The Cat Sitter's Cradle

24

I drove home in a daze. Paco’s truck was under the carport, and so was his Harley, but Michael’s car was gone, which meant they’d probably gone out fishing for dinner. I stripped off my clothes and took a good long shower, letting the hot water soothe my aching brain and body. I padded naked into the combination closet-office and sat down at my desk, looking at all the unopened bills I’d let pile up. The last thing on earth I felt like doing now was going through bills, so I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old faded T-shirt and tied my hair back in a ponytail.

I stripped the sheets off my bed and threw them in the washer with some dish towels and a couple of pairs of work shorts. Normally I would have checked the pockets to make sure I’d emptied everything out first, but I didn’t this time—either I was too tired or too lazy or both. You’d think by now I’d know better, considering I once washed my cell phone on the delicate cycle. Turns out it’s not so delicate.

While the washer hummed along doing its mindless job, I did the same in the kitchen with a brush and a bottle of bleach spray. I started with the countertops, which are made of some unlikely amalgamation of white marble and plastic that was popular when my apartment was put in, and then I moved on to the metal-faced cabinets on the wall. I scrubbed the stovetop to within an inch of its life, and by the time I had finished with the kitchen sink, it glittered like a cat’s eye in the mirror.

I took a deep breath and let the lingering chlorine vapors fill my lungs and hoped they were disinfecting me on the inside. I collapsed on the bare mattress in my bedroom and stared up at the ceiling. The sun was sinking low in the sky, and the only light was a melon orange glow coming through the long narrow window near the ceiling.

I knew now that it wasn’t drugs that August was dealing. It was birds. Sarasota may have a lot of birds, but we’ve got nothing on Guatemala. There are at least seven hundred species there, and more than twenty of those are rare and endangered, meaning they’re more likely to fetch a pretty penny on the black market. Guatemala was the ideal place for August to get all the fine-feathered merchandise he needed to keep his “shop” fully stocked.

Also, I finally knew for certain why Corina had so much cash in her purse. August had hired her to smuggle the birds into the country for him. He had probably paid for her transportation, tacked on a few thousand dollars per bird for her trouble, and then passed the merchandise on to rare-bird collectors, pet shops, and dealers. With just one or two resplendent quetzals a month, he could make enough money to buy a new Fiero Miyata and have plenty of cash left over to party.

I knew all about the average bird enthusiast, like Joyce, who gets great pleasure and joy from her “collection” of rare-bird sightings, but it was hard to imagine the type of collector who wants more, who isn’t satisfied with mere sightings but will pay thousands and thousands of dollars to hold that rare bird, alive, in his hands—even if it means taking that bird away from its home and stuffing it in a metal cage for the rest of its life. Not to mention risking the total extinction of the species as a whole.

That’s a kind of pure selfishness that I just cannot comprehend.

I could, on some level, come up with a way to forgive Corina. In her case it was a means of survival, of providing for her newborn baby. She was just a cog in the wheel of a much larger, more sinister machine—an important part of that machine, for sure—but I doubted even she knew exactly what kind of damage she was partly responsible for.

August, on the other hand, I couldn’t explain away so easily. He’d had every advantage in life that a person could ever hope for. Wealthy, white, male, educated, with parents to take care of him and put a roof over his head. There was no excuse. With the death of his stepfather, I knew he’d be going through a rough time, and with his mother so distraught, things were certainly not going to get easier for him anytime soon. But I also knew I didn’t have a choice—I would have to report what I knew about him.

I heard a car coming up the driveway to the house, and I recognized it right away. Michael’s car makes a particular kind of sound as it rolls over the crushed shells. I don’t know if it’s the weight of the car or the width of the tires or what, but I’ve heard it so many times I could probably recognize it in my sleep. Then I heard the sound of car doors shutting and their footsteps crunching across the courtyard to the deck.

“Hey, Dixie!”

I hopped off the bed and ran through the apartment to the French doors. Michael and Paco were posed under the balcony, holding up a line of freshly caught fish and grinning up at me, all shirtless and muscled. They looked like one of those racy postcards all the souvenir shops sell that show perfectly tanned, hunky men with bulging muscles, and have cheesy captions like NICE CATCH!

I said, “Hey, nice catch!”

Michael grinned. “We’re firing up the grill. Dinner in twenty minutes.”

I threw my fists in the air and cried, “Yippee!”

