Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

TWENTY-FOUR

When the alarm went off at 4 A.M. Saturday morning, I came awake with the gluey memory that I was having supper with Ethan that night, that it would probably get sexy, and that I was still a suspect in the murder of Ramón Gutierrez. I weighed about three hundred tons as I went down the hall to the bathroom. After I’d brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face, I was almost surprised that my reflection in the mirror over the sink looked normal. I twisted my hair into a scrunchy and slogged to the office-closet to pull on underpants, shorts, and a T-shirt. Laced up clean white Keds, grabbed my shoulder bag and all my pet-sitting stuff, and squared my shoulders. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Dixie Hemingway is going forth into the world to act the part of premier pet sitter. She may feel like shit, she may have a few loose cogs in her machinery, but by God nobody can say she doesn’t do her job!

Downstairs in the carport, a grumpy pelican on the Bronco’s hood gave me a yellow-eyed glare before he went off to find a more hospitable roosting place. If the parakeets in the trees noticed my passing, they decided it was too early for pretend histrionics and closed their eyes again.

My brain was still too sore to try a hard run with Billy Elliot, but I looked into the parking lot as I drove past the Sea Breeze to see if he might be taking Tom’s new girlfriend for a fast-stepping walk. All I saw in the dark lot were sleeping cars. I had to fight the impulse to pull in. Billy Elliot was probably upstairs waiting for me, all nervous and twitchy, but the adolescent ER doctor had done a good job of impressing me with the fact that a concussion wasn’t something to take lightly. I’d give my brains until Monday to finish healing, and then I’d make it up to Billy Elliot with an extra-long run.

I finished the morning dog routine early and headed south to see to the cats. It was still that waking-up time of day, when the only people on the streets are dog walkers, delivery people, and a few enterprising early risers getting a head start on the day. Starbucks was doing a brisk business dispensing hot coffee to a line of caffeine-needy drivers, and I swerved into the turn-in to get my share. Next door, Dr. Phyllis Layton pulled into her empty parking lot and went inside her office. Dr. Layton is an African-American veterinarian of uncommon courtesy to her animal clients. She would never declaw a cat.

Once I’d got my cup of hot jolt juice, I pulled into Dr. Layton’s lot and parked next to her car. She was behind a holly-circled receptionist’s window when I went in, and for a second her face showed a trace of wariness at having such an early morning visitor. Then she saw it was me and smiled.

We exchanged good-mornings and I said, “I have a formerly feral cat client who hates being inside, and he’s spraying and clawing everything in sight. Do you know anybody who lives in the country and would like a good mouser? A kind family with maybe an enclosed porch where he could sleep?”

“And give him lots of affection and protect him from dogs and see that he gets his shots every year?”

“Yeah, that too.”

She laughed. “You can add him to the list.”

She handed me an index card and pointed toward a bulletin board on the waiting room wall where cards were arranged in neat rows.

I said, “I guess you get a lot of requests like this.”

“I do, but the surprising thing is that people read those cards and take in pets that need new homes. Pet lovers are generous.”

I wrote the particulars of Muddy, stressing that he was a nice cat, he just didn’t like being cooped up in a house, and gave my number to call.

I said, “Muddy can get cantankerous. What if somebody takes him and it doesn’t work out?”

“Then they’ll bring him back. A couple of days ago a woman took a miniature bulldog who’d been orphaned when his owner died. He was such a sweet little guy that I’d put a FREE TO GOOD HOME notice out front. She came in late in the afternoon, acted like she loved him, and took him home with her. Brought him back the very next morning. Didn’t even keep him twenty-four hours! Said, being Irish, she hadn’t felt right with such a wee dog. Took me a minute to get what wee meant. I don’t think it was because she was Irish, I think she just changed her mind.”

My head felt as if it needed air holes drilled in it to keep my brains from expanding wider than my skull. I think rage does that to a brain—makes it heat up and swell. I knew before I asked the question what the answer would be.

“Was she a tall dark-haired woman?”

“You know her?”

“I met a woman like that Tuesday morning with a miniature bulldog.”

“Well, I found another home for the wee dog, so it worked out okay.”

I pinned Muddy’s card to Dr. Layton’s board and left her going through pet files.

My cell rang, and I barked “Hello!” without looking at the ID tag.

Mildly, Guidry said, “You get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

“I just found out who the Irishman was who called me. It was Jessica Ballantyne faking an Irish accent.”

“My, my, imagine that. One would almost think she wasn’t an open and aboveboard person.”

I made mocking faces at the phone. “Did you call me because you felt like being an ass, or was there some other reason?”

“We got a call from a neighbor of Kurtz’s last night. He heard gunshots he thought came from Kurtz’s house and wanted us to investigate. The officers who went out found Kurtz in the driveway. He’d been chasing an intruder and collapsed out there.”

“Ken Kurtz was chasing somebody?”

