The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

24

There’s a secret club, a sort of underground society, that only people who’ve lost a loved one know about. There are no membership cards or annual dues or quarterly conference calls or anything like that. The only way to recognize another member is by a particular look in their eye. It’s a mix of things—sadness, joy, longing, wisdom—but when you become a member yourself, you gradually develop a talent for recognizing it, sort of the way a sommelier learns to recognize a fine wine with just one sip. When Mona looked up at me, her blouse parted slightly to reveal the damage on her chest, I knew.

It was probably naive of me, but I just didn’t think Ethan could be right—that because Mona was capable of such violence to herself, it naturally followed she was capable of murder. In fact, if anything I wondered if it wasn’t the exact opposite: Instead of directing that rage at someone else, she’d pointed it inward.

There was a time—it probably didn’t last more than a few hours—when I felt that kind of passionate rage myself. I don’t like to think about it because deep down inside I know it was wrong, but more than that, I don’t like to think about it because I’m not ashamed.

It was after I left the hospital, after Todd and Christy were taken to the county coroner. I was on my way home. I had driven my department cruiser instead of the Bronco to the hospital. I wanted to get there fast, so I had my lights and sirens going full-blast the whole way. Afterward, once I pulled out of the parking lot of the hospital, after it was over, I kept them off. I wanted to draw as little attention to myself as possible.

I’d gotten info on the man who was driving the car from the responding deputy, and I’d run it through the mobile laptop in my cruiser. I’ve forgotten it now, or I’ve pushed it down so far I can’t remember it, but I knew his name. I also knew where he lived, and I had a screen-capture of his driver’s license.

That night, I drove to his house.

He was ninety years old. It happened in the parking lot at the Publix grocery store. He said he’d accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, and that he felt terrible about it. At the funeral later, his son told me his father had cried every day since, but sitting outside his house I didn’t know any of that yet, and if I had I’m not sure it would have mattered.

The last words I said to Todd were just before he’d gone to pick up Christy at day care. I said, “We need some milk and Cheerios, and I think we’re out of orange juice, too.”

The last thing he said to me was, “See you a little after six.”

I don’t pretend to know how I got there, but I do know what I was doing outside that old man’s house at three in the morning.

I was going to kill him.

I feel guilty about a lot of things. I wish I hadn’t asked Todd to stop and get stuff for breakfast. I wish I’d gotten it myself earlier in the day. Or, I wish I’d gone to pick up Christy from day care instead of Todd, but I had a headache and I didn’t feel like it. I wish I’d told Todd I loved him after he said, “See you a little after six.” I wish I had kissed Christy on both cheeks instead of just one when she left for school that morning … I could go on and on and on.

But I don’t feel guilty about what I wanted to do to that man.

I don’t.

* * *

As soon as I swung around the dogleg on Higel Avenue toward the bridge to the mainland, I let up on the gas a little bit. I love this stretch of road, mainly because it’s festooned with blooming jacarandas and big giant palms that sway in the breeze, their fronds splayed out like fingers. They look like they’re handing out high fives to everyone who enters the island, or maybe waving farewell to everyone who leaves it. I always have the urge to stick my arm out the car and wave back, but I know I’d look crazy if I did that, so I keep it inside and wave with my hand below the windows where no one can see.

The homes on either side of the road along here are mostly bungalows and modest shore houses (with a few mansions sprinkled here and there just to remind you where you are) and they’re all painted in the powdery palette of the beach—sky-blue, shell-pink, sandy yellow—like the baubles hanging from a baby’s nursery mobile or a box of colored chalks.

About the time I got even with Bay Island Park, I heard the distant clang of a bell and sighed. When tourists hear that bell for the first time, they probably look around for the train that’s about to cross the tracks up ahead, but the closest thing we have to a train around here is the old “Cherry the Choo Choo” kiddie ride bolted to the sidewalk outside the Village Ice Cream Shop. The bell is the signal the bridge-keeper uses to let everybody know he’s about to raise the drawbridge.

