Amos Wants a Murderer
By Delois McGrew
The parrot waited all night for someone to come.
When Ella Penny, the housekeeper, finally arrived, she greeted him with her usual, “Good morning, Amos.”
He didn’t give her the expected, “Good morning,” response. Instead, he craned his neck and
stared at her until she turned toward the kitchen to prepare Miss Laura Standley’s breakfast.
“What’s wrong with that bird this morning? And
why didn’t Miss Laura cover his cage last night? I swear, she’s getting so forgetful.”
Later, he watched as she carried the silver breakfast tray up the winding staircase.
The pale pink rose in the crystal vase bobbed its head with each careful step she took.
Moments later, she stumbled down the stairs to the telephone.
The parrot, his sleek body still as a sculpture, watched the procession of people.
First the doctor—a familiar figure—then the men in blue uniforms, followed soon by men in white coats who climbed the steps with an
empty gurney. Later, they came downstairs with it carrying a small white-sheeted figure.
When the men wheeled the gurney past Amos’s cage, he flapped his wings and squawked, then
reached out with his hooked beak to peck at the bars separating him from the outside world. Only
when the door closed behind the procession with its small burden did he quiet down. Ruffling his
gray feathers tinged in red, he cocked his head to one side and focused a bright yellow eye on the remaining occupants of the spacious foyer.
“That bird gives me the creeps,” said O’Neill, one of the uniforms standing guard.
“You’d swear he understands what’s going on. Look at him.
He acts like he’s listening.”
“He may be,” replied Curtis, his partner.
“He’s an African Gray. They can learn hundreds of words.
And they mimic the voice they hear. You’d swear it was that person talking.”
“There you go again, a walking encyclopedia. I
didn’t ask for a lesson in parrotology.” O’Neill reached over to cuff his shorter partner on the
shoulder. “Who ever heard of a bird saying anything besides, ‘Polly wants a cracker.’?
Are you serious?”
Curtis gave a good-natured grin. “Sure am.
Those birds talk and are very intelligent.”
“Then why isn’t this one talking? All I’ve
heard him do is squawk.”
“If you were a parrot and saw your owner carried past you in a body bag, you might squawk
too. According to the housekeeper, she owned that bird for forty years.”
“If she died of a heart attack like the coroner told Gordon, why are we here?”
O’Neill glanced at the headlines of the newspaper he’d found on a nearby antique table.
“Gordon thinks it’s strange she didn’t take the Nitro pills she carried with her.
There was no reason for her not to. Until we find out why she didn’t, he’ll keep us right
here for as long as it takes.”
O’Neill’s reply was cut off as the chief investigator, a scowl on his face, opened the
library door to usher out the weeping housekeeper. O’Neill slid the evening paper back onto the
table and both men straightened their shoulders.
“You can go for now, Miss Penny. If you think
of anything else, let me know.” Detective Gordon handed the elderly housekeeper his card.
“I will.” She paused to wipe her eyes with a
small white handkerchief trimmed in lace. “But I told you who did it.
Her nephew. Roger Standley has been waiting for the poor thing to die, so he can gamble
away her money on those horse races he’s addicted to.”
Gordon put his hand on her arm. “Do you have
any proof he was here last night?”
“No.” She sniffed and wiped at her reddened
nose. “But I know he did it.”
Gordon patted her back. “Just knowing isn’t
enough, I’m afraid. We need proof he was here and withheld her medication.”
Amos pecked at the cage and flapped his wings, then squawked for several seconds.
Detective Gordon turned toward him. “It would
be nice if you could tell us what happened here last night after Miss Penny brought the evening paper in at seven and left.”
The parrot squawked, then set to preening his feathers, but never taking his eyes off his
surroundings.
“I see we’ll get no help from you.” The
detective shook his head, then looked at the two patrolmen. “He seems almost human.
It’s easy to forget I’m talking to a parrot.”
O’Neill grinned. “Not just any parrot,
Detective. An African Gray. And, according to Curtis,
he’s smarter than some humans.”
“What do you mean?” The big detective’s
forehead creased in a frown.
“Curtis was telling me how these birds can repeat what humans say, and in their voice.”
He grinned. “Of course, all he’s done so far is squawk, so Curtis might be wrong.
For once.”
“If he can talk, I wish he’d start.” Gordon
shook his head. “This whole thing is a puzzle. Miss
Standley was physically and mentally alert. There’s no reason she shouldn’t have been able to take
her Nitro pill when she felt the attack coming on. The doctor said the angina wasn’t serious, as
long as she took her medication.”
Amos cocked his head to one side and glared at the front door with one yellow eye.
A few seconds later, it opened and Roger Standley stepped into the foyer, followed by a patrolman.
“Is it true? My dear aunt has passed on?”
He took a large white handkerchief from the baggy pocket of his worn jacket and wiped his eyes. Then he blew his nose before stuffing
the cloth back in the pocket alongside some envelopes and the folded sports page of a newspaper.
Amos squawked and flapped his wings violently, and all heads turned toward him.
When he kept it up, Gordon pointed toward the library.
“Let’s step in here. The parrot seems
disturbed.”
Roger Standley made a detour around Amos’s cage, then flinched as he squawked and beat his
beak against the bars. “He’s never taken to me.”
Detective Gordon let Standley enter the library before him.
Before he closed the door, he glanced over at Amos, glaring after them, then left it open.
