Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

by Blaize Clement

  On the other side of the bed, Guidry cleared his throat meaningfully, and I took my cue. “Phillip, Lieutenant Guidry wants to hear about the woman you saw leaving Marilee Doerring’s house. Just tell him about it in a few words, okay?”

  He opened his eyes and gave Guidry a somber look. In a husky whisper, pausing to take shallow breaths, he said, “Black Miata came…woman got in…drove off. Top was up…couldn’t see…driver.”

  Guidry said, “Was she carrying any luggage?”

  Phillip’s eyes widened. “No.”

  “You remember what she was wearing?”

  Keeping his eyes fixed on Guidry, Phillip said, “Pants…light color.”

  “High heels? Low heels?”

  “High…they…made a noise.”

  “What about her hair? Was it up or down?”

  “Down, I think.”

  “Black hair?”

  “Dark.”

  “You’re sure it was a Miata? Couldn’t have been an MGB or a Mercedes or a Toyota?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “When the car door opened, did a light come on inside?”

  Phillip’s eyes grew wide again, and it seemed to me there was a flicker of fear in them. “I guess.”

  “But you didn’t see the driver?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think you could identify the woman you saw? Would you know her if you saw her again?”

  “Didn’t see her…that well.”

  “Where were you when you saw her?”

  Phillip cut his eyes toward me and then swung back to meet Guidry’s penetrating gaze. “My window.”

  “By your window, outside your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the woman see you?”

  “I think so…she looked…over her shoulder…jerked…like she was…surprised.”

  Guidry’s questions had come in rapid-fire sequence. Now he stepped back from the bed.

  “Okay, Phillip, thanks. You’ve been a big help, and I won’t make you talk anymore, at least not today.”

  This time, I was positive I saw fear in Phillip’s eyes.

  I squeezed his hand. “You just concentrate on healing. By the time you leave for Juilliard, you’ll be fine.”

  He gave me a ghost of a smile, but the fear was still in his eyes.

  Guidry was quiet as we walked down the hall toward the elevator. I didn’t speak either. Something was bothering me about Phillip’s account of what he’d seen that morning. Eyewitnesses are usually uncertain about a lot of details. They change what they say from one time to another, adding some elements and altering others. Phillip hadn’t changed a thing. In fact, he had used almost the exact words that he’d used with me. That could either be because he had an unusually vivid recollection, or because he was repeating a rehearsed story.

  I said, “It’s probably a guy thing, but could you tell the difference between a Miata and some other sports car in the dark?”

  “Sure. Why? Do you think the kid’s lying?”

  “I just wondered about the car.”

  He didn’t answer me, and we got in an elevator full of people and went down without speaking again. In the lobby, he said, “Thanks, Dixie. It was easier for him with you there.”

  I gave him a half wave and went through the doors to the parking lot, half relieved and half annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned the accusations Carl Winnick was making about me. The fact that he hadn’t probably meant he hadn’t been influenced by them, which was good. But he could have spoken a word of support.

  Damn, now I was wanting Guidry to prop up my ego with nice words of encouragement.

  I wrenched open the Bronco, flung myself in the seat, gripped the steering wheel, and gave myself a good talking-to. Mostly, that consisted of telling myself that the last thing I needed was to start caring what some man thought about me, and to get my head out of my butt and go take care of the other cats on my schedule.

  It was 11:15 by the time I groomed the last cat, and I still hadn’t checked on Cora. I was starving, but I knew I couldn’t eat until I was sure she was okay. This time, the concierge at Bayfront Village recognized me and called Cora before I got to the desk. We both waited while the phone rang, the concierge counting the rings by little nods of her head while she smiled at me and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in a show of amused patience. When Cora answered, the concierge said, “You have a visitor down here. Shall I send her up?”

  She replaced the phone and said, “She’s waiting for you.”

  From the casual way she acted, I gathered that reporters covering Marilee’s murder hadn’t yet discovered that Cora was her grandmother. I took the elevator up and found Cora’s door open a crack.

