The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

22

I should have felt enormous relief, but I didn’t. I was glad I’d found the precious list that Briana had left in Cupcake’s house, and glad I’d given it to an FBI agent. Now he knew which store owners in the area were knowingly selling fraudulent merchandise and charging for the real thing. Of course, targeting retailers and arresting them for selling fake merchandise was only half the solution. The other half was arresting Briana for providing the merchandise, and there was no proof the list had come from Briana.

Except for breaking into Cupcake’s house, there was no absolute proof of any criminal act that involved Briana. She hadn’t been charged with the agent’s murder. She hadn’t even been held in jail as a material witness. Either the homicide officers believed she was completely innocent of any knowledge of the crime or they were waiting for her to lead them to the killer. There was a good likelihood that she would walk away with only a fine for breaking and entering. She would return to Rome or Paris or wherever she lived and continue to run a business that manufactured fake designer merchandise.

Even more depressing was the fact that the person who had killed the FBI agent in Cupcake’s house would probably never be identified or apprehended. I didn’t believe Briana’s claim that she had disengaged one section of the security system for only the time it took her to enter the house. I thought it was more likely that she had left it disengaged the entire time she was inside. The security people wouldn’t have noticed that one small section was switched off, so the security cameras that should have captured photos of Briana, the FBI agent, and the killer entering the house would have been inoperative.

Law enforcement people don’t like to talk about it, but every police department and sheriff’s office has files of homicides in which somebody literally got away with murder. Most homicides are committed by people with whom the victim has some connection. A rejected lover, a disgruntled employee, a jealous husband or wife, people whose emotional barometer went kaflooey one day and sent them into a self-pitying rage that ended with another person’s death. Those killers leave a trail, either a physical trail or a historical one. But when the victim is a law enforcement officer and there are no witnesses or trace evidence left behind, the hunt for the killer becomes highly problematic.

While my mind chased after all the loose ends of the entire Briana situation, a solemn voice in my head asked, What is that to you?

I didn’t have much of an answer. As long as nobody attacked me or stalked me, none of it had anything to do with me. Oh, I could drum up some righteous indignation about people stealing designers’ ideas and selling them as originals instead of the knockoffs they really were, and I deplored slavelike conditions forced on workers in factories churning out fake designer products, but my supply of righteous indignation can only stretch so far, and there were plenty of things closer to home to get riled up about.

Even the FBI agent’s murder was an objective fact to me, not something that engaged my private emotions. I was sorry it had happened, but sorry in the way I was sorry when I read about the murder of any other person I didn’t know. Sorry I belonged to a species that includes beings who have lost their minds and souls to such an extent they can destroy another being. Sorry for the anguish the victims’ deaths caused their families and friends, sorry for the anguish the killer’s family and friends suffered. But the sadness wasn’t personal. It didn’t change my life. No matter how awful I thought the whole thing was, my sadness wouldn’t bring the agent back to life, and my disgust wouldn’t stop some people from cheating other people. Maybe it was pure self-centered selfishness on my part, but my main feeling was that I hoped I never saw Briana again.

At the entrance to my lane, I stopped at the row of mailboxes to pick up mail. I riffled through it and tossed the entire lot into the passenger seat to transfer to the recycle bin under the carport. Most of it was junk mail or ads from posh stores promoting expensive jewelry or designer clothing like outrageously pricey jeans. I made a scornful snort at a photo of a curvy model wearing designer jeans. Even if they were real and not counterfeit, jeans exist to make a woman’s butt look good, and cheap jeans do the trick as well as expensive jeans.

Driving slowly so as not to alarm the parakeets in the trees overlooking my lane, I could see wind surfers on the bay and hear the waves moaning before they slapped the shore. Overhead, a scrawl of white and black gulls wheeled against a clear blue sky. On the beach, little sandpipers scurried back and forth on the sand like kindergartners at recess. Through the open car window I could hear the twittering of songbirds in the trees and the sad lament of a mourning dove somewhere in the distance. I was back in my own world, and for the moment I could forget everything about Briana.

Rounding the curve to the carport, I saw that Michael’s car was gone, and so was Paco’s. A small branch had fallen from one of the oak trees beside the carport and landed on the shell in front of Michael’s parking spot. Old oaks drop branches like that, sort of like a cat shedding hair. I pulled into my own spot and slid out of the Bronco, looking at the branch for the best place to grab it to throw it out of Michael’s way. It was about the thickness of a baseball bat, around five feet long, with a multitude of leafy twigs at its end.

