The Cat Sitter's Cradle

9

When I arrived at the Harwick house the next morning, I fully expected to find Becca in hysterics on the floor of the bathroom again. Kenny had probably called her the night before to say he was leaving town and she’d never see him again, or for all I knew he might have sent her a text message. That seems to be the primary mode of delivering important information for young people these days. Either way, I had a feeling Becca was going to need a lot more shoulder-crying time, and I already had a full day as it was. I certainly didn’t want her to go through this alone, but the bottom line was I barely knew her, and it wasn’t my job to shepherd her through the hazardous terrain of love and heartbreak. I decided that if she hadn’t talked to her parents by now, I’d try my best to convince her it was the right thing to do.

The house was completely quiet. This time when I opened the door, the alarm panel didn’t beep, and Charlotte wasn’t waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I called out to announce my presence, expecting Charlotte to come slinking around the corner to give me the stink-eye, but no one answered. I went into the living room, where there was a half-empty liquor bottle and a couple of glasses on the coffee table, but no Charlotte. For the first time, I had a funny feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

Every house has a particular scent to it, a very subtle mixture of the people and animals that live in it, as unique as a fingerprint. The Harwick house had a clean, earthy scent: a combination of cooking aromas from the kitchen, chlorine from the pool, the salty air off the ocean, and a note of lavender, perhaps Mrs. Harwick’s perfume. But now, something was different. I told myself that the Harwicks had been gone for almost two days, and it was only natural that the scent of the house would change in their absence.

But I couldn’t find Charlotte anywhere. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the dining area. I even looked under the couch in the living room and behind the dryer in the laundry room off the kitchen, both popular feline hiding spots, but she was nowhere to be seen. I went up the marble staircase and tiptoed down the main hall toward the master suite. The doors to Becca’s and August’s bedrooms were both closed, and I didn’t think it would be right to go snooping around in there. At least not yet, especially since I wasn’t completely sure they weren’t home and I didn’t want to barge in on them if they were. Hell hath no fury like a teenager awakened at dawn.

The pillows on the big bed in the master bedroom had the same indentations where Charlotte had slept the night before, and the bedspread was a little mussed. Maybe she had slipped under the bed when she heard me open the front door. I felt around the pillows for signs of warmth, but there was nothing. I looked under the bed anyway, hoping I’d see her emerald eyes sparkling mischievously at me, but there were only a couple of dust bunnies and the foil wrapper from a piece of chewing gum.

I was beginning to get a little concerned as I made my way down the short hall toward the master bathroom. As grumpy as Charlotte was, it didn’t make sense that she would hide—especially since cats are such inquisitive animals. She would have at least been curious enough to find out who was in the house before she gave them the cold shoulder, and it certainly wasn’t possible that anyone else had fed her this early in the morning. I tried to form an image in my mind of where I might be if I was a snarky queen in a sprawling mansion, and that turned out to be quite easy: that peach velvet bench in the bathroom opposite the aquarium, next to the gold-plated telephone.

I flicked on the light switch by the doorway, and the overhead chandelier lit up to reveal the bathroom in all its over-the-top glory, but no Charlotte. There was a damp towel draped over the counter next to the sink, but otherwise everything looked normal.

I leaned into the little alcove and peered behind the velvet bench just in case Charlotte was hiding there and thought, This is getting serious. I was out of ideas. I sat down on the bench and put my hand on the gold-plated phone, wondering if it wasn’t time to call the Harwicks and ask them if there were any other places she might be hiding. That’s when I had a feeling I was not alone.

I looked up at the aquarium, fully expecting to see the mermaid staring serenely back at me, and instead locked eyes with a bloated hedgehog, floating motionless in the middle of the tank. It took me a couple of seconds of shock to realize that it wasn’t a hedgehog at all but a porcupine fish.

Porcupine fish are pretty cute in their natural state. They have gloppy, rounded bodies with drooping eyes and a goofy smile, like drunken Pillsbury Doughboys with fins. But when frightened, they fill their bodies up with water, pumping to twice their normal size and extending their sharp, quill-like scales out in every direction. If that’s not enough to scare off a would-be predator, a naturally occurring chemical in their body that’s about a thousand times more poisonous than cyanide usually does the trick.

While the porcupine fish and I stared blankly at each other, my mind did a little wheelie inside its skull. The alarm was off. Charlotte was hiding. The porcupine fish was in a full state of alarm. I glanced about the room looking for anything else out of place. I could hear myself telling Michael and Paco how valuable the fish were, and then I could see Mrs. Harwick pointing at the painted dragon eel and whispering, “Priceless!” I looked back at the tank. Now there were two pairs of eyes on me: the porcupine fish’s and the mermaid’s. She was staring directly into my eyes, like she was trying to tell me something, and I suddenly thought, A burglar is in this house and I’ve just interrupted him.

