The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

11

There were several deputies working their way around the perimeter of the property, driving metal stakes into the ground with rubber mallets and hanging up a border of yellow and black police tape to mark off the crime scene. Two of the deputies had led Levi’s fiancée down the road, and I imagined she was sitting in her trailer now, telling them how she’d found me over Levi’s body, and more than likely how she’d narrowly escaped getting murdered herself.

McKenzie adjusted the scarf around her neck. “I understand you’ve had quite a day.”

“Yeah, you could say that. I think I’m still in a state of shock.”

We were standing next to the pile of old tires in the middle of the yard, and instead of looking me in the eye Detective McKenzie was gazing thoughtfully at a spot between my eyebrows and about an inch up my forehead, which I knew from previous experience is normal, at least for her. It always makes me feel slightly off-kilter, like I’m on a boat at sea and can’t quite find my footing. I don’t know if it’s intentional on her part or not, but I have my suspicions.

She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a clipboard with a yellow-leafed notepad attached. “I won’t keep you long. I got a full report from one of the deputies, but I’d like to clear up a couple of things. I imagine this is the last place on earth you’d like to be right now…”

Her voice ended with just the slightest hint of a question as she looked around the yard. The Sarasota ambulance was still parked directly behind Levi’s car, but the two emergency medical technicians had walked down the line of responding vehicles behind us and were leaning against a couple of pine trees smoking cigarettes. Everyone else was keeping their distance, too.

On TV shows, they always act like the scene of a murder is a big party with lots of people, where the dead body is the center of everyone’s attention and the investigators and crime photographers and law enforcement guys are all flitting around flashing their badges and cameras and guns at one another, busily pulling a wallet out of the victim’s pocket, or lifting up the victim’s shirt to reveal bullet holes or knife wounds.

In reality it’s not so exciting, and in fact most of what goes on in those shows would be one hundred percent illegal in the real world. First of all, nobody looks like a part-time model—well, there might be a couple of exceptions—but I guarantee you nobody’s running around touching a thing, especially if it’s anywhere near the body, and only a few key people are allowed access to the actual scene of the crime. I don’t care if you’re the sheriff or the chief of police or the mayor of Munchkin City, if you don’t have a really good reason to be there, you have to wait on the other side of the police tape with all the other gawkers, rubberneckers, and TV reporters.

There’s only one goal on the mind of every crime specialist who first responds to the discovery of a dead body, and that is to treat the victim and every single thing he or she might have come in contact with as potential pieces of a massive and volatile puzzle—because that’s exactly what it is. Everything is evidence. Every surface, every hair, every speck of dust, every fiber, every blade of grass. Even the slightest, seemingly trivial disturbance could result in a piece of the puzzle being lost, and that could mean the difference between finding an answer to what happened, and letting a murderer get away with … well, you know what I mean.

“Which reminds me,” McKenzie said as she pulled a ballpoint pen out of one of the pockets on her skirt. “What are you doing here?”

I gulped. “Um, it’s kind of a weird story.”

She clicked the tip of the pen with the thumb of her left hand and looked me straight in the forehead. “Try me.”

I told her the whole sordid thing, starting with Levi’s car parked outside my driveway that morning and ending with Sasquatch fainting and nearly hurling us both headfirst into the trailer. To be on the safe side, I gave her the whole kit and caboodle in between, too, every detail along the way whether I thought it was relevant or not—every Dick Cheney, every imaginary candle and every big-eared, red-toenailed she-Buddha I could remember. I even threw in my brief history of fainting spells just in case.

After I finished she was quiet for a couple of moments. She looked up at the sky and mumbled in a kind of singsong voice, “Where’s Megan Granda?”

I think I was expecting her to say something like, That’s quite a story, or even Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? But instead she just scanned the yard with a wry smile on her face and repeated under her breath, “Where’s Megan Granda?”

I had no idea who or where Megan Granda was, but I figured I should probably just play along, so I shook my head slightly and shrugged. “Uh, I don’t know.”

At that, McKenzie frowned slightly, and then scribbled in her notepad as she muttered under her breath, “So when you first arrived, was there anyone else on the street that you recall?”

I shook my head. “No, at least not any cars. There was a little boy playing with a pogo stick in his yard, but other than that I didn’t see anybody.”

“And about what time did you arrive?”

“I’m not sure.”

She looked down at her notes. “I’m told your call came in at exactly 10:27 a.m. Does that sound right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, and I think I was only here a few minutes before that. As soon as I saw Levi’s car, I got out to knock on his door, and I probably only talked to his fiancée about twenty seconds before we saw his body…”

“And how did you know it was his?”

I frowned. It had been a while since I’d last had a full-fledged conversation with Detective McKenzie. I’d forgotten how her mind careened from one thought to the other. I’ve never ridden blindfolded on a unicycle through a corn maze, but I would imagine it feels pretty much the same.

Before I could answer she said, with a note of impatience in her voice, “How did you know it was his car, how did you know it was his fiancée, and how did you know it was his body?”

I put my hands on my hips and thought, Enough.

The whole day was starting to feel like a parade of abusive lunkheads who refused for one reason or another to take me seriously, from Dick Cheney to Morgan to Sasquatch, and now this honey badger of a woman. I took a deep breath, composing an answer in my head like I was preparing for a school report.