It looked as if the day might end on a high note after all. I raced over and turned on my CD player, and while Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” pumped through the apartment, I shuffled into the closet, shucked off my sweatpants and T-shirt, and starting pawing through my sad collection of clothing. I wanted to look nice for dinner, not just because I was excited to have my men back and a nice home-cooked dinner, but because I remembered Ethan had said he might be stopping by for a little bit.

I pulled on a clean pair of faded jeans and a gauzy white dress shirt and finished it off with a cute pair of wedge sandals. Then I bopped my way into the bathroom and pulled out my little makeup kit. I was half surprised it wasn’t covered in cobwebs. I put on a love smudge of eyeshadow and some nearly translucent pink lip gloss. My hair was still a little damp, so I pulled out my hair dryer from under the counter and blew it out.

Just as I was about to sprint out the door, my office phone rang. I ran over and shut the music off so I could hear who it was, but no way in hell was I answering it, unless of course it had something to do with one of my pets.

I jumped a bit when I heard Detective McKenzie’s familiar voice. “Dixie, we just got the report from the medical examiner on Mr. Harwick. I have a couple of questions for you. Can you call me right away?”

As if it had a mind of its own, my hand reached out to grab the receiver, but I stopped it. Detective McKenzie could at least wait until after dinner. There couldn’t possibly have been anything in that report that required some urgent piece of information from me. I waited for the machine to click off and then skipped down the stairs two at a time.

Michael and Paco had laid out a picnic on the outdoor table. On their way home, they’d stopped by Morton’s Market and picked up some of my all-time favorites: a creamy potato salad with fresh dill, crusty sourdough baguettes, and pear and blackberry tartlets. The fish was whole snapper that Michael had marinated in white wine and olive oil while the grill heated up. It was cooked to perfection, crispy on the outside, light and flaky on the inside, sprinkled with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper and topped with a few aromatic sprigs of fresh rosemary.

It was heavenly.

Paco set a bucket packed full of ice and frosty bottles of beer on the ground next to the table. “Hey, did you hear they found the Harwick girl?”

I stopped with a forkful of snapper poised at my lips. “What?”

“Yep. She was in Miami.”

“Miami? Where did you hear that?”

“It was on the news. They said she went to visit a friend who’s in college there.”

Michael narrowed his eyes and looked at me. “Did you know about that?”

I saw him notice my hair and makeup, but if he thought anything about it he didn’t say. “No, I swear she didn’t say a word about that to me.”

Paco said, “She says she didn’t know anything about her stepfather until she saw it on TV, but nobody’s buying it because her whole family didn’t know where she was. I guess the cops still think she’s a suspect.”

I said, “Oh, no. I think I might be partly responsible for that. I told Becca she’d have to tell her parents she was pregnant sooner or later, but she was terrified. I wonder if she decided it would be easier to just run away.”

Michael muttered, “Seems to be a lot of that going on lately.”

“So where is she now?”

“She’s back. They said she’s in a hotel with her mother and brother.”

I said, “Yeah, the investigators are done with the house, but Mrs. Harwick isn’t ready to go back yet. I still have their cat at the Kitty Haven.”

Paco nodded. I could tell he felt sorry for Charlotte, but he was also holding something back. Whatever he knew about the Harwick case, he wasn’t saying.

Michael said, “Okay, can I interject here for a second? We have this amazing fish and all this fantastic food in front of us, and all you guys can talk about is pregnant teenage runaways and dead bodies. Can we please talk about something else?”

My cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, ignoring Michael as he shot a disapproving look in my direction. It was Detective McKenzie again. I muted the ringer and laid it back down on the table.

Paco smiled mischeviously. “Okay, let’s change the subject. Why don’t we tell Dixie what you said to that woman at the market today.”

Michael said, “Oh, let’s not.”

“What happened?”

Paco said, “This woman saw all the cartons of potato salad and prepared foods that Michael was putting in the basket. She winked at Michael and said, ‘Looks like somebody needs a woman to cook him up a nice homemade meal.’ So Michael said, ‘Yeah, except I think my partner wouldn’t be too happy about that.’ Well, apparently she thought he meant his business partner, because she said, ‘What kind of business are you in that he has a say in it?’”

I laughed. “Oh, no. What did you say to her?”

Michael deadpanned, “I said, ‘Monkey business.’”

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

Paco put his arm out to keep my chair from falling over backward. “She said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting!’ and just kept on shopping, like it was the most normal thing in the world.”

