Canary (5 page)

“Because I hired you to work double shift when it's necessary.”

“Why are you so mean to me this morning?” she demanded.

Valentine rapped the knuckles of one hand against his baseball cap, knocking it slightly back on his head. “Pregame jitters, I guess. Sorry.” He was wearing his Slate baseball uniform—pin-striped, turn-of-the-century style, with knickers and gray hose. His pitcher's glove rested on the table next to the coffee maker.

Clarisse stared blankly out the window at the derelict brick playhouse in the playground. When she finished her Danish, she turned to Valentine.

“It's killing me that I can't go to the game today,” she said. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Val, why couldn't I open the bar a little later? Just today. It wouldn't make that much difference, and I'd cheer myself hoarse for you at the game.”

“Can't do that,” Valentine said. “Think of yourself as a sports widow and you'll feel better.”

Clarisse made no reply, but cocked her head toward the main apartment door between the kitchen and the living room. “Someone's coming up.” Valentine made a move to rise but didn't even make it out of his chair before the apartment door was flung wide.

Niobe Feng, wearing a crimson outfit with crimson patent-leather shoes with gray laces, made a bounding leap into the kitchen. She wildly shook two enormous red-and-gray pom-poms above her head, which was adorned with crimson bows. With savage gusto she chanted:

RAH! RAH! SIS BOOM BAH!

KICK 'EM IN THEIR NUTS!

PUNCH 'EM IN THEIR GUTS!

SLICE 'EM, DICE 'EM,

FILLET 'EM AND PUREE 'EM!

GO-OOOOO, TEAM! GO-OOOOO, TEAM!

“Well, what do you think?” she demanded, beaming a smile at Valentine and Clarisse. She shook out her pom-poms, and a few stray strips of colored paper drifted down onto the remaining Danish. “That's the new Slate softball-team cheer,” she explained. She draped the pom-poms over the back of one chair and pulled up another to the table.

“It certainly gets the message across,” Valentine ventured after a moment.

Instead of sitting down, Niobe rushed back to the open door. Stepping onto the outer landing for a moment, she returned carrying a folded tabloid-sized newspaper and a small wooden box. The box was gray and red with a brass handle screwed into the top. “Newt and I worked out that cheer last night. We practiced it all night long.” She closed the door and crossed to the table, placing the paper and box down before she sat.

“Your neighbors must have been delighted,” Clarisse remarked.

“They're afraid of me,” Niobe returned, shrugging. She leaned across the table and peered closely at Clarisse. “You look just terrible.”

As if taking that as a cue, Valentine got up quickly and busied himself with getting coffee and a plate for Niobe.

“I worked a double again yesterday so that this one”—she cocked a thumb in Valentine's direction—“could go out on a hot date.”

“Was it busy last night?” Niobe asked sympathetically.

“It was a nightmare,” Clarisse said huskily. “I jammed the tape machine and ruined Sean's new tape. Seven cases of empty beer bottles fell on top of me. A pair of lovers barricaded themselves in the ladies' room and had a violent breakup— for an hour and a half—at the top of their lungs, until Sean finally got the door off the hinges and threw them out. At a quarter to two, when I was dragging the trash out to the side of the building, a bum in the playground spilled Sterno all over himself and caught on fire. He was wearing sixteen layers of clothing, so the fire department got there before the fire got down to his skin. Sean, of course, invited the firemen inside for coffee, which I ended up making, because Sean was too busy trying to pick up one of the firemen who was going off duty. He succeeded, so I had to clean up all by myself. I didn't get to bed till after four o'clock.”

“Little annoyances come with the territory,” Valentine said loftily.

Niobe delicately wiped away crumbs from her mouth. “Wait'll you work a full moon,” she said.

Clarisse made a little hissing noise. “I should know better than to expect sympathy from either of you.”

“How do you like my outfit?” Niobe broke in. “Newt designed it, and I sewed what I couldn't buy.”

“It's very…eye-catching,” Clarisse said diplomatically.

