The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

23

Love is a funny thing. Of all the emotions, it’s the most profound, the strongest, the deepest, and last but not least—the weirdest. It makes people do things they wouldn’t believe for one second in a book or a TV show, and it can transform the purest soul into the most hideous green-eyed monster. The history of the human race is liberally sprinkled with love-crazed fools. Think Napolean and Josephine, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, Sid and Nancy, Jon and Kate.

Sitting there in the diner across the table from Mona, I wondered how in the world she and Levi had ever found each other. In high school, Levi had been a star athlete, and there was a never-ending line of girls who would have jumped for joy if he’d so much as looked at them. But Mona … she was clearly a mess. Angry, bitter, afraid, and—I was pretty sure—homicidal, too. Luckily, I couldn’t have been more wrong about what she was about to tell me.

She’d been silent for a while, concentrating on a spot in the middle of the table. I said, “Mona, if you’ve done something wrong, for whatever reason, the only way out is the truth.”

She nodded slowly, almost like she was coming out of a coma, and said, “It’s about Levi. We wasn’t engaged.”

I said, “Huh?”

She shrugged slightly. “I just made it up.”

I took a deep breath. I guess I should have been happy she hadn’t just confessed to murdering Levi, which I was … but I’m ashamed to admit I was also thinking: Why me?

For as long as I can remember, people have felt compelled to tell me their deepest, darkest secrets. Only last week, I was in the frozen food section at the grocery store, and a man standing next to me turned and said, “My daughter hates me.” Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t get one of those T-shirts that says ASK ME IF I GIVE A DAMN.

I said, “Mona, I’m not sure I understand … Why would you lie?”

She looked out the window. “When I was little, my parents run off because they couldn’t handle me. So my grandma, she took me in, even though things was tough for her, and she took care of me ever since. It ain’t been easy for her, due to problems I got … health problems and such, and sometimes I get in trouble. Even when I had my baby, I thought she’d kick me out, but she didn’t.”

Trying my best not to sound shocked, I said, “You have a baby?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Only he ain’t a baby no more. He’s seven. His name’s Ricky. After Ricky Nolasco. He was a baseball player with the Miami Marlins.”

I nodded mutely.

She said, “Yeah, I know. You’re thinking I’m too young to have a seven-year-old kid.”

I said, “No, I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

“I don’t blame you. It’s true. And now that I got Ricky, Grandma’s been torn up worried about what’s gonna happen when…”

She stopped abruptly and balled her hands into tight fists. I could tell it was taking all of her strength to keep from completely breaking down.

“Two months ago, the doctor told her she don’t have much longer to live, and I know she wishes I had my life more together, but I been fired from every job I ever had. She’s scared … for me, and for Ricky, too, because when her disability checks stop, it’s gonna be bad news. And everybody knows Levi’s dad is filthy rich.”

I sighed. “And you thought if you told her you and Levi were engaged…”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. And I was right. When I told her, she said she could finally rest. She said she could die happy.”

“And your grandmother … she’s sick?”

“Yeah. She’s diabetic.”

I nodded. I had a client whose father was diabetic, so I knew a little bit about how hard it can be on the elderly. I said, “Oh, gosh, yeah, that’s—”

“But that ain’t all. She’s allergic to insulin.”

At first I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. I said, “She’s allergic … to insulin?”

“Yeah. It makes her so sick she can’t get out of bed, like she got hit by a bus, but she has to take it or she’ll die. It’s a rare condition, like one in a million or something, and they tried all kinds of different drugs but nothing helps. It used to be she had a few good days a week, but as she gets older it just gets worse and worse. We’re lucky if she has one good day a month, and now she has to use a walker to get around.”

I sat back against the booth. “Mona, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know if I’m the person you should be talking to.”

“I got nobody else.”

“Okay, well, first of all. I don’t want to upset you, but as long as Detective McKenzie thinks you and Levi were engaged, you’re probably her number one suspect. She needs to know that you lied.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t talk to cops. They can all rot in hell.” She looked out the window and then back at me. “Sorry. Nothin’ personal.”

