Саманта Сильвер - Sleeping With The Fishes

“I know. Things, uh, didn’t go exactly according to plan in Sisters,” I said. “I wasn’t supposed to see Richard Steele at all; we were just supposed to see if he had any other exotic animals on the property, and then we were going to leave and figure out what to do from there.”

“And I assume that’s not exactly what happened.”

“Not exactly. But I got more information than I could have possibly hoped for. In fact, that was the reason I came to see you, I was wondering if you could help me with it.”

Chief Gary sighed. “I feel like you’re getting in too deep here. You could always call the right department and have them raid Steele’s home. They’d take any animals that are there and ship them back off to wherever they belong.”

“Yes, I know,” I said hurriedly. “But please, not yet. The amphibians will be fine, the cockatoos and the kea will be fine–although the latter is injured and currently in the vet clinic–but the giraffe is too young. I need to find out exactly where she was taken from to find her mother.”

“Wait, what’s a kea?” Chief Gary asked.

“An alpine parrot from New Zealand.”

“Wow, ok. Look, I’ll help you, but you have to promise you’re not going to go out to Sisters again.”

“I promise,” I said. “I’m finished there. If this new information I have pans out, the next time I see Richard Steele he’ll hopefully be in a jail cell.”

Chief Gary leaned back in his chair and nodded. “All right, what do you need to know?”

“I need to look up some people, but I’m not sure if you can do it. I only have first names, a vague description and a home state.”

“Well, I can access the national crime database,” Chief Gary said. “If there’s an active warrant out for them, or if they’ve been arrested for a crime in the past they’ll be on it. What do you know?”

“There are three of them, but I only have two first names. They all live in Nevada. The woman is between thirty and forty years old probably, and the first name I have is Kelsey. The man is likely fifty to sixty and named Tim. The third man, well, I only have an age and description for him.”

“Anything else? Identifying marks?”

“Oh, yeah, the woman has a tramp stamp of a heart with an arrow through it.”

Chief Gary typed away at his computer for a few minutes and I did my best not to fidget. After all, I really needed this information. Finally, he looked at me and shook his head. “Sorry, nothing. Let me try again, though.”

“Ok,” I replied, my heart racing in my chest. A minute later, a small smile crept up on his face. “Do you have a physical description of the woman?” he asked, and I thought back to what the cockatoos had told me.

“Um, yeah. Brunette, wavy hair, bored-looking eyes.”

Chief Gary’s smile grew as he turned the screen toward me. I was looking into the face of a woman who looked, well, surprisingly normal. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected an animal smuggler to look like, but her mug shot looked like any old passport photo. Hell, her haircut looked like it cost more than mine did.

“This is Kerry Palmer,” Chief Gary told me. “Luckily the national database allows us to search wildcards and identifying marks, so by searching for anyone with brown hair and a heart tattoo who lives in Nevada and has a first name starting with the letters ‘Ke’, I was able to find this one. Now, let me look at any known associates.”

Clacking away at the keyboard for a few more minutes, and with me giving him the physical description of the other two men, I was eventually able to put a face and an identity to the three people involved in the smuggling ring. Kerry Palmer was a thirty-four year old woman who had previously been convicted of check fraud and fraud over five thousand dollars. The older man, Thomas Schiff, had so many little misdemeanour charges against him that it would have taken at least two pages to print them all out. The younger man was Trevor Palmer, Kerry’s brother. He had a similar conviction record to her, and I nodded when I saw the photo and it matched the birds’ descriptions.

“Could you print out a picture of their faces for me please?” I asked Chief Gary. “I just want to be able to confirm that it’s them.”

“Sure,” Chief Gary nodded, tapping a button on his computer, and the printer behind his desk whirred to life. “However, I know they live in Nevada, but I do have to ask you not to leave the state, ok?” he told me. “After all, as much as I hate to admit it, you still are a suspect in Matt Smith’s murder since you have no alibi.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it,” I told him, and my heart sank at the realization that I couldn’t go and speak to the three smugglers myself, and also with the confirmation that I was definitely still a suspect. I mean, I knew that I was, but it was different to have Chief Gary actually tell me that I was a suspect.

Still, I had the names of the people who had smuggled Lucy and the other animals into the country. I was definitely getting somewhere!

Chapter 17

As soon as I got home I went out into the stable to check on the birds and to show them the photo. They were doing well; Charlotte had come by earlier that afternoon and let them out for a few hours. They’d flown around the area and marvelled at its beauty, and expressed surprise when I told them that their homeland was at the other end of the ocean which they’d flown over.

“My word, the climate here is so different!” Coolidge said.

“Yes, it’s the same ocean, but it’s the largest ocean in the world. It would take you weeks to fly back home from here; it’s thousands of miles away.”

“What is this ‘mile’ you speak of?” Cherie asked, tilting her head.

“Umm, one mile is one and a half kilometers, or so,” I replied, remembering that they use the metric system in Australia.

“Ah,” Coolidge said, nodding. “That certainly is quite the distance.”

“I’m glad you got to fly around though,” I told them, pulling the pictures Chief Gary had printed out for me from my pocket.

“Oh as are we,” Cherie said. “It was so empowering, to get to spread my wings once more.”

“I’m going to be calling the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife soon, and someone will come to take you back to Australia,” I told them. “You should be home in a few weeks. But first, I’m wondering, if I show you a picture of the smugglers, could you tell me for sure if it’s them?”

“Of course,” Coolidge replied. “We remember their faces.”

“It will be nice to get home,” Cherie said wistfully. “I don’t mean to insult your home, dear, but it is rather cold in this part of the world.”

“No offense taken,” I smiled. Despite Oregon having pretty mild winters compared to large parts of America, I could definitely understand how a bird from Australia would find it practically frigid.

“Yes, those are your smugglers,” Coolidge told me with confidence.

“I agree with Coolidge,” Cherie replied. “You must truly be intelligent to have surmised their identities based only on the little bit of information provided to you,” she told me, obviously impressed.

“Thanks, but with the technology we humans have today it wasn’t that hard,” I replied with a smile. “If it wasn’t for the two of you, I never would have managed to find them.”

I made my way back into the house, where Sophie was busy putting the toppings on a home-made vegetarian pizza. My mouth watered just looking at it, but I had some information to look up. Grabbing my iPad, I started searching different social media accounts for the three names I had. While Thomas Schiff didn’t seem to be the social media type, both Palmer siblings had accounts, and they used them frequently.