Niobe narrowed her slanted eyes. “You hate it! I can tell by your tone!”

“I don't hate it, Niobe. It's…well—”

“What? What?”

“Snug,” Clarisse finished. “I mean, with all the jumping up and down you'll be doing, it doesn't look as if it's going to be comfortable.”

“I like my clothes to fit,” said Niobe defensively. “The worst feeling in the world is having material slipping and sliding all over my body. Gives me the willies. I like to know that something's not going to fall off while I'm walking down the street.”

During this, Valentine sat down again and peered speculatively at the gray-and-red box Niobe had brought in with her. It was the size of a small shoe box, with ornate brass wirework covering three inch-square openings on either side. A miniature brass padlock dangled from an ornate latch. “This is a very peculiar purse, Niobe.”

“It's not a purse,” Niobe said. “It's a mascot.”

Wiping the crumbs from her hands, Niobe smartly slapped the top of the box. From inside erupted a shrieking blast of angry chirps, accompanied by a furious scratching against the wire. Two sharp yellow claws and a bit of puffy yellow feather shot out through one of the wire grates. The whole box rocked on the tabletop. “It's a canary,” she told them.

Valentine and Clarisse glanced at one another. Valentine leaned down cautiously to peer inside.

Without asking permission, Niobe got up and opened the refrigerator. She looked about inside and took out a small plastic container of leftover meat loaf and returned to the table.

“Valentine!” she yelled, yanking the cage over to her place. “Stop making faces at him! You'll make him sick!”

“Did you give it a name yet?” Valentine asked.

“Rodan.”

“As in Japanese monster movies?” Clarisse asked.

Niobe took a bit of the cold meat loaf with her fingers and pushed it through the grating. “Here's breakfast, baby,” she cooed.

“It's carnivorous?” Valentine asked incredulously. “It's a carnivorous canary?”

Niobe nodded and pushed more meat inside the cage. “The man at the pet shop told me it goes wild over fresh kielbasa, but I think that's too greasy, don't you?”

The cheerleader then sat up and looked at both their empty plates. “You two done eating?” Without waiting for a reply, she flipped open the
Herald
she'd brought with her.

Niobe folded the paper carefully into quarters and then held it up for them to see. “Do you recognize this person?” she asked, waving the paper first toward Valentine and then toward Clarisse. She held up a photograph of a clean-shaven young man in a business suit. The caption was concealed by her hand.

“Are we supposed to know him?” Valentine inquired.

“Wait, wait.” Niobe turned the paper away from them. “Do you have a pen?”

Valentine leaned back and retrieved a felt-tip pen from a counter drawer. With it Niobe made rapid short strokes on the photograph. When she clicked the pen shut, she flipped the paper back around again. “Now do you recognize him?” she demanded.

Niobe had added a thin mustache and a large hat.

“That shrimp in the cowboy hat!” Clarisse exclaimed without hesitation. “The one who gave me such a hard time last Thursday night.”

“Valentine?” Niobe said.

“His name's Mike,” said Valentine, troubled. “Why is his picture in the paper?”

Niobe lifted two fingers, and the bottom of the page dropped down into view. Clarisse's expression darkened. “Oh, no,” she said.

Beneath the photograph the headline read: “Police Link Fourth Gay Killing to Necktie Murderer.”

Niobe relinquished the paper to Clarisse. She crumbled more meat loaf through the wire mesh of Rodan's cage as Clarisse read the article aloud. Valentine's mouth creased into a tight frown as he listened. He'd put on his baseball glove and was prodding the supple leather with his closed fingertips.

“Almost exactly like the last murder,” Clarisse said when she finished. “Bound with his own neckties. No sign of robbery. No indication of sexual activity. Dead at least twenty-four hours and discovered by a friend.”

Valentine slammed his glove angrily onto the table. Rodan squawked in protest. “At least twenty-four hours,” he repeated bitterly. “Do you know what that means?”

