme.”

“Could be,” he said. “I’ll get Ashok to look at them, too—if they’re related to the college financial system, he might recognize the formats. There is one thing I can tell you. If you look in the properties, you can see that Nadine Hanrahan’s the owner of some of these files.”

I was surprised at what a fierce sense of relief I felt at hearing Nadine’s name.

“Not Karen?”

“No. Of course, all that means is that they were created on Nadine’s computer,” he said. “And that’s just some of the files.”

Still, I wasn’t sorry at the possibility that the chief might be seeing something to implicate Nadine.

“Anything else I can help you with?” Jack asked.

I thought about it for a moment. It occurred to me to check on how accurate some of Sandie’s local scoop was.

“Okay, maybe this is a weird question,” I began.

“Weirder than usual, or just Meg weird?”

“If that’s an insult, I’m ignoring it.”

“Actually, it’s a compliment. What’s the question?”

“I need some information about an Aubrey Hamilton. That’s Aubrey, with a B.”

Keys rattled.

“I can find several of them,” he said. “What else do you know about him?”

“Well, that’s the question. Is he a him, or a her? The one that lives in Caerphilly County, that is, and has something to do with the Belle Glade Bird Farm.”

I heard keys rattling again.

“You’re right. Her. Ms. Aubrey Hamilton. Owns the property next to Hiram Bass’s—I see you’ve been meeting the neighbors. Widowed or divorced about five years ago—at least that’s when the property changed from joint ownership with a Martin Hamilton to sole ownership by her. Yes, obit for Mr. Hamilton around the same time. I’m not finding anything about a bird farm, though. Not anything current, anyway.”

“That’s odd. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t be inclined to advertise her business around here.”

“Like maybe she doesn’t have a business license?”

“You have such a devious mind. I was only thinking that maybe there isn’t a big market locally for canaries and cockatiels. Maybe she sells them wholesale to pet stores, or something. What would you do if you wanted to sell birds?”

“I’d put up a Web site, of course,” he said. “Which she hasn’t done.”

“But if you’re not very computer-oriented, maybe you go where the bird fanciers are. They must have shows and magazines and such. I can start there.”

“At a bird show?”

“At the bookstore. I’ll buy a few bird magazines. See what I can learn about canary farms and cockatiel breeders.”

“Sounds like a plan. Anything else I can do?”

“I’ll give you a call if I think of anything.”

Of course, as soon as I hung up, I thought of something else he could have done. But at least this computer chore was something I knew very well how to do. I went into the home office, turned on my computer,
and logged into the real estate listing service Michael and I had used so much when we were trying to find a place to buy. I couldn’t help feeling a brief sense of relief that at least we weren’t back in the tiny basement apartment where Michael had lived during his bachelor days, struggling to find anything for sale in town that we could even hope to afford.

As usual, listings in Caerphilly were few, and mostly in the pricier sections of town. Aha! I found one—no, two—in Westlake, where Nadine lived. I printed them out and tucked them in my purse. And while I was at it, I shuffled through the recycling stack until I found the real estate section from Sunday’s copy of the
Caerphilly Clarion
and circled the two Westlake listings.

I had a plan for the day.

Okay, it wasn’t much of a plan, but I was running out of places to look for Karen. So first I’d head over to the campus and drop by Renfrew’s bookstore, which was famous for its large periodical selection, to get some magazines about pet birds. Then check out Nadine’s neighborhood—under the guise of house hunting for Rob.

Of course, since Rob had disappeared, taking Spike with him, I couldn’t enlist him to ride shotgun with me. Maybe Spike was just camouflage, and avoiding me—and Timmy—was the real reason for Rob’s disappearance.

Well, never mind. I could enlist Rose Noire instead. We could always say that we were doing the first round of house-hunting for Rob. If we ran into anyone who actually knew him, that would sound a lot more plausible anyway.

I went back outside to talk her into it. To my relief, the snake truck was gone, and Dad and Dr. Blake with it. Rose Noire looked happier, too, probably because Timmy had given up trying to go sheepback riding and
was writhing in the grass, doing a pretty fair imitation of a snake.

“Oh, that’s such a good idea,” Rose Noire said, when I explained my plan. “I have a lot of ideas about how to help you! Just wait a minute while I gather a few things.”