“Probably more like inching along wanting to chase somebody, but he did shoot at somebody. Or at least that’s what he claimed. He said he heard a rumbling noise during the night that he recognized as the sound of one of his garage doors going up. He got up to investigate and saw a man in the courtyard carrying his iguana. The iguana was fighting pretty hard, I guess, because the guy was having trouble holding him. Kurtz fired a shot in the air and the guy dropped the iguana and ran through a garage to the driveway. Kurtz tried to follow him and collapsed. The deputy helped him back to bed and secured the garage. He looked around, but he didn’t see any intruder or evidence of one. Do you think Kurtz hallucinates?”

My heart was racing and I could feel my face growing hot.

I said, “The yard people go through the last garage to get to the courtyard. There’s a storage room in it with an access door to the courtyard.”

“You think it was a yardman?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know who it was.”

That wasn’t altogether true. I had a pretty good idea who it had been. In my head, I heard my own voice telling the crazy fanatic with the sane eyes and the manicure and the Movado wristwatch that I was going to take food outside to a pet. I remembered the little flare of light in the man’s eyes when he’d heard it.

That’s how he’d known where to find Ziggy. I had told him.

I was ashamed to let Guidry know that I’d been played so easily. Instead, I bitched about the religious fanatics gathered outside the Kurtz house.

“Can’t you make them disperse?”

“Not unless they’re blocking traffic or harassing people.”

“They blocked the driveway and they harassed me.”

“I’ll have somebody stop by and talk to them.”

I rang off wondering why a man who only pretended to be afraid of the number 666 would want to steal Ziggy.

Rage at Jessica and chagrin at having been used by the fake monk stayed with me all morning, sitting between my ears and humming like a power line beside a country road. The cats all sensed it and stayed clear of me, which made me feel bad, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I was like a vibrating magnet, just waiting for the moment when Jessica Ballantyne or the man in the robe would pop up again so I could yell at them.

When I finished with the last cat, I took my rage and hunger to the Village Diner and slammed myself into my regular booth. Judy was immediately there with her coffeepot and a mug for me.

She said, “Why are you frowning? Did you lose that gorgeous guy that was with you Wednesday?”

“I didn’t lose him. He’s a close friend.”

“If I had a friend like that, I’d tie him down and molest him.”

She turned to give a woman across the aisle a coffee refill and left me to cuddle my mug in peace. The woman across the aisle was reading the Herald-Tribune with the front page held in front of her face, so only her short blond hair was visible. My grandfather used to hold the paper like that, sort of screening out the world with newsprint. I always fold a newspaper and look down at it. Maybe it makes me feel more in control of what’s going on in the world if I’m hovering over it.

Judy returned with my usual two eggs over easy with extra-crisp home fries and a biscuit. As if she knew I was on my last nerve, she put the plate down and refilled my mug without comment.

I thanked her and fell on the food like a ravenous wolf. In the midst of mopping up egg yolk with my biscuit, I suddenly remembered my date with Ethan, which was now several hours closer than it had been the last time I thought of it. I guzzled the last drop of coffee and looked around for Judy, who was coming toward me with her pot held out like a rescue lamp.

She said, “Good grief, girl, when’s the last time you ate?”

“I know. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say it’s awful. More like a substitute for sex. If you were getting any, you wouldn’t be eating like there’s no tomorrow. That’s what I always think when I see those big fat women putting away another helping of mashed potatoes. Poor things probably haven’t had good sex in years. Maybe never. All those diet books people read, that’s a lot of hooey. Women having good sex don’t gain weight, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

With an emphatic nod, she turned away to slap down a check on the table across the aisle. I held my mug with both hands and wondered what she would say if I told her I was probably going to have sex tonight. Good, bad, or mediocre, it was probably going to happen. I tried not to groan out loud at the thought. I hoped I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. I hoped I remembered how to act in bed.

The blonde across the aisle stood up and gathered her folded newspaper. Then in one smooth motion, she pivoted and sat in the seat across from me. I blinked at her a couple of times and then slammed my mug on the table.

“Bitch, you’re the one who called me!”

“I couldn’t think of anything else. I had to bring attention to that house. Besides, I knew if you showed up talking about an iguana named ZIGI, he would know he was in danger.”

“Anything else I can do for you? Polish your shoes? Fluff your blond wig?”

“I understand your anger.”

“Oh, great! Now you’re going to play shrink.”

She folded the edge of her newspaper into a triangle. “I have to know something. The woman who lived with him, were they lovers?”

“Does it matter?”

She sighed. “I suppose you’ve guessed that I’m new to this. I don’t imagine I’ll ever do it again.”

“Do what? Impersonate Irishmen?”

“Work as an undercover investigator.”

“For BiZogen?”

“No, the FBI. They knew Ken and I had worked together. They thought I would be able to track him down before ZIGI’s people did.”

