“What?!” Tex cried, looking flabbergasted.
“He also said you had a drinking problem, causing your hands to shake uncontrollably and that you had a history of messing up the dosages on your prescriptions. Oh, and he suggested you only employed Vesta because no one else would work with you, as you were prone to volcanic outbursts of rage and had at one point trashed your office.” He looked up, and found that Tex sat staring at him, mouth agape.
“He said all that? No wonder my patients left me in droves.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t know?”
“Of course! This is the first I’m hearing about this. I had noticed former patients of mine were avoiding me, crossing the street when they saw me coming. But I just figured they were embarrassed to meet me after switching doctors. If I’d known Jaqlyn was conducting this slanderous… this terrible… this horrendous…”
Chase leaned a little closer. “What would you have done if you found out?”
“I’d have beaned him!” Tex burst out, then realized what he’d said and clasped a hand before his mouth. “I… maybe I should talk to a lawyer,” he finished sedately.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Chase conceded.
It’s always a tough proposition for a cat to interview a bird. Birds, as a rule, don’t like cats. It probably has something to do with the fact that birds have been on cats’ menu for the past fifteen million years or so. And no matter how much I try to convince them that I’m not that kind of cat, my words are still met with a certain level of incredulity.
“Hi, there,” I said now, employing the most genial and unthreatening tone in my arsenal.
The birds, all half a dozen of them, didn’t respond. Birds tend to travel in packs, and these birds were no different.
“Hi birds,” said Dooley, smiling a pleasant smile and also showcasing his best behavior. “Mind if we ask you a couple of questions, birds?”
But the birds were clearly not having any of this, and retained a dignified silence.
“The thing is, our human has recently been accused of murder,” I explained, deciding to trudge ahead regardless, as a good detective does. “And we were wondering if you kind birds might have seen something. It happened right there,” I said, indicating Tex’s car, parked right across the street, though now obscured from view by that white tent.
“Is it true that birds like to eat worms?” asked Dooley, suddenly going off script.
“Dooley, now is not the time for this,” I said. “Let’s stick to our main topic.”
“Yeah, but I figured since we’re here anyway, and so are they…”
“Who cares about worms?”
“I care. I can’t imagine how anyone could eat a worm, and I just wondered if these nice birds could offer me an insider’s view.”
“Worms are very nutritious,” suddenly one of the birds spoke. He was probably the leader, as he was the fattest bird of the lot. They were all sparrows, if I wasn’t mistaken, and as a rule sparrows are pretty small, but this one was slightly less small than his ilk.
“That’s what I keep hearing,” said Dooley, pleased at the opportunity to worm information out of a bird. “But are they tasty? They don’t look tasty. In fact they look yucky.”
“Oh, they’re very tasty,” the bird confirmed. “And juicy, too.”
“I wouldn’t say all worms are juicy,” another bird piped up. “Some of them are leathery. Like a shoe sole.”
“Oh, yeah, tell me about it,” said a third bird. “I had one of those last week. Terrible. Messed up my colon something nasty.”
“So is it true you simply gobble them up whole, without chewing?” asked Dooley, fascinated by the turn the conversation had taken.
“Dooley!” I said.
“I’m curious!” he said.
“That’s where the gizzard comes in,” said the leader bird. “The secret is in the gizzard. But why do you ask? Are you interested in starting a worm-based diet?”
“Oh, no way,” said Dooley, horrified by the mere suggestion. “But I find it fascinating to find out more about the eating habits of different species. You see, I watch a lot of the Discovery Chanel? And nothing beats a personal testimony like yours, Mr. Bird.”
“Mrs. Bird,” she corrected him.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bird,” he said quickly.
“Now about this murder business,” she said. “I’m sorry to say we only arrived at the scene after the whole thing was over, but we did see an altercation take place shortly before, one street over.”
“An altercation?” I asked, perking up.
“Yes, between the man who now resides in the trunk of that there car and another man. They were speaking very loudly and motioning animatedly.”
“Who was this other man?” I asked, hanging on this worm-eating creature’s every word.
“I don’t know his name, of course, but he was short.”
“Tall,” said another bird.
“Fat,” piped up another.
“Skinny,’” determined yet another.
“Red-haired,” said number five.
“Blond,” opined bird six.
“Um…” I said. “So he was tall and short, fat and skinny, red-haired and blond?”
“Don’t listen to them,” said the leading sparrow. “He was short, squat and floppy-haired and for some reason he had the word Jason tattooed across his cheek.”
I shared an excited look with Dooley.
“Jason Blowhard!” we both cried simultaneously.
Chapter 31
Marge had gone down to the station house to see her husband, the jailbird. She encountered an immovable object in the shape of her own brother.
“No, you can’t see him, Marge,” said Alec. “He’s a murder suspect, and the only one that can see him right now is his lawyer, which he doesn’t have. Yet.”
She planted her hands on her hips and gave her brother the look of a woman who wasn’t going to be messed with. A woman who’d once discovered a stack of dirty magazines under her brother’s bed and had proceeded to hand them to their mother and ask what the people in those magazines were doing. Alec had been grounded for the rest of the summer. ‘I did it once, I can do it again,’ her look seemed to say. Alec wilted.
“Alec Lip,” she now said, her voice brooking no nonsense. “You listen to me and you listen good. You and Tex are practically brothers. In fact it’s not an exaggeration to say that he’s the brother you never had. You certainly love him like a brother, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, I do, but—”
“And you’re going to stand there and tell me he can’t even receive a visit from his own wife—your sister? Shame on you.”
“But—”
“Shame on you!”
Alec sighed. It was obvious he was thinking how hard it is to be a cop in times like these, when your own relatives start beaning people they don’t like with baseball bats—aluminum or otherwise—and having wives that just happen to be your younger sister.
“I can’t, Marge. If Mayor Butterwick found out she’d have my badge.”
They were standing in the police precinct lobby, and Dolores Peltz, who combined desk sergeant duties with dispatch tasks, had pricked up her ears and was drinking in every single word of the back-and-forth between brother and sister. Free entertainment, she seemed to consider this minor showdown. Better than Grey’s Anatomy.
“Who cares what Charlene Butterwick thinks! He’s my husband and I want to see him. Now!”
“What’s all this screaming and shouting?” asked Charlene Butterwick, walking in just then. “Hi, Marge. Chief. Dolores.”
“Hi, Madam Mayor,” said Dolores, eyes gleaming. Now this was going to be good, that gleam seemed to say. This was stuff Shonda Rhimes couldn’t come up with if she tried.
“I want to see my husband and this man,” said Marge, pointing an imperious finger at her brother, “is telling me I can’t. Because he’s afraid of you!” she added, redirecting that same accusing finger at the Mayor.