The Cat Sitter And The Canary

30

It had taken a lot of persuasion on my part to convince Ethan he didn’t need to spend the night, especially after I’d told him about Elba Kramer. But to be honest, I wanted some time alone—some time to just sit and think about nothing. No more intrigue, no more notes, no more Elba Kramer, and no more murder. Plus, there were a lot of other things I didn’t want to think about—namely, Jean Pierre Guidry, his wedding, or where he and Monistat were headed for their honeymoon …

I had a lot of not thinking to do.

After he left, I pulled on a pair of fleecy sweatpants, some house slippers, and a soft cotton T-shirt, and then I popped open an ice-cold Corona and headed for the hammock. On the way through the living room, I stopped to check in on Jane. I still hadn’t decided if I should keep her or not, but then again I wasn’t sure I had a choice. Detective Carthage had told me Elba Kramer hadn’t said a word as he led her from the pool house to his car, but once inside, handcuffed and buckled in, she’d made him promise to give me a message:

Take good care of Jane.

I had draped a beach towel over her cage to help her get used to her new surroundings, and when I peeked inside, she was nestled in the far left corner, sound asleep with her beak tucked into her breast feathers.

I felt a little flutter in the center of my chest.

I’d planned on maintaining a purely business relationship with Jane. Of course, I’d do exactly as Elba Kramer had requested—find her a good home, make sure she was well cared for, etcetera—but nothing more. I wanted as few reminders as possible of everything that had happened. Only now, seeing Jane all snuggled up and content, I felt like the Grinch who stole Christmas … my heart was getting just a little bit bigger.

Outside, the stars were twinkling like tiny beacons in the night sky, and the waves rolling in on the beach below were sending hushed whispers through the trees. I lit one of the citronella candles we keep at the top of the steps and put it on the ice cream table by the door … and then my jaw dropped wide open.

Todd’s old cell phone was there, right smack dab in the middle of the table with a folded note tucked underneath. I stared at it for a good ten seconds or so while all the possible explanations for how it could have gotten there ricocheted around my brain like shrapnel. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with anything good—especially given that the notes I’d received so far that week hadn’t exactly been full of cheer. For a second or two, I even considered pretending I’d never seen it, but, as always, curiosity got the best of me. I slid the note out and unfolded it …

Hey Sis,

Paco and I got home late tonight and decided to go for a walk. You’ll never believe what we found! Remember that old boat we used to play with? It was washed up on the beach right in front of the house … I guess now we know why you weren’t answering your phone.

Love,

Michael

ps—Paco says “GPS—good thinking.”

I picked up the phone and smiled as I turned it over in my hand a couple of times. Except for a couple of scratches and a few grains of sand stuck in the crevices, it seemed to have survived its ocean journey intact. Right at that very moment, as if on cue, it rang.

Without even looking, I knew it was Ethan. He’d said he’d call when he got home to make sure I hadn’t changed my mind and wanted him to come back. I answered the way I imagined Billie Holiday might, puckering my lips and drawing my voice out in a velvety, high-pitched wail.

“Helloooooo…”

There was a short pause.

“Dixie, this is Samantha … Detective McKenzie, I mean.”

“Oh my gosh! Detective McKenzie! I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“Well, I’m sorry it’s so late. Are you … drunk?”

I laughed out loud. “No! No, of course not! Well, I’m having a beer, but that’s all. I swear. I was just trying to sound like Billie Holiday.”

“Billie Holiday?”

“Yeah.” I ducked back inside, closing the door behind me. I didn’t want to make too much noise in case Michael and Paco were asleep. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, again, I’m sorry it’s so late.”

There was something in her voice that caught me off guard. For one, it was unlike Detective McKenzie to apologize for anything, especially something so trivial as a late-night phone call.

I said, “Oh, it’s totally fine. I knew I’d hear from you at some point. I’m guessing Detective Carthage told you all about Elba Kramer.”

“Yes … that’s why I’m calling.”