I was still sitting on the velvet bench. I tried to look as casual as possible. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well, Charlotte,” I said out loud, “you’re not hungry, and I don’t have time to look for you all day.”

I walked out of the bathroom, flicking the light switch off with a trembling hand as I passed, and steadily made my way downstairs to the front door, talking to myself the entire way, certain I was about to be jumped by an intruder.

“Charlotte, you’ll just have to wait and have breakfast later, because I have other things to do and I don’t have time to go looking around every nook and cranny whenever it’s time to eat. You’ll just have to learn that if you want your breakfast, you have to eat it when it’s served. So I’ll just be back after lunchtime, and maybe you’ll decide you’re hungry by then.”

I pulled out my ring of keys and jangled them loudly so whoever was in the house, if they were still there, would hear them and know I was leaving.

“See you later, Charlotte!” I yelled and pulled the front door closed behind me. I walked down the winding driveway on rubbery legs, feeling like there was a target on my back. As soon as I was in the Bronco, I put the key in the ignition with one hand and pulled my cell phone out with the other. I rolled down to the front gate, and by the time I’d pulled out onto the road I had already dialed the number. Not 911, as I probably should have, but the number of my old superior when I was a deputy, that of Sergeant Woodrow Owens.

As shaken as I was, I had to smile when he answered the phone. Sergeant Owens and I have a long history together. I served under him when I was a deputy with the sheriff’s department, I cried in his arms when Todd and Christy were killed, and when I laid down my gun and my badge, it was on Sergeant Owens’s desk. Since then I’d stumbled across more than my share of crime cases, and I was beginning to feel like an adjunct private investigator for the local law. Sergeant Owens had once told me I was too fucked up (his words) to carry on as a police officer, but I imagined he had an entirely different opinion of me now. Or at least, that’s what I hoped.

Even when he’s being his official police self, Owens can’t keep from sounding like he’s about to sit down to crisp catfish and hush puppies that his mama just fried up for him and thirty-nine of his closest kinfolk. Owens is six-three, slow and lanky to look at, but lightning fast when he thinks. He sets high standards for himself and his subordinates, and he’s quick to let you know when you’re being a dumb-butt. Believe me, I know.

I said, “Sergeant, it’s Dixie Hemingway. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a bit of a situation here, and I think you might want to send somebody over.”

His voice warmed as if he was smiling. “What you got, Dixie?”

I said, “I’m pet sitting for the Harwicks on Jungle Plum Road, and they have a huge saltwater aquarium full of fish in their bathroom. Valuable fish. When I arrived, the alarm wasn’t on, which is unusual, and the cat is missing, or hiding, I’m not sure which. I went into the bathroom where the aquarium is, and one of the fish is in a state of alarm. I’m not sure, but I think there’s been some kind of crime.”

After a pause Owens said, “A cat is hiding, and a fish is alarmed?”

“Yes.”

“And where are you now?”

“I’m parked on the side of the road a little ways down from their driveway.”

After a moment, Owens drawled, “Are any of the other fish alarmed?”

Okay, maybe he still thought I was a bit loopy. I sighed. “I know it sounds pretty flimsy.”

“Dixie, flimsy is not the word I was thinking.”

“I just don’t have a good feeling about it.”

“Well, could be that cat ate one of them fish, and now he’s trying to make a run for it. You want me to shut down all the roads out of the city?”

“Alright then, maybe I’m overreacting a little bit.”

“Could be. Give me a call if you got any more nervous critters.”

“Sorry to bother you.”

“Not a bother at all, Dixie.” I could feel him grinning over the phone. “Good to hear from you.”

Just as I hung up, a shiny black sports car pulled into the driveway. There was a young man behind the wheel, and I knew it had to be the Harwicks’ son, August. I jumped out of the car and flagged him down. He rolled down his window as I came jogging up alongside the car.

I said, “Hi, I’m the cat sitter. Are you August?”

He smiled, looking me up and down, and said, “I am. What’s up?”

“Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I was just in the house, and I think there may be someone in there. I can’t find Charlotte anywhere, and … well, one of the fish is alarmed.”

His smile faded a bit. “Is my sister in there?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t see her. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just had a feeling something was wrong.”

He looked up at the house and said, “Okay.”

He shifted his car into park and turned off the ignition. I stepped back as he opened the door and got out. He was tall, at least six feet, with dark stubble and shaggy hair. He had the awkward swagger of a teenaged boy trying to come off like a man. I could smell liquor and cigarettes on his breath, and I wondered if he hadn’t been up all night partying and was just now getting home. No wonder the Harwicks needed me.

He said, “I’ll check it out. Maybe you better wait in your car.”

“I’m not sure you should go in there alone.”

“Look, I already got ripped off once this week. I’m not letting that happen again. You wait in your car and I’ll be back.”

