The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

18

Before I left for my afternoon calls, Cora Mathers called. Cora is the eighty-something-year-old grandmother of a former client who was brutally murdered. The client had left a chunk of money to her grandmother and a significant sum to her cat named Ghost. Much to my dismay, she had named me the executrix of the cat’s estate. But as it worked out, Cora thought it was cool that her granddaughter had left money to her cat, and I had found a good home for him. Tom Hale has invested the cat’s money so wisely that he’s a very rich cat. The rich part for me was that Cora and I have become good friends.

Her voice thin and scratchy, she said, “Dixie, I hate to bother you, but could you pick up something for me?”

She said she wanted a hot water bottle. Another woman in her condo had one, and just the thought of it had made Cora nostalgic for the hot water bottles she’d had when she was young.

She said, “They make them smaller now, so they’re easier to handle. And there’s nothing like a hot water bottle when you have a stomachache or when your feet are cold. The woman got hers at a drugstore on Tamiami Trail.”

I said, “Do you have a stomachache?”

“It’s not bad.”

“Have you told your doctor?”

“It’s not anything to worry about, Dixie. People get stomachaches.”

I told her I’d be happy to bring her a couple of hot water bottles and hurried to get dressed so I could pick them up before I started my afternoon rounds.

Outside, the sun hid behind a scrim of ragged clouds, giving a trio of red-tailed hawks the look of dive bombers gone off course. The sun had moved away from dead center of the sky, making the light slant onto the ripples on the Gulf so their top edges glittered. A few sailboats made neat white triangles in the distance, and shore birds had come out of their siesta hideaways to stalk along the beach looking for snacks brought in with the frothy surf.

Michael was also on the beach, bare feet planted in the sand, legs braced like tree trunks while he looked at waves piling up on the shore. With a beach at our front door, we are generally considered privileged, but that only means we had ancestors smart enough or lucky enough to make choices that would one day be of tremendous value. Our grandfather bought our beachfront property for less than a thousand dollars. Now it’s worth more than Michael’s firefighting income and my pet-sitting income combined will ever total, but we still get to live here. If it’s true that we choose our families, we chose well.

I slipped off my Keds and walked out on the beach to stand beside him and dig my toes into the sand’s cool dampness.

I said, “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t pretend to be surprised that I knew something was wrong. We’ve been together a long time, and we know each other’s moods.

“Just a little concerned about Paco. He’s really stressed about something.”

“A job?”

His voice grew sharp. “Of course a job. What else? And no, I don’t know what job it is, and yes, it’s none of my business so I’m not asking. He wouldn’t tell me if I did.”

I nodded. People with family members who do undercover police work are always a little bit anxious, a little bit worried, and a little bit resentful because we can’t talk to them about it. They do their strong silent acts and we do our pretending-we’re-not-worried acts, and sometimes those different acts create great swaths of distance between us.

I said, “I’m just guessing, but I think the homicide in the Trillin house was more than just a local murder. An FBI agent questioned me and the Trillins this morning. Not a real FBI agent, a guy on loan from Interpol. So whoever the murdered woman was, it has attracted international attention. I think Paco’s involved in something to do with it.”

Michael looked hopeful. “Interpol?”

I knew what he was thinking, that a murder investigation that attracted FBI agents and Interpol officers wouldn’t be as dangerous for Paco as infiltrating a terrorist group or a local drug gang. It would be, of course, but I didn’t burst his bubble. I told him I was going to buy Cora some hot water bottles and left him looking less stressed.

As I drove under the trees lining the lane, parakeets made friendly swoops from their leafy shelters and swirled overhead. Parakeets are prima donnas, but they earn it.

I stopped at the end of our lane and waited for a break in traffic on Midnight Pass Road. As I turned, I caught sight of a white convertible half a mile away pulling out of a private lane like mine. It wasn’t something I paid attention to, just one of those subliminal details that drivers notice.

I zipped to a Walgreens on Tamiami Trail and bought two hot water bottles for Cora. They were cuter than I remembered hot water bottles being. Sort of snuggly, actually, so I bought two for myself. I thought they might come in handy some chilly night when I had cramps or a backache or cold feet. Now that it looked like I would be sleeping alone for the rest of my life, I figured my feet might need something to keep them warm.

