The Cat Sitter's Cradle

21

Joyce and I were perched shoulder to shoulder on the hood of her car, trying to figure out what we should do about Corina and the resplendent quetzal. I have to admit, I was at a complete and utter loss. I kept waiting for Joyce’s inner marine to take over and start handing out orders, but I think she must have been having as much difficulty as I was figuring out what in the world our next step should be.

In spite of everything, I didn’t want to make things harder for Corina than they already were, and I knew Joyce was feeling the same way. I kept thinking about what Corina’s life must have been like in Guatemala, how terrible the conditions must have been—terrible enough to compel her to take on such a dangerous, high-risk job. And what if she was caught? Smuggling an endangered species from one country to another is an international crime. I shuddered to think what would happen if Corina was arrested. She’d end up in prison, and then where would her baby be? How in the world could she have been so reckless? But I knew the answer. I would have done the same thing for my daughter if it meant the difference between feeding her or letting her go hungry.

Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that what Corina was doing was not only illegal, it was unethical. It went against everything I believe in. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing while an innocent, endangered animal was passed from person to person for money with little or no regard for its well-being.

Finally we decided the best thing would be to try to convince Corina that what she was doing was wrong, and that if she agreed to stop, we would do everything in our power to help her and her baby, even if that meant letting her stay at Joyce’s rent free until she was able to get herself back on her feet.

As for whether or not it was wrong that we weren’t immediately reporting Corina to the police, we decided to leave unanswered for now.

Joyce stood up. “Alright, let’s get this show on the road. My ice cream is melting.”

We unloaded the rest of the groceries and brought them up the walk to the front porch. Joyce pushed the door open with her foot, and Henry the VIII came prancing in from the living room. He raced around our legs barking a mile a minute while we carried everything into the kitchen. I think he must have been trying to tell us what we’d missed while Joyce had been shopping.

I put the last of the bags on the counter, and Joyce fished out a pint of ice cream and put it in the freezer. “The rest of this can wait. I’ll go wake her up.”

She disappeared down the hall while I sat down on the couch and braced myself. Henry the VIII jumped into my lap and pawed at my hand, trying to get me to pet him.

From down the hallway, Joyce let out a little laugh and then I heard, “Ay dios mío.”

As I rubbed Henry the VIII behind the ears, I wondered how angry or afraid Corina would be when she heard what we had to say. I didn’t think she was capable of violence, but I also knew that anybody, animal or human, can be pretty unpredictable when backed into a corner. I hoped she would understand that we were only looking out for her best interest, but I wasn’t sure how easy it was going to be to get her to see that.

Joyce said, “Hey, Dixie, why don’t you come back here?”

Henry the VIII jumped off my lap and went scampering down the hall ahead of me. Joyce was leaning in the doorway of Corina’s bedroom with a sad smile on her face.

“She’s gone.”

The room had been meticulously cleaned. The bedspread was completely smooth, its corners neatly tucked in, and the pillows were leaned up against the headboard with their edges perfectly parallel to one another. Lined up on the edge of the bed and organized in neat piles were all of the things I had bought for the baby. The clothes, the diapers, the creams, the bottles, the blankets. Everything.

On the dresser in front of the mirror was Joyce’s antique birdcage. It was as clean as if René had never existed, and inside, leaning against one of the little wooden perches, was a plain white envelope. Joyce opened the cage door and pulled it out. Written in a childish hand on its face were the words I’M SORRY.

We both slumped down on the bed and sat numbly for a minute or so.

Finally Joyce said, “Well, I guess I better open it.”

She slid her fingers across the flap of the envelope and took a deep breath.

There was no letter inside.

Just two slightly wrinkled thousand-dollar bills.

* * *

I have a theory about cats. It’s based on my own ranking system, which I call the Kitty Craziness Factor, or KCF. It measures the level of feline loopiness in a household—like how much racing up and down the stairs there is, or climbing on furniture and pouncing on imaginary mice. The higher the Kitty Craziness Factor, the more loopiness. So in a household where the KCF is high, there might be, for example, spelunking down the living room curtains or skydiving off the refrigerator.

The process of determining the Kitty Craziness Factor is pretty simple. You just count the number of cats. A household with only one cat has a KCF of one. A household with two cats has a KCF of two. A household with three cats has a KCF of seven. I don’t know why a household with three cats has more than three times the loopiness of a household with only two cats, but it’s a scientific fact.

Betty and Grace Piker were two retired sisters who had a long-standing agreement with each other. If one found a cat and wanted to bring it home, the other would stop her—using physical force if necessary. They had seven cats, all rescues. It wasn’t even possible to measure the KCF in their household; it was completely off the charts.

The Piker sisters had gone to Orlando to visit their niece, who had just given birth. They were only staying for the day, so all I needed to do was check on the cats and feed them. The sisters were planning on being back home that evening.

All the cats were napping when I arrived, so things were relatively subdued. I washed out the food bowls and lined them up in a row on the kitchen counter. In each bowl I mixed a cup of dry cat kibble with just a little warm water from the tap. Then I opened the cabinet and pulled out a can of sardines.

