Free Fine-Feathered Death by Linda O. Johnston

his answer.
    “Being interrogated by the lead detective on the case, Candace Schwinglan, a pleasure I owe to her temporary volunteer assistant from a fellow Valley Bureau station, Ned Noralles.” His tone suggested he’d ingested something extremely distasteful—like crow. “He heard about my argument with Ezra—and he made it clear to Schwinglan that I’m number one on his suspect list.”

Chapter Seven
    OKAY, SO I’M a big softy. Or perhaps my sex drive was stuck in overdrive. Regardless of the rationale, Lexie and I spent the night at Jeff’s. And not in his guest room. His bed is much cozier. So are his arms. And the rest of his body? Well, he certainly knows how to use each and every erogenous part.
    And I tactfully kept to myself my interminable testiness about his ex-wife Amanda’s intrusions into his life.
    Not that Jeff and I indulged only in fun and games. The next morning, after our habitual hound walk with Lexie and Odin, we dissected all we knew about Ezra’s murder over our usual breakfast of eggs and toast.
    “I’ve already started my list of suspects,” I said as we sat at the round wooden table in his small, functional kitchen. Jeff knew my penchant for producing lists. I hand-wrote a copy for him, and he vowed to have his chief computer geek Althea check out each person in his P.I. firm’s boundless databases. I’d included Jonathon Jetts, the vocal people at the VORPO meeting the night Ezra was snuffed, and even Elaine Aames and Corrie Montez, who’d known him prior to working for Borden.
    “What about Borden himself?” Jeff asked. When Lexie and I showed up at his doorstep last night, he had looked as spent as he’d sounded, his blue eyes bleary, his six-foot-tall body bent a bit in dejection. This morning, though he’d not gotten a lot of sleep, he appeared more optimistic. Hopefully, I had something to do with that.
    “Include Borden if you want,” I said, “but we know a lot of what Althea’s likely to find on him anyway. He’s a prior partner at my old firm Marden, Sergement & Yurick. His supposed mental breakdown was manufactured by unforgiving former partners to explain his defection from what they considered the perfect law firm. But if she can find anything about prior connections between Borden and Ezra, she might as well try. Although Borden’s enough of a sweetie that I can’t imagine him offing Ezra. Especially when the guy was in some ways saving our overstaffed firm, or at least some of the staff”—mostly me—“by boosting the client base. There’s no guarantee the new clients will hang around now that Ezra’s gone.”
    “Any other ideas?” Jeff asked.
    “If I had any, they’d be on my list. But it’s absolutely expandable, and I intend to keep eyes and ears open.” And to ask lots of questions of anyone likely to have answers. And as a litigator, I was one hell of an interrogator.
    One thing I’d resolved not to reveal to Jeff was Darryl’s theory that the macaw might hold a clue to the murder. Although his suggestion might work well in fiction, it was implausible in real life. Of course, if Gigi happened to drop a clue, along with whatever else she dropped in her portable cage . . .
    I glanced at my watch. “Time for me to go.” I stood, and so did Lexie. “I have pet clients waiting.” Not to mention people clients who’d need my legal skills later at the law office.
    “Will you be back tonight?” Jeff asked. For a big, strong guy who was almost always supremely self-assured, he sounded a smidgen plaintive. Poor P.I. Being a murder suspect did awful things to the ego. As I well knew.
    “That depends,” I said, not committing to another delightful night despite my hormones hounding me to shout, “Hell, yes!”
    “On what?” he asked.
    “On Lexie.” I looked at the Cavalier in question. “Want to hang around to keep Odin company?” Her response was to wag her tail and wriggle in glee. Of course it was a loaded question. My