Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

Twenty-Four

When I got to the hospital, I stashed the gun and the spare magazines in the glove box after I parked. I stopped in the gift shop to get some reading material for Phillip, then took the elevator up to his floor. In the ICU unit, Guidry was outside Phillip’s glassed cubicle, talking to a nurse. Beyond him, I could see Phillip. He no longer had the ventilator, but his swollen face was a mass of purple bruises.

Guidry didn’t speak to me, just held his hand out and took my arm while he finished his conversation with the nurse.

He said, “Is he medicated?”

The nurse raised his eyebrows and gave Guidry a tight smile, the kind you’d give the village idiot. “Of course he’s medicated. He’s able to talk, but it will hurt. Try to keep it to a minimum.”

The nurse followed my gaze toward Phillip and shook his head. “It’s hard to take in, isn’t it? You just never dream that somebody would deliberately do this much damage to a kid.”

Guidry said, “Come on,” and gave my arm a firm tug.

Phillip’s eyes were closed, and when he heard us enter, he opened them with a hopeful look that quickly changed to polite disappointment. I felt like apologizing for not being the person he hoped to see.

I said, “Hey, Phil, good to see your eyes open. You look like hell. Blink twice if that’s how you feel.”

He managed a weak smile, winced at the pain it caused, and slowly blinked two times.

“I brought you some things to read,” I said. “But they didn’t have much of a selection. You have a choice of Reader’s Digest, House & Garden, or Sarasota Today. When you’ve enjoyed as much of those as you can stand, I also got you a Carl Hiaasen book.”

I was prattling to cover my dismay at how devastated he looked. Even without the ventilator down his throat, he looked pathetically vulnerable and ravaged. He closed his eyes, either from exhaustion or the effects of his medication, and I shut up. I knew he would recover from his injuries, but the sight of his sweet face so swollen and bruised made me want to go find the person who had done this to him and hurt him really, really bad.

I took one of his big hands and stroked it, wishing I could make all his pain go away just by rubbing him. The normal reaction to being beaten around the head and shoulders is to hold your hands over your head to protect your skull. I suddenly realized that Phillip must have tucked his hands under his armpits during his attack. Awed, I couldn’t even imagine the incredible willpower it had taken to protect his hands and leave his head exposed.

I said, “Phillip, I know you didn’t see the person who attacked you, but was there anything at all about the person that seemed familiar? Footsteps, scent, sound of his breathing, anything?”

His eyes opened, and for an instant the look he gave me seemed absurdly hostile, the way a drowning animal looks at its rescuers. He rolled his head side to side in slow denial, then closed his eyes again.

On the other side of the bed, Guidry cleared his throat meaningfully, and I took my cue. “Phillip, Lieutenant Guidry wants to hear about the woman you saw leaving Marilee Doerring’s house. Just tell him about it in a few words, okay?”

He opened his eyes and gave Guidry a somber look. In a husky whisper, pausing to take shallow breaths, he said, “Black Miata came…woman got in…drove off. Top was up…couldn’t see…driver.”

Guidry said, “Was she carrying any luggage?”

Phillip’s eyes widened. “No.”

“You remember what she was wearing?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on Guidry, Phillip said, “Pants…light color.”

“High heels? Low heels?”

“High…they…made a noise.”

“What about her hair? Was it up or down?”

“Down, I think.”

“Black hair?”

“Dark.”

“You’re sure it was a Miata? Couldn’t have been an MGB or a Mercedes or a Toyota?”

“I’m sure.”

“When the car door opened, did a light come on inside?”

Phillip’s eyes grew wide again, and it seemed to me there was a flicker of fear in them. “I guess.”

“But you didn’t see the driver?”

“No.”

“Do you think you could identify the woman you saw? Would you know her if you saw her again?”

“Didn’t see her…that well.”

“Where were you when you saw her?”

Phillip cut his eyes toward me and then swung back to meet Guidry’s penetrating gaze. “My window.”

“By your window, outside your house?”

“Yes.”

“Did the woman see you?”

“I think so…she looked…over her shoulder…jerked…like she was…surprised.”

Guidry’s questions had come in rapid-fire sequence. Now he stepped back from the bed.

