Mr. Vladim was asleep on the hospital bed. His breathing was a little raspy, but slow and steady, and his complexion had improved since I’d first visited—it was rosier, and the bruises around his neck and face were almost gone. I was relieved to see that all the wires and IV lines had been taken away. Just a single tube remained, strapped to his left arm and leading to a clear bag of liquid on a hook behind his bed. I assumed it was probably a morphine drip.
I turned to Dr. Dunlop and whispered, “Thank you so much for that. I just wanted to see how he’s doing.”
He smiled and whispered back, “My pleasure. The guard is just a precaution. This guy’s not gonna hurt anybody. He might steal your wallet, but he’s on enough drugs to put an elephant to sleep. Anyway, he probably wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you.”
“Well, thanks. I can’t believe you recognized me.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “How could I forget the woman that made me feel like a complete horse’s ass?”
As innocently as possible, I whispered, “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you. I’m a doctor. After that car accident, I was more worried about my BMW and my next appointment than this poor guy, especially the way he was weaving in and out of traffic. I don’t know what you do for a living, supermodel or something…?”
I smiled. “Ha. I’m a cat sitter.”
“Right, you’re a cat sitter. Of course. The cat sitter jumps out of her car and saves a man’s life. The doctor sits on his ass and checks his voice mail.”
I shook my head. “No, you showed up just at the right time. I don’t think I could have gotten him out of that car if you hadn’t helped me. You did the right thing.”
He smiled. “Thank you for that. I’ll go ahead and pretend I believe you.”
He stepped over to the side of Baldy’s bed. “Mr. Vladim, you have a visitor.”
Baldy opened his eyes and looked around the room. When he saw Dr. Dunlop, he smiled slightly. “Hello, Doc.”
“How’s the pain, buddy? Okay?”
He thought for a moment. “Level three.”
“Alright. I’ll leave you alone, then. Miss Hemingway is here to see you.”
Baldy’s eyes flashed at me, and immediately a look of fear spread across his face. He turned back to the doctor and said firmly, “I talk to her now.”
“Okay, then, I can take a hint. I was just leaving. I’ll be back to check on you later.” Before he closed the door he gave me a look and winked. “Let me know if he gives you any more trouble.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant Baldy or the guard or both. I pulled a chair up next to the bed, and Baldy rolled his head to the side and looked me up and down.
“I know you are not wife.”
I nodded. “No, I’m not. I tried to tell you.”
“Yes. But drugs, they make me dream bad things.”
“That’s okay. You got banged up pretty good, so they have you on a lot of painkillers.”
“You safe me from car, yes?”
“I did, and Dr. Dunlop was in one of the cars behind you. He helped me carry you out. Your car was crushed in on one side and there was a lot of smoke, so we lifted you out and I stayed with you until the ambulance came. You’re in a lot of trouble apparently. If it weren’t for Mr. Dunlop, they wouldn’t have let me in this room.”
He nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
I leaned a little closer. “Mr. Vladim. I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“Yes, I know.”
“It’s about your wife.”
His eyes widened. I could tell he hadn’t been expecting that. He looked around the room and then shook his head, nervously running his fingers over the edge of his blanket. “I don’t know where she go. She leave me. We are not couple now.”
“No … you see, I’m a professional cat sitter. I got a call from—”
He eyed me warily. “Cat sitter? I don’t know this.”
“I look after people’s pets when they’re away on business or vacation. I got a call earlier this week from a woman who wanted me to help her find a friend’s missing cat.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “You look at cats, for money.”
I nodded.
“Why you tell me this?”
“This woman, the one that called me, her name is Alice Ann Silverthorn.”
His expression didn’t change; he just turned and stared up at the ceiling. In a couple of moments his eyelids fluttered slightly and his eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t know this name. I am tired now.”
“Mr. Vladim, are you sure?”
He pushed himself up on the pillow and glared at me. “I will call nurse. You are not allowed here. I am criminal.”
I said, “Listen, I haven’t told anyone anything, but your wife is very, very upset. I think she has no idea where you are.”
He had reached for the call button, but then he stopped and rested his head back down on the pillow. “No. I don’t know this. My wife is gone from here. We are not couple.”