I sighed. “I’m not a cop anymore.”

“I know. I wouldn’t be here if you was. Tanisha told me.”

I was beginning to think Tanisha was right about her big mouth, but I figured I’d deal with that later. I said, “Look, I know it seems like there’s no way out, but it’s not that bad. You’ll just have to tell your grandmother the truth.”

“You don’t get it.” She looked down at her hands, and I noticed her fingernails were chewed to the quick. “I can’t. My grandma…”

Tears began streaming down her cheeks, and I felt a knot form at the base of my throat. Tanisha was right. This poor girl was truly suffering.

I said, “Mona, I think if you sit down with your grandmother and explain everything the way you’ve explained it to me, she’ll understand. You just have to be brave and tell her the truth. You have to promise her that with or without Levi you’ll be okay, that you’re strong, and that she doesn’t need to worry about you. I know it seems really overwhelming right now, believe me, but maybe there’s someone who could be there with you when you tell her. Maybe a friend?”

She shook her head slowly.

“How about a relative…?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at her coffee cup on the table. “Tanisha said you’re good with problems.”

I said, “Umm, yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

She looked up at me, her eyes as pleading as a lost kitten’s. “Levi was my only friend.”

Right away I knew I was done for. I still wasn’t quite sure what Mona had hoped to accomplish by coming to meet me at the diner, but I knew one thing for certain: she needed help. I also knew I didn’t have the heart to say no. In a strange way, I felt I owed it to Levi.

I said, “Okay, look. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you want me to be there when you tell her, I will.”

She looked completely shocked. “You will?”

“Yeah, I will. But listen, if you won’t talk to Detective McKenzie, then I have to. The more she knows about Levi’s life, the sooner she can figure out what happened to him, and it would be wrong of me not to tell her everything I know.”

She nodded slightly and looked out the window. I had a strange feeling there was something more. It wasn’t that I thought everything she’d said about Levi and her grandmother was a lie, or even that I thought she could have been responsible for his death—now that I knew more about her, that seemed unlikely—but I could still hear that voice in the back of my head saying, Why me?

I said, “Mona, Tanisha said you came here because you wanted to apologize, but I don’t think that’s it … and I don’t think you came here to ask me for help with your grandmother, either.”

She shrugged defensively. “It’s a free country. I can do what I want.”

I lowered my chin slightly and gave her my best no-more-bullshit look. “I can’t help you if you’re not going to be honest with me.”

She looked down and was quiet for a moment. I wasn’t sure how old she was, probably in her mid-twenties, but it suddenly occurred to me that she was about as emotionally mature as an eight-year-old girl.

I said, “Mona … what is it?”

Her eyes started to fill with tears again, and she reached up and wiped them away with her sleeve. “I don’t know. Tanisha said you’re the smartest person she’s ever known … and then, you said something that hit me, you know? Kind of like a bullet in my heart, and then I thought Levi must have said something to you … I thought that was why you went to his place.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand. What did I say?”

She turned to me, and I suddenly felt like I had a view all the way down to the bottom of her soul. “It was outside Levi’s trailer, you said … ‘I’m sorry you’re so tortured.’”

I put my hands on top of hers. “Oh, Mona. I’m sorry. I was upset, and you have to admit you weren’t being very nice.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not that. I mean … how did you know?”

“How did I know … what?”

She took a deep breath and slowly pulled her hands out from under mine. Then she carefully opened the top few buttons of her blouse and parted it to the side.

I gasped.

There on her chest, what I’d originally thought was a tattoo was a field of bruised skin, deep purple, and scattered across it were small dark spots, almost black, each about the width of a pencil eraser … or, I realized with a sinking feeling, the lit end of a cigarette.

I whispered, “Mona … who did this to you?”

She looked up, her black eyes completely still.

“I did.”