“Okay, Phillip, thanks. You’ve been a big help, and I won’t make you talk anymore, at least not today.”

This time, I was positive I saw fear in Phillip’s eyes.

I squeezed his hand. “You just concentrate on healing. By the time you leave for Juilliard, you’ll be fine.”

He gave me a ghost of a smile, but the fear was still in his eyes.

Guidry was quiet as we walked down the hall toward the elevator. I didn’t speak either. Something was bothering me about Phillip’s account of what he’d seen that morning. Eyewitnesses are usually uncertain about a lot of details. They change what they say from one time to another, adding some elements and altering others. Phillip hadn’t changed a thing. In fact, he had used almost the exact words that he’d used with me. That could either be because he had an unusually vivid recollection, or because he was repeating a rehearsed story.

I said, “It’s probably a guy thing, but could you tell the difference between a Miata and some other sports car in the dark?”

“Sure. Why? Do you think the kid’s lying?”

“I just wondered about the car.”

He didn’t answer me, and we got in an elevator full of people and went down without speaking again. In the lobby, he said, “Thanks, Dixie. It was easier for him with you there.”

I gave him a half wave and went through the doors to the parking lot, half relieved and half annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned the accusations Carl Winnick was making about me. The fact that he hadn’t probably meant he hadn’t been influenced by them, which was good. But he could have spoken a word of support.

Damn, now I was wanting Guidry to prop up my ego with nice words of encouragement.

I wrenched open the Bronco, flung myself in the seat, gripped the steering wheel, and gave myself a good talking-to. Mostly, that consisted of telling myself that the last thing I needed was to start caring what some man thought about me, and to get my head out of my butt and go take care of the other cats on my schedule.

It was 11:15 by the time I groomed the last cat, and I still hadn’t checked on Cora. I was starving, but I knew I couldn’t eat until I was sure she was okay. This time, the concierge at Bayfront Village recognized me and called Cora before I got to the desk. We both waited while the phone rang, the concierge counting the rings by little nods of her head while she smiled at me and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in a show of amused patience. When Cora answered, the concierge said, “You have a visitor down here. Shall I send her up?”

She replaced the phone and said, “She’s waiting for you.”

From the casual way she acted, I gathered that reporters covering Marilee’s murder hadn’t yet discovered that Cora was her grandmother. I took the elevator up and found Cora’s door open a crack.

I knocked and pushed the door open. “Cora?”

“I’m in here,” she called.

I followed her voice, making a right turn into a short hall that led to a large sunny bedroom. Cora was sitting upright in a bed that looked big enough to play hockey in. She wore a white pleated nightgown with a high collar and long sleeves, and her wispy white hair stuck out in all directions, like a newly hatched chick’s.

“I’m sorry, Dixie, I just don’t feel like getting up today.”

“Well, of course you don’t, Cora. Have you had anything to eat?”

“I’m not hungry, dear.”

“I know, but you should eat anyway. I’ll make you some tea.”

I didn’t give her a chance to argue, even though I remembered how she felt, throat closed tight with grief, stomach roiling in angry waves, lips compressed to keep from howling like an animal. I filled the teakettle, and while it came to a boil, I found bread and eggs in the refrigerator. I made buttered toast and a poached egg, poured a small glass of juice, and put together a breakfast tray that I carried into the bedroom.

“Oh, Dixie, honey, you didn’t need to do that. And anyway, I don’t want anything to eat.”

I poured a cup of tea and paraphrased what Judy had said to me. “Cora, if you let the slimeball who killed Marilee make you stop living, then he’s killed you, too. You need all your strength now to help put him behind bars, so eat the damned breakfast.”

Her head jerked up at me, eyes blazing, and then she suddenly laughed. “You know, you’re a lot like Marilee. She’s bossy, too. Was.”

She only picked at the egg, but she ate all the toast and drank the juice. When she was finished, I left the tea things on the tray and washed the dirty plate and glass in the kitchen.

Cora was out of bed when I went back into the bedroom, her bare toes peeking from under her nightie.

“Here,” she said, “you can have these. I was saving them to leave to Marilee, but now that she’s gone…”

She held out a pair of red glass earrings, the kind you see in a jumble of junk jewelry at a garage sale. My eyes misted as I took them. I wouldn’t have worn them to a ratturd exhibit, but I knew they held memories that made them beautiful to her.