I said, “I knew it was his car because he’s been delivering the paper in it for twenty years. I knew Sasquatch … I mean, that woman, was Levi’s fiancée because she told me, in her words, that I was trespassing on her man, and also because Sergeant Owens told me, and I knew it was Levi’s body because I’ve known him since grade school and it had his face attached to it.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “It’s good to see you again, Dixie.”

I blinked. If my frustration was getting through, she wasn’t letting on. “Uh, you, too.”

“And how’s your brother … it’s Michael, right?”

“Yeah. Oh, he’s great, thanks.”

“And how well do you know him?”

Okay, I thought to myself. You can do this.

I had a feeling she wasn’t really interested in how well I know my brother. I tried to picture my brain working the way I pictured hers, like a tangled web of telephone wires and high-speed Internet cables wrapped around a nest of smoking cogs and spinning reel-to-reel tapes, with maybe a couple of fuses mixed in, throwing off sparks and little bolts of lightning. My mouth was fixed in a kind of dumb O as I mentally rewound our conversation a couple of beats.

“You mean Levi?”

She nodded. “You said you’ve known him since grade school?”

“Right. We had a few classes together, but we weren’t really that close.”

I realized I was still holding my indignant Enough pose, which consisted of my fists pressed firmly into my ribs and my head cocked to one side. Somehow, without my even realizing it, McKenzie had charmed me right back into submission, but apparently my body hadn’t caught up yet. I tried to relax my arms and slid my hands down into my pockets as nonchalantly as possible.

I said, “After graduation I didn’t see him again except on his morning paper route. We’re both up early, so our paths cross every once in a while, but that’s about it.”

“And how did you know where to look for him?”

“My friend Tanisha. She’s the cook at the diner. She lives in this neighborhood, although I’m not sure which place is hers. She might be able to tell you more about him.”

“Okay, that’s helpful. So, you were about to knock on Levi’s door…”

“Right, I was just about to knock and I was trying to figure out what I would say to him, and then all of a sudden his fiancée was there. She said this was private property, and I told her I was just checking on Levi.”

“And where did she come from?”

“I don’t know. I turned around and there she was, just to the left of his car.” I pointed at the driver’s-side door of Levi’s LeSabre.

“And what were her words, exactly?”

“She was pretty upset right from the start. I think she said, ‘Can I help you?’ or something like that. I tried to tell her I was a friend of Levi’s and I just wanted to make sure he was okay, but she was hell-bent on getting rid of me. Apparently, Levi came home last night with another woman, and she thinks it was me.”

McKenzie flipped a page over in her pad, and without looking up said, “She says you and Levi came home last night around 11:30. Does that sound right?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. That does not sound right. Detective McKenzie, I don’t know who that woman was, but it definitely wasn’t me. I was not here last night.”

“Well, then, you’ll forgive me, but I do need to ask … where were you?”

“I was home.”

“And were you alone or was there someone with you?”

I felt my ears turning red. “Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes, you—”

I cut her off. “Yes, there was someone with me, and no, I was not alone.”

“And you don’t by any chance happen to know where we might find someone in Levi’s family … his parents, or a sibling perhaps?”

“No. I’d think that would be a good question for his fiancée.”

She nodded and then leaned in slightly. “Just between you and me…” She looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Sasquatch—I believe that’s what you called her—is a bit unstable.”

One of the deputies stepped up and whispered something in McKenzie’s ear. She nodded curtly and put her hand out. “Thanks for your time, Dixie. I think I’d better go have a talk with her now.”

I nodded mutely.

“In the meantime, I need to ask that you not talk about this to anyone, at least not until we’ve had a chance to locate the next of kin.”

Just then, a black and white van pulled in behind the row of cars. I figured it was probably the department’s new mobile forensics unit, which they’d been able to purchase recently thanks to an anonymous donation. A woman in dark navy pants and a white lab coat stepped out with a bulky black briefcase. It looked very official and high-tech, like something you might keep the nation’s nuclear codes in.

The woman was exquisitely beautiful, with jet-black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and almond-shaped eyes that were a deep obsidian-brown. She looked like a Chinese movie star, or—I’ll admit it—like a part-time model from one of those TV crime shows. As I made my way back to the Bronco, I heard her say, “Detective McKenzie? I’m Megan Granda.”

In a daze, I got behind the wheel and backed up slowly until the nose of the Bronco was pointed out, then I headed toward the stretch of grass along the shoulder of the dirt road. I was wondering if I’d be able to make it through without making everyone move their cars when I looked up in the rearview mirror to find Detective McKenzie trotting along behind me and waving a finger in the air. I slowed to a stop as she came around to the window.

“Dixie, sorry.” She put her hands on her hips and paused to catch her breath. “I just remembered one more thing. About this morning, are you absolutely certain it was Levi parked outside your driveway?”

I said, “I just assumed it was him because that’s usually about the time the paper arrives, and it definitely looked like his car…”

“But you’re not sure.”

I shook my head. “It was so dark and foggy.”

“It might help pinpoint the time of death…”

I don’t think the reality of what had happened had actually sunk in yet, because the idea that there was a “time of death” sent a tremor down my spine.

I said, “I wish I could say for sure, but he’s the only person on the island I can think of that would’ve had a good reason for being there, right?”

She turned and looked in the direction of the trailer. For a second I imagined all those cogs and wheels in her head spinning in slow, deliberate circles, then she turned and for the first time looked me directly in the eye.

“Define good.”