Suddenly all seven cats stampeded into the kitchen, circling at my feet and bleating excitedly. I hadn’t even opened the can yet. I could swear they knew the sound it made when it clinked down on the countertop.

As I distributed the bowls around the kitchen to give everybody a little elbow room to dine in private, I felt like Dame Wiggins of Lee, a character from one of the books my grandmother used to read to me when I was a little girl. The book had been a gift to me from my brother on my very first birthday. Dame Wiggins had seven wonderful cats that could all cook and sew. When they weren’t outside ice-skating on the pond or flying kites, they were inside helping Dame Wiggins of Lee with all her daily chores.

I said, “Anybody want to come home and help me with the laundry?”

There were no takers. They were all too busy concentrating on their yummy sardines to pay me any mind.

While they ate, I did a quick run through the house, righting overturned trash baskets and checking for any other accidents. In the guest bathroom, somebody had made confetti of the toilet paper roll, and there was a scattering of kitty litter that had been pawed out of one of the three litter boxes in the laundry room. They might not have been as neat and tidy as Dame Wiggins of Lee’s cats, but they were just as wonderful.

By the time I had cleaned the litter boxes and put everything back in order, everyone was done with dinner and the Kitty Craziness Factor was through the roof. Usually I worry about leaving my pets all alone in their houses—even if I’ve spent a good chunk of time playing with them—but these guys provided each other with so much attention and exercise that I didn’t feel guilty leaving them. In fact, I think if they’d been able to open a can of sardines by themselves, they wouldn’t have needed me at all.

I was headed out to the car when my cell phone rang. It was Detective McKenzie. I imagined Kenny had told her his story by now, and she was probably calling to find out what he’d told me and if our stories matched.

Before I answered, I took a deep breath. I wanted to be ready for whatever tricks she had up her sleeve.

“Dixie, I wanted to let you know our crime units are pulling out of the Harwick house now.”

I said, “Oh, okay. I guess I can bring the cat back?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Mrs. Harwick isn’t coming home yet. She’s afraid to sleep in the house until the killer has been caught. She’s asked if you could continue to feed her fish for a little while longer.”

I could tell by the tone in McKenzie’s voice that Mrs. Harwick was probably still in a state of shock. If it were me, I don’t think I’d ever want to go home again.

The last time we had talked, McKenzie mentioned that a doctor had been called in for Mrs. Harwick, probably to prescribe some sort of sedative to help her sleep. I wanted to know if that had helped at all, but I knew it wasn’t my place to ask.

McKenzie said, “Still no word from Kenny Newman?”

I closed my eyes and silently shook my head. “Oh, no.”

“What? I’m assuming you’ve not heard from him?”

I sighed. “Detective McKenzie, he showed up at my apartment late last night. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. He promised he was turning himself in as soon as he left. I just assumed he was telling the truth.”

There was a slight pause on the line, and then she said, “We need to talk. Where’s convenient for you?”

* * *

We agreed to meet near the pavilion at Siesta Key Beach. We were alone except for a group of teenagers in swimming trunks and bikinis, huddled around their soft drinks and eating hot dogs at one of the picnic tables. They were tearing little pieces of their hot dog buns and tossing them to the sparrows that were pecking around under the tables.

Detective McKenzie was waiting for me at one of the benches that face the beach. In her plain tan skirt and navy blue blazer, she stood out like a sore thumb. I got the feeling she didn’t spend a lot of time on the beach, and she had probably never worn a bikini in her life. She was wearing a pair of big-framed sunglasses, and her frizzy sorrel hair was pulled under a wide-brimmed straw hat, which provided some protection for her pale, freckled skin from the hot afternoon sun.

When I walked up, she stood and shook my hand firmly.

“Thanks for meeting me, Dixie. It’s much easier to talk in person than on the phone.”

I muttered something vague like “Sure is,” but the truth was I didn’t want to talk to her at all. For some insane reason I still felt a lingering loyalty to Kenny, some inexplicable desire to protect him, even though he’d given me his word that he would turn himself in to the police as soon as he left my apartment. Apparently he’d had other plans.

As I sat down she said, “First of all, does he have Becca?”

I shook my head sadly. “No. He says he has no idea where she is.”

“Alright. And I don’t suppose he told you where he’s staying.”

I shook my head again. “No.”

She smiled uncomfortably. “Well, now that we’ve got that over with. Tell me everything that happened last night.”

I told her the entire story, including how Kenny had asked me not to let the police hear the message he’d left on my answering machine. She pulled her clipboard out of her bag and made a few notes as I talked, but she didn’t say a word until I got to the part where Kenny said he was Mr. Harwick’s son.

She held up one hand to stop me. “Wait a minute. He’s been working in the Harwick house for months.”

“I know. He was going to tell them who he was, but I think he was scared.”

“So he never told them?”

“He did. He called Mr. Harwick.”

“When?”

“The night before I found him in the pool.”

“Does Mrs. Harwick know about this?”

