The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

17

Low-hanging branches caressed the hood of the Bronco as I inched down the winding driveway. It was paved in an intricate pattern of diamond-shaped red-clay bricks and covered in weeds. There were stucco walls that undulated along the sides of the lane like lizard tails, but as the road curved gently to the right, they crumbled into defeated heaps of pink-and-white rubble, and the view opened up to the ocean.

Standing before me like a queen at her coronation was a towering mansion of white limestone, at least four stories high and nearly encased in a woody green tangle of the same vines that were overtaking the front gate. They snaked around an army of massive columns that formed an elegant portico along the entire width of the front entrance and then weaved their way through the stone parapets on each of the floors above, finally twining all the way up a cluster of towering openwork spires and reaching up gracefully to the sky. Where the roof wasn’t concealed under a blanket of decaying leaves, I could see a patchwork of crumbling slate tiles the color of faded dollar bills.

Spread out in front of the house was a sweeping circular courtyard around a massive marble urn in the center that looked like a giant’s chili bowl, and off to one side was an open rectangle, formed by a low, vine-covered colonnade that I took to be the parking area. I pulled in and cut the engine.

I felt like I’d wandered into a fairy tale, where a castle had been picked up in a faraway land and plopped down on the beach, which of course is exactly what it was. I tried to imagine what it must have cost for the Silverthorns to dismantle a house like this, bring it all the way from the English countryside to a remote corner of a tiny Florida key, and then rebuild it piece by piece. It was probably more money than I’d ever see in my entire life. For the Silverthorns, it was probably just a drop in the bucket.

I grabbed my backpack and slipped my notebook down in the side pocket. As I headed across the courtyard, weeds brushing against my ankles, I had the distinct feeling that someone was watching me. All the windows looked like panels from a cathedral, with intricately shaped pieces of colored glass glittering in the sun, but I couldn’t see any light or movement inside. The giant’s chili bowl in the center of the courtyard was filled with fetid, brackish water. It looked as if it had once been a magnificent fountain, but now it was just a playground for a bazillion mosquito larvae.

Just then someone appeared from around the portico, an older man, with gray hair and a pale complexion. When he saw me he paused and straightened his jacket, which was black and slightly worn but formal looking, almost like a tuxedo jacket, over a crisp white dress shirt. I saw the gleam of a silver cuff link at his wrist as he walked over and extended his hand.

“Oliver Silverthorn. How very kind of you to come.”

I said, “Oh, thanks. Except I don’t really know why I’m here.”

“Ah yes, the eternal question. My wife will fill you in on the details. I’m just off to repair a broken screen, but Janet will see you in.”

He motioned to a long expanse of marble steps leading up to the front entrance and was about to turn away when he paused, leveling me with his deep gray eyes. His tone was suddenly serious.

“Miss Hemingway, I know we’ve only just met, but I wonder if I might ask you a favor. My wife is a rather secretive woman, always has been. She’s going to ask that you keep the nature of your employment here a secret from me. I’d be most grateful if you’d play along.”

I thought, My employment here? That sounded like I was the new full-time cat nanny—and then I remembered Ethan saying he’d heard the mansion was filled with hundreds of cats. Of course, my first instinct was to ask him why in the world she’d want to keep it a secret from her own husband, but I figured for now I’d just shut up and nod politely.

He smiled. “I know, it’s unusual. My wife tends to worry too much, especially when it comes to cats. She feels a certain kinship to them and always has. I’m afraid I don’t quite share her love for our feline friends, but I understand that her heart is in the right place. I’ve always been more inclined to the canine species myself.”

I nodded. “I think it says a lot about a person what kind of pets they’re drawn to.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I’m drawn to dogs because they make you feel loved no matter what. They’re always there; they love you unconditionally. But then at the same time, I’m drawn to cats precisely because they do have conditions, so if a cat loves you, you know you’re something special.”

He folded his hands together and chuckled. “Well, then, I suppose the best of all worlds would be to have the love of both, wouldn’t it? In my younger days, I was very active with our local dramatic society. We destroyed a nineteenth-century classic, Charley’s Aunt, myself in the title role, and to get ourselves back in the good graces of the community, the entire cast volunteered at the local animal shelter. I’ve still got more than a few cat scars on my arms to prove it. So I do admire their beauty, but I prefer to admire it from a good, safe distance.”

