The Cat Sitter's Cradle

14

I pulled up to the Harwick house not knowing what to expect. Sometimes investigators can take days to comb through the contents of a crime scene, and sometimes it can be over in hours. It all depends on the crime. The first thing I noticed was that the entire property was still cordoned off with yellow police tape, and now it was stretched across the front gate. Partially blocking the entrance were two white news vans with brightly colored logos splashed across their sides and big satellite dishes perched on top, casting long shadows up the driveway. The ambulance was gone now, but there was still a police cruiser next to August’s sports car, and behind that was an unmarked sedan.

I parked behind one of the vans. There were a couple of reporters talking to some neighbors, and across the street there was a balding man, in boating shorts the same orange as Cheetos, pointing his phone at the scene. He was probably taking a video that would be on the Internet as soon as he went back inside his house.

I knew one of the neighbors must have made a call to the local television stations, because if Detective McKenzie had her way, word of Mr. Harwick’s death would have been kept from the media until at least the initial investigation was over and all the family members had been notified. But I guess it’s hard to keep things under wraps when ambulances and police cars start surrounding the home of a major figure in one of the biggest companies in the world. This little group of local reporters was just the tip of the iceberg. Once word started spreading, the whole neighborhood would be crawling with news teams and photographers from all over the place.

I took a deep breath. I don’t get along too well with reporters. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that. So before I got out of the Bronco, I closed my eyes and started slowly counting to ten. With each breath, I imagined myself taking one step toward a gently babbling brook, with sparkling water softly gurgling over time-polished pebbles and blue and yellow butterflies flitting all about. Growing up the lush banks of the brook on both sides were cheery black-eyed Susans, sunning their yellow petals in the dappled sunlight and swaying gently in the warm, nectar-scented breeze. Just when I was at the fifth blissful step, I heard an obnoxiously loud rapping next to my head. I nearly jumped out of my seat, and there was Deputy Morgan’s big face looming in the window next to me.

“Hey, Detective McKenzie is inside. She wants to see you.”

I gulped out, “Okay, I’m on my way.”

“Were you sleeping?”

I grabbed my bag and opened the door. “No, I was not sleeping. I was preparing.”

“Preparing for what?”

“That.”

I tipped my chin in the direction of the reporters, who were now making a beeline right for us.

“Ma’am! What’s your connection to the Harwicks?”

Before I could even answer, another said, “Are you an employee here?”

A young woman in a Tampa University baseball cap stuck a microphone in my face. “Can you tell us in your own words what’s happening here?”

I put my head down and concentrated on the heels of Deputy Morgan’s shiny black boots as he led me past the news vans. The reporters ran alongside us like angry geese until we reached the front gate. Morgan lifted up the police tape and I scooted under, then we made a quick escape up the cobblestone driveway, leaving the gaggle of honking reporters behind.

Morgan grinned. “Well, that wasn’t too bad.”

As we walked away, I heard one of the reporters say, “I think I recognize that woman. She’s a pet sitter.”

I shifted my backpack to the other shoulder and nodded mutely. Detective McKenzie was standing in the doorway on the front porch with her clipboard of notes and police reports.

“Miss Hemingway, I’m glad you’re here. I was wondering if you might show me that fish.”

* * *

The master bathroom looked exactly the same, except now the wet towel I had noticed on the counter had a small yellow card lying next to it with the number 21 written in black ink. There was another yellow card next to the gold-plated phone, and another taped to the door above the handle. The cards were markers left by the investigative team, each indicating a potential piece of evidence. It gave me an eerie feeling to know they’d picked up my own fingerprints in the room, and that they were now part of the puzzle of clues.

The hermit crab I had spotted in the mermaid’s cleavage on that first day I met the Harwicks was now perched precariously on the ridge of her nose. She looked a little peeved about it, and I completely understood. Who can look sexy with a crab on her nose? I pointed to a little fish that was hovering at the base of one of the coral towers, peeking at us from behind a gently waving frond of sea fern. He was creamy yellow from head to tail, with a russet jigsaw pattern tattooed down his sides and fins that seemed almost comically small for his plump body. He had big puppy-dog eyes and a wide goofy smile that looked painted on, as if he’d learned to apply it at clown school.

“It’s that one right there. That’s a porcupine fish.”

Detective McKenzie said, “How did you know it was afraid?”

I said, “Believe me, you know. They puff up into a big ball. And see all those stripes going down his body? Those are spines. When he gets scared and puffs up, those spines stick out like needles in a pin cushion.”

“Or a porcupine.”

“Exactly.”