The parrot slanted his head, laid it against the side of the cage, and watched the men, his pupils contracting and expanding as he listened.
The two patrolman relaxed, took up their previous positions, and O’Neill reached for the
newspaper again.
“Better not let him catch you reading on duty.”
Curtis nodded toward the library.
“Almost finished.
Not much in it anyway. Not even a sports section, so I can see how yesterday’s races came
out.”
The conversation from the library echoed into the foyer.
“My poor auntie,” said the nephew. “We all knew her heart was bad.
But I don’t understand why the police are here.”
“Merely routine. The doctor tells us Miss
Standley was capable of stopping the angina attacks with her medication, but she didn’t take it, even though it was within her reach.”
The detective held his pen poised over his notebook and waited.
“Maybe she was sleeping when it happened.”
“Perhaps, but the pain would have wakened her.”
“Maybe—”
“Why don’t you let us come up with the theories?”
Detective Gordon frowned. “What we’d like to know from you is when you last saw your aunt.”
“Yesterday morning, about ten. And she was her
usual feisty self.”
“The housekeeper said there was an argument between you and your aunt?”
“That old busybody.” Anger strangled his
voice. “It was nothing, a simple disagreement.”
Amos stuck his head through the bars and craned his neck to better see Gordon studying the
sweating man.
“Miss Penny overheard part of that argument.
Something about you needing money to pay a debt?”
“Yes, and Aunt Laura agreed to make me the loan.
In fact, I was to pick up a check today.” Standley swiped at his damp face with his
handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.
“Why didn’t she give you the check yesterday?”
“I had to bring proof of the debt with me today.”
With nervous fingers, he brought out the folded newspaper from his overstuffed pocket and tapped it against one hand.
“And do you have that with you?”
“Well, no. I wasn’t able to get it
yesterday, and when I heard about Aunt Laura this morning, I didn’t bother.”
“Didn’t bother because you stand to inherit your aunt’s fortune?
Or because your bookmaker wouldn’t give you an invoice?” Gordon’s lip curled in a
half-smile.
“I resent your implications.” Roger Standley
fanned himself with the folded newspaper.
When the nephew offered nothing further, Gordon flipped his notebook open and studied it.
“Did you see your aunt after yesterday morning?”
“No.”
“Where were you around eight last night?”
“Is that when she died?” Standley stopped
fanning himself and looked at the detective.
“According to the coroner, between eight and eight-thirty.”
Standley’s meaty lips curved in a smile. “I
was home, watching television.”
“And you didn’t see your aunt after yesterday morning?”
“I already told you, I didn’t.”
“And you haven’t been in this house since then?”
“Nowhere near it.”
“Rog-er, Rog-er.” Laura Standley’s voice came
from the foyer, and Roger Standley’s face lost all color.
Detective Gordon reached the doorway in a few quick strides, in time to see the African
Gray throw back his head, convulse his throat, and sing out again, “Rog-er, Rog-er.”
The two uniforms scrambled to attention, and O’Neill tossed the now well-read newspaper on
the table. Ella Penny came hurrying from the direction of the kitchen.
“Heavens,” she said. “I thought I heard Miss
Laura. It’s that Amos again, isn’t it?”
“Is it true then? That Amos repeats in the
same voice he hears?” asked Gordon.
“Oh, my, yes. He’s such a scamp.
Many’s the time he’s called me in Miss Laura’s voice and fooled me.”
Roger Standley appeared in the doorway. “If
we’re finished, I have to go.” He hurried through the foyer, his egg-shaped figure rolling rapidly
toward the front entrance.
When he passed the parrot, Amos’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, and he turned his attention
to the man. “Rog-er, Rog-er. Please give me my pills.”
The voice was piteous and so like Miss Laura Standley’s the housekeeper put one hand to her throat and gasped.
Amos, satisfied with the shocked reaction, sounded off again.
“No, you old fool. Go ahead and die.”
Undeniably Roger Standley’s voice.
The detective nodded at Curtis, who reached out and took Standley’s arm, preventing him
from leaving.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” he said. “You
can’t prove I was here. That bird isn’t proof. What judge in his right mind would let a parrot
testify in court?”
Enraged, Amos screamed and pecked at the cage.
“If this bird gets to you, you won’t have to face a judge.”
Detective Gordon tapped his notebook in his hand. “But, unfortunately, you’re right.”
Amos cocked his head, turned toward O’Neill, and gave a bone-chilling jungle scream. Then,
he hopped down and started tearing the newspaper that covered the cage bottom into bits and flinging them out through the cage bars.
He repeated the action, over and over—staring at O’Neill, screaming, then tearing and throwing the newspaper bits.
They all watched, mesmerized. After a few long
seconds, Roger Standley tried to stuff the folded sports section he held into his baggy jacket pocket.
All he managed to do was dislodge several crumpled envelopes, so elected to hold the paper behind him.
His face a study in amazement, O’Neill stared at Amos, then picked up the newspaper from
the table. He opened it to reveal a missing section where the sports page should have been.
“Is Mr. Standley’s sports page the one missing from Miss Laura Standley’s evening edition
of yesterday’s newspaper?” he asked. “And if it is, how did he get it if he wasn’t here last night
after it was delivered at seven?”
The only sound in the room was Amos, laughing in Laura Standley’s voice.
