The Cat Sitter's Cradle

12

The Kitty Haven is a boarding kennel on Avenida del Mare, just a block from the beach in an old Florida-style house with lemon yellow siding and peeling white shutters. There’s a big bay window in the front overlooking a shady porch with a pair of white rocking chairs. Inside, it’s all burgundy velvet, overstuffed pillows, and lace curtains. I always feel like I’ve walked into the front parlor of an old-timey brothel whenever I go there.

Instead of some scantily clad ladies of the evening lounging about, there were four cats stretched out on a big puffy sofa and two more sleeping blissfully on the windowsill. One of them raised its head when I came in and squinted at me the way cats do when they can’t be bothered. The others barely moved a whisker.

A little bell over the door announced my arrival, and from the back of the house I heard Marge’s assistant call out, “Be right there!”

Marge Preston is a plump, white-haired woman with a soft voice and the patience of an angel. She started the Kitty Haven almost by accident. A stray cat had taken up residence under her porch, and Marge, being a softie through and through, decided to rescue it. She started putting out little pieces of cheese and tins of tuna to seduce the cat, whom she named Albert. Eventually Albert was sitting at the breakfast table in Marge’s kitchen and eating kibble out of the palm of her hand, although it turned out she hadn’t picked the best name in the world, since within a few weeks Albert gave birth to nine beautiful calico kittens. Marge decided to raise them all herself and find good homes for them, and in no time at all she was known all over the Key as “that cat lady.” Perfect strangers would knock on her door with cats they’d rescued, asking if she could take them in and offering donations.

The Kitty Haven is Marge’s one true passion. In all the years I’ve known her she’s never had a single vacation, and she’ll take any cat, no questions asked. In fact, business had been so good in the past few months that she’d recently hired a new assistant.

“Dixie!”

“Hi, Jaz!”

I put Charlotte’s cage down, and Jaz wrapped her arms around me in a big bear hug. When I first met Jaz, she was an angry, confused teenager who’d fallen in with a crowd of hooligans and gotten herself into all kinds of trouble. But now she’d grown into a beautiful, mature young woman, and all that anger had disappeared.

She had coffee-colored skin and a head of long black curls. There were still a few telltale signs of her “questionable” past—nails painted jet black, a dagger tattooed on her ankle—but she had the biggest smile on her face, and I could tell all those days were long forgotten. She had always been a fierce animal lover, so when Marge mentioned she was looking for someone to help out at the Kitty Haven, I knew Jaz would fit in perfectly.

She said, “Marge isn’t here. Some lady called, said she’d seen a box of kittens on the side of the road, so of course Marge ran off to save them.”

Charlotte had poked an arm out of one of the air holes in her crate and was frantically waving it around trying to get our attention.

I said, “That’s okay, I’m just dropping off a temporary orphan.”

“Awww, what’s her name?”

“Charlotte, or sometimes she’s called Queen B.”

I unfolded the top of the crate. Charlotte poked her head out and hissed, but I could tell her heart wasn’t really in it.

Jaz knelt down. “Oh my goodness, she’s not in a very good mood, is she?”

“Well, don’t take it personally. She’s grumpy even on a good day, and so far she has not had a good day.”

Jaz picked Charlotte up out of the box and cradled her like a baby. “Poor Queen B, did you have a bad morning?”

I cringed, waiting for Charlotte to go ballistic, but instead she buried her face into Jaz’s armpit and started purring like a miniature jackhammer.

I said, “Wow, I think she likes you, which is good because she could definitely use some extra TLC today, and she hasn’t had any breakfast.”

“Oh, I think we can take care of that. We have all kinds of goodies around here that nobody can resist, no matter how big a grump they are!”

I gave Charlotte a little scratch between the ears. “Okay, well, tell Marge I’ll give her a call. It should only be a couple of days.”

Jaz flashed me a big smile. “Don’t worry, she’s in good hands.”

I winked. “I know she is.”

I barely remember the rest of my morning. I had a few more pets to check in on, and then I must have switched into autopilot, like a homing pigeon drawn to her coop, because the next thing I knew I was dragging myself up the stairs to my apartment. Michael and Paco were both at work, which was a relief, because I knew if they saw me they’d know right away something was wrong, and I just didn’t have the energy to explain it to them. Plus, I didn’t think I could even if I tried. My brain felt like cold mush, and I needed some time to sort it all out. Not to mention the fact that I was absolutely starving.

I didn’t even say hi to Ella Fitzgerald, who was napping in a little shaft of sunlight from the kitchen window. I headed straight for the refrigerator and reached for half a grapefruit, but just behind it was a chocolate brownie calling my name. I slapped the grapefruit aside and went for the brownie, practically devouring it in one gulp. Clearly I needed some comfort food. I found a bag of corn chips in the cabinet and was about to rip it open and down them, too, when I remembered my date with Ethan the following night. The last thing I needed to be worried about was fat hips. I stopped myself, put the grapefruit in a bowl, and glumly carried it out to the porch with one of the silver-plated grapefruit spoons my grandmother left me.

I sat down on the hammock and looked out at the waves lapping up on the beach. Ella Fitzgerald followed me out and rolled around at my feet, scratching her back on the rough wood flooring.