Michael grinned. “I think she must have thought I was a monkey trainer for the circus.”

It felt good to just sit and laugh, to forget about everything that was happening outside of our little world. We finished our beers and watched as the sun sank deeper behind the ocean, leaving behind a slow-motion trail of undulating ribbons of pink and orange light in the darkening sky.

My cell phone rang again. This time I jumped for it. It was Ethan.

Michael started to shoot me another of his signature disapproving looks, but I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh please, you don’t scare me. I have to answer this one.”

I walked away from the table and flipped open my phone.

“Hey.”

“Hey there. What are you doing?”

Even the sound of Ethan’s voice made my heart speed up a little bit. “I’m sitting here with my favorite men in the world having dinner.”

“Your favorite men? Shouldn’t I be there?”

“Yes, you should. Come over. We’ve got fresh fish on the grill and ice-cold beer.”

“Nice! I’m on my way.”

I hung up and walked back to the table.

Michael said, “Who was that?”

“Ethan,” I said demurely.

Michael raised one eybrow. “Really?”

He and Paco shared a look.

Paco said, “How’s he doing, anyway?”

I sat down and scooped another serving of potato salad onto my plate.

“You can ask him yourself. He’s coming over.”

* * *

When Ethan arrived, he and Michael and Paco all stood around on the deck with their hands in their pockets, swaying back and forth and talking in that deep-toned, monosyllabic way that men do when they’re a little uncomfortable. Then suddenly Michael and Paco disappeared inside, and Ethan and I were left alone.

We walked down to the beach and sat down on the sand and watched the waves crashing in. The birds and crickets were still in the throes of their evening performance, and at times it was all so loud we had to speak up a little just to be heard over them.

Finally I said, “I’m scared.”

He tilted his head. “Of what?”

I waved my hand back and forth between us. “You know. This.”

“Yeah, I know. So what else is new?”

“Very funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

I looked up at him. I could tell by the look in his eyes that it was true. He wasn’t joking. He was dead serious.

“I’m sorry, it’s just sometimes I feel like we’re at a carnival, and we keep getting on the same carousel over and over again because you’re afraid to get on the big-kid rides.”

I said, “Ethan, do you have any idea how many people die every year on roller coasters?”

He rolled his eyes.

I said, “Okay. I know, I know. Believe me, I know. All my friends are saying I need to just move on with my life and stop being so…” I searched for the right word. “Safe.”

Ethan said, “Wait a minute, you talked to your friends about me?”

“Well, no, not you in particular, just about relationships.”

“Ah.”

He looked a little disappointed. Then I thought of Cora popping that piece of chocolate bread in her mouth and the twinkle in her eye as she reminded me how delicious Ethan was.

I smiled. “Okay, maybe I did mention you a couple of times.”

He grinned and looked out at the water. “That’s good, I guess.”

“I’m sorry I’m so neurotic. I’m really trying to change. Believe me, I don’t want to spend every moment of my life feeling like I’m hiding from something.”

He turned to me. “Well, maybe it’s time to change that. Maybe it’s time to start living every moment as if you’re finding something. What if every moment is a discovery?”

I laid my hand on top of his and looked up into his big brown eyes. I said, “That is the corniest fucking thing you have ever said in your entire life.”

He burst out laughing. “I know, right? High five!”

I clapped my hand into his and he pulled me closer. I did my best impersonation of a self-help hippie guru: “What if every moment is a beautiful blooming lotus blossom of discovery?”

He chuckled, and we both sat there a while longer and listened to the waves and the dying chorus of birds and crickets.

Finally he said, “But you have to admit, it’s not bad advice.”

* * *

As we were walking up to the house, I saw Michael and Paco out on the deck clearing away the dinner dishes, but when they saw us coming they scattered back inside like mice.

I walked Ethan over to the carport. Before we even got to his car he pulled me into his arms.

“Tell Paco and your brother I said thanks for the beer, and call me if you need me.”

I felt his strong arms slide around the small of my back and a wave of goose bumps flowed across my entire body.

“I will. Thanks for coming by. You totally made my day.”

I could feel his chest rise and fall against mine with every breath he took. He cocked his head to one side and said, “Your hair looks good.”

“I know. I dried it with a hair dryer.”

“Totally works.”

I laid my hand on the back of his neck and gently drew his lips to mine.