Not to mention the fact that I was no longer with the sheriff’s department. For some reason I had to remind myself of that little fact every time I turned around. I had a whole new career, and I had just embarked on a whole new life with a smart, handsome man who didn’t know it yet but was about to start serving me breakfast on a regular basis.
I shut off the ignition and gave myself a little nod in the rearview mirror, as if to say, Good for you. It’s unlike me to just let things go, but I can recognize a good decision when I make one, and forgetting about Mr. Hoskins and whatever had happened in that bookstore was one of the best decisions I’d made in a very long time.
Then a little voice in the back of my head said, Yeah yeah yeah, but what about the cat?
I ignored it and grabbed my backpack.
Julie Caldwell is a cosmetologist. Originally I thought that meant she could tell me what my moon-sign says about my love life, but turns out I was wrong. Her specialty is hair color. Her clients, mostly doyennes of old Sarasota or young movie stars, pay up to eight hundred dollars for a single appointment. She’s got four chairs in her salon, and they’re usually all booked months in advance.
She gave me highlights once for free as a birthday present. As I sat in one of the chairs in her salon while she moved from client to client, I did the math:
4 appointments an hour × 8 hours a day = Julie is filthy rich
If I’d known I could have been a millionaire just by coloring people’s hair, I’d have gone to beauty school myself.
Julie had called me up the week before to ask if I could take care of her “cat” while she was in Miami for a few days. I say “cat” with quotation marks because Esmerelda is in no way an ordinary house kitty. She has a deep tawny coat splashed all over with chocolate brown spots, long graceful legs that ripple with lean muscle, and big cupped ears perched on top of her head like two furry satellite dishes. She clocks in on the scale at a whopping (for a cat at least) twenty-six pounds, and from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail, she’s four and a half feet of pure feline awesomeness.
Esmerelda is what is known in the cat world as a Savannah—a cross between a regular domestic house cat and a wild cat from Africa called a serval. Servals hunt at night, dining on everything from mice and crickets to frogs and fish, but they’ve been known to take down bigger animals, too, even the occasional deer, The first time I met Esmerelda, I took one look into her deep, yellow eyes and saw the wisdom of generations of proud, free-roaming cats. I got the distinct impression that she took one look at me and saw dinner. She had that same sparkle in her eyes I have when you slide a plate of bacon in front of me.
For walks, she wears a soft leather harness. It’s pink, studded up and down with little rhinestones, and probably costs more than my entire wardrobe. Julie says she chose it for several reasons. First, Julie wears a lot of rhinestones herself. She’s kind of flashy that way, and pink is her favorite color. In fact, over the years it’s become her trademark. Every time I see her, she’s dyed her hair a new color, but it’s always a variation of the same thing—pink. Second, people tend to get a little alarmed when they see her walking down the street with Esmerelda. They usually think she’s some crazy person who’s busted a small leopard out of the zoo, but once they see the matching pink outfits and all the rhinestones—not to mention Julie’s pink hair—they just assume she’s with the circus.
Almost a hundred years ago, the Ringling Brothers made Sarasota their hometown, so there are all kinds of clown schools and circus performers in the area. It’s completely normal to see clowns in full makeup in the drive-through at the bank or on line at the coffee shop, so stands to reason you might see a circus handler with an exotic animal or two every once in a while.
Esmerelda greeted me at the door and let me know she was happy to see me by fluffing her big tail out like a feather duster and butting her head into my ankles. It can take an hour just to walk her around the block, mainly because everybody that goes by wants to stop and meet her, but also because her favorite thing is to crouch low in the grass and watch the birds and squirrels play in the trees. If you let her she’ll stay there for hours, still as a statue, watching with complete and utter rapture. I always imagine she’s tapped into some deep ancestral memory, which makes me smile, but it also makes me a little sad. She’ll never get to run free in an African savannah, even though that’s where half her genes are telling her she belongs.
On our way back in from the walk, I stopped and checked Julie’s mailbox. It was all junk mail, but it made me think of Guidry’s letter. I still hadn’t opened it, and I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just toss it in the trash.
While Esmerelda ate her breakfast, I did a thorough check of the condo, and I wondered if my fear didn’t have something to do with Ethan. The last time I’d spoken with Guidry, he’d said that he had met someone, so I’d felt free to move on with my life. Did I really think there was something in that letter that could threaten what I had with Ethan? In the master bedroom, I paused in front of the big window and looked out at the ocean. There were two massive rain clouds looming on the horizon like lumbering giants rising out of the sea.
After Esmerelda was done eating, I washed her bowl out with soap and hot water and left it to dry on a wooden dish rack next to the sink. Julie keeps a collection of toys in the junk drawer next to the refrigerator, so while Esmerelda sat nearby and watched with rapt attention, I opened the drawer and went over the choices of the day.
“Well, of course, we always have this little stuffed mouse…”
I held it out for Esmerelda, and she nudged it gently with the tip of her nose.
“Or there’s this catnip-stuffed ball…”
She wrinkled up her nose and backed away a step.
“Okay, definitely not that one. There’s always this old standby…”
I held my hand out and showed her a purple Wiffle ball with holes all around it the diameter of a Magic Marker. She said, “Rowwwk!” and swiped one big paw at it.