Where could I even start? My head was spinning with questions. Why had Mr. Harwick come home, and why had he left Mrs. Harwick in Tampa? Perhaps they’d had a fight. Given the way they treated each other in front of me, I had a feeling things could get a lot nastier when they were alone. Had he just gotten up in the middle of the night and snuck out of their hotel room? And if so, what did he think would happen when Mrs. Harwick woke up in the morning and discovered he wasn’t there? Maybe it was just one of the stupid games they played, goading each other on, each of them trying to get under the other’s skin. But I knew that wasn’t right. When I answered Mr. Harwick’s phone, there had been a note of desperation in Mrs. Harwick’s voice. She was genuinely worried.

Then I think I actually said out loud, “No!”

I shook my head like a salt shaker, literally trying to empty it out, and took a bite of grapefruit. I decided it was time to give myself a good talking-to.

I told myself enough is enough. How Mr. Harwick got in that pool, and who put him there, was none of my damn business. He had a wife and two grown children and an entire police department to help figure it out. He didn’t need me. I wasn’t his wife or his daughter, and I’m certainly not a homicide detective. I’m a cat sitter. Besides, maybe he hadn’t even been murdered at all. I thought of the liquor bottle on the coffee table—I hadn’t noticed that the night before. Maybe he’d just gotten drunk and fallen in the pool all by himself. Although, there had been two glasses.

No. I shook my head again.

If what Michael had said was true, Mr. Harwick traveled in circles that I did not want to get mixed up in: cutthroats and thieves and oil potentates and foreign dictators. He was a principal figure in one of the largest companies in the world, a company synonymous with greed and wealth. There were probably people all over the planet that would jump for joy at the news that he’d been found dead at the bottom of a pool, and probably just as many that would have pushed him in themselves. I didn’t want to be involved any more than I already was. And anyway, Detective McKenzie seemed like a perfectly capable detective. I was sure she didn’t need my help.

Except …

It was hard not to compare McKenzie to her predecessor. Guidry had probably been the finest homicide detective Siesta Key would ever know. Everything about him was smooth and flawless, from the way his mind worked right down to his fine Italian shoes and imported linen slacks. Okay, I might or might not have been in love with him, but any fool could see that Samantha McKenzie was his polar opposite. She was obviously intelligent, but she was about as stylish as a sack of wet rats. I couldn’t imagine her wearing expensive Italian shoes any more than I could picture Guidry wearing a beige blouse with ruffles, although it made me giggle a bit to try.

I’d almost put the whole thing out of my mind. I had even started to swing a bit in the hammock, absentmindedly eating my grapefruit and imagining Guidry in a skirt and high heels, when it hit me.

I jumped off the hammock. Poor Ella scattered out from under me like it was a bomb raid. I raced inside to the answering machine and hit the PLAY button. There were no new messages, just the one Kenny had left me the day before:

“Dixie, it’s Kenny. Listen, I should have told you, but I couldn’t. Something’s about to go down and … it’s big. I can’t tell you what it is, and probably by the time you hear this I’ll be gone. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for not being honest with you from the start. I was scared, and now it’s too late. I hope you’ll understand that I didn’t have a choice.”

The machine beeped and clicked off. I sat down on the edge of my bed and cradled my head in my hands. This whole time I had assumed he was planning on telling Becca he couldn’t handle having a baby, that he was running away, moving on to another town and starting all over again. Was it possible he’d planned on something else? Detective McKenzie would need to hear about this, but before I could jump to any conclusions, I picked up the phone and started dialing.

I hadn’t even thought what I would say if he picked up, but I was relieved this time when I got Kenny’s voice mail. At least that meant he hadn’t canceled his phone service.

I said, “Kenny, this is Dixie. You need to call me. Right away. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I just need to talk to you before … before things get out of hand. I’m not mad at you, I just need you to call me the minute you get this, okay?”

I paused for a second, as if he might answer, and then hung up. I peeled off my clothes, tossed them on top of the washer, and stepped into the shower. I stood there for a few blissful moments and let the hot water stream down my body. When Becca had first poured her heart out to me, she had said she was completely afraid of telling her mother she was pregnant by the pool man. Could Becca have turned to her stepfather for help? Perhaps he’d snuck out and driven home in the middle of the night. Tampa is only a little more than an hour away by car. Maybe he’d come home to console Becca, only to find her in the house alone with Kenny … and then what? Had there been a fight?

I knew there were things in Kenny’s past that he wasn’t proud of. Michael and Paco were right, why else would he live on a boat and only work odd jobs for cash? Even so, I couldn’t imagine him hurting a flea. And yes, Becca was impetuous, immature, and an emotional disaster, and she didn’t seem too fond of her stepfather, either, but she couldn’t be a murderer. She just couldn’t. I started to feel a little knot at the center of my chest. It was just a small tightening of the muscles there.

I toweled myself off and put on a clean pair of shorts, a sleeveless white tee, and a fresh pair of Keds. I sat down at my desk, and Ella hopped up and curled into a purring ball in my lap. I ran my hand down the length of her spine and thought, If only she could talk to Charlotte in whatever secret language cats speak, then we’d have some answers. I shuddered at the thought that poor Charlotte must have witnessed everything that had happened.

Forget it. I opened some mail and paid a few bills, trying to think about anything else. I left a message for a prospective client, a woman with a Yorkshire terrier that lives out on South Coconut Bayou, and then I tried to balance my checkbook, but it was no use. I had given myself a good talking-to, but apparently my self hadn’t been listening. My mind kept flashing back to one particular moment. When I had pulled the body up on to the edge of the pool and moved the tangle of black hair away, I hadn’t for one second considered the possibility that it might be Mr. Harwick.

But I wasn’t surprised when I saw his face. I wasn’t surprised one bit.