“Thank you, Cora. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“No, dear, I’m fine. I’ll just rest for a couple of days and then I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.”

“I’ll drop by tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine, Dixie. You’re a sweet girl.”

I didn’t feel so sweet when I drove away. I felt pretty sour, as a matter of fact. Both Phillip and Cora, two people I had come to care about, were going to have to face harsh realities in the coming days and weeks, and it wasn’t fair.

It was noon, and I was starving. I don’t do too well without food administered prior to 10:00 A.M., preferably with lots of black coffee. I took Tamiami Trail, passing slumbering boats in the marina and following the curve of the waterfront, where large sculptures were lined up like unexpected rib ticklers. I turned right on Osprey and took the north bridge to the key, going straight to Anna’s Deli on Ocean Drive, where you can get the best sandwiches in the world.

Halfway to the take-out counter, I realized the couple ahead of me were Dr. Coffey and a young woman with frizzy blond hair hanging halfway to her butt. Her hand was raised to fiddle with a piece of hair at the back of her head, and a diamond the size of a doggy liver treat caught the light—a reminder to the rest of us that being a rich man’s bimbo might not get much respect, but it paid well. I turned aside and pretended to study the menu on the blackboard on the side wall while Coffey paid for their sandwiches.

As they walked out, I looked over my shoulder at the woman. She turned full face toward me, and I could see what Judy had meant about her probably being a doper. Glazed eyes with pupils expanded so wide they looked like black holes you could get sucked into, skin slightly sallow under her salon tan, a general look of being lost in some private space. Coffey didn’t see me, and he put a proprietary hand on the small of her back to propel her forward.

I went to the counter and ordered baked turkey with tarragon mayonnaise on a pumpernickel roll. “And a big dill pickle and two bags of chips,” I said.

The woman at the counter laughed, showing a row of glistening white teeth that went well with her ginger skin and hazel eyes. “You sound like you’re hungry.”

“I went past hunger a long time ago. Give me a brownie, too. A big one.”

“Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee. A triple, black.”

She walked to a butcher-block counter in the back and turned in the order to a person of indeterminate sex who had dreadlocks and wore an oversized white shirt. She came back and rang up the sale while I watched the sandwich person slather tarragon mayonnaise on two thick pumpernickel halves.

Keeping my mouth firmly under control to keep from drooling, I handed over some bills and said, “You know that couple that just left?”

“Dr. Coffey? Yeah, he comes in here every week on his day off. Always gets the same thing, ham and Swiss on rye. I don’t know how people eat the same thing all the time like that. I like a little variety in my life.”

“You know her too?”

She made a mouth and counted out my change. “Not really. Don’t want to, neither. Frankly, I don’t know what he sees in her.”

She leaned over and put her elbows on the counter, ready to get down to the nitty-gritty. “If you ask me, she’s bad news for him. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but who wants to have a man cut open your chest and mess with your heart when he’s dumb enough to hang out with a junkie like her?”

Personally, I didn’t want anybody cutting open my chest and messing with my heart, no matter who they hung out with, but I could see her point.

I said, “That’s funny, I’ve only heard about her two times, and both times people mentioned that she was a junkie.”

“Well, you can tell just by looking at her, can’t you?”

“You don’t think he uses, too?”

“He don’t seem the type, you know? That’s why it’s so weird that he’s with her. You’d think he’d have better taste. I mean, that woman is pure trash.”

The food-prep person had my sandwich assembled and was slicing it in half. He or she then wrapped it in that gray kind of waxed paper that you never see anyplace except in a deli, giving it a neat fold to keep all the goodies inside. The sandwich went in the bottom of a paper bag, with a dill pickle the size of a man’s dick wrapped and placed on top of it. Two bags of chips went in last. I was ready to leap over the counter and snatch it up, but the counter woman must have had eyes in the back of her head, because the second a stack of napkins was thrown in and the bag was neatly folded down, she went and got it.

“Enjoy,” she said.

I grabbed the giant-size coffee on the counter and headed for the door. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “See you.”

That’s the nice thing about living on the key. It’s small enough that when we say “See you,” we really mean it.