Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

by Blaize Clement

  “Was he bald?”

  “Bald? I don’t think so. I didn’t notice him bald.”

  “His car, was it a black Miata?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know cars. It was black, one of them little low cars.”

  “When did that happen, Tanisha?”

  She frowned. “Thursday night. Why’re you so excited about it?”

  “Because whoever killed the man in Marilee Doerring’s house cracked his head with a blunt instrument. Like a piece of brass pipe. Somebody saw a black Miata around there that night, and later there was a bald-headed man acting suspicious.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “You think that little pig that hollered at me killed that man?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “Oh yeah, I won’t never forget him.”

  We gave each other solemn stares just thinking of all the implications, then she moved on and let the door swing shut behind her enormous backside. After a few moments while I let it sink in, I followed her. Hot damn, maybe Tanisha and I had solved the murders.

  Twenty-Three

  As I went around the end of the diner’s counter, I glanced toward the empty stool where Dr. Coffey had been sitting when I talked to him. Suddenly, a piece of our conversation fell into my brain as if it had been poised above my head, just waiting for me to return to the scene. I had said, “My client left town and didn’t leave a number where she could be reached.” I had said, “I was thinking you might have some idea where she might have gone. Like where her business takes her, or where her family lives.”

  When he jumped up and threatened to have me arrested, I had assumed he was jumpy about the possibility of getting involved in a murder investigation. But I hadn’t mentioned a murder, and I had never used Marilee’s name. All I’d said was that I was a pet-sitter. Surely Marilee Doerring wasn’t the only woman he knew who owned a pet. I wasn’t even sure the news of the murder had been on the news yet, and even if it had been, how could he have been so sure that’s what I was talking about?

  My hand was reaching for my cell to call Guidry and tell him all my brilliant deductions, when I caught sight of the wall clock behind the counter and changed my mind. I was over an hour late with my pet visits, and if I didn’t get my mind back on my own business, I could lose it.

  Like a robot on bunny batteries, I got in the Bronco and started my afternoon rounds, apologizing to each cat for being late and promising to make it up to them later. I left Billy Elliot’s run for last, rapping on Tom’s door to alert him that I was there and then using my key. Just as I stepped inside, a loud TV voice said my name. Tom and Billy Elliot were parked in front of the TV, and Carl Winnick’s infuriated face filled the screen.

  “The woman has a key to the house where at least one of these murders took place, and possibly both of them. She has a history of emotional instability that caused the Sheriff’s Department to dismiss her, and is clearly the most obvious suspect. Yet the Sheriff’s Department has not arrested her, and I want to know why.”

  Both Tom and Billy Elliot felt me behind them at the same moment and swung their heads. Tom grabbed his remote and clicked off the TV.

  “Shit, Dixie, I didn’t know you were here. I’m sorry you heard that.”

  I wasn’t sure my voice would work, but it did, even though it came out a rusty croak. “Tom, do you believe what he said?”

  “Good God, Dixie, of course I don’t. Carl Winnick is an officious, self-righteous idiot.”

  “Then why were you watching his show?”

  “That wasn’t his show. That was the evening news with a clip of what Winnick is saying on his show.”

  My knees bent like Silly Putty. I sank onto a chair and stared at Tom. “So it’s not just Dr. Win’s usual fans who got that?”

  “Don’t let it get to you, Dixie.”

  I stared at him. Why did everybody keep telling me not to let it get to me? How could I not let it get to me that a talk-show celebrity was getting airtime to accuse me of murder?

  He said, “Have the reporters found you yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Would you like to hide out here until this blows over? Billy Elliot and I would be proud to have you as our guest.”

  I took a tremulous breath and stood up. “Thanks, Tom. I appreciate the offer and the vote of confidence, but I’m not going to hide.”

  “Well, if you decide to just lay low for a while—”

  “Okay.”