* * *

I must have been in a complete fog after I left the diner, because I barely remembered talking to Judy or Tanisha except to say that I was fine and that I’d have to explain everything later. As I got behind the wheel of the Bronco, I glanced under the seat where I’d hidden Mrs. Keller’s package and then pulled my cell phone out of my backpack. I had already dialed Ethan’s number before I even realized what I was doing.

“Hey, babe. What’s up?”

I gulped. “Well, I guess this is one of those phone calls where I’m supposed to let you know if something unusual happened.”

“Uh-oh. Should I be sitting down?”

“Well, it’s not that big a deal … I don’t think … but I just had a little chat with Levi’s fiancée. She was waiting for me at the diner.”

“What? How did she know you’d be there? And what the hell did she want?”

“Tanisha told her, and to be honest, at first I thought she wanted to hurt me, but it turns out she needs help, like really bad. The whole thing about them being engaged? It’s a lie. She made it up so her grandmother wouldn’t worry about her.”

“Dixie, you do realize what you’re dealing with there, right?”

“Yeah, I know…”

“I mean, that woman could be dangerous.”

“I know, but Ethan, the thing is … she hurts herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“She showed me on her chest. She has all these places where she’s burned herself with a cigarette, and the skin is all black and blue.”

“Oh, man, Dixie … I don’t like this one bit. Why did she show you?”

“I don’t know, except when she came up to me outside Levi’s trailer, I said something to her that must have stuck. She was being so nasty, and it just came out of me. I said I was sorry she was so tortured … I didn’t mean anything by it, but apparently she thought it meant Levi had talked to me about her.”

“Okay, first of all, I’m really glad you called…”

“I know. I wanted to hear your voice. It was terrible.”

“… but you need to call Detective McKenzie right away.”

I paused. From his tone, I knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Dixie, I could be wrong, but a person capable of that kind of violence to herself…”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to argue with him and tell him if he’d seen what I’d seen, if he’d looked into Mona’s eyes and seen the fear and sadness there, he’d never think for one minute that she was capable of hurting a fly, much less Levi, a man she clearly loved. But of course he was right. I think I was so convinced there was some connection between what had happened to me at the Kellers’ house and what had happened to Levi that I was blind to reality.

“Okay. You’re right. I’ll call McKenzie right now.”

“And Dixie, I don’t think you should talk to Mona again.”

I sighed. I figured this wasn’t exactly a good time to let him know I’d promised to help her. I said, “Duh. What do you think I am, a complete idiot?”

“Ha … well, not a complete idiot, no.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey … speaking of complete idiots … I’m sorry about yesterday.”

My throat tightened. “What about it?”

He sighed. “You know, about what I said … I was just making a joke. I don’t want you to think having kids is on my agenda right away, because it’s not. It was thoughtless on my part, I really didn’t mean to…”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and glanced down at the screen. I said, “Hey, Ethan, this is Detective McKenzie calling me now.”

“Oh, okay, yeah.”

“I’ll call you back.”

He said, “Yeah, yeah, no problem.”

I flipped the phone shut and dropped it down in the cup holder like a hot potato.

I had agreed to give Mona moral support when she told her grandmother the truth about Levi, but only on one condition: that she have a doctor look at the burns on her chest. She had balked at first, saying there was no way she could afford a doctor since she didn’t have health insurance, but I told her I’d pay for it myself. I gave her a lecture on a topic with which I am well familiar—how avoiding a doctor when there’s a clear medical risk is totally irresponsible, completely risky, and one hundred percent immature. Of course, I had fully expected her to flat-out refuse, but to my utter surprise she agreed.

I told her I had a friend on the staff at Sarasota Memorial, Dr. Philip Dunlop, and that I would ask him to give her a call. How I came to know Dr. Dunlop is a whole other story, but let’s just say he owed me one. I wanted to call him right away, because I knew the sooner Mona got some medical help, the better off she’d be.

In other words, I didn’t have time for chitchat with Ethan. I don’t usually just flat-out lie to him like that, but I had no idea what he was talking about, and frankly, I didn’t want to talk about it.