She nodded thoughtfully. I felt a little secret twinge of pride, imagining her telling Sergeant Owens how brilliant it was of me to notice such an important clue.

“They’re poisonous, aren’t they?”

I nodded. “Yeah, big-time.”

“And did you notice anything else out of place?”

I hesitated. “Not really, other than I couldn’t find Charlotte. And I was a little surprised that the alarm system wasn’t on when I arrived. The Harwicks made a point of telling me that they always kept it on when they were away. When I unlocked the door, it was the first thing I thought.”

“The door was locked?”

“Yes, I’m positive. I know because I remember taking my keys out to unlock the door.”

She sniffed. “Yes, except the use of a key to open a door doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s locked, does it? All it means is that you inserted your key in the lock and turned it. Did you try to open the door before you unlocked it?”

“No … I guess I just assumed it was locked.”

She wrinkled her nose and flipped a page in her clipboard. “Tell me about Mr. Harwick. You’ve known him a while?”

“No, I never even heard of him before this week.”

She looked up at me and tilted her head. There were a couple of tangled strands of mousy brown hair falling across her face, and I resisted the urge to brush them aside.

“Miss Hemingway, that’s a little difficult to understand.”

“Huh?”

“I said, that’s a little difficult—”

I said, “Yes, I heard you, I’m just not sure what you mean. I know he’s famous in the business world, but I really don’t keep up on that kind of stuff.”

“Well, what I meant is, your boyfriend cleans the pool here, doesn’t he? I would assume you’d at least be familiar with the Harwicks through him.”

I sputtered, “Kenny? He isn’t my boyfriend! I don’t have a boyfriend. I know Kenny Newman because he hired me to check in on his cat a few times, and he sometimes works for me doing overnight dog sitting. But I didn’t even know he cleaned the pool here until Mr. Harwick told me himself.”

She pulled a pen out of her clipboard and circled something in her notes. “So, you did not know Mr. and Mrs. Harwick before two days ago?”

“No, I did not.”

“I apologize. Mrs. Harwick was under the impression that you and Kenny Newman were seeing each other.”

This woman was smart. I couldn’t be sure, but I had the distinct feeling she was testing me again. I considered the possibility that Becca had already spilled her guts to Detective McKenzie and told her everything: that she was secretly dating Kenny, that she was pregnant, that Kenny had left her when he found out. McKenzie probably also knew that Becca had told me everything that morning when I found her crying her eyes out in the master bathroom. McKenzie had laid out a little piece of bait, and now she was waiting to see if I would snatch it up. Would I tell her everything I knew about Becca and Kenny? Or would I keep some secrets to myself?

I said, “I don’t know where Mrs. Harwick got that impression, but I think you should probably talk to Becca about Kenny.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t feel right telling you things that Becca told me in confidence. If she hasn’t already told you, I think you should ask her what’s happening in her life right now. I’m not sure it has any bearing on the investigation, but it could.”

“What’s happening in her life right now?”

“Look. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to talk to Becca first.”

“Miss Hemingway—”

She stopped herself and took a deep breath. There was suddenly a very distant look in her eyes. She glanced down at the floor and then absentmindedly smoothed away one of the numerous wrinkles in her drab skirt, which was sprinkled here and there with short white cat hairs.

She looked up and leveled me with her gray eyes. “Dixie, Becca never came home last night, and she didn’t show up at her school this morning. At this point we have no idea where Becca is.”

I stared at her blankly.

“If for any reason you feel that Becca might have been involved in the death of her stepfather, I need you to tell me right now.”

I had no choice. I really didn’t think it was possible, but if Becca had anything to do with what happened to Mr. Harwick, I needed to tell everything I knew, even if it meant betraying Becca’s confidence.

I told McKenzie how I’d found Becca in a ball on the bathroom floor sobbing hysterically, how she was terrified about what her parents would do if they found out she was pregnant, and how Kenny seemed to have gotten cold feet and was leaving town ASAP. Detective McKenzie listened patiently, occasionally nodding and making notes on her clipboard. If she was disappointed that I hadn’t been completely up-front about Becca and Kenny from the beginning, she didn’t let on.

She said, “When was the last time you talked to Kenny Newman?”

“A couple of days ago. He was dog sitting for me on an overnight job, and he called because a neighbor wanted to walk the dog, and he wasn’t sure if they had permission.”

McKenzie nodded but didn’t say a word. She could tell there was more.

I said, “Okay. He left a message on my answering machine yesterday. I didn’t want to say anything because I wanted to talk to him first, but I’ve been calling him ever since and he won’t answer.”

“What was the message?”

I sighed. “He told me there was something that he was about to do, and that he was sorry, and that it was big.”

