Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

by Blaize Clement

  “Somebody could have hired him.”

  “Yeah, but who?”

  “Shuga Reasnor said Gerald Coffey wouldn’t kill them himself, but that he might hire somebody.”

  “That’s just gossip, Dixie.”

  “Guidry, you didn’t just meet Paco for the first time today, did you?”

  “Who?”

  “Paco, the guy downstairs, the one who called your private line when he caught Bull Banks.”

  “Is that his name? Nobody introduced us.”

  The guileless look he gave me would have fooled the most confirmed cynic, but it didn’t fool me.

  “Dixie, before you arrived at Marilee Doerring’s house and found Harrison Frazier, where had you been?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Why are you asking me that? Do you believe that crap Winnick is saying?”

  “That’s irrelevant, Dixie. Where had you been?”

  “I told you that before. I walked the Graysons’ dog about four-thirty, and then Billy Elliot, the greyhound at the Sea Breeze. After that, I went to a house to take care of a cat. Marilee’s was my second cat of the morning.”

  My voice was tight and curt. I couldn’t believe Guidry was asking me for an alibi.

  He said, “Any humans see you? Anybody who can verify that you were where you say you were?”

  I could feel my jaws clenching and my hands making fists. If there’s anything I pride myself on, it’s honesty. Having my honesty questioned was like jabbing me with a sharp stick to see how much pain I could take.

  “That’s the whole point of my work, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t be going to those houses if people were home. Tom Hale was home, but he was still in bed.”

  “He lives where?”

  “At the Sea Breeze, with Billy Elliot.”

  “The greyhound.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Besides Tom Hale, nobody else saw you that morning?”

  “I don’t know, Guidry, I guess somebody could have seen me, but I don’t know who.”

  “Okay.”

  I stared at him a moment, feeling a confused mixture of anger that he’d asked me for an alibi, and a rational understanding that he was just doing his job.

  I said, “This has been really fun, Lieutenant, but I need to take a nap so I’ll be awake for my afternoon pet visits.”

  He stood and handed me his empty water bottle. “Thanks for the refreshments.”

  I watched him walk down my steps and then went inside and lowered the storm shutters against the glaring western sun. Amazingly, I was fairly calm. A year earlier, I might have curled up in a corner and sucked my thumb if in one ninety-six-hour period I’d found two murdered bodies, been accosted by a psycho in a parking lot, been vilified on radio by a radical hatemonger, stumbled on a kid I liked a lot who’d been badly beaten, and had a homicide detective question me as if I were a possible murder suspect. Now I was just pissed. A little jumpy, true, but mostly pissed.

  It was true that I needed a nap, but first I went in my closet–office and checked my messages. One was from somebody named Ethan Crane, who claimed to be Marilee’s lawyer but was probably a reporter trying to trick me.

  “I need to speak to you about Miss Doerring’s will,” he said. “Please call me as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. There was absolutely no reason why an attorney would need to talk to me about Marilee Doerring’s will, and reporters will stoop to anything to get an interview.

  I went in the bedroom, kicked off my Keds, and fell on the bed, lying with my toes pointed toward the ceiling like a body in rigor mortis. I wanted to be in the hammock on the porch, but now I didn’t feel safe to sleep out there. Some creep like Bull Banks could sneak up the stairs and stand looking down at me sprawled out with my mouth open and drool running down my chin. A reporter could tiptoe upstairs and take photographs of me and run it with the caption “Is she a murderess being coddled by the Sheriff’s Department?”

  I got up and looked up the name Ethan Crane in the phone book. There really was an attorney by that name. The phone number was the same, too, but that didn’t mean the call was legitimate.

  I padded barefoot to the French doors and looked through the square glass panes. The sky was a clear and innocent blue. A young snowy egret stood one-legged on the porch railing, his yellow beak pointing upward and his raised foot invisible in his underfeathers. A soft breeze gently ruffled his fine feathers, and he seemed to be smiling. Why not? He didn’t have to worry about reporters or public opinion or homicidal thugs.

