The Cat Sitter's Cradle

22

After Detective McKenzie left, I stayed a while longer and watched the waves crashing in on the beach. Our meeting had left me reeling, and I just needed to sit and rest for a while. There was something about that woman that always made me feel like I’d just lived through a hurricane or run a ten-mile marathon. She was drab and plain on the outside, but on the inside her mind was spinning at about a hundred miles an hour.

I bought a hot dog from the food stand at the beach pavilion and slathered it with hot mustard and relish. By the time I got halfway to the car I’d already downed it, so I went right back and bought another one.

Sitting in the Bronco in the parking lot, I chewed on my second hot dog and tried to sort everything out in my head. McKenzie had hinted that August wasn’t the only one in the Harwick family with a drug problem. If Becca had been high on something, I wasn’t sure I would have recognized it. I never did drugs when I was a kid, and neither did Michael. Not that I was a goody-two-shoes or anything; it’s just that living by the ocean was a good enough high for me. Plus, I’m sure my grandmother would have taken a belt to my backside if she’d ever caught wind of drugs under her roof. My grandmother was a pretty strict guardian, but she never spanked me with a belt, and I wanted to keep it that way.

There was something else bothering me, though. When I mentioned the packet of letters that Kenny had given his father before he left, Detective McKenzie seemed genuinely puzzled, and I didn’t think it was some kind of trick she was trying out on me. She had probably known right away what was just now trickling into my brain: Either Mr. Harwick had hidden that packet somewhere in the house before he was killed, or someone had taken it.

Of course, there was one more possibility: that Kenny had made the whole thing up and was playing me. He knew I would report everything he said to the police.

My second hot dog wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the first, but I ate it all anyway. Sometimes my stomach doesn’t listen to my brain. At Beach Road, I turned left and took the long route around the Key toward the Harwick house. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to being in that house alone. Up until now it had been filled with crime-scene technicians and police every time I’d gone over, but now it would be empty.

On the way, I called the Kitty Haven. Now that the investigation at the Harwick house was over, I wondered if Charlotte might be happier at home, even if it meant staying there alone. Being in a strange place with so many other cats can be stressful, especially for a cat as grumpy as Charlotte, and sometimes grumps like to be left alone. Believe me, I know that from firsthand experience.

Marge said, “No, she’s doing just fine. Not nearly as jittery as she was when you first brought her in. Jaz has been spending lots of time with her, and cats always pick up on the energy of the people around them. You know Jaz, she’s always happy.”

That was welcome news, not just for Charlotte but for Jaz as well. When I’d first met her, there were a lot of things you might have called Jaz, but happy was not one of them. It seemed working with Marge at the Kitty Haven was doing her a world of good.

I thanked Marge and told her I didn’t think it would be much longer before Charlotte could go back home, even though I really didn’t know if that was true or not. Detective McKenzie had made me wonder if Mrs. Harwick would ever go back home again. I figured August might be moving back in at some point, but it was entirely possible that he’d be staying with his mother until she was back on her feet.

When I pulled up to the Harwick house, the first thing I noticed was that all the yellow police tape was gone. Luckily for me, the gang of reporters that had been hanging out on the street had finally picked up shop and moved on, too. Until the coroner’s report on Mr. Harwick was made public, there wouldn’t be anything new to report. They were probably all camped out at Mrs. Harwick’s hotel, hoping to get a shot of the fabulously wealthy grieving widow.

When I opened the front door, my heart did a little skip. The alarm didn’t make its familiar beeping sound, which meant someone had turned it off. I immediately had that same creepy feeling I’d had the morning I found Mr. Harwick—that someone was in the house.

I rolled my eyes and said out loud, “Oh, get over it!”

I dropped my ring of keys into its pocket on my backpack and went over to the marble staircase and called up. “August?”

There was nothing but silence.

Then I realized, of course the alarm wasn’t on. The crime-scene units had only finished their work today. I doubted they even knew the code to set the alarm.

I let out a big sigh of relief and told myself I needed to stop being so dramatic. But just to be on the safe side, I went back over and locked the front door. That’s when I smelled it. Cigarette. Something moved in the corner of my eye. I walked through the main entry where the two Roman statues were standing guard and saw the back of someone’s head.

