The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

16

As I made my way south toward the end of the Key, the sun was dead center in the sky and there were wavy lines of heat radiating off the asphalt up ahead. My mind was swimming. Could there have been something about Mr. Hoskins that I had overlooked? Something he was hiding? He had seemed so harmless and sweet, even grandfatherly.

Of course, the fact that I liked Mr. Hoskins should probably have been a little red flag. I don’t know why, but I seem to be drawn to people who give off a certain kind of energy, people who are just a little bit unhinged. I’m not sure if they’re the flame and I’m the moth or vice versa, but I do know one thing: People that are a little bonkers can be a lot of things, but they’re rarely boring. Unfortunately for me, there’s a very fine line between crazily interesting and interestingly crazy, and it occasionally gets me in trouble.

The point is, I had liked Mr. Hoskins right away. He just seemed to have a good soul. The idea that he might have been busily hiding a dead body in the back of the store while I browsed around the aisles made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It just wasn’t possible. It’s true that Mr. Hoskins had seemed a little eccentric and odd, but he certainly didn’t seem capable of that kind of evil, not to mention hoisting a deadweight over the railing of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Then again, I know from firsthand experience that with a strong enough dose of adrenaline pumping through its veins, the human body is capable of almost anything.

I decided to make a quick stop at the drugstore across the street from the diner. Murderer or not, Mr. Hoskins had an agreement with me, and I felt like I’d let him down. The fact that he was wholly unaware of our agreement didn’t deter me in the least, and I had a plan to fix it. All I needed was some supplies: a pack of bright construction paper, some big markers, and a staple gun.

My plan was to put signs up all along Ocean Boulevard, and maybe all over the Key. I didn’t have a picture of Cosmo, but I felt as if I’d gotten a pretty good look at him, or at least good enough to come up with a fairly accurate description of his two main traits: big and orange. I didn’t much like the idea of putting up signs with my phone number for every loony-tune on the street to see, but I didn’t think I had much of a choice—I had to do everything in my power to find that cat.

I even considered calling Detective McKenzie and asking if she might consider getting me back in the bookstore to look for a picture of Cosmo I could use for the signs. Perhaps Mr. Hoskins had a photo in that desk in the back room, or failing that there might even be a pen-and-ink drawing of him hanging somewhere in the store.

Either way, I thought, how many big fluffy orange cats with white-tipped tails could there be running around Siesta Key? It’s a small island, and if it was possible that Butch the Butcher had seen him, the chances that someone else could have seen him too were pretty strong.

I decided once I found Cosmo, if Mr. Hoskins hadn’t turned up by then, I’d take him to the Kitty Haven, a cat kennel and rescue center run by my friend Marge. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that under these circumstances, Marge would take Cosmo in free of charge.

When I came out of the drugstore with all my goodies, I thought of one more thing I might try.

Gia was sitting behind her little window in the vet’s office. She had just hung up the phone and was writing something down in a notepad on her desk. There was only one person in the waiting room, except he was so big he took up at least three seats. A young man with muttonchops and a crew cut, he looked like he weighed at least three hundred pounds. I figured he was probably a linebacker for the Sarasota Thunder, our local football team, but lots of professional sports teams come to Sarasota for summer training, so he could have been from anywhere. His arms were as big around as my waist, and it took a couple of looks for me to realize that there was a tiny white Shih Tzu sitting primly on one of his gigantic knees.

Gia has dark cropped hair framing a cute gamine face with deep green eyes like a woodland nymph’s. When she looked up to find me standing in front of her window she said, “Oh my gosh, Dixie, what’s wrong?”

I said, “Shut the front door. Do I look that bad?”

She laughed. “Sorry. You just look pretty worried is all.”

“I guess I’m a little preoccupied. I have a friend who lost his cat a couple of nights ago. I was hoping if somebody saw him they might have called you.”

She shook her head. “Nobody’s called saying they found a cat, but tell me what he looks like and I’ll keep my ears open.”

“He’s big, long-haired, orange, with a white-tipped tail. His name is Cosmo.”

I tried to remember if he’d been wearing a collar in the store, but Gia frowned and pulled her notepad toward her.

“Hold on. I think somebody just called about the same cat.”

My face lit up. “Did they see him?”

“No, but they said they were looking for him, too.”

I felt my heart start beating a little faster. Was it possible it was Mr. Hoskins?

I said, “Was it an older man?”

She shook her head and leaned forward, as if she had some juicy gossip to share and didn’t want anyone to hear. “No. It was Mrs. Silverthorn.”

I said, “Huh?”

“The cat lady. She’s that old woman that everybody says is crazy and lives in that haunted mansion down at the end of the Key. She said she was looking for a large tabby with a white-tipped tail, and that it answered to the name Moses Cosmo Thornwall.”

I said, “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. It has to be the same cat, don’t you think? I mean, what are the odds? And to be honest, she didn’t sound all that crazy. She said whoever found him would be handsomely paid. Those were her exact words, ‘handsomely paid.’ Weird, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, weird.”

Handsomely paid. Where had I heard those words before? I remembered Ethan saying that Mrs. Silverthorn owned some of the buildings along Ocean Boulevard, including the bookstore. Detective McKenzie had probably gotten in touch with her to find out if she knew anything about Mr. Hoskins, and being a certified “cat lady” she must have decided that until her missing tenant was found, Cosmo was her responsibility. Any cat lover would do the same.

Gia crinkled her nose. “Dixie. You sure you’re okay?”

I realized I’d been standing there staring off into the distance, completely lost in thought. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just remembered I have an appointment with a new client. Will you say hi to Dr. Layton for me?”

“She’ll be out any minute. Do you want to wait?”

I headed for the door. “No, I’ve gotta run. But if anybody else calls about that cat, can you let me know?”

I didn’t hear her answer. I was already out the door and headed for the car.

* * *

I always like to meet with new clients in their homes before their humans go away. It helps the animals know I’m welcome, and I get to see how they interact with their owners and what their routines are. Plus, I just like to know who I’m working for. In this case, I was pretty sure I’d already figured out that part.

I had written the address down in the notebook I keep in my backpack, and I was watching the street numbers as I headed south on Midnight Pass. The numbers get bigger the farther south you go, so I knew it had to be well past my house, near the very end of the Key. Down here, the island gets more and more narrow and finally divides into two parallel spits of sand like the sharp tines of an olive fork. Midnight Pass forms one of the tines. It comes to a dead stop at the very tip, and just before that, Blind Pass Road branches off and forms the other tine.

It’s mostly small vacation bungalows and little hotels scrunched up next to each other, but I had a feeling where I was headed was a bit different. I was keeping an eye on the numbers on the mailboxes when, sure enough, I came to an ancient stand of pines in a lush bed of saw palmetto on the right side of the road, with two stone pillars and a narrow, weedy lane that disappeared into the woods.

There was a rusty iron gate swung partially open off the left pillar, but the other half of the gate had been taken down and was leaning against the pillar on the right. I had a feeling it had been standing there for quite some time—it was choked with invasive cat’s-claw and rosary pea vines.

I slowed down to check the address. The tangle of vines near the base of the pillar on the right had been cut away to reveal a weather-stained marble placard embedded in stone. Carved deeply into its surface was the number 9500.

I looked over at my notebook lying open on the passenger seat. It said 9500 Blind Pass Road. Even though I’d pretty much figured it out already, my jaw dropped open and I let the Bronco crawl to a stop.

I was at the gates of the Silverthorn Mansion.