With the hot water bottles in tow, I sped off around the marina and its moored boats toward Cora’s condo. Waiting at a red light, I spotted another white convertible way back in a line of cars behind me. It could have been a Jaguar like Briana’s, but it was too far back to tell for sure. Lots of convertibles in Sarasota, many of them white. Nothing to pay attention to, really, but I sort of did. As I left the marina behind and followed Tamiami Trail to Cora’s condo building, I noticed that the convertible hadn’t turned to go over the bridge to Longboat Key or St. Armands or Lido Key. When I turned onto the short lane to Cora’s condo, though, the convertible went straight ahead on Tamiami Trail, headed north. I felt a ridiculous relief. Nothing like being involved in a murder investigation to make a person start imagining being followed.

Every time I look up at the condo building where Cora lives, I imagine a bunch of architects coming back from an inspiring but drunken weekend in Venice before they designed it. Instead of old-world charm, the building is tarted up so it resembles a giant wedding cake decorated by kindergartners let loose with frosting cones. Cupolas perch in weird places, columns soar without any purpose, little fountains spurt water from the lips of cherubic gargoyles. I get off balance just looking at it.

I pulled up under the porte cochere, and a valet trotted out to take my Bronco away. Well, he was too old to trot, but he moved as fast as possible. With so many retirees in Sarasota, most of our valet parkers and supermarket bag-boys are over seventy. I suspect that most of them have been pushed to it by wives who grew weary of them constantly underfoot. The Sarasota joke is that wives committed to their husbands for life, but not for lunch.

The valet who parked my car was new, so we didn’t waste time chatting. I told him I wouldn’t be long, grabbed the bag of hot water bottles, and scooted through wide glass doors that slid apart when they felt me coming. I like that about posh places. Even the mechanical objects make you feel special. The lobby was crowded with youthful gray-haired people headed to golf courses or tennis courts or movie theaters. Old people are the only people who have the time to enjoy themselves. Gives me something to look forward to.

The concierge waved at me from her French provincial desk and picked up her phone to alert Cora that I was on my way up. I like that about posh places. Even if they know you couldn’t afford a down payment on the doormat, they treat you as respectfully as they treat the paying residents.

Most of the residents of Cora’s building are the epitome of good taste and old money, but a woman with bright red hair teased out to Jesus was waiting for the elevator. She wore high heels, tight leggings, and a drapey top made for adolescents. Cosmetic surgery had pulled out all her wrinkles and sculpted her nose thin as a baby’s finger bone, but when she turned to look at me, the eyes peering from under a fringe of red hair looked like the desperate eyes of an aging fox caught in a trap. I wondered if she’d had the surgeries hoping to snag a rich husband. Or maybe she’d had all the work solely for herself, just because she refused to look her age. Regardless of the reason, it didn’t take a makeover artist to know the woman had the same hunger for attention and love that makes unhappy teenagers draw heavy lines around their eyes and lips and trowel on thick makeup to cover every blemish. Not surprisingly, she reeked of cloying perfume.

Before the elevator opened for us, a handsome white-haired man rounded the corner. When he saw the woman, he came to a momentary stop with a look of panic on his face.

With an arch smile, she said, “There you are! You thought you could hide from me, didn’t you! But now I’ve got you! You promised to come up and have a drink with me, and I’m not letting you slip away again!”

She had a prissy voice and held her too-red lips as if they were a pouch-purse with tight-pulled strings.

I could tell the gentleman felt cornered. But he smiled grimly, too polite to tell her to get lost, and allowed her to motion him into the elevator where he backed into a corner.

I followed them in, which made the woman turn round on me as if I had intruded into a private meeting.

With a haughty look at my shorts and the Walgreens bag in my hand, she said, “What is your business here, dear?”

The man looked sharply at her.

I smiled sweetly. “I’m going to see some gentlemen on the sixth floor. They’re having a party.”

I raised the Walgreens bag and waggled it so the hot water bottles shifted around. “I’m bringing interesting goodies!”

Her smile faltered, and her hand with its red talon fingernails rose as if she might clutch my shoulder to try to become my best friend.

