The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

by Blaize Clement

  “I already made the appointment.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Just pretend.”

  He whispered, “Come here.”

  Our lips touched, and I felt a flood of warmth spread through my entire body. In fact, I felt downright woozy. I was thinking I could stand there kissing him for the rest of the day if not for all eternity, and then it hit me.

  My cell phone!

  Ethan looked a little woozy himself. “What?”

  “I just remembered—Mrs. Keller called this morning.”

  He frowned. “So?”

  I pulled away and glanced around for my cell phone. “So I should listen to her message. It’s been such a crazy day I forgot all about it.”

  “Yeah, but what’s the hurry?”

  I tied the sheet around me and shuffled down the hall to the laundry room where I’d tossed my shorts. “I don’t know. Maybe she knows something. I mean, with the day I’ve had, I wouldn’t be surprised if she called to warn me about Dick Cheney. Maybe she got a call from the alarm company that there was a break-in.”

  As I grabbed my shorts off the washer and pulled my cell phone out of the back pocket, Ethan said, “Wait a minute. What break-in? And what the hell does Dick Cheney have to do with it?”

  I cringed.

  Of course. I should have known. Judy has a big mouth, but she’s no dummy. She had probably only told Ethan that I’d hit my head and nothing more. She knew I’d kill her if she told him there was a possibility I’d been attacked before I could tell him myself.

  As I flipped my phone open, I said, “Well, it’s kind of a long story…”

  He stopped midway down the hall, his arms dangling limply at his sides. “I’ve got time.”

  “Okay. Now, Ethan, don’t freak out, but there’s a slight possibility that maybe, just maybe, I sort-of kind-of didn’t actually faint.”

  He blinked. “What do you mean, sort-of kind-of?”

  I punched in the code for my voice mail. “I’m not sure, but it’s possible somebody broke into the Kellers’ house this morning and attacked me, and that’s how I got hit on the head.”

  His jaw dropped open. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  As I brought the phone to my ear, I flashed him a smile that was half disarming grin, half grimace, and held up one finger. “Hold that thought.”

  Just then, I heard the familiar beep announcing a new message, and in the few seconds between that and the sound of Mrs. Keller’s voice, I could easily have hung up the phone. Or, I could easily have flushed it down the toilet. Or, I could easily have carried it over to the sink and run it through the garbage disposal. I could easily have done any number of things, and then I would never have known what Mrs. Keller was about to say.

  Instead, I kept my finger in the air to keep Ethan quiet, and listened.

  15

  “Good morning, Dixie. It’s Linda. I hope you’ll forgive me for calling so early in the morning … or is it late? I’m so turned around I have no idea what time it is. I wanted to let you know we arrived in Rome safe and sound. I’m afraid Mr. Feldman was none too happy to see us go, so I hope he’s not being too naughty…”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and glanced at the message info as Mrs. Keller’s voice rambled on. The screen said her message was only two minutes long, which for her is surprisingly brief. I love Mrs. Keller, but sometimes I wonder how Mr. Keller makes it through the day without flinging himself off a cliff.

  “… and we nearly left my purse in the taxi, can you believe it? Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time, but in Rome? That would have been an absolute disaster … but anyway, Dixie, the reason I called…”

  There was a pause, and now her voice was quiet.

  “Dixie, the reason I called … well, I hate to trouble you with this, but it’s apparently urgent. A few weeks ago, I bought something at a gallery. Remember that little shop I told you about outside Tampa? Well, I know what you’re thinking—I promised Buster I wouldn’t buy any more masks—but, this was different, and I just couldn’t stop myself. I even left my number with the gallery owner just in case he came across any more like it. Well, now I wish I’d never done that, because he called just before we left for the airport, full of apologies. It seems he made a mistake. His partner had already sold it to a collector there in town.”

  I was pacing up and down my short hallway while Mrs. Keller talked, and Ethan had moved over to the laundry alcove and was very slowly but deliberately bumping his forehead against the doorjamb.

  “He said it was a communication error or some such nonsense, and of course I could have put up a fuss, but the man seemed so upset I didn’t think I had a choice but to return it. I put it under the bench by the front door while Buster was loading the car. You may have noticed it.”

  I said, “Yep,” and nodded.

  Ethan looked up, “Yep, what?”

  I held the phone away from my ear and said, “I think she wants me to mail a package for her.”

  He snatched the phone out of my hand and pressed the pause button.

  I said, “Hey, I’m not done with that!”

  “Yes, you are.” He backed away toward the bedroom with the phone held behind him as he fixed me with a level gaze. “Dixie Hemingway, if you don’t tell me what happened to you right this very minute, I’m going straight down to the water and your phone is taking a little walk with the fishes.”

  I grinned. “I think you mean swim.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  I shrugged. “Baloney. You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I would. You have no idea what I’m capable of when I’m desperate.”

  I sighed. “Okay, but you’re not gonna like it.”

  He was still holding my cell phone behind his back, but now the grin on his face fell. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you better sit down.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded solemnly. “Yep.”

