Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

Twenty-Two

Grimly, I pulled out of the driveway into traffic. I had to go on. Not just go on with my afternoon pet visits, but go on with my life. I couldn’t let fear rule me, not even fear of myself.

My mouth still had the bitter taste of the hospital’s coffee, and my mind jumped to the coconut cream pies that Tanisha makes at the Village Diner. Late as I was, I rationalized that except for a little bitty tub of yogurt, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. It would only take a few minutes to have pie and good coffee, and then I would be stronger and braver.

Judy was pouring coffee at a table near the front door when I walked in, and a look of surprise crossed her face when she saw me. I waved to her and plucked a Sunday Herald-Tribune from a thin stack by the cashier stand before I slid into a booth. Judy went to the back to get a coffee mug and setup for me, and I spread the paper on the table and scanned the article headings. The President had just issued a denial of something his opponents had accused him of, a CEO had just been indicted for cheating thousands of investors, some scientists had developed a way to alter another seed to make it sterile, and a question had been raised in Sarasota about the way the Sheriff’s Department was handling the investigation of the murders of Harrison Frazier and Marilee Doerring.

Judy plunked a mug on the table and poured coffee in it, but my eyes were locked on the article. It seemed that popular radio psychologist Dr. Win was claiming the Sheriff’s Department was showing undue bias toward a former deputy by not arresting her. The woman in question was me. The article went on to say that I was known to have been dismissed from the department because of emotional instability following the tragic deaths of my husband and child, and that I had started taking care of pets after being declared unfit for law enforcement. The author of the article said he had interviewed Dr. Win but had not been able to locate me. Without coming right out and saying so, the implication was that I was hiding.

My heart was pounding hard. In a related article, other people had been interviewed for their opinions about me. As Marilee’s ex-fiancé, Dr. Gerald Coffey said I had accosted him while he was eating breakfast on the morning of the murder, and that my behavior had been irrational and alarming. There were even quotes from a couple of people whose pets I had taken care of. They said they probably wouldn’t hire me again because it was just too creepy the way I’d found two dead bodies, and how could they be sure I hadn’t had something to do with them being dead? There were also several quotes from clients who said they thought the whole idea was ridiculous and that I was an excellent pet-sitter. But you could almost read a hint of doubt in their words.

Judy said, “You just now seeing that?”

I nodded, struck dumb with sick apprehension.

“Don’t let it get to you. Stupid son of a bitch didn’t have anything real to write about, so he made up a bunch of shit. Nobody’ll pay it any mind.”

“Yes, they will. Who wants to give their house key to somebody who’s accused of murder?”

“You should sue that bastard,” she said. “Sue him for slander and libel and defamation of character and loss of income and loss of reputation.”

“Maybe I could sue him for my wrinkles while I’m at it.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Don’t let this go by without a fight, Dixie. This is your name we’re talking about.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That wouldn’t stop people from wondering about me.”

“People who know you won’t believe it, and that’s all that matters. What do you want to eat?”

“I can’t eat now.”

“Yes you can, Dixie! Now you listen here, if you let that slimeball make you go crawling back in your shell, then he’s killed you. You want to let him kill you?”

“No.”

“Then hold your head up and go on about your business. That cop will find out who killed those people, and everybody will know you didn’t have anything to do with it. Now I’m going to bring you some eggs and bacon, and you’re gonna eat every bite of it, and you’re gonna like it.”

I looked up at her flushed face and had to laugh. “I don’t want breakfast, I want some of Tanisha’s coconut pie.”

“That’s more like it. If we let fuckers like that make us stop being normal people, then we might as well crawl in a hole and die.”

She flounced off to get my pie, and I folded the paper and laid it on the seat beside me. My hands were shaking so bad I had trouble folding the paper. One thing kept running through my mind. While I had the greatest respect for the guys with the Sarasota Sheriff’s Department, I wasn’t so naïve that I didn’t know they were under pressure to make an arrest. And if they decided to go with the obvious, it would be me. I had found Frazier’s body, I had led them to Marilee’s body, I had a key to Marilee’s house, and I was known to be a mental case, no longer fit to wear a deputy’s badge. If I had been conducting the investigation, I would have already arrested me as the prime suspect, and now Dr. Win had gone on the air demanding just that. If they arrested me, I didn’t have a shred of an alibi. My only witness would be Rufus, and juries aren’t known to pay much attention to what a dog has to say.

There were people who thought Carl Winnick walked on water. He was a pillar of the community, rich, educated, with plenty of well-placed contacts. I was a pet-sitter with two years of community college and a dubious medical leave of absence from the Sheriff’s Department. An emotionally unstable woman who couldn’t be trusted with a gun or with public safety. Which one of us would people believe, me or Winnick?

For a moment, I felt like going home and crawling in bed and pulling the covers over my head and hope it would all straighten itself out. But Judy was right. I had come too far to do that. I had faced things a lot tougher than Carl Winnick accusing me of being a killer.

Not a lot of things, maybe, but some.

One or two.

Okay, one. Losing people you love is harder than anything.

As Judy put my pie on the table, Tanisha moved her wide smiling face into the square opening between the dining room and the kitchen and waved at me, her jowls jiggling and her black eyes almost lost behind her round cheeks.

Judy said, “Tanisha says to tell that reporter to kiss your big fat ass.”

It surprised me so that I laughed, a big belly laugh from deep inside. Tanisha winked at me and withdrew her head.

Judy said, “Why’s she saying you’ve got a fat ass?”

“It’s a private joke,” I said. “We were in the ladies’ room one day and big fat asses came up.”