I stooped to grasp it somewhere around its middle. As my fingers closed around it, I heard a scuffling noise in the shell. I turned my head to look toward it and saw a pair of black-clad legs running toward me. Jerking upward, I swiveled toward the running figure, and my move caused the leafy end of the branch to scrape across Lena’s outstretched hand. The twigs caught the hypodermic needle in her fingers and flipped it to the ground.

From the corner of my eye, I caught a spot of red at the edge of my porch. Looking up, I saw a pair of long milky white legs in bright red high-heeled pumps. The legs were sprawled at the top of the stairs.

Lena made a guttural sound and moved away from the branch, but she continued to come toward me, and she held a long knife in her hand. The knife flashed silver in the sunlight, but its cutting edge was stained wine red. She leaped toward me, her teeth glittering like the knife. In seconds, I was in a fight for my life.

Curiously, a red curtain seemed to descend over the world. Through the red haze, I realized that Lena was determined to kill me. The hypodermic needle had been intended to inject something into me to make me immobile while she slit my throat with her knife. Without the needle, she had to overpower me. Lena was hard and wiry and mean, but sheer terror gave me a burst of strength.

I kicked toward the knife and felt a searing pain in my ankle. Blood rushed onto my white Keds, and Lena smiled. Holding the branch with both hands, I swung it at her. I wiped the smile off her face, but she still had the knife, and my ankle was cut badly enough to fill my shoe with blood.

Irrationally, I thought how awful it would be for Michael and Paco to come home and find me dead in the yard.

I swung the branch again, and while Lena was adjusting her stance, I managed to swing it back the opposite direction. The second swing took her by surprise, so I kicked at the knife again. This time I connected. The knife flew out of her hand, and her head raised with a shocked glare. We both dived for the knife. I got to it first, but before I could stand up with it, she fell on me and her arm circled my neck in a steel vise.

Facedown, I clutched the knife under my midriff, but my victory had become a defeat. With her arm so hard against my throat that I feared the hiatal bone would break, I knew there was a good chance that Lena would strangle me to death.

Dimly, I heard the sound of a car racing to a stop nearby, then running footsteps crunching across the shell.

A man’s voice shouted, “It is finished! Let her go!”

Lena screamed, “Fool, she has the list!”

I felt a struggle above me, and then Lena’s arm slipped away from my throat and my face fell forward into the shell. A second later, Lena’s weight left my back, and I scrambled to a sitting position with bits of shell sticking into my flesh. My heart was racing, my ankle was pouring blood, and my nose was leaking.

Lena crouched a few feet away, her face twisted into a grimace of pure hatred. Peter held a gun to Lena’s temple. He looked resolute and devastated.

Peter said, “It’s over, Lena. Too many people have been destroyed.”

Lena said, “You are a fool, Peter. You have always been a fool.”

They both spoke English, as if they were speaking to each other through me.

Through my ruined lips, I said, “I gave the list to the FBI.”

Lena inclined her head toward my stairs. “She said you made copies of it. I want those copies.”

“I lied when I told her that. There are no copies. The FBI agent has the only copy that existed.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Call the FBI and ask. I have the agent’s number on my phone. Would you like to call him?”

Peter made a slashing motion with his hand. “I said it’s over!”

Lena said, “You do not decide what is over and what is not over! That is for me to decide!”

I struggled into a more comfortable position against the carport wall and looked toward Briana’s body. I wondered if the blood came from a vein or an artery.

I said, “Is Briana dead?”

Lena nodded with no more emotion than she would have shown if I’d asked if a plant needed watering.

“You killed her?”

“She ruined my business.”

“The counterfeit business was yours?”

She raised her head proudly. “The company that manufactures the merchandise is mine. You think that stupid woman could have run a company like mine? No brains, no business mind, no sense! Who takes a pair of shoes and leaves them on a man’s bed? I ask you, who? A crazy, stupid woman bringing down the police on our heads, that’s who! And who breaks into a house when she knows the police are watching her? If I had not saved the fool, we would all have been caught!”

I said, “You killed the FBI agent, too. You injected a muscle paralyzer into her and then slit her throat.”

“Who else? I could not trust my weak husband to do it. Like everything else, I had to do it myself. Men are fools! Soft, stupid fools like pretty women!”

Peter made a soft sound, as if he swallowed a sob.

I tried to remember what I’d been taught in the police academy about talking to irrational people.

“It must have been very difficult to kill that agent and get away so quickly.”