  I got Billy Elliot’s leash and he and I went downstairs and ran as if it were a normal day. A casual observer wouldn’t have known that I was beginning to be mad as hell. If Dr. Win had been there, I would have told him to kiss my big fat white ass.

  It was a little after 8:30 when I got home. The sun had just set, dropping abruptly below the line of the sea as if it had been treading water and at the last minute had gone under. The sky was streaked with waving banners of cerise and turquoise and lavender, and a couple of brave stars were showing their faces. On the beach, the tide was spreading lacy ruffles on the sand like a lone flamenco dancer entertaining herself.

  Michael was on the cypress deck with the hood of the smoker open, scenting the sea air with the aroma of smoking meat. He waved a long fork at me and yelled, “You’re timing is perfect. Are you hungry?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m starving.”

  Gingerly, he transferred a slab of brisket from the grill to a big platter and closed the smoker. “I’ve got potato salad and beans inside,” he said.

  I happily trotted ahead of him to hold open the kitchen door, then got down plates while he slid the hot brisket onto the butcher block. I opened the lid of a pot simmering on the stove and moaned like a cat in heat. Michael’s pinto beans with hot peppers and garlic and tomato are good enough to make strong men weep with unabashed joy. I ladled some beans on each of our plates and added potato salad from a big bowl sitting on the counter. Michael’s knife made thin diagonal slices across the tender brisket and transferred them to our plates, where they oozed their succulent juices.

  I set our plates on the eating side of the counter and got silverware and napkins while Michael popped us both a beer. Then we both dug in, and for a while the only sound was my little whimpers of contentment.

  We didn’t talk until after we’d finished eating and got the leftovers put away. Then we took coffee out on the deck and sat in the redwood chairs our grandfather had built with his own hands—chairs so sturdy they’ll be here long after Michael and I are gone. We waited awhile, letting the sea’s breath cool our faces, before we talked.

  “Dixie, I have to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody was in the house today while I was gone. There were tire prints in the drive, and more prints of somebody walking across the sand to your place, then to the back door here. Whoever it was broke the lock and went inside, there were footprints all over the place. I didn’t find anything missing, but I guess something could be gone and I just don’t know what to look for. I went inside your place, and it’s the same. Nothing messed up, but sandy tracks on the floor.”

  I was sitting stiffly upright with the back of my neck tingling. Michael’s house was old and the back door didn’t fit well. My French doors would be child’s play to an intruder.

  “Did you call nine one one?”

  A mosquito buzzed around Michael’s head, and he waved at it in the reflexive way Floridians do, not really expecting to remove it but needing to show some resistance so the mosquito wouldn’t think it had clear title to a particular piece of flesh.

  “Yeah, they came out and dusted for prints, but I think they were just going through the motions to satisfy me.”

  “You think it could have been a reporter?”

  “No reporter would stoop that low. Well, they might, but I doubt it was a reporter.”

  We sat silently for a few minutes. A muscle in Michael’s jaw was working, and I knew he was forcing h
imself to stay calm for my sake.

  He said, “I had left the brisket cooking. At least the bastard didn’t take that.”

  I grinned at his forced joke. “What makes you think it was a man? It could have been a woman.”

  “Dixie, until they catch whoever killed those people, I want you to keep the hurricane shutters down when you’re home by yourself. There are too many crazies out there, and with that son of a bitch Win splashing your name all over the news, somebody’s liable to decide to come looking for you just for the hell of it.”

  I said, “Winnick hasn’t even tried to see Phillip, and neither has his wife. He’s afraid the media will find out what happened to him and hurt his reputation. His own son! Can you believe that?”

  “I can believe most anything, Dixie. But my main concern is you. I want you to stay out of all this. Don’t talk to anybody else. Don’t listen to anybody else’s sad story. Let the cops handle it by themselves.”

  “I haven’t talked to anybody. Not really. Well, a little bit.”

  “Just promise me you’ll back off, okay?”