I nodded. “Well, I admire any man who volunteers at an animal shelter whether he likes cats or not.”

He stood a little taller now, and I could tell in his younger days he’d probably been quite handsome. His hair was long and silvery, combed straight back over his head, and his gray eyes were speckled with ocean blue so it seemed like they were constantly glittering. There was a genteel, almost royal air about him. In my cat-hair-covered shorts and T-shirt, I felt a little bit like a country bumpkin in the presence of the king.

“Well, don’t let me keep you, Miss Hemingway. I believe you and Mrs. Silverthorn are going to get along splendidly. She loves cats, and she also has a weakness for chocolate. It’s served daily with tea.”

He winked and bowed slightly and then headed across the courtyard toward the far corner of the house. I took a deep breath and sighed. He seemed like a very nice gentleman, but so far the Silverthorn Mansion was turning out to be just as strange and mysterious as I had always imagined it would be.

“Well,” I muttered to myself, “at least there’ll be chocolate.”

Avoiding the cracked sections, I went up the sweeping marble steps to the front entrance, where I was greeted with a pair of brass elephant’s heads, oxidized in the moist, salty air with a pearlescent coating of emerald green and verdigris. They were hung one each on a pair of arched wooden doors painted a mossy black, flanked by fluted marble urns spilling over with dead weeds and twigs. I was looking for the doorbell when I realized the elephants’ heads were actually giant door-knockers.

I wasn’t sure which door I should use, so I just guessed. I took a deep breath and raised the trunk of the elephant on the right and let it fall back to the door with a solid thud. Little green flecks of oxidized metal chipped off on my fingers. I would have expected the trunk to be polished to a golden shine from years of use, but it was just as green and mottled as the rest of the elephant’s head.

I was about to raise the trunk again when the round handle on the opposite door made a click and then turned slowly. The door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair tied in pigtails hanging limply down her back, wearing a simple black skirt and a pearl gray blouse under a white apron. She was alarmingly thin, with broad, bony shoulders and lips stretched into a taut line, as if they were holding something in.

I said, “Hi, I’m Dixie Hemingway. I have an appointment with Mrs. Silverthorn?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose slightly, but she didn’t say a word as she stepped back and opened the door a little wider. Her face was hardened beyond its years and pale—I don’t think she’d seen the light of day in months—and her eyes looked red and swollen. It occurred to me that she’d been crying when I knocked on the door.

We stepped into a large cathedral-like foyer, with vaulted ceilings, parquet floors of faded black and white, and a sweeping staircase big enough for a herd of buffalo to go up and down comfortably. All around the perimeter of the foyer were royal blue velvet drapes, easily twenty feet long, their dusty bottoms ballooned on the parquet floors like a southern belle’s party dress. Every ten feet or so they were bunched open with gold ropes and tassels, revealing tall panels of silvered mirrors, framed in gilded wood. More than a few of the mirrors were cracked, and some were missing altogether, revealing a crumbling layer of horsehair plaster and lathing underneath.

The girl nodded silently, which I took to mean that I should wait here, and then she turned to one of the mirrored panels, which slid open to a long hallway lined with stained-glass windows on one side, but I didn’t see much more than that because she quickly slid the door closed behind her.

I looked around. Ethan had been right. It was obvious the Silverthorns were struggling to keep the whole place from falling in around them—from all appearances, they were holding on to it like a dog to a chew-toy. The floor was filthy, covered in a thin layer of dust and grime, and there were clouds of cobwebs arching across the ceiling, dotted with the desiccated bodies of insects trapped in suspended animation.

I heard three short chirps, like a telephone bell, come from somewhere upstairs, and then I noticed a pathway in the grime on the floor that led from the sliding door the girl had disappeared through across the foyer and up the right side of the staircase. I don’t think the floors had been mopped in years. It made me thankful for my teeny little apartment. I can basically mop the whole place with a couple of wet paper towels.