As I turned to go back to my car, he leaned over and pulled something out of his glove compartment. At first I couldn’t quite make it out, but then I saw the familiar glint of black metal and realized it was a pistol. Why in the world this rich kid drove around with a pistol in his glove compartment was beyond me. Every bone in my body told me to get in my car, drive away, and never look back, but I wasn’t about to go anywhere until I knew Charlotte was safe.

I got in my car and locked the doors and hunkered down low in the seat, just in case there was about to be an all-out gun battle in the driveway. In the back of my head, I knew I was probably letting my imagination run away with me, but all I could see were those big mermaid eyes staring into mine and that porcupine fish’s engorged body covered in sharp needles. One thing you can say about animals: They never lie.

After what seemed like an eternity, August came sauntering out of the driveway and up to the car. I rolled down the window, and he leaned in, his cigarette and alcohol breath flowing over me.

“The coast is clear. Charlotte’s out by the pool.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “How did she get out there?”

He grinned and looked me up and down again, his eyes lingering on my breasts. “No idea.”

For a moment I considered punching him in the nuts, but I had to remind myself that the combination of alcohol and raging hormones never brings out the best in anybody, so I did my best to forgive his blatant leering, and since I was almost old enough to be his mother, I’m ashamed to admit I was kind of flattered by his lame, schoolboy flirting.

I followed him up the cobblestone driveway past his fancy black sports car. He looked the car up and down with about the same degree of smarminess he’d looked me up and down, and I could tell he was hoping I’d be impressed. I was, a little bit—it actually was a pretty cool-looking car—but I certainly wasn’t about to let him know I thought so.

“How do you like my new wheels?”

I shrugged and kept walking. “Cars aren’t really my thing.”

If it actually had been a gun that he pulled out of the glove compartment, he must have stashed it inside the house, because I didn’t see any sign of it in his pockets. I considered asking him about it—being alone in a rambling mansion with a gun and a half-drunken teenager is not exactly my idea of a good time—but I told myself if there had been some perverted fish burglar lurking around inside, a gun might have come in handy.

We went out to the lanai. I dropped my backpack by the door and walked over to Charlotte, who was busy cleaning her face using her paw as a napkin. She barely acknowledged my presence.

August propped himself up in the doorway. “You need anything else?”

“No, but thanks, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for finding Charlotte.”

“Yeah man, I totally came to your rescue, huh?”

“Well, I’m sorry I got a little spooked back there. I have a very active imagination.”

He flashed that stupid grin again. “I bet you do.” He pulled out an off-white business card and slipped it into one of the pockets of my backpack. “Here’s my digits.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your digits?”

“Yeah, my phone number. We should hang out sometime.”

One of the many skills I acquired as a police officer is the ability to put an expression on my face that says “I’m tired of your bullshit, take it down a notch.” It’s useful in a variety of situations, like at the return desk at Marshalls or in a movie theater surrounded by rowdy teenagers on spring break. I put my hands on my hips and looked him squarely in the eye.

“Well, August, it was nice to meet you.”

His grin flattened, and he faked a yawn. “Yeah, well, I’m gonna go crash now—party all night, sleep all day. Catch ya later.”

He disappeared inside, and I rolled my eyes at his back. What kind of teenager carries around a business card? Charlotte stood up and rubbed her cheek into my ankle. I looked down and grinned. I knew she’d come around sooner or later—I can usually win over even the grumpiest customer. Humans are trickier. Of course, by now her breakfast was a little late, so it was possible she was just pretending to love up against me so I’d feed her. Either way, I had other pets to tend to, and it was already getting late. I went over to the glass-paneled door and slid it open.

“Come on, Queen B, let’s go get some breakfast.”

Charlotte swished her tail and strolled over to the edge of the pool. Now that she’d gotten my full attention, it was apparently time to play hard-to-get. I know from experience that the best way to get a cat’s attention is to pay no attention to it whatsoever, but I didn’t have time for Charlotte’s shenanigans.

“Let’s go, Your Highness. It’s now or never.”

She stretched an arm out over the pool and tapped nonchalantly at the water a couple of times with one paw, as if to let me know my powers were useless here. I stepped up behind her and was leaning over to pick her up when something registered in the corner of my eye. It was a dark shape at the bottom of the pool. At first glance it appeared to be a big black suitcase or one of those black plastic liners for garbage barrels. I knelt down next to Charlotte to get a closer look, and she nuzzled herself in between my legs and swished her tail a couple of times.

Now I swooped her up in my arms. She protested a bit as I rushed her across the lanai and back into the house. I put her down, slid the door closed, and walked back to the pool. I pulled out my phone and punched the REDIAL button.

Sergeant Owens picked up on the first ring. Smooth as butter, he said, “Well, hello, Miz Hemingway. Whatcha got for me now?”

I said, “I’ve got a goddamn body at the bottom of a pool.”

There was a pause. I imagined the smile slowly fading from his face, then came his reply: four short, businesslike words.

“I’m on my way.”