The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

efforts. I felt a sudden surge of hope—maybe these meticulous files contained information on where he was planning to take all the animals. Maybe somewhere out there we’d find people anxiously fretting over Parker’s failure to bring them a much-anticipated macaw, or Irish wolfhound, or even a litter or two of unweaned puppies or kittens.
    Yes, here it was: a file marked “Animal Rescue: Caerphilly Shelter,” with Friday’s date printed beneath. It contained a list of the people to whom he was taking the various animals, complete with addresses, e-mails, and cell phones. The list matched the menagerie we had in the barn, more or less. The macaw and the beagle puppies weren’t there—presumably they were relatively new arrivals to the shelter. But at the bottom of the list were the names of the people who’d agreed to take any unallocated animals. One name for the cats, one for the dogs, and apparently the Willner Wildlife Sanctuary would be harboring any birds, reptiles, exotics, or miscellaneous creatures.
    I put the file in my tote and continued searching.
    Next I found a small section of files labeled “Pruitt Investigation.” Detailed records on who owned what downtown buildings. If the preponderance of Pruitts in the list surprised him, he was much too naïve. A thick sheaf of articles from the Caerphilly Clarion about the beautification project. Not likely to contain state secrets.
    The farther I got in his investigation files, the more my spirits lagged. They clearly showed he was obsessed, but gave no proof of the skullduggery he alleged.
    Until the next-to-last file. It contained a thick copy of the loan contract between Caerphilly County and something called First Progressive Financial, LLC. It was a bad photocopy, slightly crooked on some pages—probably not acquired in any official way.
    I flipped through it briefly. I wasn’t a lawyer, and I didn’t have time to try to decipher the whole document, but even a brief inspection convinced me that it was dynamite.
    I looked around. No computer. A mouse, a set of speakers, and various other bits of hardware were scattered around the desk with their cords lying useless instead of being plugged into anything. No doubt the chief had confiscated Parker’s computer.
    But he did have a printer like mine, one of those all-in-one machines that also served as a copier, a scanner, and a fax machine. I could make a copy of the contract.
    And maybe I should make a copy of the contents of the next file, too. Apparently Parker Blair had been working on an article on his findings.
    He’d missed his calling; he’d have been a natural as an investigative reporter. It was all here. Chapter and verse of exactly what the Pruitts and their cronies had been up to, and all the more scathing because he hadn’t used inflammatory language or tricks of rhetoric. He just laid it out, step by step, precise, organized … damning.
    I didn’t miss not getting to know Parker the womanizer. But I wouldn’t have minded meeting the Parker who lived in this curiously appealing old-fashioned house, and I knew for sure that the Parker who’d written this article was a major loss to the whole town.
    At the back of the file, he even had a page of notes on where to send his exposé. The Caerphilly Clarion was there, of course, but he’d also been researching which reporters on the Richmond and Washington papers would be most likely to take an interest in a juicy small-town scandal.
    I definitely needed a copy of the article, too.
    As I was mechanically feeding the pages into the copier, I spotted a framed photo on the desk—the only one I’d seen so far. Not surprising. If he was juggling multiple girlfriends, making it look as if he didn’t care much for photos kept him from getting flack about not displaying theirs.
    The desk photo turned out to be a group shot. At first I thought it was a group of big-game hunters standing over their latest kill. Then I realized that the hunters were Parker, Clarence, Grandfather, and Caroline Willner. They were standing over a lioness, each holding up a newborn cub.
    I peered at Parker. He was wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and tight, faded jeans. I still couldn’t understand why so many women were chasing him. He was handsome enough, with nice features and a good head of dark curly hair. I wasn’t a fan of earrings on men, but I supposed some women might be. His goatee made him look a little saturnine, but it wasn’t unflattering.