“Okay…”

It suddenly dawned on me that what I was hearing in her voice was sadness. A terrible thought flashed through my mind: Elba Kramer would never have allowed herself to be locked up in a jail cell like a caged animal. She was too wild for prison, too headstrong and rash, too … unstable.

I said, “Oh, no. What has she done?”

She sighed. “It’s more about what she hasn’t done. I know you’re under the impression Ms. Kramer helped orchestrate the murder of those two other women, and I agree all the evidence does seem to point to that very conclusion.”

I breathed a sigh of relief that Elba hadn’t tried to hurt herself. “Wait,” I said. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. You’re going to say she denies knowing anything about it, but you have to trust me. She can be very convincing, and I think she’s just afraid to admit she was not only involved in the murder of her husband, but those women too. And I have a pretty good feeling if you search her shop, you’ll find some hat pins—the same hat pins tipped with black pearls that were found on Edith Reed and Sara Potts.”

She took a deep breath. “Dixie, we’ve made an arrest in the murder of Elba’s husband.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. They caught him hiding in my car.”

“No, I’m afraid not. The man who murdered Albert Greco was a hired assassin from Baltimore. We found him in a hospital emergency room about an hour from here, just outside Tampa.”

I frowned. “Then, who … Wait, I don’t understand.”

“Dixie, when you were meeting with Ms. Kramer the day Albert Greco was gunned down, Deputy Morgan was stationed in his car outside. As soon as he heard that gunfire, he ran up to the front gate and saw a man with an automatic rifle escaping around the side of the house. Morgan immediately opened fire, but until this morning we didn’t know if he hit him or not. The man we arrested outside Tampa had a bullet lodged in his right hip.”

I was shaking my head. “That doesn’t mean anything. How do you know…?”

She interrupted. “Because we found an automatic rifle with a high-tech silencer in the trunk of the man’s car, along with a file containing photos of Albert Greco, Elba Kramer’s cell phone number, and a detailed blueprint of their home.”

“So … there were two assassins looking for Albert Greco?”

“No. What I’m saying is that the man who murdered Edith Reed and Sara Potts had nothing to do with the assassination of Albert Greco.”

I could feel my heart starting to race. I said, “No. That’s impossible, because … because if that’s true, it means somebody actually was trying to kill me.”

There was a long pause, silent except for the sound of McKenzie’s slow breathing. I could feel her waiting over the phone, waiting for me to process what she was telling me.

I said, “Look, just because you caught that gunman doesn’t mean he wasn’t working alone, he…”

“Dixie, he’s confessed.”

“Who?”

“The man found hiding in your car. He confessed just a short while ago. I should have called you right away, but I was hoping I could get a flight out of New Orleans and talk to you in person before…” She paused, searching for the right words. “I just wanted you to hear it from me before anyone else. He’s confessed to the murders of Sara Potts and Edith Reed, and he’s admitted that you were next.”

Now, I shook my head again, this time in disbelief, hoping at any moment I’d wake up and this whole nightmare would be over.

“Who is he?”

She hesitated. “Dixie … it was Morton Cobb.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh, no…”

“Yes. Apparently, he never quite got over the scandal of being caught on that boat with Ms. Kramer. He’s been plotting against everyone involved ever since … including you.”

“You mean, because I wouldn’t confiscate those tourists’ cameras?”

“I’m sure you know it killed his career, and since then he’s been in and out of at least two mental institutions. In fact, we’ve had our eye on Morton Cobb for quite a while. We have his phone records from that day, the day on the boat, and we believe he immediately arranged to have Elba Kramer murdered to keep her quiet, but once the newspapers published those photos the next morning, he got afraid and called it off.”

I closed my eyes and whispered, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“And we don’t know for certain it’s related, but not long after the incident on the boat, Senator Cobb’s wife filed for divorce, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, was not amicable. Less than a year later, her divorce attorney disappeared. That was nearly seven years ago, and he’s still missing.”

I mumbled, “Elba told me he was crazy.”

