The Cat Sitter and the Canary

17

It was her.

Mrs. Reed.

Detective Carthage wanted me to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the same woman I’d seen the other morning, and I knew it would have been ludicrous to refuse. The woman’s face had lost the smoothness I remembered when I’d spied her from my hiding place in the hammock. Now, it had loosened and sagged, the skin of her left cheek almost melting into the crushed shell of the driveway, her silvery blond hair flattened on one side. I nodded quietly, and then Detective Carthage pulled the tarp back over her face.

I didn’t want to be there when her husband arrived, but, still, it was hard to drive away. Except for Ella, I was the only female left on the scene. Silly, I know. Such a small thing. I hadn’t known Mrs. Reed. I couldn’t have saved her.

Still, it felt like a betrayal, to leave with all those strangers stepping around her body. Less than three hours earlier, she’d been touring the Key without a care in the world, scoping out potential sites for her future home, and now she was on her side, under a blue plastic tarp littered with fallen magnolia petals, while a crowd of technicians, deputies, photographers, and investigators milled about, talking quietly and making notes. Sipping at their coffees. But mostly, and I’m ashamed to admit it, I didn’t want to see the look on her husband’s face when he saw her—really saw her—for the last time.

I know what that’s like, and it’s no fun.

In exchange for letting me get back to work, Detective Carthage had asked that I meet him later, which I readily agreed to at the time, but I was already trying to come up with ways to get out of it. I didn’t much feel like talking to anybody, at least not any humans.

Luckily, I had a stable of cats waiting to help distract me …

* * *

Betty and Grace Piker are two retired sisters who’ve come to a mutual agreement. If one of them finds a cat that needs a home and wants to adopt it, the other is to do everything in her power to prevent it, including physical force if necessary. Fortunately, at least for homeless cats everywhere, the Piker sisters’ resolve is as weak as their hearts are large. They have ten cats, all rescues, and they’d recently added yet another feline to the family: an elderly calico named Lucy.

As soon as I opened the door, I heard a furry-footed stampede coming up the hallway from the kitchen, and then I spent a good ten minutes rolling around on the floor greeting everybody. Then they all scampered after me into the kitchen, where I slid my backpack off my shoulder and zipped it open a little further. Gigi was inside, half-asleep in his makeshift bed of socks and underwear.

“You okay in there?”

He wriggled his nose, which I took to mean yes, and then I propped the bag up on one of the bar chairs, looping the shoulder straps over the chair to secure it. The cats’ food supplies were lined up on the counter next to the refrigerator, which was covered with family photos—class pictures and wedding shots—along with roughly a thousand refrigerator magnets. One read, MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME: CLEAN MY KITCHEN. Another displayed a cheerful woman in a red bandanna, holding a slice of chocolate pie to her lips. The caption read, STRESSED IS DESSERTS SPELLED BACKWARDS.

I thought about sitting down right there on the floor and wasting an hour or two reading them all, but I knew those cats wouldn’t be too happy with me if I did that, plus I still had lots of other pets to tend to. I prepared ten individual bowls of kibble with a little bit of warm water, then I distributed them all around the kitchen so everybody had enough room to eat in private. Then I did a thorough run-through of the house and found Lucy in one of the bedrooms, sunning herself on a windowsill.

When I came in, she rose up on all fours, pressing the tips of her toes down and arching her back, purring like a tiny storm generator as I ran my fingers from the scruff of her neck to the tip of her tail, leaving little furrows in her plush, silky fur. I bent down and pressed my forehead into hers.

She said, “Thrrrrp…?”

I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

I’d brought her bowl with me, specially prepared with her prescription senior kibble, plus a little canned wet food on top to make it extra tempting. As I put it down on the carpet, she hopped off the sill and took a few dainty bites. I sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. I knew I needed to give the Wincocks a call. I realized I’d left them so abruptly, and I was pretty sure those reporters had probably broadcast video of Michael and me sitting on the side of the road outside the crime scene.

Mrs. Wincock answered on the first ring.

“Dixie, are you okay?”

“I’m totally fine. I just wanted to apologize for running out of there so fast. That private lane where they found the body…”

She said, “I know, we saw everything on the news. Do you know who she was?”

“A tourist, visiting the island looking for a place to buy. But I just called to let you know I’ll be at your house tomorrow to take care of Mrs. Heedles just like we planned.”