  I knocked and pushed the door open. “Cora?”

  “I’m in here,” she called.

  I followed her voice, making a right turn into a short hall that led to a large sunny bedroom. Cora was sitting upright in a bed that looked big enough to play hockey in. She wore a white pleated nightgown with a high collar and long sleeves, and her wispy white hair stuck out in all directions, like a newly hatched chick’s.

  “I’m sorry, Dixie, I just don’t feel like getting up today.”

  “Well, of course you don’t, Cora. Have you had anything to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry, dear.”

  “I know, but you should eat anyway. I’ll make you some tea.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to argue, even though I remembered how she felt, throat closed tight with grief, stomach roiling in angry waves, lips compressed to keep from howling like an animal. I filled the teakettle, and while it came to a boil, I found bread and eggs in the refrigerator. I made buttered toast and a poached egg, poured a small glass of juice, and put together a breakfast tray that I carried into the bedroom.

  “Oh, Dixie, honey, you didn’t need to do that. And anyway, I don’t want anything to eat.”

  I poured a cup of tea and paraphrased what Judy had said to me. “Cora, if you let the slimeball who killed Marilee make you stop living, then he’s killed you, too. You need all your strength now to help put him behind bars, so eat the damned breakfast.”

  Her head jerked up at me, eyes blazing, and then she suddenly laughed. “You know, you’re a lot like Marilee. She’s bossy, too. Was.”

  She only picked at the egg, but she ate all the toast and drank the juice. When she was finished, I left the tea things on the tray and washed the dirty plate and glass in the kitchen.

  Cora was out of bed when I went back into the bedroom, her bare toes peeking from under her nightie.

  “Here,” she said, “you can have these. I was saving them to leave to Marilee, but now that she’s gone…”

  She held out a pair of red glass earrings, the kind you see in a jumble of junk jewelry at a garage sale. My eyes misted as I took them. I wouldn’t have worn them to a ratturd exhibit, but I knew they held memories that made them beautiful to her.

  “Thank you, Cora. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

  “No, dear, I’m fine. I’ll just rest for a couple of days and then I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.”

  “I’ll drop by tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  “That’s fine, Dixie. You’re a sweet girl.”

  I didn’t feel so sweet when I drove away. I felt pretty sour, as a matter of fact. Both Phillip and Cora, two people I had come to care about, were going to have to face harsh realities in the coming days and weeks, and it wasn’t fair.

  It was noon, and I was starving. I don’t do too well without food administered prior to 10:00 A.M., preferably with lots of black coffee. I took Tamiami Trail, passing slumbering boats in the marina and following the curve of the waterfront, where large sculptures were lined up like unexpected rib ticklers. I turned right on Osprey and took the north bridge to the key, going straight to Anna’s Deli on Ocean Drive, where you can get the best sandwiches in the world.

  Halfway to the take-out counter, I realized the co
uple ahead of me were Dr. Coffey and a young woman with frizzy blond hair hanging halfway to her butt. Her hand was raised to fiddle with a piece of hair at the back of her head, and a diamond the size of a doggy liver treat caught the light—a reminder to the rest of us that being a rich man’s bimbo might not get much respect, but it paid well. I turned aside and pretended to study the menu on the blackboard on the side wall while Coffey paid for their sandwiches.

  As they walked out, I looked over my shoulder at the woman. She turned full face toward me, and I could see what Judy had meant about her probably being a doper. Glazed eyes with pupils expanded so wide they looked like black holes you could get sucked into, skin slightly sallow under her salon tan, a general look of being lost in some private space. Coffey didn’t see me, and he put a proprietary hand on the small of her back to propel her forward.

  I went to the counter and ordered baked turkey with tarragon mayonnaise on a pumpernickel roll. “And a big dill pickle and two bags of chips,” I said.

  The woman at the counter laughed, showing a row of glistening white teeth that went well with her ginger skin and hazel eyes. “You sound like you’re hungry.”