“Alright then, we have a winner!”
I cut a couple of slices of cheddar cheese into little strips and pushed them through the holes in the Wiffle ball. Then I gave Esmerelda a squeeze and told her to be a good girl and that I’d be back in a little while. As I went out the door, she was happily chasing the Wiffle ball around the living room, not unlike a lion chasing an antelope around the African savannah.
By the time I made it back down to the south end of the Key and was pulling into my driveway, those giant clouds had moved inland and let loose with a very respectable downpour. People say our little island is semitropical, but sometimes it feels like a full-on jungle, especially when the rain comes down like a banshee, or in the summer when only us hard-core residents hang around for the stifling heat and humidity and most of the snowbirds fly back to their homes up north.
One thing we can always count on, though, is the occasional thunderstorm to come in and cool things off. It usually only lasts long enough to give everything a good rinsing, and then before you know it the sun bursts forth again, all the birds sing in praise of fresh, clean water, and all the leaves shimmer and sparkle in the sunlight like diamonds.
The carport was empty, which meant I’d been right. Michael was at work, and Paco had started a new assignment. I streaked across the courtyard and up the stairs as fast as I could, but by the time I got inside I was soaked to the bone. I didn’t care, though. The rain felt good, and it helped me forget about Guidry and Mr. Hoskins and everything else that had happened.
I stood in the shower and turned the water on full force. For a few blissful moments, I just hung there like a coat on a clothesline, and my mind went blank as the hot water streamed down my back. Once I was sufficiently renewed, I toweled off, padded down the hall to my bedroom, and collapsed stark naked on the bed. I barely had the energy to pull the comforter up around me, but the cool air from the AC felt good gently moving over my body. It wasn’t long before I heard a familiar meep
meep.
Ella Fitzgerald hopped up on the bed and pressed her nose to my cheek, purring like a miniature jackhammer. I scooped her up in my arms, and she curled up against me. I had barely closed my eyes when Mr. Hoskins’s kindly face floated into view. I thought to myself, Where in the world have you gone off to?
It’s ridiculous, I know, but every once in a while I get it in my head that I have ESP. My great-aunt Bess always said she knew exactly when a thunderstorm was headed our way, and sometimes she was even right, so I’ve always fantasized that if I just try hard enough I can tap into my own inner psychic.
Once I had a pretty good image of Mr. Hoskins’s face, which wasn’t that easy with those big wraparound sunglasses, I tried to imagine where he was, if there was anything familiar nearby, like a street sign or maybe a building, or anything that might help identify his location. It took a little while, but slowly, his surroundings actually started taking shape. I could even see something behind him, a brick wall, or maybe a bookshelf, and then he was standing next to something metal, gold or brass, and it had little round buttons on it with …
Never mind. It was just the dumb cash register at the front of the bookstore. Clearly I hadn’t inherited my great-aunt Bess’s special powers. I told myself I’d just have to try harder next time and pulled Ella a little closer. Within seconds we were both sound asleep.
I dreamed I was walking down a dark, narrow alley, lined on either side with dusty, abandoned shops. I didn’t know where I was, but it felt exotic and foreign. I wore a tight black dress under a white trench coat, and I was carrying a white sequined evening bag. My hair was pitch-black and straight, with thick bangs that stopped just above my eyebrows. I ran my fingers through it and realized with a start that I was wearing a wig.
My instincts told me I was being followed, and I knew it was important that I look like nothing was wrong, so even though it was completely dark I walked straight ahead with my chin up, as if I’d walked this narrow alley a hundred times.
I paused in front of a particularly sinister-looking shop with a big picture window in front, lit all around with rows of naked lightbulbs painted a garish red. They cast a pool of red light on the street in front of the shop, and it was only then that I realized it was paved with old cobblestones.
As I stood there I heard footsteps echoing through the alley and coming closer. As calmly as possible, I opened my evening bag and pulled out a tiny silver pistol, which I held concealed under the sleeve of my trench coat. The footsteps grew louder but then paused. Now there was a man in a bowler hat and a dark three-piece suit standing next to me. He had a name tag on his lapel with ANTON written on it, and he was holding a white sequined evening bag just like mine. I couldn’t quite see his face, but I noticed his fingernails were painted pitch-black. He smiled pleasantly and then nodded at the picture window.
Behind the glass was a little stage, about four feet wide. At the back of the stage was a tiny door. It swung open, and out crawled a hairy old man dressed in a frilly red two-piece bikini. He gave a little bow and then set an old cassette deck down on the floor. When he pressed the play button, a slow, scratchy jazz tune began.
I kept my face perfectly blank, as if gray-haired cross-dressing octogenarians were a dime a dozen, and Anton said, “Do you know what time the next train leaves for Budapest?”
I held up a long ivory cigarette holder, on the tip of which was a business card, rolled into a little tube to look like a cigarette. “There are no more trains today, sir. Do you have a light?”
The old man in the window started dancing seductively, or at least as seductively as an old hairy man can manage. He was swaying his hips from side to side, but as we talked he held up a giant megaphone to his ear and leaned toward us, straining to hear our conversation.