“He didn’t say what it was?”

“No, I assumed he was skipping town. He said by the time I heard the message he’d be gone.”

She nodded. “Had he ever mentioned any kind of tension with the Harwicks before? A dispute about money, perhaps, or anything else?”

She was doing it again. “No. Like I said, I didn’t know he worked for the Harwicks until two days ago.”

“Right. You did say that. Do you know where he lives?”

“Detective, there’s just no way he could be involved. I haven’t known him for very long, but I just can’t imagine he would do something like this.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing to be worried about. I just need to talk to him. Can you give me his address?”

I sighed again. “No. He doesn’t have one. He lives on a boat, and sometimes he sleeps in his car.”

She nodded as if that was the most normal thing in the world, but I knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Do you happen to know where he keeps this boat?”

“Down at the dock behind Hoppie’s Restaurant. They let him stay there in exchange for doing odd jobs.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew deep down inside that I might have misjudged Kenny, and now I was beginning to see him from Detective McKenzie’s point of view. What I saw was not pretty. An itinerant worker, a drifter basically, who lived on a houseboat and slept in his car, who disappeared with his pregnant teenaged girlfriend after her domineering father was found fully clothed at the bottom of the family swimming pool.

McKenzie said, “Okay. You’ve been very helpful.”

I said, “I just need to feed the fish and then I’ll be out of your way. Do you know how long it’ll be before I can bring the Harwicks’ cat back home? I have her in a kennel now.”

“Mrs. Harwick is staying in a hotel for the time being. I’m not sure she’s going to be able to come home anytime soon.”

Her tone was unmistakable. The words spilled out of her mouth like dice on a game board, completely devoid of judgment or drama. I’ve grown to recognize that tone almost immediately. It’s like a secret code, or a song that only people who’ve lost someone they fiercely loved can hear. She didn’t need to tell me that Mrs. Harwick was distraught. More than likely she was in shock.

She murmured, “We’ve called a doctor in.”

I nodded. We both knew how unprofessional it was for her to include that little detail, but I understood her need to tell me. After Christy and Todd were killed, I couldn’t get out of bed. There was no doctor or sedative or antidepressant strong enough to bring me back to real life. I just needed time. I stayed wrapped in sheets for months, like a blithering lunatic in a cocoon. I barely ate or bathed.

And now here it was again, that crazy urge to pour my heart out to this woman, to tell her my whole tragic story. What in the world was happening to me? I had always been the silent, brave type, the one that held everything in, that did all the listening but none of the talking. Now all of a sudden I was chomping at the bit to open myself up to someone I barely knew, and all because she had lost her husband as well.

We stood there for a couple of awkward moments; then I grabbed my backpack and pulled Mrs. Harwick’s fish-feeding instructions out of one of the side pockets.

Detective McKenzie cleared her throat and handed me her card. “I’ll see you downstairs when you’re done here. In the meantime, let me know the minute you hear anything from Kenny Newman, and please ask him to call me.”

I slipped the card in my pocket. “Okay, I will.”

“And Dixie, it would be helpful if you could be as brief as possible with him.”

I knew what she meant. She didn’t want me to tell Kenny what had happened or ask him any questions about the case. A good detective can learn a lot just by observing the way people handle themselves. Kenny’s first reaction to the facts of the case could mean the difference between being a witness and a suspect, and McKenzie wanted to be there when he was given the news.

As she walked out I glanced over at the mermaid, who was staring off blissfully at some distant horizon. Stupid bitch, I thought. How nice it must be to sit on your porcelain treasure chest throne, encased in a silent wall of water without a care in the world, while fish serenely circle around your empty porcelain head.

I slid open one of the big panel doors on the side of the tank and shuffled around to the back, trying to focus in on Mrs. Harwick’s tiny handwriting. The instructions for the evening feeding were simple enough, six tablespoons each from two different cans of dried fish food. The first looked like tiny multicolored snowflakes, and the second were BB-sized pellets, half of which sank to the bottom of the tank the moment they hit the water. The fish seemed to know right off the bat which food they preferred. A few dove directly for the sinking pellets and ignored the floating flakes completely, while the rest shot straight to the surface and splashed around like a frenzy of man-eating piranhas.

I didn’t check the chemical balance in the water as Mrs. Harwick had directed me to do occasionally. I felt a little twinge of guilt about that, but I figured I’d performed my duties and then some for the Harwick family already, and frankly I was physically and emotionally spent. I wanted to get out of that house as soon as possible.

Plus, the sun was setting, and I had one more item on my to-do list before I could throw my exhausted bones into bed and put this whole day out of its misery.