  “I went past hunger a long time ago. Give me a brownie, too. A big one.”

  “Coffee or tea?”

  “Coffee. A triple, black.”

  She walked to a butcher-block counter in the back and turned in the order to a person of indeterminate sex who had dreadlocks and wore an oversized white shirt. She came back and rang up the sale while I watched the sandwich person slather tarragon mayonnaise on two thick pumpernickel halves.

  Keeping my mouth firmly under control to keep from drooling, I handed over some bills and said, “You know that couple that just left?”

  “Dr. Coffey? Yeah, he comes in here every week on his day off. Always gets the same thing, ham and Swiss on rye. I don’t know how people eat the same thing all the time like that. I like a little variety in my life.”

  “You know her too?”

  She made a mouth and counted out my change. “Not really. Don’t want to, neither. Frankly, I don’t know what he sees in her.”

  She leaned over and put her elbows on the counter, ready to get down to the nitty-gritty. “If you ask me, she’s bad news for him. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but who wants to have a man cut open your chest and mess with your heart when he’s dumb enough to hang out with a junkie like her?”

  Personally, I didn’t want anybody cutting open my chest and messing with my heart, no matter who they hung out with, but I could see her point.

  I said, “That’s funny, I’ve only heard about her two times, and both times people mentioned that she was a junkie.”

  “Well, you can tell just by looking at her, can’t you?”

  “You don’t think he uses, too?”

  “He don’t seem the type, you know? That’s why it’s so weird that he’s with her. You’d think he’d have better taste. I mean, that woman is pure trash.”

  The food-prep person had my sandwich assembled and was slicing it in half. He or she then wrapped it in that gray kind of waxed paper that you never see anyplace except in a deli, giving it a neat fold to keep all the goodies inside. The sandwich went in the bottom of a paper bag, with a dill pickle the size of a man’s dick wrapped and placed on top of it. Two bags of chips went in last. I was ready to leap over the counter and snatch it up, but the counter woman must have had eyes in the back of her head, because the second a stack of napkins was thrown in and the bag was neatly folded down, she went and got it.

  “Enjoy,” she said.

  I grabbed the giant-size coffee on the counter and headed for the door. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “See you.”

  That’s the nice thing about living on the key. It’s small enough that when we say “See you,” we really mean it.

  Twenty-Five

  I drove half a block to the Crescent Beach parking lot, parked under some live oak trees, and jogged to the steps leading to the main pavilion. Ask anybody who lives on Siesta Key and we’ll proudly tell you that Crescent Beach was entered in the World Sand Challenge in 1987 and named the finest and whitest sand in the world. Heck, we’ll tell you even if you don’t ask. We’ll also tell you the sand is made of ancient quartz crystal, and that even when the temperature is hot enough to make your brain boil, the sand on Crescent Beach is still cool to your feet. Some people claim the beach has healing properties, and that Siesta Key is one of the energy centers of the planet. I don’t know if that’s true, but if you live on the key, even if you have surf at your front door like I do, you get a compulsion every now and then to go to Crescent Beach and scuff your bare feet in the sand.

  I climbed the steps with my precious deli sack in one hand and coffee in the other, bypassing the vending machines and snack bar and going to a picnic table under the shade of a soaring roof. I put my coffee and deli bag on the table, swung my legs over the bench, and took a seat facing the ocean. Down on the white sand, broiling tourists were laid out like meat on a grill. A few children were splashing around in the waves while their parents sat under umbrellas and watched them.

  Except for a young man at a table about ten feet from me, I had the area to myself. He was swarthy and bearded, in dirty cutoffs and a floppy dress shirt with the cuffs suspiciously buttoned. With a faded bandanna tied over a mop of black curls and his eyes hidden behind dark reflective shades, he looked like a wanted poster for a Middle Eastern terrorist. He was staring out at the water and muttering to himself in the way of people who’ve stopping taking their medication, but he wasn’t speaking English, and I couldn’t tell if his foreign tongue was an actual language or one he’d invented for his personal world. A canvas bag sat on the pavement at his feet, most likely holding books or food or all his worldly possessions. Or a bomb.