Niobe looked up. “That in this weather he was a pretty ripe corpse?”

Valentine shook his head. “Body found late Saturday morning, dead twenty-four hours. Since Friday morning, which probably means he got killed by whoever took him home on Thursday night. And where did Clarisse say he was on Thursday night? At Slate.”

“I can't believe this is happening,” Clarisse said, peering at the photograph. “I served him drinks. I listened to his trials and tribulations. And now he's dead?”

Niobe grimaced. “If you two are going to break out the black crepe over that dwarf, I'm getting out of here.”

“You knew him, too?” Valentine asked her.

“I bounced his little buns out of the bar one afternoon a couple of months ago.”

“Why?” asked Clarisse.

“He was giving me a hard time,” said Niobe simply.

“Whoever is killing all these people is as good as invisible,” Valentine said.

“I'll bet the killer is clean shaven,” Niobe speculated. “Nice looking, average.” She screwed her face into a sour expression. “Who's going to remember a man like that? People remember beards and mustaches. I'll bet he's well built too, because he subdues his victims.”

“Niobe,” Clarisse said, “the shrimp couldn't have been more than four foot two, and he was thin. He couldn't have fought his way out of a Roach Motel.”

“Oh, yeah,” Niobe conceded, then after a moment of thought, said, “but All-American Boy wasn't. He lifted weights and belonged to the gym, but he ended up tied to his bed.”

Clarisse looked at Valentine. “You were on the door Thursday night. Did you see him leave with anybody?”

Valentine thought for a moment. “No. For a while he was talking to those two leatherettes who were with that peculiar woman, but nothing came of it. He left by himself, so far as I can remember. About one-thirty.”

“This is depressing,” Clarisse said. “I don't need this with the way I feel already today.”

“I know just what you mean,” Niobe said with no emotional backup in her tone. “I'm all broken up inside.” She glanced at the clock. “Daniel, we have to get a move on. Warm-up is eleven sharp.”

Clarisse pushed her chair back from the table. “I think I'll go for a walk. It'll make me feel better. Mind if I tag along with you two as far as Copley Square?”

“I know what that means,” Valentine said, standing. “You're going to make a beeline to Copley Place. Whenever you get depressed, you go shopping.”

“Through some major clerical error,” said Clarisse, “Neiman-Marcus sent me a charge card. I intend to run it up to my limit before they check my credit rating and realize what a mistake they've made.”

Niobe snatched up the bird cage and held it to her face. “We're gonna lead our boys to victory with cheers and chirps, aren't we, Rodan?” She shook the bird cage and was satisfied only when the bird squawked and fluttered madly against the walls of its cage.

V
ALENTINE WIPED THE BACK
of his left hand across his forehead, erasing an irritating trickle of sweat. He looked up through squinted eyes. The early-afternoon sky was darkened by thick charcoal-gray clouds, and the scent of impending rain was strong in the humid air. The storm had been predicted for the night before, but Boston weathermen were famed for their habitual inaccuracy. Valentine firmly wrapped his palms around the bat he'd been weighing in his right hand. He turned his attention to the pitcher's mound and prodded the earth with one cleated foot before taking his position and raising the bat to his shoulder.

He was standing at home plate on the municipal diamond on the Charles Street side of the Boston Common. From where he stood, Valentine had a clear view of the lush Public Garden across the street and the traffic streaming toward Beacon Hill.

The game was going into the sixth inning. Slate was pitted against the team from the Eagle this Memorial Day weekend, and the Eagle had been winning until Sean Alexander slammed a home run on a two-ball, no-strike pitch to even the score. Valentine hoped to break that tie and keep Slate ahead until the game was over. He glanced to his left. The tiny crowd in the bleachers—not to mention his own team—evidently found his turn at bat to be of less interest than the heated argument being pursued by Newt and Niobe, at the top of their voices. Niobe was swinging Rodan's tiny cage back and forth with more than a vague sense of threat. Tiny tufts of yellow feather spat out of the cage's air vents.