I thought, If only Michael could see me now. We’d spent practically our entire childhoods fantasizing about what this house looked like on the inside, making up stories about ghosts and missing children locked inside its numerous underground torture chambers, and now here I was, smack-dab in the middle of it, about to meet with the infamous Mrs. Silverthorn, live and in person.

So far, though, I hadn’t seen a single cat.

As if on cue, a woman appeared at the top of the steps. She was long limbed and tan, with a scarlet wrap tied around her head, sky blue capri pants over a flesh-colored leotard, and a long flowery scarf tied around her tiny waist. She practically floated down the stairs and extended her hand to mine in one single fluid motion. She was barefoot.

“Oh, Dixie Hemingway, how kind of you to come. I’m Alice Ann Silverthorn.”

She was in her mid-seventies at least, but her skin was taut and shiny, and her hair was shimmering silver and beautifully coifed in sculpted waves. For a moment I wondered if all her money didn’t go to hairdressers and plastic surgeons, but then I noticed a thin wisp of straight, mousy gray hair peeking out the back.

She was wearing a wig, and her hair underneath must have been pulled back so tightly it was pulling the skin of her face taut. I had to admit, she looked pretty damn good for a woman her age. I decided right then and there that the very moment my hair started thinning, I’d go out and get myself a couple of wigs. Her cheeks were lightly dusted with fine powder, and she’d freshly applied to her lips a thin layer of burgundy lip gloss.

With a firm handshake, she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Won’t you come in?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond since I was already in, so I just smiled and said, “Oh, thank you.”

She turned toward the mirrored sliding door and caught her own image. “Janet, we’ll take tea in the reading room.” She smoothed the scarf around her waist down with the tips of her fingers and then turned back to me. “I feel a day isn’t worth living without a cup of tea.”

Before I could respond she turned and headed up the stairs. I didn’t know if Janet had heard her or not, nor was I sure it mattered, so I followed mutely, taking care not to step on the scarf trailing behind her. Parts of the stairs were crumbling and separated at the joints, and at one point she said softly, “Keep to the right, my dear.”

The “reading room” turned out to be a massive ballroom, with fully stocked bookshelves lining every wall from the floor all the way up to the arched ceiling, which must have been at least twenty-five feet high at its peak. The perimeter of the room was fitted with an iron track and rolling ladders to reach the books on top, and hugging one wall was what looked like a gigantic Egyptian rug, rolled up and covered with layers of yellowing newspaper and thin plastic dry-cleaner bags.

Mrs. Silverthorn pointed to the far corner of the room where there was a low coffee table and said, “We’ll sit by the window. The light is brilliant this time of day.”

The entire room was crowded with chairs of all sizes, shapes and colors. Dining chairs, club chairs, hassocks, rocking chairs, even an old wheelchair with a woven cane back. There were so many chairs, in fact, that I wasn’t exactly sure how we’d navigate through them to the table in the corner. I thought perhaps they’d been stored here temporarily, maybe from other parts of the house that were being painted, but Mrs. Silverthorn acted as if they were a permanent fixture. I followed as she expertly weaved in and out of them in a predetermined path, like a ballerina in an obstacle course.

Tucked in among the chairs here and there were old buckets and copper pans, each partly filled with dingy gray water. I looked up to find long strips of crumbling paper and green plaster hanging from the ceiling, like dripping stalactites in a cave. I wondered if perhaps all those woody vines on the outside weren’t actually holding everything up and keeping the whole house from collapsing in on itself.

We finally reached the coffee table and sat down opposite each other in a pair of button-tufted armchairs covered in pale lemon silk and a fine layer of dust. I considered discreetly brushing some of it away, but I didn’t want to embarrass anybody, so I ignored it.

Mrs. Silverthorn arranged her long trailing scarf into a little bouquet in her lap and then sighed with a charming smile. “Now. Dixie Hemingway, I do hope you won’t mind my little trick, but I worry that tongues will wag whenever the Silverthorn name is bandied about, so I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest when I spoke to you on the telephone.”

I said, “I completely understand. It’s not a problem at all.”

