Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof: A Dixie Hemingway Mystery

31

Deputy Morgan said, “Miz Hemingway?”

I erased the air with the flat of my hand, denying what I was doing even as I did it.

Snuffling like a kid, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying, I’m not hurt.”

“You reported an intruder?”

“His name is Frederick Vaught. He’s a suspect in the Laura Halston murder. He was stalking her. He used to be a nurse, but he lost his license for abusing elderly patients. He may have killed some of them.”

While I leaked tears, Morgan pulled out his notepad and wrote the name. “You’ve had contact with him before?”

“He was waiting outside the Sea Breeze when I ran with a dog this morning. He told me to quit asking questions about him.”

“You’d been asking questions about him?”

“I overheard him talking to a patient at the Bayfront nursing unit, and I asked who he was. Lieutenant Guidry knows all about it.”

Morgan took in the information about Guidry and nodded.

“And this guy, Vaught, he came in your house?”

I snuffled some more and pointed toward the door into the bedroom, where my bed was still pulled away from the wall.

“I was running out, and he just stepped into the doorway.”

“He threaten you?”

“He said it would behoove me to eschew any thoughts of escape, because he had taken every precaution to complete the task for which he came.”

Morgan looked up from his notepad.

I said, “He talks like that. Like a dictionary. That’s how I knew it was him.”

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“He was wearing a ski mask. Also gloves.”

My voice quivered when I said the part about gloves. Laura’s killer had worn gloves.

“But you didn’t see his face.”

“Trust me, that man was Frederick Vaught.”

Morgan studied me for a moment. “How’d you get rid of him?”

“I pretended to believe he was pulling a prank, that it was a big joke that somebody named Richard had put him up to. I said Richard would be here any minute, and that Richard was a good friend of my brother’s.”

“And he believed that?”

“I guess he did, he ran out.”

For some reason the tears came back then, and I stood there for a minute and bawled like an idiot while Morgan looked extremely uncomfortable.

When I could speak, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

In about three strides, Morgan walked over to my breakfast bar where a roll of paper towels stood. Tearing off a towel, he came back and handed it to me.

“Sure you do. That was a close call. If you hadn’t played it right, no telling what would have happened. That was a smart thing you did.”

Shakily, I mopped my face and blew my nose. “Thanks.”

“Are you going to be home for a while?”

“No, I have rounds to make. My pets. Dogs, cats, you know.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay, I’ll put out an alert about Vaught and I’ll contact Lieutenant Guidry. I imagine he’ll want to talk to you about it.”

“I imagine he will.”

“These calls you’re going to make, are all the houses empty? I mean, except for the pets? No people?”

I knew what he was getting at. If Vaught was determined to get me, he could follow me and surprise me inside a pet’s house.

I said, “I’ve got my thirty-eight now. Until Vaught is picked up, I’m carrying it with me.”

He nodded and closed his notepad. “I’ll just wait until you leave.”

I knew what that meant too. Vaught could be lurking nearby waiting for me to come out.

Together, Morgan and I went down my stairs to the carport, and Morgan waited until I was in the Bronco. I drove out first, with Morgan following me. In my rearview mirror, I could see him talking on his phone.

For the rest of the afternoon, I was hyperalert for Frederick Vaught. At every pet’s house, I locked the door behind me when I went in and I was extra cautious when I left. Even in ordinary circumstances pet sitters have to be vigilant for creeps hiding in the bushes, but in this case I had even more reason to take care, and I knew who the creep was.

Even on edge and watching for Vaught to pop up in front of me in his freaky monster getup, I was still acutely aware that breakfast had been a long time ago. Maybe fear makes me hungry, but I kept thinking about what I could eat for dinner without having to go to a lot of effort to get it. Michael was on duty at the firehouse, so he couldn’t feed me, and I had no idea what Paco was doing.

By the time I was playing with the last cat on my schedule, I was having visions of platters of food set in front of me. The food on the platters was indistinct, but there was a lot of it and I knew it would be delicious. That’s the good thing about visions, you don’t have to be specific about the details.

I was just telling the last cat goodbye when my cell phone rang.

It was Michael, with a curious sound to his voice. “Are you near a TV?”

“I’m at a cat’s house.”

“Turn on the TV quick, Channel Eight.”

He sounded so urgent that I obediently went to the TV set, punched it on, and found the channel. With the phone at my ear, I looked at a close-up of a young news reporter holding a microphone close to her ruby-red lips. Under the shot on the screen, a hyperventilating banner told us we were watching a special news bulletin. To prove it, the young woman was gushing that viewers were seeing a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The camera pulled back to show another person standing beside her, and I made the kind of sound you make when somebody punches you in the stomach. The other person was Frederick Vaught, but without his ski mask and gloves.