  He stared at me for a second, trying to figure out how serious I was, and then handed over my phone as he walked past with slumped shoulders into the living room. He lowered himself gently on the couch while I sat down in the armchair opposite him.

  Ethan looks like a tough guy. He played football in college, and he was on the wrestling team, too. He can bench-press a million pounds, or something like that, and his biceps are about as big around as my thighs. But one thing most people don’t know—he’s a bit of a softy.

  I put my hands on my knees and took a deep breath. “So…”

  “Wait!” He grabbed one of the pillows off the couch and hugged it to his chest. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  I told him the whole story, at least a PG version of it anyway. I did my best to downplay the drama, like how disoriented I was at first, or how terrifying it was when I woke up and realized there might still be an intruder inside the Kellers’ house. I didn’t want him to get too upset before I got to the part about Levi, especially since I was pretty sure when he heard what I’d found there he’d keel over right in front of me.

  The whole time I was talking, he just hugged his pillow. In fact, he seemed to be taking it pretty well—no swooning, no dramatic groaning—he just sat there and listened quietly. Once he realized I’d gone over to Levi’s house, though, he looked up and frowned.

  “Dixie, why in the world would you do that?”

  “I know. It was dumb, but when we found out people didn’t get their morning papers, I started getting worried.”

  He said, “Yeah, maybe. But what if it was Levi that followed you to the Kellers’ and attacked you? Did you ever think of that?”

  I shook my head. “No. That’s not possible. I went to high school with him.”

  “You know as well as I do that doesn’t mean a thing. I’m sorry, but that was a really dumb decision.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I know, I just said that. I agreed with you in advance.”

  “Okay, well, was he there?”
>
  I nodded. “Yeah, he was there.”

  “And? What did he say?”

  I looked around the room and tried to figure out how to tell him, but there just wasn’t any other way.

  I said, “Ethan, he was dead.”

  He looked up, his eyes wide. “What?”

  “Somebody killed him. When I knocked on his trailer door, it swung open and he was inside … in a pool of blood.”

  His face went pale. “You’re telling me that somebody murdered Levi Radcliff?”

  “Yeah, but … wait, how do you know his last name?”

  He leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. “Wow. I know him.”

  “You mean … you were friends?”

  “No, I didn’t know him personally, but his father was a client. My grandfather represented him in court. He was an in-house accountant for a big management consulting firm, and he got accused of embezzling money.”

  “Levi’s father?”

  “It turned out he was moving hundreds of thousands of dollars to offshore accounts in the Virgin Islands, accounts that he’d set up himself with bogus companies. It was big news because he was already a rich guy.”

  “Wait a minute. Levi’s father is rich?”

  He nodded, but I noticed there was a faraway look in his eye.

  “But Ethan, that’s impossible. I saw Levi’s house. He lives in a ratty old trailer home.”

  “I know. After Levi’s dad went to prison for embezzling, his mom filed for divorce. Levi was just a kid then, probably five or six years old, and the divorce was nasty. There was a custody battle, which his mom finally won, but then there was a long fight over money and assets, and then the defense attorneys produced a prenup, and even though Levi’s mom said she’d never seen it before, her signature was on it and a handwriting analyst testified it was genuine, so the judge ruled against her and she and Levi ended up with nothing.”

  “Wait. How do you know all this?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, this must have been decades ago…”

  He looked down and rubbed the palm of his right hand with his left thumb. “I told you, his father was a client.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why do I think there’s more to this story than you’re saying? Because it doesn’t make sense you’d know all this unless you spend all your spare time at work going through your grandfather’s old files.”

  A wry smile formed on his lips. “Why do I think you missed your calling as a trial attorney?”

  Ella had hopped up on one of the stools at the kitchen bar, and the entire time we’d been talking she was watching us with sleepy eyes, but now something had caught her attention outside, a bird or a squirrel maybe, and she was focused like a laser beam on the patio window.

  I said, “And what did you mean when you said Levi’s dad was a rich guy?”

  He shook his head. “Okay, but seriously, Dixie, this is just between you and me.”

  “Of course. Who would I tell?”

  He gave me a look.

  “Good point. I won’t say a word to Judy.”

  He looked down at his hands. “Levi’s dad killed himself three weeks ago.”

  I gasped. “What! How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m the executor of his will.”

  I just sat there, staring wide-eyed at Ethan while all kinds of questions started bubbling up in my mind, most of which I knew he was probably not in a position to answer ethically.

  I said, “He killed himself in prison?”

  “No. Here in Sarasota. He only served three years at a minimum-security facility. Then when he got out he just picked up where he left off.”

  “How involved could his estate be if he was so hard up he was stealing money from his employer?”

  “Dixie. Poor people steal. This guy embezzled. He bought a twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion on Bird Key for his second wife, he’s got a condo on Miami Beach and another in Santorini, and he’s got more Swiss bank accounts than I can keep track of, along with all kinds of offshore companies and tax shelters. The dude was a millionaire ten times over.”