  I went back to my office–closet and dialed Ethan Crane’s number. A receptionist answered in a nasal singsong: “Ethan Crane’s office.”

  I gave my name and said, “I’m returning Mr. Crane’s call.”

  She immediately put me through, which told me two things: She had been told to be on the lookout for my call and Ethan Crane wasn’t very busy.

  His voice was a smooth burr. “Ms. Hemingway, thanks for calling. I’m sure you’re aware that Marilee Doerring is dead. We need to meet and discuss her will.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what we need to discuss. I’d rather not get into it over the phone, but you are one of the principals named in the will.”

  I shook my head like a boxer taking one punch too many. “Mr. Crane, I hardly knew Marilee Doerring. I take care of her cat when she goes out of town, but that’s my only involvement with her.”

  “Can you come to my office?”

  Still dazed, I said, “When?”

  “How about right now?”

  I still felt like I was being set up for something, but I told him I’d be there in fifteen minutes. To make myself feel more like a grown-up, I put on a white linen skirt with a toast-colored cropped top. I put on high-heeled sandals, too. If you’re going to match wits with a lawyer, you need to stand tall and stick your tits out.

  Twenty-Seven

  Ethan Crane’s office was in a narrow building on a side street in the cluttered business section of the key. The building was old and crumbling, set so close to the sidewalk that dark fingerprints and smudges from palms and shoulders spotted it. Down at ground level, chunks of stucco had flaked off like scabs from an old sore. The doorway was recessed in an alcove lined with wooden benches like church pews, on which a vagrant and a couple of tourists too tired to go on sat mutely staring at one another.

  Old gilt paint on the glass door had faded so the words ETHAN CRANE ESQ., ATTORNEY AT LAW were barely discernable. Feeling like a character in a gothic novel, I pushed the door open and went up a flight of worn wooden steps rising from the linoleum-floored vestibule. Why in the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed world would a woman like Marilee Doerring choose an attorney in a dump like this?

  At the top of the stairs, a door stood open at the far end of a wide oaken landing, with two closed doors on either side. A man sat at a desk watching my approach. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a dark tie that had been loosened and thrown over one shoulder. He stood up, rearranging himself with amazing speed and grace, so that by the time he was fully erect, his tie was hanging true and knotted firmly under his collar, and his shirt cuffs were buttoned. He was fortyish, ruddy-complected, and extraordinarily good-looking. The reason for Marilee’s choice of attorneys might not be so mysterious after all, I realized.

  He said, “Ms. Hemingway?”

  I nodded and we shook hands. He had a nice handshake, not the sweaty clasp I’d have expected from somebody in such a sleazy office. He was also a lot younger than the aged sign on the door had led me to expect. He gestured to a leather chair with a seat hollowed and darkened by decades of rear ends. I sat down and crossed my legs, giving the room’s drab walls and musty bookshelves a quick once-over. I hadn’t spoken yet, and that seemed to amuse him.

  Before he sat down, he leaned forward to hand me a brown leather folder, and I caught a whiff of lime and musk and sweet cigar.

  He said, “I think this will clear up some of your que
stions.”

  He leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head and watched me. Like a blind woman expecting Braille, I ran my fingertips over the folder before I opened it. It had a grainy texture like painted-over grit. Slowly, I opened it and read the heading on the first page: “The Marilee Doerring Living Trust.”

  The first few pages were standard explanations for a revocable living trust, and I skimmed through them quickly. Florida probate laws are so complicated and expensive that most Floridians have revocable living trusts instead of wills. A revocable living trust holds whatever assets a person chooses to put in it until the person either dies or revokes the trust. If it hasn’t been revoked when the person dies, an assigned trustee carries out the wishes expressed in the trust without having to pay probate fees or being under the constraint of a court’s supervision.