She looked proud. “I didn’t make a sound. I’m good at that. I slipped in the door the fool had left unlocked, and I moved through the house. But you had already come and spoiled it all. After you left, she ran to put on clothes. She was like a chicken, no brains. I waited to guide her to the car where Peter waited like a faithful dog. But the other woman came in the same way I had, through the back, her badge and guns ready to arrest Briana, arrest me, ruin our work and our lives. She was a fool, too, to come alone. She was arrogant, wanted the glory of the arrest without assistance from her colleagues. She never saw me before I killed her.”

“So Briana lied when she said she didn’t know who killed the woman.”

Lena smiled grimly but didn’t answer.

As if he had to give Lena deserved credit, Peter said, “Briana’s only talent is dishonesty.”

Lena said, “I stripped the agent of all identifying evidence and fled—but stupid Briana had let the list fall from her handbag. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

His voice heavy with sadness, Peter said, “Lena, I don’t know the woman you have become. You have lost sight of our reason for being. You have become the thing we always hated, the greedy, dishonest, murderous people we’ve fought all our lives.”

Lena gave him a withering look that held an ambitious woman’s scorn for a less ambitious man. With no warning, he fired his gun. Lena’s head flew apart, her torso snapped backward, one arm flying up, her knees crumpling. Odd how the body reacts before the first drop of blood has time to leave the body, as if it feels the shock of death even before its spirit has left. As her body hit the ground, I felt a stab of pity.

Wailing, Peter fell on her body, cupping himself around her like a lover. His gun had fallen. I scrabbled to my knees and crawled to the branch. I broke off a sturdy twig, crawled to the gun, and slipped the twig through the trigger ring so I could lift it without touching it. Like a three-legged cat, I crawled to the Bronco with Peter’s gun hanging from one hand. At the Bronco, I managed to hoist myself up on one leg and reach to the glove box and get my own gun.

The red haze had returned in front of my eyes, and my fingers trembled when I got my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 911.

I gave my name and address and said, “I want to report two murders. Both killers are on the scene. One is dead.”

“Are you in danger, ma’am?”

I looked at Peter’s quivering form holding Lena as if she were his lifeline.

“No, but I have a deep cut on my leg and I’m losing a lot of blood.”

“Help is on the way.”

I ended the call and everything went black.

I woke up to the sound of sirens and the feel of hands lifting me onto a stretcher. I couldn’t get my eyelids open, so I didn’t see the people who were lifting me, but I thought I might be hallucinating anyway because I heard Guidry’s voice saying, “I don’t know what happened! I just got here!”

The next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed and a nurse was standing beside me adjusting a bag of fluid on an IV stand.

She saw me looking at her and said, “Hi. Everything’s fine. You’re back from surgery and your leg’s going to be just fine.”

Michael’s worried face swam into view. Paco was beside him trying to smile but failing. There was Guidry again, too, and he didn’t seem to be a hallucination.

Steven was also there, all ramrod straight and embarrassed. The other men stood on the opposite side of my bed from him, as if they had consigned him to the outer fringes of decency.

The nurse said, “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain in your leg right now?”

My leg hurt like a mother-effer.

I said, “Ten.”

She put a call button in my hand. “Push this button whenever you feel pain, and it will release some morphine. Don’t be stoic. Pain is not good. Don’t be afraid you’ll get too much morphine, either. The amount you can get in any given time is controlled, so make sure you stay ahead of the pain.”

I pushed the button. In seconds, the pain lessened to a tolerable level.

I said, “I love you.”

She laughed. “Okay, gentlemen, you can have a few minutes with her, but only a few minutes.”

She left the room, and Steven spoke.

“Ms. Hemingway, I apologize for this, but I have to ask you what happened.”

“Lena ran at me when I got out of my car. She had a hypodermic needle in one hand and a knife in the other.”

Suddenly alarmed, I looked at Michael and Paco. “Be careful around the driveway. That needle is on the ground. It probably has curare in it. Don’t walk around barefoot until it’s removed.”

Paco said, “Dixie, the crime-scene people are there. They’ll cover every inch of the place. They’ll find it.”

Of course they would. I felt stupid for not remembering that. I closed my eyes. My leg didn’t hurt at all.

Steven said, “So Lena was running at you with a needle and a knife. Then what happened?”

I opened my eyes. “I had this branch in my hand, and it knocked the needle out of her hand.”

“A branch?”

I closed my eyes. I was very sleepy. “It had fallen from the oak tree.”

“Ms. Hemingway, try to stay with me, and I’ll get out of your hair forever.”

