Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [73]
When I drove into San Juan Capistrano ten minutes later I was pleasantly surprised. It had been fifteen years since I’d last visited the mission town that had always reminded me of a sleepy Mexican village, but while it had grown, it also retained its old-fashioned flavor. There was a new restaurant at the train station and a lot more antique shops and other stores, but the mission looked as peaceful as ever. No wonder the swallows kept returning on schedule from their annual pilgrimage to Argentina.
I parked on what looked to be the main commercial street, went directly to a phone booth outside a small deli, and started to look up the address for the Swallow’s Nest. Then I noticed it was right next door. What had drawn my attention was the window full of silk birds that sat on perches or suspended from near-invisible threads as if in flight. Below them a two-foot-tall peacock preened its opalescent silken feathers.
How on earth, I wondered as I crossed the sidewalk, did such a specialty shop stay in business?
Inside were more fantastical birds, so beautifully fashioned that each seemed to possess its own individuality. A brilliant macaw winked slyly from one corner; a raven’s expression revealed a philosophical bent; a crow leered evilly; a cockateel looked too damn smug for its own good. I’d never been overly fond of birds—at one time, in fact, I was pathologically afraid of them—but now I found myself completely smitten with a crochety old parrot. If I had to buy something in order to strike up a rapport with Ann Navarro, that’s what it would be.
I went over to it and found a price tag pinned discreetly under one wing. “Ninety dollars!”
“But handcrafted by fine artists,” a husky voice behind me said.
I turned. The woman was tall and coppery-haired with large silver-framed glasses. Either this wasn’t Ann Navarro or Hy had never met Stan Brockowitz’s wife and had approached Ana Orozco because he expected Ann to look Hispanic.
“It is wonderful,” I said of the parrot.
“We have smaller ones that cost less.”
“No.” I shook my head regretfully. “It’s his personality that drew me.”
“Cranky, isn’t he? I call him W. C. Fields.”
“Where do you get your merchandise?”
“Mostly Mexico. There’s a firm that we order from that employs a stable of talented folk artists.” She hesitated, studying the parrot. “Look, I think we can make you a deal on W.C. He’s been on inventory for a while. What do you say to seventy-five dollars?”
I glanced at the bird. “I’m not sure. It’s still a lot of money. If you have a card, I’ll let you know.”
“Of course.” She went to the sales desk and produced a rectangle of brightly colored cardboard: “The Swallow’s Nest, Exotic Birds That Don’t Talk Back, Ann Navarro.”
“This is you?”
She shook her head. “Ann’s the owner.”
I frowned, staring at the card. “Ann Navarro. Is she married to a man named Stan Brockowitz?”
“Uh-huh. Do you know him?”
“Sure I do. This is quite a coincidence. I’m on my way to San Clemente to talk with him about … a book I’m writing on the backlash against the environmental movement.”
“Well,” the woman said stiffly, “you’ll be talking with the right person.” She moved away and straightened W.C., who slumped disconsolately on his perch.
I said, “I take it you don’t agree with Brockowitz’s stance.”
“Let’s just say that I work here because I like real birds, all of them. Stan has raised a lot of money to oppose legislation that would regulate the oil companies more stringently. If you’ve ever seen what an oil spill does to bird life …” She shrugged.
“I’m glad you told me that. You see, Brockowitz doesn’t know it, but the approach I plan to take in my book is critical of people like him. He may have sensed that, though, because he was very difficult to line up for the interview—wouldn’t let me come to his house, just said I’d have to catch him at the office during working