  After the explanatory section, there was a quitclaim deed to Marilee’s house, and then four more pages of legal explanation. On page five, under a section headed “Trust Income and Principal Distribution,” were instructions for the trustee in the event of Marilee’s death. Mainly, the instructions specified that all listed assets were under the control of the trustee, to sell or maintain as the trustee saw fit, for the benefit of the named beneficiary. Listed assets were Marilee’s house, her car, and all personal possessions within the house.

  I was named trustee.

  The beneficiary was Ghost.

  At Ghost’s death, any remaining assets would go to me.

  I looked up at the attorney and caught his amused look.

  “This can’t be right,” I said. “What about Marilee’s grandmother?”

  “Ms. Doerring had a separate irrevocable trust set up for her grandmother,” he said, “fully funded with enough to take care of her for the rest of her life. The revocable trust for the cat will hold up, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried! I don’t want it. I don’t want Ghost, and I don’t want the responsibility of handling all that money.”

  He shrugged. “Sorry. You’ve got it anyway. The cat and the money.”

  “Can she just do that? Without asking me?”

  “Can and did,” he said.

  “Can I refuse it?”

  “Yes. If you refuse, everything in the trust reverts to the state.”

  “Including the cat?”

  “Including the cat.”

  I shuddered. That was pretty much the same thing as saying the cat would be euthanized.

  “When did you draw this up?”

  He pointed at the folder. “It’s dated there. I didn’t draw it up, my grandfather did. He passed away a few months ago, and I’ve taken over his practice. I never met Ms. Doerring.”

  I flipped some pages to find the date the trust had been signed. It had been a little over a year before, shortly after I’d begun taking care of Ghost when Marilee went out of town, when Ghost had been still a kitten.

  “You’re not Ethan Crane?”

  “I am, but not the same Ethan Crane who drew up that document.”

  He really was a handsome man, and it annoyed me that I was aware of that, especially when I was seeing my life pass before my eyes like somebody going down for the third time.

  He leaned across the desk and clasped his palms together. “Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds. There are no bank accounts involved, no stocks or bonds or cash other than what’s in the house. You’ve got complete power of attorney, so you can do whatever you want to with the house, the car, the jewelry, whatever her personal possessions were. If you want to, you can move into the house with the cat and use the car and everything else as if it’s your own. If you don’t want to do that, put the house on the market and let an estate-liquidation company sell the rest of it. So long as you see that the cat’s well cared for until it dies a natural death, you can do whatever you want to with the assets in the trust. It’s a pretty sweet deal.”

  I could feel my lower lip creeping out like a sulky four-year-old’s, and I felt like throwing myself on the floor and kicking and screaming. A healthy, happy, active cat can live twenty years or more, and Ghost was less than two. The last thing I wanted was to complicate my life for the next twenty years with a dependent. I didn’t want Ghost for my own. When Michael and I were growing up, we’d always had pets, but I didn’t want a pet now. Owning a pet requires a commitment. It forces you to have a close relationship with a living being with needs and feelings. I didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. I didn’t want a close relationship with anybody, no matter how many legs he had.

  I stood up. “What do I do now?”

  He rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Whatever you want to do. That’s the beauty of a living trust. You’re the trustee, and that’s that. Get a death certificate from the Sheriff’s Department, and then all you need is the power of attorney in that folder.”

  His hand felt so warm that I knew my own must be frigid. I tucked the folder under my arm and walked out of his office like a condemned woman on her way to the execution chamber. I could feel him watching me, and for a humiliating moment I hoped my butt looked good.

  In a bemused daze, I drove home. Michael’s car was still gone, but Paco’s Harley was under the carport. More than likely, he was in bed catching up on lost sleep from whatever job he’d been doing—a job that had involved a drug sting at Crescent Beach. I might never know what had been in the canvas bag I’d seen a woman pick up, because Paco’s life could depend on my not knowing. I accepted that the same way I had accepted department secrets that Todd hadn’t told me. It comes with having detectives and undercover cops in the family.

