The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

13

The next morning after I slithered out of bed, I stood bleary-eyed in front of the mirror and told myself that my little pity party had come to an end and that it was time to get a move on. If I’d had bootstraps, I would have pulled myself up by them, but instead I splashed cold water on my face, pulled on some clothes, and was out the door before sunrise.

The air was cool and still, and as I crunched across the driveway, a giant brown pelican sitting on the hood of the Bronco opened one eye and watched me sullenly. He held his ground even when I started the engine, but as soon as I put the car in reverse, he unfolded his giant wings and lumbered off into the darkness.

I was the only car on the road all the way to the village, and Ocean Boulevard was completely deserted except for a few snowy egrets dozing atop the lampposts outside Amber Jack’s, their long tail feathers gently flapping in the cool breeze off the Gulf. I pulled into a spot in front of the butcher shop and cut the headlights.

Now, I thought to myself, where would I be if I was a cat?

I’d been telling myself that Judy was probably right, that Mr. Hoskins was probably fine. He’d probably just decided to take a short vacation, maybe a little road trip, and he had probably taken Cosmo with him. He’d just forgotten to tell his daughter, and his doorman … but I knew it wasn’t true. None of that explained those bloody splotches on the countertop.

Something had happened in that store after I left, and I felt a need to find out what it was, to help in some way. I admit it seems crazy, but I think somewhere, deep down inside, I knew what I was doing. I was taking all those feelings I’d had as a little girl for Mr. Beezy and transferring them right over to Mr. Hoskins. Somehow, when I went back inside that store, something inside me changed. It was as if a hidden part of me had opened up and long-forgotten images and feelings had come spilling out—feelings I hadn’t had in a very long time.

The only problem was that, although Mr. Hoskins was a very sweet old man, I’d only just met him, and except for the fact that we shared a love for chocolate, I didn’t know a damn thing about him. All I knew was that he’d taken over the store when Mr. Beezy was gone, he was an artist, and he was a little bit eccentric, so it was completely foolish to think I had some deep bond with him, or that I could help find him, especially with Detective McKenzie and her entire team working on it. They didn’t need my help.

But Cosmo? Well, that was another story.

I like to think that I treat my pet-sitting business with the same professionalism that I brought to being a sheriff’s deputy. I keep myself on a strict schedule, I’m never late, and for every animal that’s ever been in my care, I have notes on their favorite toys, their favorite treats, and their favorite hiding places, as well as phone numbers to call if there’s an emergency. I treat all my clients, both animal and human, with respect and dignity, and I expect them to treat me the same.

I’m proud of my job. I help people just as much now as I ever did working for the sheriff’s department, and unlike most officers of the law, not to mention most criminals, I have my adrenaline addiction completely under control. Sort of.

I had decided that Mr. Hoskins had hired me to find his cat.

Okay. I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most professional decision, but I’d thought about it overnight and finally worked it all out. First, under normal circumstances, I would have met with Mr. Hoskins beforehand, which I kind of did. Then he would have introduced me to his cat, which he kind of did. Then he would have explained that he was going on a trip, which he kind of did, and then finally, after he was gone, I’d be responsible for the well-being and safety of his cat.

Now here I was.

The shops were all dark. I looked up and down the street for any sign of movement, but I knew the best place to inspect first was the trash behind the butcher’s. I slipped down a narrow passageway between two buildings and emerged into an alley behind the shops.

There were two giant blue Dumpsters parked side by side next to the back door of the butcher shop, with both their lids held slightly agape, one with bulging white garbage bags and the other with bundles of flattened cardboard boxes wrapped in twine. The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, so it was still too dark to see clearly, but I’d already thought of that. I clicked on my penlight and peered over the edge of the Dumpster into the pile of white bags.

“Cosmo?”

I had to cover my nose. One of the bags had been clawed open, and some bloodied shreds of wax paper were pulled through the hole. There were bits of offal and cartilage strewn about, as well as a few other unidentifiable pieces of raw flesh. I found a stick on the ground and poked around the bags, watching carefully for even the slightest movement.

“Here, kitty…”

I crouched down on my hands and knees and directed the penlight under the Dumpsters, moving it slowly from one end to the other. All I could see was a couple of crushed plastic soda bottles and a half-decayed apple core lying under a glistening canopy of cobwebs clinging to the bottom of the Dumpster. I shut off the penlight and sat up on my haunches. If Cosmo had been here, he at least had supped on some tasty butcher’s leavings, but I knew he’d be on the lookout for fresh water, too.

I looked up and down the alley. There were potholes here and there, still filled with rainwater from the day before, and I figured I might be able to see some paw prints around one of them, and perhaps even compare them to my memory of what the bloody prints across the counter had looked like. It was a long shot, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

Just then there was a quiet click somewhere behind me. I jerked my head toward the sound and saw something move in the small window in the back door of the butcher shop. Then the door swung open and filled the alley with light, and framed in the doorway was the silhouette of a man, tall and bulky, wearing an apron and boots with a bulging bag slung over his shoulder. The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he took a drag, and then he flicked it into the alley, where it landed in a shallow puddle and fizzled out with a hiss just a few feet away from me.

I don’t know why, but my first instinct was to scream. Luckily I gulped it back down my throat and slinked around to the dark side of the Dumpsters as the man lumbered down the steps off the back door. He raised the lid of the one I’d just been poking through. Then there was silence.