On the phone, Michael said, “That guy claims he killed the woman you knew.”

I couldn’t answer. All I could do was breathe.

On-screen, the reporter was trying her best not to sound too perky, given that it was a murder she was talking about, but it was a stretch for her.

Shoving the microphone into Vaught’s face, she said, “Without going into any detail about the manner in which you killed Ms. Halston, would you repeat the main point of what you’ve told me?”

Vaught stared directly into the camera and spoke in a deliberate monotone. “I had a romantic relationship with Laura Halston, and we had a lover’s quarrel. In a moment of passion, I stabbed her. I feel incalculable remorse for what I’ve done, and I therefore make a full confession in a vain attempt to expiate my crime.”

There was a disturbance off camera, with sounds of raised voices. The camera swung to a uniformed deputy with about thirty pounds of guns and radios and flashlights dripping from his belt. He seemed to be seriously contemplating a crime of his own.

Stepping to the reporter, he said, “Ma’am, this interview is over.”

Widening her eyes in mock innocence, she said, “Mr. Vaught called the press conference, officer.”

Another officer must have persuaded the cameraman to aim his camera away, because the screen went dark while a muffled voice read Vaught his Miranda rights. I imagined Vaught was being handcuffed at the time, and that he was enjoying it immensely.

Every crime brings out mentally deranged people who confess their guilt. Some of them may actually believe they committed the crime, others just want the momentary attention. Vaught was either crazy enough to believe himself actually guilty, or crazy enough to enjoy the limelight of TV interviewers and cameras.

Michael said, “What do you think?”

“In the first place, Laura Halston wouldn’t have touched Frederick Vaught with a ten-foot eyebrow pencil, so that stuff about being her lover is a lot of hooey. In the second place, Vaught is crazy. I’m talking bona fide mentally ill, like he should be locked up. He came in my apartment today dressed up like some geek version of Darth Vader.”

Michael’s voice sharpened. “He came in your apartment?”

“It’s okay. I got rid of him, and I called nine-one-one. There’s been an alert out for his arrest.”

“Well, now they’ve got him.”

“And he’s having his fifteen minutes of fame. They’ll find out he’s lying and let him go.”

“Couldn’t he be telling the truth about killing her and lying about the reason? Maybe he killed her because she wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

I said, “Huh,” because he had a point. I would never believe Frederick Vaught had been romantically involved with Laura, but he could have killed her in a frustrated rage because she rejected him.

Michael said, “Call me before you go home tonight, okay?”

That’s my big brother, always concerned about me, always wanting to protect me. I promised I would call him, knowing he would get in touch with Paco if he could, knowing they would join forces to keep the big bad world away from me. We’re a family, and that’s what families do.

Knowing that Vaught was in custody made me less wary, but it didn’t make me less hungry. Streetlights had come on, and early-bird diners were already headed home with leftovers packaged in little square Styrofoam boxes. I would have paid a dollar and a quarter for one of those little boxes.

Thinking Pete might be starving too, I called him before I went to the Kitty Haven to get Leo.

He said, “Thanks, Dixie, but I heated a can of soup earlier. After I get Purr-C home, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal or something.”

“I’m picking him up in a few minutes.”

“Okay, that’s good. I forgot about the sheets from my bed, but they’re in the washer now. It’ll just take awhile to dry them and put them back on the bed, and then I’ll be ready. But I don’t think you should bring Purr-C in here. I wouldn’t want Mazie to come home and smell cat in the house.”

It wouldn’t have been ethical to take a pet into another pet’s home in any case, but it was thoughtful of Pete to consider how Mazie would feel. I told him I’d get Leo, aka Purr-C, and be there in half an hour.

I wished I had a chunk of cheese or an apple or at least some crackers. I rummaged around in my bag and found a box of breath mints and ate a few. They weren’t very nourishing, but they gave me something to chew.

At the Kitty Haven, I took the .38 and the Speed Loader from my pocket and stashed them in the glove box. With Vaught in custody, I didn’t have to go around armed like a vigilante. Besides, I don’t like to take a gun inside a gentle place like the Kitty Haven. I got one of my emergency cardboard cat carriers from the back of the Bronco and took it inside. Marge had gone to her own apartment in the back, and a nighttime assistant was lolling on a velour sofa in the front room with a few cats piled on her. The TV was on with the sound turned low, and the cats were as slow to take their eyes off the screen as the human.

I said, “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m here to pick up Leo.”

Disengaging herself from the limp cats, the young woman rose with feline grace.

“Last name?”

“His owner’s name was Halston, but Marge may have registered him under my name. I’m Dixie Hemingway.”

She looked at me with more interest. “I’ve heard of you.”

I swung the cat carrier. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, so I’ll settle up the charges with Marge later. I know where Leo is. Do you mind if I go on back and get him?”