She smiled. “Good, and please pardon the mess. As you can see, the roof is on the fritz. My footman is in charge of repairs, but I’m afraid he’s gone missing.”

I had never once heard anyone say the word “footman” in real life, but I just smiled nonchalantly as if it were the most normal thing in the world and said, “Oh no, not at all. It’s a very beautiful house. I’ve always wondered what it looked like, I mean, on the inside. I grew up here on the Key, so as kids we used to make up all kinds of stories about it.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, how delightful. What kind of stories?”

Luckily for me Janet came in carrying a tray. I didn’t think Mrs. Silverthorn would be too happy to hear how the whole town thought she was crazy and that her house was filled with hundreds of cats and ghosts and secret torture chambers. She stood up and waved her scarf in Janet’s direction. “We’re over here, darling.”

Janet was wending her way slowly through the chairs, keeping her eyes on the tray so as not to spill anything, and I thought to myself that her name didn’t fit her at all. She didn’t look like a Janet one bit. I would have guessed something darker, like Gerta or Morticia. Without looking up she said glumly, “I see you.”

Mrs. Silverthorn cleared a dirty ashtray and a stack of faded gossip magazines from the coffee table to the floor next to her chair. The cover of the top magazine had a blurry snapshot of a shirtless man on a yacht, with a caption that read, “Burton Finds Liz with Another Girl’s Hubby!!??”

Janet set the tray down on the table. It held a small silver teakettle sitting next to a matching sugar bowl, with a couple of lace napkins, two mismatched porcelain cups filled to the brim with steaming tea, and a tiny plate with two chocolate wafers.

Mrs. Silverthorn handed me one of the cups and said, “Dixie Hemingway, I do hope you won’t take cream in your tea, because I’m afraid we’re all out.”

She had a funny way of saying my name, as though it were all one word—Dixahemingway. I wondered if I shouldn’t correct her, but at that point I was still trying to adjust to my new surroundings and I didn’t quite trust my own judgment. I finally understood what Alice must have felt like in Wonderland. I’d smoked pot a few times in my rebellious teenage years, but I avoided the harder drugs like the plague, so I don’t have firsthand experience of what a bona fide drug trip feels like, but this had to be pretty damn close.

As I took a sip of my tea, I prayed that Janet hadn’t slipped some kind of potion in it, or at the very least had rinsed the cup out first. It was mint, with just a touch of lemon, and actually quite tasty.

Mrs. Silverthorn settled back into her chair and nodded at the back of Janet’s head. She was already halfway across the room. “That will be all for now, Janet darling, thank you.”

I heard Janet say, “I know.”

Mrs. Silverthorn said, “And now, we can finally talk.”

I had set my backpack down on the floor next to my chair, and I was pulling my notebook and pen out of the side pocket. I said, “Mrs. Silverthorn, I think I may already know why you called. And you’re right about those wagging tongues. I stopped in at the vet’s office right before I drove here. They mentioned you were looking for a missing cat.”

She shook her head. “Mr. Peters?”

“What?”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “Janet, where is Mr. Peters?”

Of course, Janet had already gone. Mrs. Silverthorn then raised one hand and solemnly held it in the air, like a student raising her hand to get the teacher’s attention.

She said, “Never mind. Whenever I think a troubling thought, I am to raise my hand in the air and name it. We’ll call that one ‘Oh, bother.’”

I nodded, relieved.

“You see, Mr. Peters is my only cat with outdoor privileges, and I’m afraid I worry about him too much. Hadley tells me I’m going to put myself in an early grave. I’m sure wherever Mr. Peters is, he’s perfectly safe. He’s probably out hunting crickets in the garden.”

I half expected her to tell me that Mr. Peters was a Cheshire cat. I said, “Oh, is Hadley your footman?”

She waved her finger in the air as if to say “no no no” but instead said something completely different. “Dixie Hemingway, you may or may not know there’s been a terrible incident in town. It would appear that one of my tenants has gone missing, and the authorities suspect foul play.”

“You mean Mr. Hoskins?”

She arched one eyebrow and nodded slowly. “So you do know. I want you to help me find him.”