My heart bumped around in my chest like a raccoon trying to get out of a pillowcase. It felt like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. I considered revealing myself and tried to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why I was out here rifling through his garbage in the dark. It’s not like I was doing anything illegal, at least I didn’t think I was, but I’d already hidden and now it was too late. I couldn’t very well just poke my head over the back of the Dumpster and chirp, “Top of the mornin’ to ya!”

Luckily I didn’t need to. He mumbled something under his breath and then heaved the trash bag onto the pile and let the lid fall back. Then his footsteps went back up the stairs to the door. There was another clicking sound, and then the door closed and the alley went dark again.

I took a deep breath and let out a long, quivering sigh that ended with a quiet “Oh my God.” Sometimes I open my eyes and look around and think to myself, How in the hell did I end up here? This was one of those moments, but I didn’t care. I was determined to find that cat.

I checked up and down the alley to see if the coast was clear and then clicked my penlight back on and stepped around the Dumpsters toward one of the water-filled potholes.

“What the f—”

This time I did scream. Well, not really a scream. It was more like a high-pitched whaaack!—a cross between a newborn’s first cry and the mating call of a pterodactyl. It surprised me even as it came out of my own throat. The man was standing on the landing outside the door, with a freshly lit cigarette in one hand, his feet shoulder width apart, like a man about to start a bar fight.

“Jesus Christ, lady, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

I backed away from him with both hands over my chest. “I am so sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“You didn’t see me? What the hell are you doing back here?”

I pointed up and down the alley. “I’m looking for a lost cat. I thought he might be rummaging around back here.”

He glanced at the Dumpsters and then came down the steps toward me.

The sky was getting a little lighter, and now I could see the man more clearly. He was at least six feet tall, with unruly ringlets of black hair on his head that made him seem even taller. He was wearing jeans tucked into black rubber boots, with a tank top stretched over his rounded shoulders, and a white apron smeared with grease and bloodstains. He had puffy cheeks and a mustache, which I figured he grew to help hide his baby face.

“Hey, ain’t you the lady that helped that guy in the car crash the other day?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, I seen you gettin’ in your car with all that blood on your clothes. I told those cops you probably murdered that old guy from the bookstore. I guess I owe you an apology or something.”

I managed a smile and stuck my hand out. “I’m Dixie.”

He just waved at me. “Yeah, you don’t wanna shake my hand. I’m Butch. This is my shop. Well, my old man’s shop, but now it’s mine.”

I said, “So … you’re Butch the Butcher?”

He grinned. “In the flesh. Nice to meet you.” He made little quotation marks with his fingers. “Meat you. Get it?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Hey, we scared each other. No problemo!”

I cringed. In my experience, whenever people say “no problemo” and they’re not speaking Spanish, it usually means they’re speaking another language: Blowhard. He folded his arms over his chest, which by the way looked like two big slabs of meat.

“Hey, I seen a cat a little while ago.”

“You did? What kind of cat?”

“Too dark to tell, but big. Light color. He went running off that way.” He tipped his chin toward the bookstore.

I said, “It’s actually Mr. Hoskins’s cat I’m looking for.”

He looked me up and down. “Oh yeah? Hey, you wanna give me your number or something? I mean, you know, just in case I see your cat?”

I probably should have, but something told me it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe it was the blood on his apron, or the way he was leering at me as if I were a cow that needed processing.

I stammered, “Well, I’m in the neighborhood a lot, so…”

“Oh, you live around here?”

“Yeah, I mean, I work around here, so I’ll just check in with you again. I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I’ll ask around. What’s he look like?”

I said, “I’m sure you’ve seen him. He likes to sleep in the window of the bookstore.”

“Yeah, you probably can’t tell from lookin’ at me, but I don’t spend a lot of time hangin’ around bookstores.”

“Oh. Well, he’s orange and fluffy, with a patch of white at the tip of his tail, and he’s kind of big.”

“Well, he was definitely a big fella. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

He gave a little wave with one of his meaty hands and said, “Good luck,” and then lumbered back toward the shop. When he got to the top of the stairs he lit another cigarette and then disappeared inside.

I made my way down the rest of the alley, inspecting each rain puddle as I went, but there were no cat prints, at least none that I could make out. There were a couple of barrel-sized trash cans behind the bookstore, but I didn’t even look inside them. They both had metal lids, and I knew even a cat as big as Cosmo couldn’t lift them up. I doubted he’d have been able to find anything worth eating in them anyway.

It was getting late, so I figured I’d better get on with my day, but at least now there was hope. As I made my way back to the car I had a pretty good feeling about my chances. If the cat that Butch the Butcher had seen actually was Cosmo, then that meant he was hanging around the bookstore—hoping like everybody else that Mr. Hoskins would come home soon. I hoped he didn’t have too long a wait.

Morning was in full force now, and there was a little more activity on the street as I put the Bronco in gear and rolled out onto Ocean. The sparrows and snowy egrets were out again, pecking around in the gutters and under the tables at Amber Jack’s, and a couple of young, skinny girls in tank tops and short shorts were jogging up the sidewalk. It wasn’t until they went by that I realized they weren’t young, skinny girls at all. They were old, skinny girls with kick-ass bodies.

It made me smile. Just like there was hope for Cosmo, there was hope for me. I figured if I stopped lying around in a hammock eating frozen pizza, maybe one day I could be an old, skinny girl with a kick-ass body, too.