Mrs. Harwick was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring out at the pool. A plume of white smoke was trailing up from a cigarette perched on the edge of the coffee table.

I stepped lightly up to her side. “Mrs. Harwick?”

She turned her head in my direction but didn’t look directly at me. “Oh, Dixie. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you. I didn’t realize anyone was home. I just stopped by to check on the fish.”

“Oh, good.” She stared blankly ahead, her eyes fixed on the pool area. “The police left a little while ago. I came by to get a few of my things. I was going to send the driver in to get them for me, but at the last minute I changed my mind. I told him to leave me here and come back in an hour.”

Her voice was small and distant, as if it were locked away inside a safe.

“Mrs. Harwick, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, thank you, Dixie. I’m sorry, too. That must have been a terrible ordeal for you.”

She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes.

I suddenly realized that I’d completely intruded on her quiet, and more than likely she just wanted to be left alone.

I said, “Well, I’ll just check on the fish and then I’ll be out of your way.”

As I turned to leave, she stopped me.

“It’s so odd, isn’t it? You think you know people. I’ve never been very close to my son, August. He’s always been a little distant, even when he was a baby. People say that’s just the way boys are. Maybe it’s true. It’s always been Becca that was there when I needed her. But not this time. Not now. Becca’s gone. To be honest with you, I think she’s gotten herself mixed up with drugs, and now it’s August taking care of me. All the paperwork, the police, everything. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

My first instinct was to tell her I was sure that if Becca could be here she would, which of course was about the dumbest thing I could possibly have ever said. Sometimes my mouth starts running before my brain has any idea what’s going on. As my grandmother liked to say, “The wheel is spinning but the gerbil ain’t home.”

Luckily this time I caught myself. Mrs. Harwick was in a state of deep shock. She knew Becca was missing, but she’d somehow managed to avoid considering what everybody else feared: that Becca might have witnessed something that night, and right now could be in very grave danger.

I said, “I know Becca’s been going through a lot of things in her life. When you’re a teenager, sometimes you think the world revolves around you. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

She was sitting perfectly still, her back ramrod straight, staring numbly out at the swimming pool.

She said, “Becca and I were riding bikes one morning. She couldn’t have been more than five or six, because I remember her bike still had training wheels. We were coming around a curve, and I rolled over a stick that had fallen in the path. It popped up and got stuck in the bicycle chain. The next thing I knew I was flying over the handlebars. I landed flat on my face. It nearly knocked me out. Becca saw me fall, but she just kept on riding. I remember her little legs just pumping away on the pedals.”

She looked down and spread her palms open.

“I broke the fall with my hands. I’m convinced that’s where my arthritis came from. Dixie, do you have someone?”

That caught me off guard. I said, “What do you mean, someone?”

“Someone special in your life.”

“Umm. I do. Sort of. I mean it’s complicated.”

She stared at me, unblinking, with a desperate look in her eyes. I knew she wanted an honest answer.

I said, “I’ve been alone for a while, so it’s hard. I mean, it’s such a compromise…”

“A compromise?”

“Well, I mean I like my life the way it is. It’s just hard to compromise no matter how much in love you think you are.”

She thought for a moment and then looked out at the pool. “I think you should stay away from Kenny Newman. I’m afraid of him.”

“Mrs. Harwick, I’m not involved with Kenny Newman, and I never have been. I really only know him through work.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I jumped to that conclusion. To be honest, I think I was a little jealous. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always had a little crush on Kenny, which I’m sure you can understand.” She smiled sadly. “Well, I’m glad you have someone you can share your life with.”

She looked down at the cigarette, still lying with its lit end over the edge of the coffee table, only now there was a half-inch-long tail of ashes. She flicked the ashes into the palm of her hand and dumped them along with the cigarette into a bowl on the table next to the couch. She shook her head. “Disgusting habit. I haven’t smoked in twenty years.”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s the driver.”

She stood up slowly, and we walked to the front door.

“Dixie, I hope you don’t mind feeding the fish a while longer. I realize it’s not at all what we planned, but until they find out who did this, I can’t stay in this house.”

“It’s not a problem at all. I can feed them as long as you want, and I’ve already talked to the Kitty Haven. Charlotte can stay there as long as necessary.”

