The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

door before interrupting.
    I put the kittens back in what was normally Spike’s pen and now appeared to be serving as a cattery.
    “Clarence, could you come to the house and look at the macaw?” I asked.
    “Why?” He looked anxious. “What’s wrong with him?”
    “Long story,” I said. “And I’d rather you just look at him first.”
    Clarence bustled toward the house so fast I could barely keep up with him. When he reached our living room, he examined the macaw with infinite care. The claws. The beak. The eyes. The inside of the mouth. Under the tail. The macaw bore it all stoically, without saying anything.
    “Seems healthy enough,” Clarence said. “Not much of a talker, though, is she? Where did you get her?”
    “She came with the rest of the animals from the shelter, remember?”
    “Impossible,” he said. “The macaw from the shelter was a male blue hyacinth macaw. This is a female blue-and-yellow. Completely different species, not to mention the wrong sex. Although I suppose a layperson can’t easily discern the gender.”
    “Not without getting a lot more familiar with the macaw than I ever want to be,” I said.
    “Hyacinths are endangered in the wild and very expensive as pets,” Clarence went on. “Blue-and-yellows are common both in the wild and in captivity.”
    “You’re positive it was a hyacinth macaw you got from the shelter?” I asked. “Is there any possibility that you could have been mistaken—given the bad light and all the commotion?”
    “I’m positive,” Clarence said. “Because it wasn’t just any hyacinth macaw. It was Parker’s. He loved that bird.”
    I pondered this for a few moments.
    “Okay,” I said finally. “I give up. Why did Parker dump his beloved, expensive hyacinth macaw in an animal shelter that had just changed its no-kill policy?”
    “He didn’t. We had one of the Corsicans take the macaw to the shelter, claiming she’d found it in her backyard. The shelter would have had to keep it for a reasonable period to see if the owner claimed it, so the hyacinth was in no danger.”
    “And just what was the point of this whole maneuver?”
    “To reconnoiter,” he said. “Get the lay of the land, and so forth.”
    “But you’re the shelter’s vet,” I said. “You must have been there a hundred times.”
    Clarence’s face fell.
    “Apparently I’m not very good at reconnoitering. When I tried to draw a floor plan of the building, it made no sense at all, and I couldn’t remember a thing about the locks and stuff. So we sent in Millie with the macaw. She can walk through someone’s house in five minutes and then draw you a floor plan to scale. And as it turns out, we didn’t even need her floor plan, because they left her alone in the office long enough for her to borrow a spare key.”
    “Useful skill,” I said. “Just what does Millie do when she’s not volunteering for CORSICA? I gather she’s not a seasoned burglar, or you would have recruited her for the caper.”
    “She’s a real-estate agent.”
    Okay, that made sense.
    “Getting back to the macaws,” I said. “If this isn’t Parker’s macaw, whose is it?”
    Clarence studied the macaw for a few seconds. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
    “Hello, Jerry? Clarence Rutledge here. How is Martha Washington doing today? No, but could you check on her now?”
    He tapped his fingers on the table as he waited for Jerry to report.
    “Martha Washington is a blue-and-yellow macaw?” I asked.
    He nodded and held the phone away from his mouth.
    “Lives in the breakfast room at the Caerphilly Inn,” he said. “They have her trained to say genteel things like ‘More tea, madam?’ and ‘Have a lovely day, ducks.’ He used his falsetto and a plummy English accent as he imitated the macaw. “Only blue-and-yellow in my practice,” he went on in his normal voice, “and I haven’t heard of any others in the county, either. What’s that Jerry? That’s great. Give her a grape for me.”
    “Ask him if they could use another one,” I said, low enough so Jerry shouldn’t be able to hear me.
    Clarence frowned in puzzlement.
    “We’ve got to get rid of her—er, find a home for her sooner or later,” I said.
    He nodded.
    “By the way, Jer, remember that conversation we had about Martha’s feather plucking? Loneliness, yes. They’re accustomed to living in flocks, you know. Well, I may have found a companion for her. Yes, another blue-and-yellow