  I laid out my lunch like a priest preparing Communion. I unwrapped my sandwich and pickle and opened the chips, placing them at exactly the right spots. Placement of food is important. You don’t want the important stuff to be over on the side. The main stuff should be in the upper middle, with accompaniments to the side or slightly below. I’ve been known to rearrange a plate several times before I get the order just right. Eating in the right order is important, too. First a bite of the main stuff, then one of each of the side things in turn. If you take two bites of something in a row, you’ll screw up the whole rhythm. Not that I’m a control freak or anything.

  I took a bite of sandwich and closed my eyes, making an mmmmmmm sound, like a baby nursing. There is nothing in the world as good as one of Anna’s turkey and pumpernickel sandwiches with tarragon mayonnaise. If there were a sandwich hall of fame, it would be in it.

  A faint breeze moved the shadowed air, and a couple of black gulls sailed in and landed a few feet away to look hopefully at me. Not to be selfish, I left two little corners of bread for the gulls, tossing it as far away from me as I could so they would move away. They went for it with a loud flutter of wings, and didn’t even notice that I also had a brownie. The young man took no notice of me or of the gulls, but continued to look fixedly at the ocean. I was glad he was ignoring me. I much prefer being ignored.

  Just as I took the last bite of brownie and was ready to take the last sip of coffee—I plan these things so they work out like that—there was a commotion over in the snack bar area. A security guard trotted past my table to see what was happening, and the young man at the adjoining table got up to walk a few steps away from his table and stare. I half-turned on the bench to look, too, and met the gaze of the bald-headed man who had tried to attack me in the Crab House parking lot. A crowd of people pushed between us, but I was positive it was the same man.

  A woman separated herself from a group of passing tourists and walked briskly to the young man’s table, where she swooped down and grabbed his canvas bag and walked away with it. The young man kept staring toward the dustup at the snack bar.

  I jumped to my feet and yelled, “Hey!”

  The woman b
roke into a run and disappeared down the steps to the parking lot. The security guard had been swallowed up by the crowd in the snack bar, so I stepped over the bench, ready to chase after the woman.

  Without looking toward me, the young man stretched his arm out at shoulder level. His hand was clenched in a fist, with the first two fingers stabbing a stern V. Then he turned and walked rapidly away, going toward the beach.

  I stopped and turned my gaze back to my own table. Trying to act as if nothing had happened, I gathered up my lunch refuse and carried it to a trash bin. The young man who seemed out of touch with reality was Paco, and he was telling me to butt the hell out. He had just made a drop in a drug sting, and I had almost ruined it.

  Whatever had happened over in the snack bar area had apparently been resolved, and the crowd there began to drift away. The bald-headed man had disappeared, and I was left wondering if I had imagined him. Maybe the stress of everything that had happened was making me see danger where there wasn’t any. Paco was moving along the edge of the shore, most likely headed toward one of the beach accesses where his Harley would be parked.

  I walked to the steps leading to the parking lot and started down, my thoughts swirling with visions of Phillip’s beaten face, the bald-headed thug, and the drug sting I’d just witnessed. I was tired. I wanted to go home and take a shower and crawl in bed and let this excess of reality recede a little bit.

  On the way home, I swung onto Marilee’s street. Jake Anderson, the trauma-scene cleanup guy I had called, was in the driveway next to his big white van with a bio-hazard icon on its side. He and a couple of other men in blue haz-mat suits were just loading their equipment into the truck. They had taken off their headgear but still wore vinyl gloves to their elbows.

  I pulled up behind them and stuck my head out the window. Jake grinned and pulled his gloves off and tossed them into the back of the truck.

  “All done, Dixie. It’ll smell like cherry syrup for a while, but you can go in.”

  “Okay to take a cat in?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, Jake.”