There were a few cars in front of me that had already rolled to a stop, so I pulled in behind them and switched off the ignition as the bridge began its slow salute. To my right were five or six sailboats in the bay, lumbering around in a wide circle with their sails furled, waiting to pass through to the Gulf. Luckily, the whole process is surprisingly quick, but it still meant I’d have a good ten to fifteen minutes before I’d be moving again.

I tilted my seat back and considered taking a quick catnap, but I figured now was as good a time as any to call Detective McKenzie. I’m not sure why, but I’d been avoiding it … probably because every time I talked to her I felt like a six-year-old on her first day of kindergarten.

She answered on the second ring with a curt, “McKenzie.”

I said, “Detective, it’s Dixie Hemingway.”

“You must have read my mind, Dixie, I was just about to call you. There’s something I want to show you. I’m wondering if you’re able to meet me at Levi Radcliff’s trailer first thing in the morning.”

The thought of going back to that trailer made me sick to my stomach, but I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to.”

“Excellent. 5:15 alright?”

“Umm, 5:15 … a.m.?”

“No. 5:15 p.m. When I use the term ‘first thing in the morning’ I generally mean at the end of the day.”

I stammered, “No, it’s fine I…”

“Considering your hours, I just assumed—”

I said, “No, no. Of course, it’s not a problem. I forget I’m not the only person who’s up that early.”

“Great. See you there.”

I think I managed to say, “Uh,” before the line went dead, but that was about it. I sat there staring at my phone in disbelief. Sometimes I wonder how McKenzie ever manages to solve a single case, and not just because she has the social skills of a skunk with OCD, but because she seems entirely incapable of paying attention to anything in the world except what goes on inside her own damn head.

Just then the phone rang again. It was McKenzie.

“Dixie, I believe you called me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. I did.”

“Was there something you wanted?”

I thought for a second. “No, I just wanted to hear the sound of your voice.”

I heard her laugh, which I think may have been a first for me, and then she sighed. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been a very busy week. What can I do for you?”

“Well, it may not be very useful, but something happened this morning that I think you should know about … Mona Duffy was waiting for me at the Village Diner.”

I paused for dramatic effect, thinking McKenzie would interject with a Wow! or a Gosh! to show her surprise, but apparently she wasn’t playing along.

I said, “So, I have breakfast there every morning, and Tanisha, the cook, told her what time I’m usually there. Of course, when I walked in and saw her, I was terrified. I thought maybe she was still thinking I was somehow involved with Levi’s death in some way, but I was wrong. She just wanted to apologize, sort of … Well, to be honest I think she just needed somebody to talk to. But she told me something you should know. She loved Levi, but I’m not sure he felt the same way. They weren’t engaged.”

I paused again and tried to catch my breath. I realized I was rambling a little, but surely that little tidbit of information warranted some kind of acknowledgment on her part. Finally, I said, “Hello?”

“Yes, Dixie, sorry. I was just thinking. I had difficulty getting Ms. Duffy to talk at all, except to remind me that she has free speech and we live in a free country, so I wasn’t expecting this. I was certain you were going to tell me she said something about about Levi’s stepbrothers.”

“Stepbrothers?”

“Oh. I assumed your friend Mr. Crane would have told you.”

I shook my head. I remembered Ethan had been a little reluctant to tell me he was the executor of Levi’s father’s estate, so I don’t know why it surprised me he might have withheld other facts about the case.

I said, “Actually, no, he didn’t. Maybe he thought it would be a violation of attorney-client privilege or something like that.”

“Well, I suppose that disproves the theory that in the bedchamber there are no secrets.”

I felt my cheeks flush. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or proud, but mainly I didn’t know how in the world she knew Ethan and I were, for lack of a better word, “together.” But then again, it’s a tiny island. Word gets around. Why it wasn’t getting around in my bedchamber I had no idea—I’d have to take that up with my friend Mr. Crane later.