  What I didn’t accept was what I’d just learned from Ethan Crane.

  I kicked off the heels and changed clothes again, pulling on a clean pair of shorts and a sleeveless T. My brain was screaming for sleep, but I was too disturbed to lie down and shut my eyes. I stripped my bed and threw the sheets in the washer with some towels and dirty clothes. While the washer chugged away my body’s cells and scents, I attacked the bathroom like an avenging Fury until every square inch sparkled and smelled of bleach. I love the smell of chlorine bleach. Breathing it makes me feel I’m cleaning my brain of old gunk while I’m destroying germs and stains. By the time I put the last polishing rub on the sink’s water spigot, I felt cleaner inside, as if all the images of violence and ugliness of the last few days had been polished away.

  I padded barefoot to the office–closet and read the living trust again. It still said the same thing. I was now Ghost’s legal keeper, and I had complete control over Marilee’s house, her car, and everything in her house.

  Boy-howdy.

  Whoop-de-do.

  Shit.

  My office phone rang and I froze, waiting for the answering machine to click on. It was a man, and not a voice I recognized. This one was sure to be a reporter. He said, “I called before. I’d like to talk to you, Miss Hemingway.”

  I made a face at the phone and said, “I’ll just bet you would!”

  Then he said, “I got your name from Ray at the Crab House,” and I snagged the phone before he could hang up.

  “Hello, this is Dixie.”

  “I’m calling about Phil. Do you know how he is?”

  “He’s going to be all right, I think. He has some broken ribs and a broken nose, but he’s not terribly hurt.”

  “His hands?”

  “His hands weren’t hurt. I think he must have tucked them under his arms to protect them.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Yeah. His head was totally uncovered. But it could have been a lot worse. A dog started barking and the attacker ran away.”

  “I’ve called the hospital several times, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  I said, “Did you drive Phil home yesterday morning?”

  I could hear a quick intake of air, and for a moment I was afraid he wasn’t going to answer.

  He said, “Phil told me about you. He likes you. He said you weren’t going t
o out him to his folks.”

  “I wouldn’t have either.”

  “Do they know yet?”

  “I really don’t know what they know. Look, could we meet and talk someplace?”

  There was another long pause and then he sighed. “Do you think it would help Phil?”

  “I don’t know. It might, and it certainly won’t hurt him.”

  “Where would you like to meet?”

  “How about Bayfront Park in twenty minutes?”

  “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll be the blonde sitting on a bench facing the waterfront. You can’t miss me.”

  “Okay.”

  Almost exactly twenty minutes later, I drove under the arched entrance to Bayfront Park, a hiccup of land jutting into Sarasota Bay. I parked in a space facing the bay and followed the sidewalk that curves around the park. Bayfront Park had been Christy’s favorite place in the whole world. She and I had spent a lot of time at the Steigerwaldt–Jockey Children’s Fountain, her favorite, and we’d both loved the wonderful flying dolphins on the Dolphin Fountain.

  Benches line the walkway, and on any day people are sitting on them, mesmerized by the view of Sarasota Bay. I found an empty one and plunked myself down and waited. A thin young man in chinos and a white knit shirt turned from where he’d been standing looking out at the moored boats, then looked around to see if anybody was with me. After a minute or two, he walked toward me. He was younger than I’d expected, twenty-two maybe, and had pale skin that wasn’t well acquainted with sunshine. His hair was sandy brown above dark sunglasses that I suspected were worn more to hide his eyes than to shield them from the sun.

  He stopped in front of me and said, “Miss Hemingway?”

  “It’s Dixie,” I said, and put out my hand.

  He had a nice handshake, firm and dry. He sat down beside me and said, “I’m Greg.”

  I nodded, wondering if it was his real name.

  “Greg, I appreciate your meeting with me. I’m just trying to help find out who hurt Phil.”

  He took a deep breath, the way people do when they’ve been holding their breath, and gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”