She raised her head proudly. “The company that manufactures the merchandise is mine. You think that stupid woman could have run a company like mine? No brains, no business mind, no sense! Who takes a pair of shoes and leaves them on a man’s bed? I ask you, who? A crazy, stupid woman bringing down the police on our heads, that’s who! And who breaks into a house when she knows the police are watching her? If I had not saved the fool, we would all have been caught!”
I said, “You killed the FBI agent, too. You injected a muscle paralyzer into her and then slit her throat.”
“Who else? I could not trust my weak husband to do it. Like everything else, I had to do it myself. Men are fools! Soft, stupid fools like pretty women!”
Peter made a soft sound, as if he swallowed a sob.
I tried to remember what I’d been taught in the police academy about talking to irrational people.
“It must have been very difficult to kill that agent and get away so quickly.”
She looked proud. “I didn’t make a sound. I’m good at that. I slipped in the door the fool had left unlocked, and I moved through the house. But you had already come and spoiled it all. After you left, she ran to put on clothes. She was like a chicken, no brains. I waited to guide her to the car where Peter waited like a faithful dog. But the other woman came in the same way I had, through the back, her badge and guns ready to arrest Briana, arrest me, ruin our work and our lives. She was a fool, too, to come alone. She was arrogant, wanted the glory of the arrest without assistance from her colleagues. She never saw me before I killed her.”
“So Briana lied when she said she didn’t know who killed the woman.”
Lena smiled grimly but didn’t answer.
As if he had to give Lena deserved credit, Peter said, “Briana’s only talent is dishonesty.”
Lena said, “I stripped the agent of all identifying evidence and fled—but stupid Briana had let the list fall from her handbag. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
His voice heavy with sadness, Peter said, “Lena, I don’t know the woman you have become. You have lost sight of our reason for being. You have become the thing we always hated, the greedy, dishonest, murderous people we’ve fought all our lives.”
Lena gave him a withering look that held an ambitious woman’s scorn for a less ambitious man. With no warning, he fired his gun. Lena’s head flew apart, her torso snapped backward, one arm flying up, her knees crumpling. Odd how the body reacts before the first drop of blood has time to leave the body, as if it feels the shock of death even before its spirit has left. As her body hit the ground, I felt a stab of pity.
Wailing, Peter fell on her body, cupping himself around her like a lover. His gun had fallen. I scrabbled to my knees and crawled to the branch. I broke off a sturdy twig, crawled to the gun, and slipped the twig through the trigger ring so I could lift it without touching it. Like a three-legged cat, I crawled to the Bronco with Peter’s gun hanging from one hand. At the Bronco, I managed to hoist myself up on one leg and reach to the glove box and get my own gun.
The red haze had returned in front of my eyes, and my fingers trembled when I got my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 911.
I gave my name and address and said, “I want to report two murders. Both killers are on the scene. One is dead.”
“Are you in danger, ma’am?”
I looked at Peter’s quivering form holding Lena as if she were his lifeline.
“No, but I have a deep cut on my leg and I’m losing a lot of blood.”
“Help is on the way.”
I ended the call and everything went black.
I woke up to the sound of sirens and the feel of hands lifting me onto a stretcher. I couldn’t get my eyelids open, so I didn’t see the people who were lifting me, but I thought I might be hallucinating anyway because I heard Guidry’s voice saying, “I don’t know what happened! I just got here!”
The next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed and a nurse was standing beside me adjusting a bag of fluid on an IV stand.
She saw me looking at her and said, “Hi. Everything’s fine. You’re back from surgery and your leg’s going to be just fine.”
Michael’s worried face swam into view. Paco was beside him trying to smile but failing. There was Guidry again, too, and he didn’t seem to be a hallucination.
Steven was also there, all ramrod straight and embarrassed. The other men stood on the opposite side of my bed from him, as if they had consigned him to the outer fringes of decency.
The nurse said, “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain in your leg right now?”
My leg hurt like a mother-effer.
I said, “Ten.”
She put a call button in my hand. “Push this button whenever you feel pain, and it will release some morphine. Don’t be stoic. Pain is not good. Don’t be afraid you’ll get too much morphine, either. The amount you can get in any given time is controlled, so make sure you stay ahead of the pain.”
I pushed the button. In seconds, the pain lessened to a tolerable level.
I said, “I love you.”
She laughed. “Okay, gentlemen, you can have a few minutes with her, but only a few minutes.”
She left the room, and Steven spoke.
“Ms. Hemingway, I apologize for this, but I have to ask you what happened.”
“Lena ran at me when I got out of my car. She had a hypodermic needle in one hand and a knife in the other.”