Actually, it took her closer to half an hour, and apparently her ideas were mostly aimed at Timmy’s well-being rather than my quest to find Karen or figure out what had happened to her.

She immediately took charge of improving Timmy’s environment—replacing Led Zeppelin with some kind of New Age CD, full of flutes and chimes.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I said. “What if I fall asleep at the wheel?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “This isn’t relaxation music. It’s supposed to stimulate your mental and physical acuity.”

It sounded the same as the relaxing, sleep-inducing CDs she’d given me a few months before, but she was the expert.

“I thought that might be helpful if you’re doing some kind of sleuthing,” she added. “And of course, it’s so important to make sure a child’s brain receives proper stimulation, don’t you think? Especially during those all-important, formative preschool years.”

“Want Zeppewin,” Timmy said.

On the way into town, Rose Noire attempted additional brain stimulation with a set of flash cards about colors and shapes. Timmy was having none of it.

“Timmy, what shape is this?” she asked, holding up a green square.

“Horsie,” Timmy said.

“No, Timmy, it’s a square,” she said. “Square. And what color is the square?”

“Poopy,” Timmy said. “Yuck!”

“No, it’s green,” Rose Noire said, in a deliberately upbeat, patient voice.

A dozen flash cards made absolutely no dent in Timmy’s cheerful refusal to play. But I could tell he was getting to Rose Noire. Worse, even Timmy could tell.

“Why don’t you give the flash cards a rest for the time being?” I suggested. “Sometimes, with kids, it’s not necessary to do anything with them—just be present for them.”

“Oh, that’s so wise!” she exclaimed.

I didn’t tell her it was a line straight out of one of the child care manuals she’d brought over on Timmy’s first day with us. I’d been boning up.

Rose Noire’s method of just being present was to smile encouragingly at Timmy every few minutes, and occasionally pat his shoulder. The first time she did this, Timmy earned a time-out by spitting some of his juice on her. Even after I made him apologize, she was clearly upset by this.

“I’m just no good with children,” she kept moaning.

She cheered up a bit after I suggested that Timmy, like Dad’s pet llamas, used spitting as a form of pack bonding behavior.

Rose Noire must not have been listening when Dad explained the llamas’ spitting. Llamas spit to establish dominance. Timmy was succeeding beautifully.

Of course, the only way I had thought of to impose a time-out in the car, where Timmy was already strapped
into his car seat, was to interrupt the musical entertainment. A few minutes after his time-out ended, Timmy asked if he could have another one. I deduced that he wasn’t all that fond of Rose Noire’s New Age music. So by the time we made our stop at the bookstore, I’d insisted on a return to Led Zeppelin, and we cruised into the ritzy suburb of Westlake to the dulcet strains of “Ramble On.”

One nice thing about Rose Noire was that she bounced back from defeat as cheerful as ever. And our arrival in Westlake sent her mood soaring.

“Oh, this is such a nice neighborhood!” Rose Noire exclaimed. “Look at that house! It looks just like a castle! And there’s a Spanish hacienda!”

Faux gothic and faux Spanish colonial, actually, but I let her enthuse while I concentrated on peering at the mailboxes for the house numbers. We were getting close to Nadine’s address.

“Look at all the open green spaces!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it lovely? What a beautiful neighborhood! Why didn’t you and Michael move here?”

“Because there isn’t a house on this street that goes for less than a million and a half,” I said. “The farmhouse was a bargain in comparison.”

“Oh, I can’t believe that,” she said. “Look at that quaint little cottage there—you can’t tell me that’s a million-dollar house.”

“No,” I said, following her pointing finger. “It’s the gatehouse. The big house is up there!”

I saw Rose Noire’s jaw drop as her eyes traveled up the hill behind the cottage and saw the huge faux Georgian mansion looming overhead. You half expected
Mr. Rochester to come striding out in pursuit of Jane Eyre.

“Oh, my,” she said. “It’s . . . it’s . . . ”

“A grotesque example of conspicuous consumption, aesthetic bankruptcy, and ecological insensitivity?” I suggested. “An absolute travesty?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “But at least it’s a pretty travesty. Oh, look—that one looks like something out of
Gone with the Wind.
”