I heard a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s good to hear. I knew you’d call if there was a problem. We leave for New Orleans bright and early in the morning.”

I said, “Okay, well, have a good time at the…”

I stopped myself from saying the word wedding and opted for “trip” instead.

She hesitated. “Dixie … if you need to talk, you know you can call me anytime.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, so I just said, “Okay, sounds good!” and hung up the phone.

By then, Lucy had scarfed up all her food and was sitting next to me on the bed, gazing into my eyes and kneading my thigh with her paws. I usually don’t have to worry about spending a ton of time with the Piker cats, mainly because there are so many of them they do a perfectly fine job of keeping each other entertained, but Lucy seemed to be taking a little longer getting used to her new family.

I cupped her chin in the palm of my hand and said, “Let’s go take a look at the pond.”

She padded after me into the kitchen, where I shook my head thinking about Mrs. Wincock’s offer. What did she mean, if I needed to talk? Talk about what? Guidry? Did she think I cared? That I gave a rat’s ass about that stupid wedding? That I’d want her to report what Guidry’s tuxedo looked like, or the flower arrangements, or how many people were there, or what the cake looked like, or whether Monochrome had chosen to wear a white gown?

No, thank you.

I shook my head again as I washed all the kitty bowls and put the supplies away. I shook my head some more as I led everybody out to the backyard, and then I shook my head at least two or three more times while I gave Lucy a good grooming. We sat in the grass next to the pond. I ran the brush through her coat, removing enough fur to stuff a small pillow, and we watched the goldfish patrol the water’s edge in languid circles while the other cats hunted around the fenced perimeter for crickets and butterflies.

When we were done, Lucy headed back to her spot on the windowsill in the bedroom. I told her I’d stop by again later, giving her a kiss on the nose as a little thank-you for cheering me up a bit. I left everybody else napping in a furry pile on the couch in the living room.

After that, I found myself driving aimlessly down Ocean Boulevard with one hand on the wheel and the other tucked inside my backpack on the passenger seat, absentmindedly massaging the scruff of Gigi’s neck. I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was headed.

I pulled over to the side of the road and sighed as Deputy Marshall pulled in behind me. If ever there was a possibility that my twenty-four-hour escort might have been relieved of his duties, I knew it had been completely eliminated the moment that poor woman’s body had been discovered in my driveway. Detective Carthage had been adamant—I wasn’t to be left alone for one second.

Marshall got out of his car and trotted up to my window. “You okay?”

I waved him away. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just needed to make a phone call.”

He took a couple of steps back. “Okay, sorry. Just checking.”

I pulled my phone out of the cup holder in the center console and flipped it open as he made his way back, but I didn’t need to make a phone call. I needed to get focused before I went on with my day.

I paged through the contacts on my phone, absentmindedly looking for something, anything, that might take my mind off things. Caroline’s name appeared. They still hadn’t gotten ahold of her, but Detective Carthage had insisted I not call her again until they had a chance to talk to her first. I was worried sick about her, but I tried not to think about it. I told myself she was fine and kept scrolling.

The name of my favorite haunt rolled by—the Village Diner, which for all intents and purposes is my home away from home—but the thought of stopping by for a cup of coffee made my heart sink. Judy, the diner’s only full-time waitress, is probably my closest friend, and Tanisha, the cook there, is like a sister. I knew I couldn’t face them without blabbing out everything that had happened … and I wasn’t sure I felt like reliving it just yet.

Then, Guidry’s name rolled by, summoning more questions about the wedding, which I was beginning to think everybody in this damn town was attending except me.

I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and muttered, “What in the world is wrong with you?”

Two women had lost their lives, and here I was fretting about an old flame getting married. What was it? Jealousy? First of all, what a dirty, low-down thing to do to Ethan, the man who loved me now, who accepted me for who I was, who didn’t go away. And second, it wasn’t like Guidry had run off with another woman. Our undoing had been just as much my decision as his.

Enough, I told myself. There were a lot more important things to worry about. At that, the image of poor Mrs. Reed’s face appeared, and then slowly fading into view was Sara Potts. I realized with a jolt that I had no idea if Sara’s family had been contacted yet. Would they want to meet me? Would they want to know the details of what I had witnessed? And would Mr. Reed want to talk to me too? I was, after all, the last person on earth to have seen both their loved ones alive.

And then I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and took a deep breath.

No.

I wasn’t the last person to see them alive …

That was someone else.