The man’s eyebrows rose and he pushed his spine closer to the wall, but his eyes were on the woman rather than on me. She was like a retriever on point, every inch of her quivering with excitement.

She said, “Who are they? Which apartment?”

I shook a playful finger at her. “Sorry, I’m not the kind of girl who spreads secrets.”

The elevator stopped at the sixth floor, the doors opened, and I skipped out swinging my bag of hot water bottles. She leaned out to watch me until I turned and looked pointedly at her. As she removed her hand from the door so it would close, the man behind her grinned and gave me a friendly wave. I had the feeling he knew my bag didn’t hold hot steamy sex toys. I also had the feeling he would not go with the woman to her apartment. I felt a little like a missionary who had saved somebody on the verge of making a big mistake.

For some fool reason, the woman in the elevator had made me think of Briana. Not the dyed red hair, because Briana’s hair was expertly colored and looked natural. Briana didn’t wear thick makeup, either, and I was sure that Briana was always dressed in elegant style. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d had cosmetic surgery, but only because I assumed that women in her world did, not because she looked as if she’d had some work done. When I tapped on Cora’s door, I was still trying to figure out why Briana’s face had popped into my head while I looked at the woman in the elevator.

I heard Cora’s thin voice raised to tell me to come in and forgot about Briana. Cora’s pink and green apartment is lovely. Her granddaughter bought it for her with money she made in ways Cora has never suspected. Cora was outside on the narrow terrace that runs the width of her apartment and affords a spectacular view of the bay. From her rattan peacock chair she could watch the constantly shifting blues, greens, lavenders, and grays of the bay under a clear blue sky. With natural vistas like Cora’s, people in Sarasota don’t need artwork on their walls.

With a weak smile, Cora watched me cross the apartment and step outside to the terrace. She was pale, with violet shadows under her eyes.

Alarmed, I said, “Are you okay?”

She waved a dismissive hand.

“I just did something stupid. Rose Tyler turned a hundred yesterday, and they always throw a big party for people on their hundredth. So I went down there to the ballroom, and nothing would do everybody but that I ate some of the cake. It was carrot cake, and I hate carrot cake. Always have. All that thick sweet stuff makes my teeth hurt. But I ate it anyway, because Rose will only be a hundred once, and I paid for it all night. Oh my, you wouldn’t believe! I won’t even tell you. I’m better now, but my stomach feels like it’s not sure it wants to stay with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if some other people had a problem with it, too. I think they’d let it sit out too long.”

Relieved that she only had an upset stomach, and intending to have a word with the staff about that cake, I held up the Walgreens bag.

“I got your hot water bottles. Stay put, I’ll fix them for you.”

Cora usually has the teakettle on low all the time, but today nothing was going on in her one-person kitchen. I ran water into the kettle, and while it heated I got out tea things. I wasn’t sure how hot the water for a hot water bottle should be, but I figured it shouldn’t be boiling, so I filled the bottles before the kettle sang. I didn’t fill them so much they bulged, just enough so the water made them firm. I poured the rest of the water from the kettle onto tea bags in Cora’s little Brown Betty teapot and put it and two cups and saucers on a tray. With the hot water bottles individually wrapped in clean dish towels and stacked on one end of the tray, I carried the whole business out to Cora on the terrace.

She said, “I’m sorry I don’t have any chocolate bread.”

I was sorry, too. Cora makes sinful chocolate bread in an old bread-making machine her granddaughter bought her. She won’t give her secret, but at some point in the bread-making process, she throws in bittersweet chips of chocolate. When the loaf is baked, it’s dark and dense, and the chocolate chips are still soft and oozing. It’s so good that I can’t eat it without whimpering a little bit.

I said, “I’m just glad your tummy is better.”

That was true, but as I arranged the towel-wrapped hot water bottles on Cora’s tummy and handed her a cup of tea, it occurred to me that the disappointment of no chocolate bread after I’d got used to it was almost as depressing as no sex after I’d got used to it. That’s probably why women with bad sex lives eat a lot of chocolate. If you can’t have one, you turn to the other.

Being deprived of sex and chocolate is the pits.