  “Okay. Come upstairs with me while I look around?”

  He stood up and reached a hand to haul me to my feet, then put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me to his side. “It’ll be okay, Dixie. Just be careful.”

  Together, we went up the stairs to my apartment, but Michael had swept up all the sandy footprints, and nothing looked as if it had been disturbed. I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, thanked him for dinner, and promised again that I’d stay out of the investigation.

  When he left, I closed the hurricane shutters and hurried to the desk in my closet–office to see if the mail I’d taken from Marilee’s house was still in the manila folder in the top drawer. It was, and I felt a little chagrined that I’d thought somebody had been looking for it. Meaning I had a guilty conscience. Not so guilty a conscience that I was ready to tell anybody about the letters, but guilty enough to be jittery about having them.

  I put the folder back in the drawer and went in my bedroom and pulled my bed away from the wall. The bed is built on a wooden frame that has two storage drawers for linens on one side, but the side against the wall has another drawer that nobody knows about. It’s not exactly a secret, it’s just that nobody has ever asked and I’ve never mentioned it. When I pulled the drawer open, its contents were exactly as they had been when I put them there three years ago.

  When a deputy quits or retires from the Sheriff’s Department, she can either purchase her department-issued gun or let it go back to the department. Todd’s 9-mm Sig Sauer went back when he was killed, and mine was turned in when I went on indefinite leave of absence. But almost every deputy qualifies for two or three personal backup guns as well as a department-issue weapon. Todd’s primary personal was a Smith & Wesson .40, and mine was a.38. Both guns were fitted into a special case in the drawer on the dark side of my bed.

  During the six months I trained at the Police Academy, they kept score of who put the most bullets in the head or heart region of the cardboard targets. The rule was that out of forty-eight shots, a minimum of thirty-eight had to hit dead center. The person who most consistently hit on target got a plaque at the end of the six months. It surprised a lot of people that I got that plaque. I still have it. They called it a “marksmanship award,” but I was never able to forget that was a euphemism for “accurate killer.” Most people don’t know this, but it’s against the law for a law-enforcement officer to shoot to maim or disable. By law, an officer is obligated to shoot to “eliminate the threat”—which means to kill. People who can’t accept that shouldn’t go into law enforcement.

  It had been three years since I’d handled my .38, but it felt familiar and right in my hand. I sat at my kitchen bar and took my gun apart and cleaned and oiled it. When I was done, I popped a magazine in the butt and put two extra magazines in the pocket of the cargo shorts I would wear the next day. I laid the gun on the bathroom counter while I showered and brushed my teeth. When I went to bed, I put it on the bedside table where I could get it quickly.

  Somebody had already killed two people and had tried to kill a third. I didn’t intend to be next.

  I drifted to sleep and dreamed that Marilee was clutching a cat exactly like Ghost to her voluptuous bosom, but his name was Phillip. She was pleading with me to save him. “You have the key, Dixie. All you have to do is use it.”

  When the alarm sounded, it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. I went to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. Was it possible that my dream had actually been a message? If not from Marilee’s spirit, then from my own subconscious? Crazy as it seemed, I thought it was. Somehow, I had the key to solving the murders and to fingering the person who had attacked Phillip. I just didn’t know what it was.

  I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I pulled on a knit top and the cargo shorts I’d laid out the night before, and stepped into my Keds. Holding my.38 ready, I raised the storm shutters. The porch was empty, and I slid the gun into the right pocket of my shorts, where it made a satisfying pressure on my thigh. I had no idea what I was going to meet, or if, in fact, I needed to take a gun with me, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  By 4:15, I was halfway to my first stop, and the morning went smoothly. I didn’t find a single dead body, nobody got beat up, no reporter accosted me, and none of the cats on my schedule had done anything naughty that I had to clean up.