Suddenly alarmed, I looked at Michael and Paco. “Be careful around the driveway. That needle is on the ground. It probably has curare in it. Don’t walk around barefoot until it’s removed.”
Paco said, “Dixie, the crime-scene people are there. They’ll cover every inch of the place. They’ll find it.”
Of course they would. I felt stupid for not remembering that. I closed my eyes. My leg didn’t hurt at all.
Steven said, “So Lena was running at you with a needle and a knife. Then what happened?”
I opened my eyes. “I had this branch in my hand, and it knocked the needle out of her hand.”
“A branch?”
I closed my eyes. I was very sleepy. “It had fallen from the oak tree.”
“Ms. Hemingway, try to stay with me, and I’ll get out of your hair forever.”
I opened my eyes. “Lena and I fought. I kicked at her knife, and she cut me. I knocked the knife out of her hand, and I got to it before she did, but she was choking me. Then Peter came and pulled her off me. He shot her in the head.” To my total surprise, I began to sob. “Her head blew up, brains and bone all over the place.”
Guidry leaped to hand me a tissue, and Michael said, “I think she’s talked enough.”
Steven said, “What about Briana?”
“Lena had already killed Briana before I got home. I guess they both thought I had a copy of the list in my apartment.”
Steven said, “Did Peter kill Lena in self-defense?”
While I tried to get my brain to sift through all the implications of the question, Guidry said, “This is not a court of law. She’s given you everything you need to know.”
He said it in his homicide-detective voice, and Steven dipped his chin a fraction in silent acknowledgement of Guidry’s knowledge and experience.
Steven said, “Okay, I’ll leave you for now. I hope you have a speedy recovery.”
He left without saying good-bye to the men in the room. They all watched him go with narrowed eyes showing their disdain for him. As far as they were concerned, he was responsible for my cut leg.
I felt a surge of alarm and tried to sit up, sending a current of pain to my foot.
“My pets! I have to get somebody to run with Billy Elliot and take care of the cats!”
Guidry said, “I’ve already taken care of that. While you were in surgery, I called all the owners and explained the situation. They all said they had backup plans, and for you not to worry. Tom Hale said that his girlfriend would run with Billy Elliot until
you’re back on the job.”
“When will that be?”
They looked uncomfortable, Paco and Guidry turning to Michael to answer the question.
“The doc says you’ll need about six weeks to recover. You’ll be able to get around in a walking cast sooner than that, but you had a deep cut, and you have to give it time to heal.”
I hit the morphine button and closed my eyes.
I heard Paco whisper something, and Michael spoke again.
“Okay, kid, Paco and I are going to go home now. Our place is swarming with cops, and Ella’s probably freaking out. Don’t worry about anything. Everything is going to work out great. We’ll clean that stain on your porch, and when you come home everything will be absolutely normal. Including you.”
He leaned close and kissed my forehead. “Love you, kid.”
Paco did the same, adding a whispered, “Don’t get amorous with Guidry in this bed. It’s too narrow. You’d fall out and break your other foot.”
I smiled weakly, but I didn’t think anything would ever seem funny again.
I heard the door close, then heard Guidry drag a chair close to the bed.
With my eyes still closed, I said, “Where did you come from?”
“After we talked on the phone, I had a stroke of good sense and drove to the airport. Hopped the next flight out and got to SRQ before sunset. Rented a car and drove to your place expecting to surprise you. Instead, I found EMTs loading you into an ambulance, a couple of dead bodies, and Sergeant Owens Mirandizing a weeping guy in handcuffs. I grabbed your backpack from your Bronco, because I knew you kept your phone and your client records in it, and followed the ambulance to the hospital. I still don’t know who all those dead people were, or what their connection was to you.”
“It was Cupcake’s cat.”
“What?”
“Cupcake’s cat took a paper that Briana dropped when she left a pair of Nikes on his bed, and everybody thought I found it.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you. Go to sleep.”
“Why did you come?”
Even in my drugged state, I knew he took a long time to answer.
“We’ll talk when you’re awake.”
My eyelids flew open. “I’m awake now.”
Guidry eased his butt down on the side of the bed and took my hand. “I wanted to see you.”
I came more alert. “Why now?”
He took a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure your decision not to come to New Orleans was final.”
“You’ve met somebody.”
“It’s not serious.”
“But it could become serious.”
“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”
“Ethan Crane asked me out.”
Guidry squeezed my hand. “We are who we are, Dixie.”
I punched the morphine button and closed my eyes.
With my voice slurred and drowsy, I said, “I remember a novel set in India about a pair of star-crossed lovers. The woman in the story said, We are peacock and tiger. I guess we’re like that, too.”