Her eyes glassed over, and she nodded mutely. I watched from the porch as the driver helped her into the backseat of the car. She had been so vital and strong that first day we met. Now, just a few days later, she seemed old and frail.

The driver closed the door, and as he walked around the front of the car and got in the driver’s seat, Mrs. Harwick sat perfectly still, her eyes wide open and gazing forward. I was waiting to give her a smile or a wave, but as the car moved forward she didn’t look back.

I trudged up the stairs with heavy legs. Mrs. Harwick seemed to have lost not only her husband, but her soul mate. I had been wrong about them. They had been together so long their bickering had become just another mode of communication. What I had thought was bitterness and sarcasm was really just harmless play, like two old dogs rolling around in the grass and chewing on each other’s ears.

In the master bathroom, I slid open one of the pocket doors on the side of the aquarium and opened the cabinet where all the food and chemicals were kept. I pulled out a water-testing strip and dipped it into the aquarium for a few seconds, then watched the little squares on the strip change color. I compared them with the examples printed on the side of the bottle. Everything matched perfectly, which was a relief. I didn’t have to add any chemicals to the tank. I remembered Mrs. Harwick saying that just the slightest imbalance in the chemistry could be fatal to the fish.

After I sprinkled some food in, I slid the lid of the tank closed, flicked off the light, and closed the pocket door behind me. The bathroom was the same, except the towel that had been lying on the counter was gone, along with all the little yellow evidence markers, and the harp-toting angels flying around on the ceiling looked a little more heavenly and glowing in the late-afternoon light.

I thought to myself, If I were Becca, I would probably have spent a lot of time in here, too. I went over to the little alcove opposite the aquarium and sat down on the velvet bench. I closed my eyes and the image of Mrs. Harwick’s face came into view. There was so much sorrow in her vacant stare that I could barely take it. She must have been so terrified when she woke up that morning in Tampa and realized that her husband wasn’t lying in bed next to her. I hoped someone had been with her when she was told what had happened. The thought of her sitting alone in a hotel room to hear that news was just too terrible to think about. And now it was beginning to look like Detective McKenzie might have been right about Becca, that she was on drugs.

That’s when it finally dawned on me.

Becca had said that Mr. and Mrs. Harwick had basically disowned August for getting mixed up with drugs, and that he’d been forced to get a job at the golf club. That was one of the main reasons she’d been afraid to talk to her parents: She was worried they’d cut her off, too. And who could blame her? If I’d had that kind of money growing up, I don’t think I’d be too happy about losing it either.

Now, though, I remembered something August said the first day I met him. He had just searched through the house and found Charlotte out on the lanai. We were walking up the driveway together, and when we passed his car he said, “How do you like my new wheels?” If he’d been cut off financially from his parents, forced to get some menial job at a golf course, how in the world could he have afforded to buy a brand-new, expensive-looking sports car? Where would he have gotten the money for something like that?

It was simple. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before.

August wasn’t “mixed up” in drugs. He was dealing them, and Becca knew it. Detective McKenzie had mentioned Becca had taken something from her brother’s room. Was it possible Becca had found his stash of money and drugs and stolen it?

Then there was the question of that packet of letters that Kenny supposedly gave Mr. Harwick. Where was it? And if it wasn’t hidden in the house, who had taken it?

My brain was starting to hurt. I rubbed my hands over my eyes and took a deep breath. Somehow I’d done it again. I’d gotten all mixed up in something that was none of my business. I had told myself that it was none of my business a hundred times, but somehow that didn’t matter. I just kept getting sucked in.

I looked up at the fish tank. The mermaid was sitting inside her simple, peaceful little world with that same insipid look in her eyes and stupid smirk painted on her face. As I was about to mutter something disparaging about her ridiculously exaggerated boobs, I stopped myself. Wait a minute, I thought. This mermaid is trying to tell you something.

She was gazing serenely out one of the bathroom windows, as though she was mesmerized by how the sun was glittering through it and sending little prisms of color reflecting around the room, as though she was being transported to some magical, far-off land.

I thought, You’re exactly right. I need to do that. I need to gaze off into the distance with an empty head. I need to wear a bikini. I need to drink some margaritas in the middle of the day. I need a damn break. I need to get away.

And I knew exactly who I wanted to get away with.