  For once, I was speechless. And, of course, the first thing I thought was: Did Levi stand to inherit any of his father’s millions? Because if he did, I imagined Detective McKenzie would be very interested to know what would happen to those millions if, for example, Levi was unable to accept them.

  I whispered, “Ethan…”

  He nodded slowly. “Yep.”

  16

  Ella had hopped down off her kitchen stool and taken up a position on the windowsill. She was completely motionless except for her tail, which quivered slightly as she scanned the limbs of the trees outside. I was sitting in the chair opposite Ethan, and in the pregnant silence between us, my mind had turned immediately to Sasquatch. I mean, Mona Duffy … Levi’s fiancée.

  Sometimes, when I meet someone new, I know right off the bat what kind of person they are. Whether it’s a sixth sense or gut intuition or what, I don’t know, but I can tell almost the way a cat instantly knows a friend or a foe.

  Naturally, when I was standing on the steps of Levi’s trailer and heard the sound of Mona’s voice, I knew right away. I turned around and saw her indignant face staring up at me, and a tiny voice in the back of my mind said, Nice girl.

  Sometimes I’m wrong.

  Part of the problem is that I tend to be drawn to loony-birds like a moth to a flame, and vice versa. I’ve always imagined it’s somehow related to that old Hemingway Curse, because it definitely gets me in trouble sometimes.

  Mona seemed about as unhinged as an old outhouse, and yet … There was something about her, something in her face, her eyes, that made me think she was more than the angry mask she presented to the world.

  On the other hand, there’s nothing more dangerous than greed. If Mona Duffy was in a position to have access to a lot of money in the not-so-distant future … well, I shuddered to think what it might make her capable of.

  Ella had given up on whatever creature was taunting her outside and had sidled up next to Ethan on the couch. She was kneading his lap with her two front paws and looking up at his face with an expression of rapturous affection while he absentmindedly ran his hand down her back. I realized he was watching me.

  I said, “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just sorry you had to see Levi like that.”

  I said, “I’m fine. I just feel bad for him, and for Mona, but also…”

  “Also?”

  “Well, there’s one more thing. It’s stupid, but basically Levi and I had a thing in high school … kind of.”

  He frowned. “Huh? You never told me that.”

  “Well, you never told me you were the executor of his father’s estate.”

  He got up and came around to my side of the coffee table and sat down on the floor in front of me. “Oh, yeah. Good point.” He rested his head on my knee. “Remind me to have my secretary update you daily on all my clients.”

  I flicked the top of his head with my index finger.

  “Ouch!”

  “Nobody likes a smart-ass.”

  He grinned. “Yes, they do. So what do you mean, a thing?”

  “He’s the first guy I ever kissed.”

  He looked up at me, genuinely surprised. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “Okay, that’s kind of heavy.”

  “I know, except not. It was ninth grade, we were waiting in the hall outside one of our classes. And for the record, I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me, and nothing happened after that.”

  He put one hand on mine and smiled. “I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I know.”

  “But either way, that just makes it even sadder. It sucks.”

  I ran my fingers through his hair and said, “I know,” again, but inside I thought, This is why I love you. Ethan has a talent for zeroing in on the heart of the matter, which I guess is what makes h
im such a good attorney, but it also makes him a damn good b-word.

  He shook his head slowly. “That poor guy. Do you know if they have any idea who could have done it?”

  I said, “Nope.”

  He nodded and turned away, but I could still feel his eyes on me.

  I said, “I’d like to forget the whole thing as soon as possible.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “And I’ve got tons of clients this week, plus I’ve had enough drama today to last a lifetime.”

  He nodded resolutely. “Oh, for sure. One hundred percent. Yes, ma’am. I couldn’t agree more.”

  I held my hand over his head, ready to flick it again. “Why do I think you’re being sarcastic?”

  “I didn’t say a thing!”

  “Yeah, but you’re thinking something, I can hear it.”

  He smiled as he reached up and took my hand in his. “I just have a feeling you won’t leave it at that. You may be surprised to hear this, but … I know you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fool, you don’t know me. First of all, I’m too busy to get involved, and even if I did there’d be nothing for me to do. I’m sure Detective McKenzie doesn’t need my help.”

  “Hmm. Where have I heard this before?”

  I ignored him. “But you know what? I bet she’d be very interested to hear what you know about Levi’s father. And she was trying to locate Levi’s next of kin—apparently his fiancée wasn’t much help. Do you think you might have his mother’s contact information in your files?”

  “I know I do, but more importantly … I’d imagine McKenzie would like to see his father’s will.”

  I nodded slowly. “I think you’re right.”

  “When I get back to the office this afternoon I’ll give her a call. I can make a copy and have it sent over to her.”

  I thought for a second. “Or I can take it to her … if you want.”

  “Oh, yeah? I thought you weren’t getting involved.”

  “Delivering a file to Detective McKenzie isn’t ‘getting involved.’ I just think the sooner she sees that stuff, the better. Plus, I have to go back to the Kellers’ anyway. I’ll be right around the corner from your office.”

  He sat up. “What? You have to go back there?”