“Are you saying I’m a peacock?”
I giggled. “Well, you’re the one with the fancy clothes. Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”
“My older sister is the buyer for the men’s department at Nordstrom’s in Houston. She gives them to me.”
“I hope she makes sure they’re not fakes.”
I drifted to sleep for a minute or an hour, and Guidry touched my shoulder.
“Dixie? I have to catch a flight back home. Are we okay?”
“You know what I’m scared of? I’m scared one day I’ll want to be with you and you’ll be settled down with some other woman and not want me.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I’ll always love you. Be happy.”
He left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I watched his broad back and felt tears slip down my face. But I did not call him back.
I hit the morphine button again and let drugs carry me into oblivion.
23
At Briana’s memorial service, Cupcake pushed me in a wheelchair with a raised extension to hold my leg. It was a private ceremony that Cupcake had arranged and paid for. He and Jancey stood beside me near the open grave while a priest who had never met Briana mumbled words that might or might not have held meaning to her. There were no friends or family.
It was a brief service, with none of the melodrama that had attended Briana’s life. Instead, a biodegradable urn holding her ashes was lowered into a hole, Cupcake shoveled dirt from a waiting mound on it, and we all tossed a rose on the dirt.
I hadn’t liked Briana or respected her, but I admired her for overcoming deprivations I couldn’t even imagine.
As Cupcake trundled me across the bumpy cemetery grounds, I caught a glimpse of Steven leaning on a tombstone across the way.
When we’d all got settled in Cupcake’s car and were leaving the expanse of green grass interspersed by little white markers, Jancey said, “Cupcake, what will her marker say?”
“I told them to just put the name Briana Weiland and the date of her death. I don’t know her birth date.”
From my position stretched in the backseat, I said, “Do you think that was her real name?”
I saw Cupcake and Jancey exchange a look.
Cupcake said, “Her real name was Robbie Brasseaux.”
I felt like an idiot. I should have figured that out for myself.
“When did you know?”
“It was the Nikes. It took me a while to get it, but Robbie was the only person in the world who would have brought me those Nikes.”
My leg throbbed, and I wondered if I’d lost so much blood that I’d gone stupid.
I said, “But the Nikes were fakes.”
“That was the whole point.”
“I don’t understand.”
He looked at me in his rearview mirror and grinned, dimples flashing. “You’re not supposed to. Robbie and I had a connection, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but we sort of saw things the same way, read the same things into movies and stories. I was a nut about Nikes, and Robbie teased me about it. When I took the money I got from robbing our first house and bought a pair of Nikes, it cracked Robbie up.” His face went sober. “Robbie used his share to buy food.”
“So—”
“So all these years later I come home and find a pair of Nikes in the middle of my bed. Nobody could have left them except my old white, skinny, redheaded friend Robbie Brasseaux, but Robbie hasn’t been in my house. Instead, a famous model named Briana has been there, and Briana was white, skinny, and had red hair. Which made her a fake because she was really Robbie. And that’s why Robbie left fake Nikes. It was a little joke he knew I’d get.”
“Why didn’t you tell Steven that Briana was Robbie?”
He took a deep breath. “I didn’t figure it was any of his business. Besides, Robbie had enough trouble in his life without people knowing he’d gone and got himself turned into a woman.”
Jancey nodded. She and Cupcake had apparently discussed the whole thing and she agreed with him that Briana’s real identity was nobody’s business.
I said, “Briana said she had killed her pedophile uncle when she was sixteen. She suspected that you had told a story about her hiding in the swamps that threw the police off while she ran away to New Orleans. Did you?”
A muscle worked in Cupcake’s jaw. “Robbie didn’t kill just his uncle, he killed his entire family. His drunken abusive uncle, his mean-as-a-wolverine aunt, and his three slack-jawed cousins who’d bragged about sodomizing him. Shot them while they slept. He did what he had to do to survive.”
I didn’t press him to tell me anything else.
Some loyalties are almost sacred. Some secrets are best left undisturbed.
ALSO BY BLAIZE CLEMENT
Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons
Raining Cat Sitters and Dogs
Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof
; Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues
Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund
Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
THE CAT SITTER’S PAJAMAS. Copyright © 2011 by Blaize Clement. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clement, Blaize.
The cat sitter’s pajamas : a Dixie Hemingway mystery / Blaize Clement.—1st ed.
p. cm.
e-ISBN 9781429951142
1. Hemingway, Dixie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Florida—Fiction. 3. Cats—Fiction. 4. Sarasota (Fla.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.L463C44 2012
813'.6—dc23 2011033143
First Edition: January 2012
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