Anton held a silver cigarette lighter up to the tip of the business card and said, “I believe you’ll find everything is in order.”
He held out his evening bag, and I held out mine. We exchanged them, nodded politely, and then walked away in opposite directions. As I continued on I opened the bag up and slipped my pistol inside, thankful I hadn’t been forced to use it, and then casually took a few long drags on my calling-card cigarette, which gradually turned to ashes and fell away. When I was almost at the end of the alley, the old man in the red bikini ran out into the street and shook his fist at me.
He shouted, “Never mind the thunder!”
Just then a stupendous clap of thunder tore across the entire sky, and I woke with a start. I was shivering like a wet dog, and Ella was standing on my chest, her ears alert and her whiskers all aquiver. I told her it was only a storm, but she hopped off the bed and scampered down the hall to see for herself.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and said out loud, “Really?”
Sometimes I wonder what the hell my brain thinks it’s doing. Most people get to dream about normal things—like flying, or finding buried treasure, or realizing too late that they’ve worn their pajamas to school—but no, not me. I get to dream about hairy old men in skimpy red bikinis.
They say a dream is just your subconscious trying to tell you a story. If that’s true, I wish my subconscious would just keep its dumb stories to its subconscious self.
11
Just about every day of my life, rain or shine, hell or high water, dog fight or fur ball, I stop in at the Village Diner to have breakfast. It’s just up the street from Donkey Joe’s Pizza, which happens to have the best pizza in the world, so you might find me on this block two, three, or—I’m ashamed to admit—four times a day. The diner faces the corner, so it’s bright and airy, with big windows and a good view of the street on two sides and a row of booths covered in soft teal pleather along the wall. Opposite the booths is a long stainless steel counter and a row of bar stools with round seats that spin in place.
As soon as I walked through the door, Judy snatched a mug from under the bar and filled it to the top with piping-hot coffee. Then she slid it in front of me as I sat down in my regular booth in the back, and we gave each other a little nod. Judy is long-limbed and angular, with pale skin that burns easily and a sprinkling of mocha freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her hazel eyes look out on the world with quiet resolve, like someone who’s still holding on to her dreams in spite of the odds.
Tanisha winked at me from her little window in the kitchen, which meant she’d already started on my breakfast. Tanisha is what they call big-boned, practically as wide as she is tall, with a bigger-than-life personality to match. She’s one of my favorite people in the world, not just because the down-home southern food that comes out of her kitchen is delicious enough to make a grown woman weep (it has happened) but also because she’s taught me so much over the years. No matter how bad things get—and Tanisha has had her share of rough times—she always has a happy face for the world.
You might not know it from watching us, but with the exception of Michael and Paco, Judy and Tanisha are my closest friends, which is kind of funny when you consider we hardly ever see each other outside the four walls of this diner. We tell each other everything there is to tell. I know the whole story of all the men Judy’s ever been with, as well as the whole story of all the men who ever broke her heart—because it’s the same story—and I know all about Tanisha’s kids and why she refuses to speak to her mother, and they both know all about Ethan and Guidry and everything else that’s ever happened to me.
I took a sip of coffee as Judy slid into my booth to rest her legs for a second.
She winked and said, “What’s shakin’, pretty mama?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh, honey, I’m a waitress in a diner in a beach town. I’m all-knowing.”
I smiled. “So I guess you heard about the head-on collision.”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“And you know it was me that pulled the guy—”
She waved her fingers like she was shooing away a fly. “Oh please. You’re a hero. Y
esterday’s news. Yawn.”
“And you know about the old man at the bookstore?”
“Yeah.” Her face fell and she shook her head. “And I’m just sick about it. I stop in there every morning for a paper, and he’s just the sweetest old man. He always wears that red beret, with those yellow suspenders and that red shirt with gold buttons, kind of makes me think of Santa Claus. When I saw all those cops outside his shop I nearly had a heart attack.”
I said, “Judy, you haven’t see his cat, have you?”
“That old tabby? Don’t tell me it’s gone missing too?”
I nodded. “Yeah. They can’t find it.”
“Oh no.” She leaned back and laid her head on the back of the booth. “Well, maybe that old man took him wherever he wandered off to.”
I realized she didn’t know anything about the bloody paw prints on the counter, or the fact that they’d called in a homicide unit to investigate the scene. Detective McKenzie was probably keeping that under wraps. Sometimes, the less the general public knows about the details of a case, the easier it is to pin down the true culprits.
Just then Tanisha put a plate up in her window and rang the bell to signal my order was ready. Judy eyed me suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Where’d you hear that old man’s cat was missing?”
I shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just around.”
She folded her arms over her chest and studied me. “Just around, my ass. What are you not telling me?”
I pointed at the kitchen window. “I’m telling you my breakfast is getting cold.”
She said, “Huh,” and rushed off to pick it up. She’s fast, though. In the blink of an eye she was back, holding my plate aloft with one hand.
“Tell me now, or the breakfast goes in the trash.”
“Oh please, you don’t scare me. Tanisha would beat you to a pulp.”
The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives Page 9