“No offense, Jessica, but that has to mean they didn’t think it was important enough to put one of their real investigators on it.”

She nodded meekly. “It’s the war on terrorism. All the agents who know what they’re doing are looking for men with wires coming out of their shoes.”

“You suck as an undercover investigator. I have pets that could do better.”

“Ken is right about BiZogen causing our friends to die. They drowned because of BiZogen’s negligence. I’m sure that’s why he contacted ZIGI. I find that somewhat endearing, don’t you?”

I leaned closer to her and spoke very slowly. “I don’t find any of this endearing. What about the murdered guard?”

“I don’t know who did that, Dixie, and it’s not part of my job. That’s something for the local law-enforcement people to handle.”

“What about Gilda?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. What about Gilda? Who is she? What is she to Ken? You say Ken kept my photograph beside his bed, but he apparently took another woman into it.”

“Well, to be fair, he did think you were dead.”

“I would not have taken a lover so soon if I’d thought he had died.”

Neither would I, obviously.

I said, “How did you find him?”

She looked smug. “It wasn’t hard, actually. Ken is a dedicated wine collector, and he always ordered wine from the same company. I simply went there and told them Ken had sent me to select wine to be shipped to him. Then I had them verify the address for me.”

I wasn’t surprised. Criminal investigators maintain that half their arrests are due to criminals doing something stupid. Bank robbers write demand notes on the back of personalized deposit slips. People on the lam use their credit cards at hotels and restaurants. Hardened killers survive bullets and barbed wire and snarling dogs to escape from maximum-security prisons and then head straight to their mothers’ kitchens. It’s like we all have a fatal flaw that trips us up, and if we turn to the dark side we take our fatal flaw with us.

Ken Kurtz was a scientific genius, but his persistence in a known habit had allowed Jessica to trace him to Siesta Key, which was dumb. Furthermore, a man who claimed to subsist on Gilda’s health shakes surely couldn’t drink the wine he collected, which made having it even dumber.

Just as I was congratulating myself on being smarter than Kurtz, a little doubt crept into my mind. The wine could be a deliberate ploy. Kurtz might want people to concentrate on his wine so they wouldn’t notice something more important.

The smart-ass voice in my head said, Which would be what?

I didn’t have an answer, but I wasn’t sure anymore that I was so smart.

I said, “And the stolen car?”

“My employer provided the car. I don’t know if they knew it was stolen.”

“Your heart isn’t in this job, is it?”

“It’s just that I feel the same way Ken does about what happened at the lab.”

“But you took a job for the FBI.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Seems pretty simple to me. You’re pissed at Ken Kurtz because you think he abandoned you to die, so you’re working to help the FBI arrest him for industrial espionage. But for old times’ sake, you’re giving him advance warning so he can run away or hide the research or somehow save himself before the Feds with the big guns move in. That about it?”

“What he’s doing is wrong, but I understand why he’s doing it.”

I leaned back against the booth seat and let a moment of silence pass.

“Jessica, this isn’t just about Ken Kurtz and his research. A man was murdered. Whoever killed the guard may have been there to kill Kurtz. You said yourself that the rivalry between BiZogen and ZIGI was cutthroat. With or without the FBI’s involvement, BiZogen is probably out to kill him.”

“If they get his research back, they won’t kill him.”

“Because they’re such warm, fuzzy people.”

“No, because Ken is such a brilliant researcher. They’d rather hire him back than kill him.”

I said, “Kurtz seems certain that Gilda will return, but he didn’t say why. He claims the packages she took from the refrigerator were vials of antidote for whatever it is that has turned him blue and given him nerve damage. But anybody in as bad shape as he is would be more concerned about losing his antidote, so I don’t believe him. Do you have any idea what was in those vials, or why he’s so sure she’ll be back?”

“If they’re lovers—”

I banged the table with my fist. “Forget the lover crap! Come on, you’re a researcher too. What would have been stored in the refrigerator in wrapped packages? It must be something that has to be replaced. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so sure Gilda was coming back.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“What are you going to do, Jessica? Seems to me you’ve pretty much blown your cover and lost all your effectiveness as an FBI agent. Why don’t you just go whole hog and quit? Go see Kurtz. You love him, he loves you, you’re both brilliant scientists—maybe you can figure out a way to give the research back to BiZogen and keep Ken out of prison.”

“I could end up in prison myself if I tip him off that he’s under investigation.”

“If you tip him off? Hell, you’ve done everything but hire the Goodyear blimp to fly over his house blinking a sign. It’s too late to get skittish, you’ve already crossed the line.”

I stood up and tossed money on the table.

“If I’m arrested for Ramón Gutierrez’s murder, I will sing like a prize Roller Canary about a certain FBI agent who was working both sides of the street. So keep that in your wee fake-Irish head while you think about what you’re going to do.”