I said, “I don’t think so. Mr. Harwick was whispering on the phone, so Kenny got the impression he was trying to hide it from her. They agreed to meet at the house, and Mr. Harwick drove back from Tampa that night. They met alone. He told Kenny he was sorry, and he wanted to make it up to him. He said he would buy Kenny a house and give him money and put him in his will, but Kenny didn’t want anything to do with it. He told Mr. Harwick that he wasn’t there for money. He just wanted his father to tell him to his face why he had run away.”

She took off her sunglasses and looked me squarely in the eye. “Dixie, let me get this straight. It’s the middle of the night. This man who’s been missing since Mr. Harwick drowned shows up at your door out of nowhere. You know the police are looking for him. You’re all alone. Why in the world would you let him in your house?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I suddenly felt my cheeks turning red. “Well … I wasn’t alone, actually.”

She waved her hand like a teacher erasing a chalkboard. “Okay, forget that. Why would you let him in your house at all?”

I thought for a moment, but I couldn’t come up with a good answer. “It was stupid. I shouldn’t have let him in. I guess I trusted him.”

She put her sunglasses back on. “Yes, I’m beginning to see that. So how did their meeting end?”

“Kenny told Mr. Harwick he didn’t want anything from him, including his money. And to prove it, he gave him an envelope with all the letters that Mr. Harwick had ever sent him, including checks that he never cashed.”

I paused for a moment. I knew that what I was about to say was not going to sound good, but I also knew I didn’t have a choice. “He also said that he told his father he could take his money and rot in hell. Then he left.”

Detective McKenzie frowned. “This packet of letters, did he say where it was?”

“No. He said he gave it to Mr. Harwick before he left.”

She nodded. “That’s interesting. There was no packet of letters in that house when we searched it.”

The teenagers had gone down to the beach and were running in and out of the waves and laughing in that carefree way kids do. A small brown sparrow perched on the table next to ours and pitched a couple of bossy chirps at us. I think he was checking to see if we had any hot dog buns for him.

It was hard to tell what Detective McKenzie was thinking. She had laid her clipboard down in her lap and was resting her hands on it.

“Dixie, tell me what you know about Becca.”

“I’ve only met her a couple of times, but she seems like a sweet girl, just a little in over her head.”

“Mrs. Harwick tells me that Becca can be emotional. Does that sound right to you?”

“Yeah, I would say she definitely has a flare for the dramatic.”

“And that day you found her crying on the floor in her parents’ bathroom, did you wonder why she was there, instead of her own room?”

“No. It’s a pretty nice bathroom, and the aquarium is kind of soothing, so I got the impression she spent a lot of time in there.”

“Did anything seem strange about her?”

I said, “Other than that she was totally freaking out?”

“I understand she was upset, but the way you described it made me wonder if there wasn’t something else going on, something that might have been influencing her behavior.”

“You mean … like drugs?”

She nodded.

“It’s possible. Like I said, I didn’t know her before all this, so I couldn’t say if the way she was acting was normal for her or not. But she did say her brother had been involved with drugs. That’s why he got a job at the golf club, because the Harwicks cut him off when they found out.”

She nodded. “Mrs. Harwick mentioned that. She also told me she overheard an argument between Becca and August. Apparently something was missing from August’s room, but Becca denied having anything to do with it. Do you know what that might have been about?”

“No. She didn’t say anything about that to me.”

“Alright, one last thing. I keep going back to your porcupine fish. You didn’t notice if it was alarmed that morning you talked to Becca?”

“No, definitely not, I would have remembered that for sure.”

“Do you think a loud noise could have caused it to puff up like it did?”

“Definitely. Especially if the noise was nearby.”

Detective McKenzie pursed her lips together. I could tell she was making an effort to choose her words carefully.

“Like a scream, for example. Could a scream have set off that kind of reaction?”

I nodded slowly. “I think any loud noise could have set it off.”

“Okay. That’s helpful.”

I looked down at my hands. “Detective McKenzie, do you think Becca is still alive?”

She looked at the water for a long time. Eventually I figured out that she wasn’t going to answer me, which was fine. Her silence was answer enough. No matter what had happened the night Kenny met with Mr. Harwick, the fact that Becca had been missing ever since was not a good sign. If she had witnessed what had happened, it was possible that she had been discovered hiding in the bathroom. Becca was tough, but she was still just a teenager and probably not more than a hundred pounds. I don’t think she would have been able to defend herself. Whoever killed Mr. Harwick that night might have taken her. Or worse.

Detective McKenzie turned to me and said, “When my husband died, I felt like I was instantly a member of a secret club, where only people who’ve lost a husband or a wife before their time can understand me. Do you ever feel that way?”

I waited a couple of moments before I answered. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. It’s like a club you wish you weren’t in, but you’re glad it’s there all the same.”

“Yes. That’s exactly it. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, Dixie, but I imagine it must be that same feeling, multiplied a million times over.”

I nodded. That felt about right.

We sat for a while longer, not talking, just watching the kids play on the beach. I think we were both thinking the same thing: For every hour that Becca was missing, the odds that she was alive got smaller and smaller.

It was bad enough that Mrs. Harwick was now a card-carrying member of Detective McKenzie’s secret club. I hoped with all my heart that she wasn’t about to be a member of mine.

I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.