I opened my eyes. “Lena and I fought. I kicked at her knife, and she cut me. I knocked the knife out of her hand, and I got to it before she did, but she was choking me. Then Peter came and pulled her off me. He shot her in the head.” To my total surprise, I began to sob. “Her head blew up, brains and bone all over the place.”

Guidry leaped to hand me a tissue, and Michael said, “I think she’s talked enough.”

Steven said, “What about Briana?”

“Lena had already killed Briana before I got home. I guess they both thought I had a copy of the list in my apartment.”

Steven said, “Did Peter kill Lena in self-defense?”

While I tried to get my brain to sift through all the implications of the question, Guidry said, “This is not a court of law. She’s given you everything you need to know.”

He said it in his homicide-detective voice, and Steven dipped his chin a fraction in silent acknowledgement of Guidry’s knowledge and experience.

Steven said, “Okay, I’ll leave you for now. I hope you have a speedy recovery.”

He left without saying good-bye to the men in the room. They all watched him go with narrowed eyes showing their disdain for him. As far as they were concerned, he was responsible for my cut leg.

I felt a surge of alarm and tried to sit up, sending a current of pain to my foot.

“My pets! I have to get somebody to run with Billy Elliot and take care of the cats!”

Guidry said, “I’ve already taken care of that. While you were in surgery, I called all the owners and explained the situation. They all said they had backup plans, and for you not to worry. Tom Hale said that his girlfriend would run with Billy Elliot until you’re back on the job.”

“When will that be?”

They looked uncomfortable, Paco and Guidry turning to Michael to answer the question.

“The doc says you’ll need about six weeks to recover. You’ll be able to get around in a walking cast sooner than that, but you had a deep cut, and you have to give it time to heal.”

I hit the morphine button and closed my eyes.

I heard Paco whisper something, and Michael spoke again.

“Okay, kid, Paco and I are going to go home now. Our place is swarming with cops, and Ella’s probably freaking out. Don’t worry about anything. Everything is going to work out great. We’ll clean that stain on your porch, and when you come home everything will be absolutely normal. Including you.”

He leaned close and kissed my forehead. “Love you, kid.”

Paco did the same, adding a whispered, “Don’t get amorous with Guidry in this bed. It’s too narrow. You’d fall out and break your other foot.”

I smiled weakly, but I didn’t think anything would ever seem funny again.

I heard the door close, then heard Guidry drag a chair close to the bed.

With my eyes still closed, I said, “Where did you come from?”

“After we talked on the phone, I had a stroke of good sense and drove to the airport. Hopped the next flight out and got to SRQ before sunset. Rented a car and drove to your place expecting to surprise you. Instead, I found EMTs loading you into an ambulance, a couple of dead bodies, and Sergeant Owens Mirandizing a weeping guy in handcuffs. I grabbed your backpack from your Bronco, because I knew you kept your phone and your client records in it, and followed the ambulance to the hospital. I still don’t know who all those dead people were, or what their connection was to you.”

“It was Cupcake’s cat.”

“What?”

“Cupcake’s cat took a paper that Briana dropped when she left a pair of Nikes on his bed, and everybody thought I found it.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you. Go to sleep.”

“Why did you come?”

Even in my drugged state, I knew he took a long time to answer.

“We’ll talk when you’re awake.”

My eyelids flew open. “I’m awake now.”

Guidry eased his butt down on the side of the bed and took my hand. “I wanted to see you.”

I came more alert. “Why now?”

He took a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure your decision not to come to New Orleans was final.”

“You’ve met somebody.”

“It’s not serious.”

“But it could become serious.”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Ethan Crane asked me out.”

Guidry squeezed my hand. “We are who we are, Dixie.”

I punched the morphine button and closed my eyes.

With my voice slurred and drowsy, I said, “I remember a novel set in India about a pair of star-crossed lovers. The woman in the story said, We are peacock and tiger. I guess we’re like that, too.”

“Are you saying I’m a peacock?”

I giggled. “Well, you’re the one with the fancy clothes. Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

“My older sister is the buyer for the men’s department at Nordstrom’s in Houston. She gives them to me.”

“I hope she makes sure they’re not fakes.”

I drifted to sleep for a minute or an hour, and Guidry touched my shoulder.

“Dixie? I have to catch a flight back home. Are we okay?”

“You know what I’m scared of? I’m scared one day I’ll want to be with you and you’ll be settled down with some other woman and not want me.”

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I’ll always love you. Be happy.”

He left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I watched his broad back and felt tears slip down my face. But I did not call him back.

I hit the morphine button again and let drugs carry me into oblivion.