  While I fed cats and groomed cats and changed cats’ litter boxes, my mind was on the strange message I’d gotten in my dream. I take dreams seriously because they’re the only way our subconscious can communicate with us. I went over the dream again and again—Marilee holding Ghost, except it wasn’t Ghost, but a cat named Phillip. Was that because I saw Phillip as a pet? No, I really didn’t. Was it because Phillip was similar to Ghost in some way? Maybe, but how? Ghost knew who the murderer was because he had been in the house when both murders happened. Did Phillip know, too? Had he recognized the woman he’d seen that morning and wasn’t saying? What was the key that I was supposed to have to all this? A key is like a code breaker, something that unlocks secrets, but if I had such a key, I didn’t know what it was.

  At Kristin Lord’s house, she greeted me coolly and left me alone while I groomed Fred. She didn’t mention anything about Dr. Win’s allegations, but I wondered if she had been on the phone trying to find another cat groomer.

  Guidry called a little after nine o’clock, just as I was leaving Kristin Lord’s house. “Can you be at the hospital in fifteen minutes? I’d like to talk to Phillip Winnick now.”

  I thought about my promise to Michael to end my involvement in this case. I thought about the two cats still on my morning schedule. I thought about how Guidry seemed to think that I had nothing to do except jump when he called. For all those reasons, I knew I should say no.

  I said, “Okay.”

  Twenty-Four

  When I got to the hospital, I stashed the gun and the spare magazines in the glove box after I parked. I stopped in the gift shop to get some reading material for Phillip, then took the elevator up to his floor. In the ICU unit, Guidry was outside Phillip’s glassed cubicle, talking to a nurse. Beyond him, I could see Phillip. He no longer had the ventilator, but his swollen face was a mass of purple bruises.

  Guidry didn’t speak to me, just held his hand out and took my arm while he finished his conversation with the nurse.

  He said, “Is he medicated?”

  The nurse raised his eyebrows and gave Guidry a tight smile, the kind you’d give the village idiot. “Of course he’s medicated. He’s able to talk, but it will hurt. Try to keep it to a minimum.”

  The nurse followed my gaze toward Phillip and shook his head. “It’s hard to take in, isn’t it? You just never dream that somebody would deliberately do this much damage to a kid.”

  Guidry said, “Come on,” and gave my arm a firm tug.

  Phi
llip’s eyes were closed, and when he heard us enter, he opened them with a hopeful look that quickly changed to polite disappointment. I felt like apologizing for not being the person he hoped to see.

  I said, “Hey, Phil, good to see your eyes open. You look like hell. Blink twice if that’s how you feel.”

  He managed a weak smile, winced at the pain it caused, and slowly blinked two times.

  “I brought you some things to read,” I said. “But they didn’t have much of a selection. You have a choice of Reader’s Digest, House & Garden, or Sarasota Today. When you’ve enjoyed as much of those as you can stand, I also got you a Carl Hiaasen book.”

  I was prattling to cover my dismay at how devastated he looked. Even without the ventilator down his throat, he looked pathetically vulnerable and ravaged. He closed his eyes, either from exhaustion or the effects of his medication, and I shut up. I knew he would recover from his injuries, but the sight of his sweet face so swollen and bruised made me want to go find the person who had done this to him and hurt him really, really bad.

  I took one of his big hands and stroked it, wishing I could make all his pain go away just by rubbing him. The normal reaction to being beaten around the head and shoulders is to hold your hands over your head to protect your skull. I suddenly realized that Phillip must have tucked his hands under his armpits during his attack. Awed, I couldn’t even imagine the incredible willpower it had taken to protect his hands and leave his head exposed.

  I said, “Phillip, I know you didn’t see the person who attacked you, but was there anything at all about the person that seemed familiar? Footsteps, scent, sound of his breathing, anything?”

  His eyes opened, and for an instant the look he gave me seemed absurdly hostile, the way a drowning animal looks at its rescuers. He rolled his head side to side in slow denial, then closed his eyes again.