“Yes. She told me Cobb never stopped harassing her, sending her rambling messages, accusing her of ruining his life, threatening revenge. In fact, she was worried he’d somehow figured out her husband’s past and was planning to use it against her. That’s partly why she decided to rat him out herself.”

I sat down on the couch and dropped my chin to my chest. “So basically, all this time, he’s been plotting his revenge.”

“I’m afraid so. And there’s one more thing. Elba Kramer was on Senator Cobb’s hit list as well. I’m more than certain that if we hadn’t arrested her, he’d have had her killed. In other words, Dixie, you saved her life.”

For once, I was speechless. The idea that I’d saved Elba Kramer’s life seemed beyond ridiculous, especially given the fact that she’d been so breezily willing to put my own life at risk.

McKenzie sighed. “The good news is that you won’t have to worry about Senator Cobb ever again. He’s in jail now, where I expect he’ll be for the rest of his life.”

* * *

After I rang off with McKenzie, as horrifying as the news about Senator Cobb had been, I immediately felt a sense of relief wash over me. There’d been something about Elba Kramer’s story that had left me feeling uneasy, and now I knew why. She was telling the truth about Edith Reed and Sara Potts—she’d known nothing about them.

I went over and sat on the edge of the coffee table next to Jane’s cage. She was in her water bowl, cheerfully splashing about and fluttering her wings, completely indifferent to the news of her former owner and not one bit shy that I’d interrupted her bath.

I said, “You know, if it hadn’t been for you, this whole thing wouldn’t have had such a happy ending. In fact, I’m not sure any of us would still be around to talk about it.”

She plunged her head underwater and back up again, stretching her neck and puffing her feathers out like an Elizabethan ruff, then she hopped up on the lip of her bowl and blinked at me a couple of times.

It made me smile. That look in her eyes … I recognized it. My mind flashed back to that little sparrow I’d rescued when I was a girl, how its tiny black eyes had seemed so wise and deep, as if they somehow held all the wisdom of the world—everything that had ever happened and everything that was to come, all the twists and turns that life had in store for me.

I could hear the ocean outside, the waves rolling in like hushed breathing, as a series of images flashed through my mind—like a slide show in fast motion or a movie montage with hundreds and hundreds of pictures—my grandmother’s kind eyes as she slid a plate of floppy bacon in front of me; my grandfather’s hands as he showed me how to tie a Windsor knot; my mother’s sewing scissors, her stern voice, her warm fingers on the back of my neck as she braided my hair; my brother’s sweet smile and his baseball hat collection; my father’s strong arms as he carried me up the stairs to bed—all the things I had ever loved. Ella and Billy Elliot and Charlie and Gigi and Michael and Paco and Ethan and Judy and Tanisha and Todd and Christy …

It’s good to be alive, I thought to myself.

Just then, there was a knock on the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t heard anyone coming up the steps, and I’d forgotten to turn the porch light on so all I could see through the glass was a looming shape, large and utterly still in the blue moonlight.

I winked at Jane. “That’ll be Michael.”

He’d probably seen the lights and was wondering why I was up so late, worried about me as usual. Maybe, I thought, he’d brought me a mug of hot chocolate. I rubbed my hands together excitedly as I headed for the door, thanking the powers above that I have a brother who’s always looking out for me.

I turned the handle and pulled the door open.

It wasn’t Michael.

The man was tall, with broad shoulders, a beaky nose, and hints of silver in his dark hair, which was disheveled and wild. He wore a white tuxedo shirt, unbuttoned at the top and wrinkled, and there were the open ends of a black bow tie dangling unevenly from his neck. Dark circles framed his desperate eyes, which were red and swollen as if he’d been crying, but there was a light in the center of his black pupils that lit a fire in the depths of my soul … a fire that I thought had long ago been extinguished. When I finally spoke, my voice was barely a whisper.

“Guidry…”

His face softened as he gave me a halfhearted smile.

He said, “Surprise.”