McKenzie continued, “It’s commendable on Mr. Crane’s part that he didn’t tell you, but I can’t imagine why it would matter at this point. Levi does indeed have two stepbrothers, both from his father’s second marriage. It’s all laid out in the will. Mona doesn’t seem to know anything about them except their names, and considering what you’ve just told me, that makes a little more sense now. She’s convinced they had something to do with Levi’s death. He apparently hated them both…”

While McKenzie spoke, I looked out the window to my left. There was a man with a bushy white beard leaning over the railing of the bridge. He was dressed in traditional Amish garb—dark blue trousers, light blue dress shirt, suspenders, and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a black grosgrain hatband. Lined up along the railing next to him were four bamboo fishing rods, and he was gently tugging on each of the lines that ran down into the water below.

I closed my eyes and shook my head slowly.

Most of the time I go around thinking the entire world and everything in it revolves around me, but now I was beginning to think I’d let my imagination run right off the tracks. It was obvious. Levi’s death had absolutely nothing to do with me or my masked attacker or stolen figurines or anything else that had happened in the Kellers’ house. Levi’s death had been nothing more than the result of coldhearted sibling rivalry—pure and simple.

I said, “So … these stepbrothers, let me guess—they’re named in Levi’s father’s will.”

“You don’t know them, do you?”

I thought, I sure as hell hope not. “Who are they?”

“Paul Radcliff. He lives just outside Bradenton with his girlfriend, I don’t know much more about him yet, but I’m meeting him today. The other man’s name is Ruben. He lives here in Sarasota. I believe he’s a student at State College.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “No. I’ve never heard of them.”

“And their mother, Abina Radcliff?”

“Sorry, no. I don’t know her, either.”

“I’m curious. Did Mona tell you why she lied about Levi?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It was so her grandmother wouldn’t worry about her. She’s apparently quite ill and she’s afraid Mona won’t be able to take care of herself after she passes away. Frankly, after spending a little time with Mona this morning, I can’t really blame her.”

McKenzie sighed. “I believe I’d better have a talk with Mona’s grandmother. Dixie, you seem to have a talent for drawing things out of people.”

I said, “Tell me about it. Plus, Mona’s not very fond of cops.”

“Yes. I got that impression. Do you know if she’s aware that Levi’s father killed himself?”

“I’m not sure, but she definitely knew about his money. That was the main reason she lied. She wanted her grandmother to think she’d be rich one day.”

There was a long pause. I could almost hear McKenzie thinking over the phone, and I wondered if she was considering the same thing I was. This whole time, I’d thought the only person who might have been in a position to get Levi’s inheritance was Mona, but now with Levi’s stepbrothers in the mix …

McKenzie said, “Dixie … if Ms. Duffy contacts you again, I want you to call me right away.”

I said, “Um, okay, of course…”

“I don’t want to alarm you, but I don’t think she should be trusted.”

“You don’t think she’s a suspect, do you?”

She sighed. “Before your call, no. But now…”

“Wait, I don’t understand.”

“I would hope you wouldn’t. Unfortunately, it’s my job to think like a murderer. Levi’s stepbrothers are indeed named in their father’s will, but only as contingent beneficiaries.”

Now it was her turn to pause for dramatic effect, but unfortunately my legalese is a bit rusty. I said, “I have no idea what that means.”

“Their mother comes from a very wealthy family herself, so it means they were set for life with or without their father’s riches. Levi, on the other hand…”

My jaw dropped open. “Wait. You mean Levi was the sole inheritor?”

“He was. But now it all goes to his stepbrothers. It’s to be divided among them equally.”

“So Mona was right to suspect them.”

“Perhaps, except until now I hadn’t considered … well, I don’t know about you, but if I was going to kill a man who stood to inherit his father’s fortune, I think I might wait until after I was married to him. When I thought she and Levi were engaged, I considered his murder to be counterproductive to her motives.”

I felt my heart sink. “But if she wasn’t after his money, why would you suspect her at all?”

There was a pause. “You said it yourself. She loved him.”

Just then I heard the familiar clang of the bridge-keeper’s bell up ahead as the bridge began its slow descent down.

“Dixie, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, in the heat of passion, people can be moved to consider all kinds of terrible things … things they’d never dream of doing in their right mind.”

I turned the key in the ignition of the Bronco and nodded slowly as I raised my seat back in place.

I said, “Good point.”