She looked a little flustered at so much decisiveness in one sentence, but opened the door to the private cat rooms and followed me to Leo’s quarters.

Setting the open carrier on the floor, I said, “Good news, Leo. You’re going to a new home.”

I opened the screen door and lifted him, taking a moment to stroke him before I settled him in the carrier. He hunched low to the floor, looking up at me with suspicious eyes.

The attendant said, “He’s been very quiet. I think he’s sad.”

“He’ll be happier now.”

“His owner got killed, didn’t she?”

I gave her the look I give dogs who lift their legs on the furniture, and closed the cat carrier.

“Tell Marge I’ll stop by in the next few days and pay her.”

The attendant blushed, undoubtedly hoping I wouldn’t mention her tactless nosiness to Marge.

The cats in the velvety front room languidly flipped their tails as Leo and I went out the door. While Leo had considered his time there a jail sentence, the resident cats believed themselves in paradise. I know humans who feel one way or the other about their own situations.

It was almost eight when Leo and I got to Mazie’s house. While Leo waited in the Bronco, I rang the bell. Pete was slow getting to the door, and when he opened it his hair was standing upright as if he’d been in a whirlwind.

He said, “I’m just finishing up. Had a heck of a time getting the sheets on the bed. Those king-size mattresses are big as a circus ring.”

“Leo’s in the car. Can you use a hand?”

“Purr-C. No, no, I’m almost done. My bags are packed and in the car. I just have to gather up some last-minute things, get my saxophone, make a last check to be sure I haven’t forgotten anything.”

I said, “I’ll wait with Purr-C.” I was sort of looking forward to seeing how Leo would react when he found out his name had been changed.

“Dixie? Did you think to get food for him?”

I did a slow pivot to look at him. If he hadn’t looked so cute, with his white hair sticking up like a Smurf’s and his bramble eyebrows hovering above the kindest eyes in the world, I would have yelled at him. I’d been up since 4 A.M. with only a catnap in a hospital lounge, I’d driven over the Skyway Bridge to St. Petersburg, I’d shopped for supplies for Mazie, I’d been damn near attacked by a man who might be homicidal and who was definitely crazy, and I’d picked up Leo at the Kitty Haven, all without any food since nine o’clock in the morning, which was damn near twelve hours ago unless you counted the piddling little apple thing I’d eaten in the car on the way to St. Petersburg, a little apple thing I wished I had right then, and he wanted to know if I’d remembered to get cat food as well?

With what I thought was admirable mildness, I said, “No, Pete, I didn’t.”

“Well, I guess I can stop on the way home and get some. But I hate to leave him in the car by himself while I’m in the store, and I don’t want to take him home first and leave him by himself because he won’t know what’s going on. Do you think you could go pick up some things for him now? While I finish up inside? I’d go but I don’t know what brand to get. That’s one of the things I’ll have to learn.”

Like a lazy shark, the memory of the box of cat food on Laura’s counter swam across my cortex, the box she had set out to remind herself to buy more. That was the brand Leo liked, but Laura had died before she could replace it. If she had lived long enough to buy another box, I could have simply used the key the locksmith had given me and gone in her house and got it. Got the box of cat food, got Leo’s food and water bowls, got his toys, got the cat treats I’d seen in Laura’s kitchen cabinet.

It’s a wonder an orchestra didn’t pop up by the driveway right then with a rousing rendition of “The William Tell Overture,” because remembering the kitty treats made me remember the two whopping twenty-pound bags of organic cat food that had been in the cabinet with the treats. Forty pounds of dry cat food would be like money in the bank for a retired clown on a fixed income, and it would be a steady source of meals for Leo.

I said, “There’s cat food at Laura’s house, and a lot of other things you’ll need. I’ll get it while you finish making the bed.”

He looked anxious. “Is that all right? To go in her house?”

I shrugged. “It’s Leo’s house too, and Celeste officially gave me authority to find a home for him. As far as I’m concerned, that includes handing his food and toys over to his new owner.”

“Well, if you think it’s all right.”

From the Bronco, Leo made a loud and indignant yowl. It was the first sound he’d made, and both Pete and I hurried to the car to see what had provoked him. He was poking his paws through the air holes in the carrier, and from the low growling noise he was making, I didn’t think he was going to be quiet much longer.

Pete said, “I don’t want him to think I’m keeping him locked up in here. That’s not a good beginning for us.”

I grunted and reached inside the Bronco for the carrier.

I said, “I’ll take him with me.”

“Well, maybe that’s good. He can say goodbye to his old home before he moves to his new one.”

I grunted again. I was too tired and too hungry to speak. As I trudged down the sidewalk to Laura’s house with the cat carrier in my hand, a neon sign inside my head was flashing Will This Friggin’ Day Never End?