“Uh-huh. Well, she’s got a big one, that’s for sure. You know, she cooks for somebody that lives around Marilee Doerring’s house. I heard her telling somebody she was that close to the place where the woman was killed.”

“Lucky them. She’s good.”

Judy splashed more coffee in my cup and left me making love to my pie. The crust was crisp and flaky, the filling rich and smooth, and the meringue was exactly right, not weepy or dry or too sugary, with flakes of fresh coconut making sweet little explosions in my mouth. I managed to eat almost a whole minute without thinking about the newspaper article. Instead, I thought about how a good cook like Tanisha could pick up big bucks cooking for parties or just making occasional meals for a family. I mentally ran down the houses near Marilee’s, wondering where Tanisha cooked. I’d never seen her in Marilee’s neighborhood, but most likely we were there at different times.

My cell phone beeped just as I downed the last pastry crumb. The ID readout showed Michael’s number, so I answered.

He said, “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“I saw it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just had coconut pie. I’m at the diner.”

“That asshole at the paper has been calling me, looking for you.”

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Not your fault. What does your detective say about it?”

“He’s not my detective, and I haven’t talked to him.”

“Maybe you’d better. Tell him I’m going to stick my foot up that reporter’s ass if he writes any more shit about you.”

“It’ll blow over, Michael. Any response from us will just give him something else to write about.”

“You sound pretty cool about it.”

There was a note of admiration in his voice. I took a deep breath and realized I was rather cool about it. No more hammering heart. No more fast, shallow breathing. No more fine hand tremors.

I gave a shaky laugh and said, “I guess I am. Who would have thought?”

“So when are you coming home?”

“I’ll be late. I haven’t even started my rounds yet. I had to talk to some people first.”

“Well, be careful.”

“Yeah, I love you, too.”

I felt calmer after I hung up. I had a big brother who cared about me, and I had handled a lot of stress in one day with only a couple of minor breakdowns. I was making progress.

As I was leaving the diner, I saw Tanisha heading for the ladies’ room, so I made a U-turn and followed her. She was already in a stall when I got there. I washed my hands and dried them while I waited. When she came out, she grinned shyly at me. I watched approvingly as she lathered her hands, then handed her some paper towels.

I said, “Judy said you did some cooking for somebody in Marilee Doerring’s neighborhood—where that man was killed.”

“Not no more I don’t.”

“Oh.”

“Hunh-uh, I wouldn’t set foot on that street again, no way, hunh-uh. Bunch of stupid people live on that street, and that man’s the stupidest.”

“What man?”

“You know, that one I told to kiss my ass, that’s who.”

“I didn’t hear you say his name.”

“I guess I didn’t say it. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I did.”

“Tanisha, could you say it now?”

She laughed, but looked at me warily. “Why you want to know?”

I was stumped. I didn’t know why I wanted to know, I just did. I said, “I guess I’m just nosy. I work around there, too, and I’d just sort of like to know who to watch out for. I don’t know what the guy did to piss you off so much, but you seem pretty easy to get along with, so whatever it was must have been something I wouldn’t like, either.”

She pushed out her lips and furled her brow while she considered my reason, and then nodded. “I guess you got a right to know, if you work around there. He accused me of stealing something, like I gave a rat’s ass about the stupid thing, and it wasn’t even his.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“He seen me getting this little piece of pipe out of the trash when I was on my way to the bus stop. Somebody had put it out at the curb, and I saw it. It’s at the curb, it’s the trash, it ain’t stealing to take it, right? Somebody threw it away, it’s for anybody to take that wants it. Short little piece of brass pipe about two feet long.”

“That must have been the Graysons’ house. They hung a carousel horse on some brass pipe.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know whose house it was. It’s on the other side of the woods where that man got killed. They just put the pipe out and I saw it and picked it up. I thought maybe I could make a towel rack or something out of it.”

“And somebody accused you of stealing it?”

“Yeah, this little runt drove in the driveway and yelled at me like I was some kind of criminal. He said, ‘What you doing with that, girl?’ Called me girl, the old fool. I said I wasn’t doing nothing with it and he come over and yanked it out of my hand. Took it away from me! Then he said, ‘You go on home now, girl. You got no business here.’”

Tanisha’s eyes were snapping with humiliation and anger. “I guess he thinks he lives on some kind of plantation and I’m one of his slaves. But them days are over, honey! Ain’t nobody gonna talk to me like that. That’s when I told him to kiss my big fat black ass, and I waggled it at him when I said it, too. I left and I ain’t never going on that street again.”

She threw her wadded paper towel in the bin and headed for the door. “I gotta get back to the kitchen or they’re gonna send somebody looking for me.”

“Who was he?”

She paused with one hand holding the door open. “I don’t know who he was. Never saw him before, and hope I don’t never see him again, neither.”

“Was he bald?”

“Bald? I don’t think so. I didn’t notice him bald.”

“His car, was it a black Miata?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know cars. It was black, one of them little low cars.”

“When did that happen, Tanisha?”

She frowned. “Thursday night. Why’re you so excited about it?”

“Because whoever killed the man in Marilee Doerring’s house cracked his head with a blunt instrument. Like a piece of brass pipe. Somebody saw a black Miata around there that night, and later there was a bald-headed man acting suspicious.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You think that little pig that hollered at me killed that man?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Oh yeah, I won’t never forget him.”

We gave each other solemn stares just thinking of all the implications, then she moved on and let the door swing shut behind her enormous backside. After a few moments while I let it sink in, I followed her. Hot damn, maybe Tanisha and I had solved the murders.