The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

substantial brick-framed porch. English ivy was making a good try at covering up the house entirely, and the unkempt boxwood and azalea bushes crowding the outside walls probably kept out what little natural light got past the oaks. It looked as if it would be cool and shady in summer and snug enough to be warm in the winter.
    And it had an unsettling air of familiarity. I had spent many childhood hours visiting a great-aunt who’d lived in just such a quiet, tree-shaded little brick bungalow back in Yorktown.
    Not what I’d expected of Parker at all.
    If the similarity to Great Aunt Felicity’s house continued, I’d find that Parker’s house had a cellar reachable only by an outside entrance, and that the dormers I could see peeking through the ivy gave light to a roomy, old-fashioned attic.
    The ancient wooden screen door squeaked as I opened it. The porch was as serene a retreat as it looked from the outside, and the old-fashioned metal chairs and glider looked curiously familiar and inviting.
    The porch opened into a small living room. To the left, an archway led into a dining room. Straight ahead of me, a hallway led back, no doubt to the bedrooms. Common sense told me I should go straight to the closets to carry out my primary mission.
    I decided to check out the rest of the house first.
    The uncanny sense of déjà vu continued. The house was furnished entirely in a pre-war style of furniture that probably had a high-falutin’ name when antique shops sold it and decorators like Mother bought it. I just called it comfortable and old-fashioned.
    And the more I looked around, the less I believed that Parker had bought any of it. I peeked behind the dining room sideboard to find, as I expected, that the old-fashioned flower-sprigged wallpaper was bright and unfaded behind it, in a shape that precisely matched the shape of the sideboard.
    The books in the glass-fronted bookcases were new. One shelf held paperback thrillers, arranged by author, and the rest of the shelves housed a neatly alphabetized collection of books on zoology and ecology. And in spite of the vintage furniture, the general effect of the rooms wasn’t old-fashioned, mainly because there wasn’t a single knickknack or crochet-edged doily in sight.
    I’d bet there had been, though. He’d probably inherited this house and moved in without doing any more redecorating than necessary. The knickknacks and doilies had probably gone to Goodwill or to other, more sentimental relatives. Unless Clarence was right and he didn’t have any. I supposed there was an off chance they were boxed up and stored in the attic.
    I felt a curious sense of betrayal. I could shrug off the image I’d had of Parker, the cynical womanizer who’d used the glamour of his animal welfare activities to seduce women. But the Parker who lived in this neat, old-fashioned bungalow—a Parker who was either indifferent to his surroundings or cherished a kind of hominess that so closely matched my own? For some reason the idea of that Parker being a sleazy tomcat bothered me.
    But time was wasting.
    Nothing unusual in the living room. Or in the dining room, except that there was a furniture-sized empty space in front of the sunniest window. Had he sold a piece of furniture or disposed of a large dead houseplant? It would have to have been rather recent. People tended to fill such large, empty spaces rather quickly, either deliberately, with another plant or piece of furniture, or unintentionally, with the kind of clutter we humans seemed to generate just by existing.
    Though I had to admit Parker’s house was as devoid of clutter as any I’d ever seen. What did that say about him?
    For that matter, what did it say that a man who owned a furniture store lived in a house filled with comfortably run-down vintage furniture?
    The kitchen suggested that Parker didn’t cook much, apart from grilling the occasional steak or microwaving frozen meals.
    The first of the two bedrooms was set up as a neat, efficient home office. An old oak table served as the desk, with only a small tray of papers and a few accessories on top. The office equipment and several old wooden file cabinets were concealed in the closet. I sat down in a well-maintained vintage wooden swivel chair and browsed in his files. I envied him his orderly, neatly labeled filing system. Business records for the furniture store were separated from personal financial records and from the files on his animal rescue