As much as I would have liked to find Mr. Hoskins, I shook my head immediately. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get more involved in the case than I already was, and anyway it would have been completely irresponsible for me to snoop around behind Detective McKenzie’s back when she was already conducting an official investigation of her own.

I said, “Mrs. Silverthorn, I’m sorry, but I’m a cat sitter, not a missing persons detective. You’ll have to call someone else. I can’t help you.”

She pursed her lips and swiveled her head toward me like a hoot owl. “Young lady! Mr. Hoskins’s cat is missing. Are you aware of that in your impertinent head?”

I gulped. “Oh. I’m sorry, I … I didn’t mean to be rude. Yes, I do know his cat is missing. In fact—”

“Good. Then it’s settled. You’ll help me find him.”

“Huh?”

“Moses Cosmo Thornwall—he’s a marvelous animal. The police tell me he’s lost, but I believe he can’t have gone far. In fact, I believe he might still be inside that bookstore. I want you to find him.”

Sometimes I think we’re all just bags of molecules, randomly bouncing and bumping around the universe, and then other times I think somewhere, something or someone is in charge, pulling all the strings and making sense of all the chaos. Here I’d been sneaking around in the alley, looking for Cosmo and wondering how I could get inside that store, and now the universe was literally handing me the keys. Mrs. Silverthorn was pulling them out of a small blue velvet pouch.

“I spent practically the entire night looking for these keys only to find them in the exact spot they were supposed to be. Of course I could have sworn I’d already looked there, but such is the burden of an aging mind. Now, this long one with the round head opens the front door. The smaller one opens the back. There are all kinds of nooks and crannies in that store, and cats are very quick and crafty, so he could be hiding anywhere.”

I started to remind her that I did actually know a thing or two about cats, being a professional cat sitter and all, but she held one hand up to stop me. “Now, let’s not talk about money. It’s so vulgar. There is, however, one delicate matter that I feel I must ask of you.” She glanced toward the door and then lowered her voice.

“I’ve explained to Mr. Silverthorn that you’re here to care for Mr. Peters. I’m afraid my reputation as a cat-obsessed recluse is not entirely unearned, and I’d prefer my husband think I’m not so far gone as to employ a professional to help track down a tenant’s cat. Anyway, it’s only a half-lie. Mr. Peters is a rascally tom and constantly gets into trouble, and without my footman I’m at a total loss. I can’t be out traipsing about the property at my age, and Mr. Silverthorn is no spring chicken himself. So I’ll spare no expense to keep my peace of mind about Mr. Peters. He’s my favorite, you know.”

I tried not to sound too nosy. “So … you have other cats?”

She made a gesture with her arm that seemed to encompass the entire mansion. “Oh, of course, dear, but not on this floor.”

She dropped the keys back down in the pouch and held it out to me, but I still wasn’t convinced. If Cosmo was still inside the store, I didn’t think he’d be hiding. By now he’d be as hungry as a tiger, pacing in the window and trying to get out—someone would have seen him. Plus, I didn’t know the first thing about finding missing animals other than tacking up signs on telephone poles, and it seemed wrong to take money from a woman who was clearly a little off her rocker and broke to boot.

She said, “I know what you’re thinking—the ravishing yet crazy cat lady has no money.”

“No, I’m not thinking that at all. It’s just that if Cosmo was still inside the store—”

She interrupted me. “No, dear. He won’t answer to just Cosmo any sooner than I’ll answer to just Alice. It’s Moses Cosmo Thornwall.”

“Okay,” I said, “if he was still inside the store, I think I would have seen him. I’ve already looked in the window a couple of times, and there’s no sign of him. I think he might have gotten out of the store. In fact, I think he may be hiding in the street somewhere.”

She tipped her chin and studied me. “And why were you looking in the window of the bookstore?”

I said, “Mrs. Silverthorn, I was in the store the night Mr. Hoskins disappeared. It’s possible I was his last customer. The police are looking for him, but no one’s looking for his cat. He seemed like a very sweet man, and I felt it was the least I could do—and I know animals.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then you know exactly how I feel, and you’re clearly the right woman for the job.”

She held the velvet pouch out again, and this time I took it.