I took a deep breath. “I think you should know that I lost my child when she was three years old. She was hit by a car and died instantly. There was nothing I could have done to save her, but believe me, Mr. Vladim, if there had been, I would have done it. Anything.”
He didn’t respond, just stared at the ceiling, and we sat there for a while like that, not talking. The IV drip’s timer made quiet clicks and sucking sounds every once in a while, and at one point there was a burst of laughter from the nurses’ station down the hall, but otherwise the room was completely silent except for Mr. Vladim’s slow, steady breathing.
Finally, he said, “We take boy to miracle doctor in Houston. They make promise he will find cure. But we must pay cash. Four thousand dollars every month.”
He paused, and I could tell he was trying to keep his emotions under control.
“If we don’t pay, he don’t help. This doctor. He lied. He was devil.” He turned to me. “Cat looker, you will deliver message?”
I nodded, fighting with all my might not to burst out in tears, because for the first time I realized that their child had not survived. “I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Tell her I am okay. They will take me to jail. I will tell police that I make her do everything.”
“And Mr. and Mrs. Silverthorn … do they know who you are?”
He nodded slowly. “My wife. She is third cousin of Mrs. Silverthorn. They help us, and for this we work for them. At first it was good arrangement, but now we are slaves. But Dixie, you must not tell.”
“I promise I won’t. Your wife will be very relieved to know that you’re okay.”
“Please tell her I have no choice. If I call they trace phone and take her to jail.”
“I’ll tell her. And if there’s anything else you need, let me know.” I stood up and put my chair back in place. “I’ll leave you alone now, Mr. Vladim, and I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
I turned and headed for the door, but he stopped me.
“Dixie. What you do with chocolate?”
I turned back to him. “Huh?”
“Chocolate. What you do with it?”
I said, “I’m confused. What chocolate do you mean?”
He raised one eyebrow, as if he thought I must be the dumbest person in the world. “The chocolate I put in your bag. What you do with it?”
I walked back to the side of his bed. “Mr. Vladim, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He shook his head as his face flushed red and his voice grew louder. “These women. They don’t listen. I told you don’t eat!”
“Mr. Vladim, I think perhaps you dreamed that. The drugs you’re on are very strong, and they can cause all kinds of—”
Just then the door opened and a nurse poked her head in. I could see the guard standing behind her. It was a different nurse this time, a skinny, older woman with spiky black hair and drooping eyes. Mr. Vladim was visibly shaken. His ey
es flashed at the nurse and then at me.
The nurse frowned. “Excuse me, who are you?”
I said, “Um, Dr. Hemingway?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid you can’t be here. There’s no one allowed in this room but medical staff. The guard should have told you that.”
I nodded, “He did, but Dr. Dunlop said it was okay.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know anything about that. All I know is you need to leave right now. If Dr. Dunlop wants you on the visitors list, he would need to talk to me. And the last time I looked, there were exactly zero approved visitors for this room.”
I turned to Mr. Vladim and nodded. “Don’t worry.”
He looked away, as if he didn’t want the nurse to know he had even talked to me at all.
The nurse tapped her foot and said, “Ma’am? Right now.”
I touched Mr. Vladim’s hand lightly and headed for the door while the nurse glared at me. I thought about how I’d made a promise to myself that the next time somebody called me ma’am, I’d sock them right in the mouth. I can’t say it was my proudest moment, but sometimes action speaks louder than words. As I passed by her, I made a face and stuck out my tongue.
26
About ten feet outside Baldy’s room I started having second thoughts. Then in the elevator down to the lobby, I was quietly mumbling to myself while my fellow passengers pretended not to notice. Then by the time I made it through the lobby and outside into the fresh air, I didn’t care who saw me—I was straight-up talking out loud and giving myself a good, stern disquisition on the basic standards of reasonable behavior.
I’d gone too far. I should never have promised to deliver Baldy’s message to his wife. He was a grown man. He could do it himself. Don’t get me wrong—I knew without a doubt that what he and his wife had been through was unimaginably heartbreaking, but it just wasn’t my responsibility, and it was crazy of me to even consider delivering messages back and forth between two wanted criminals. Except …
I thought of Janet, all alone in that sprawling mansion, crying herself to sleep every night, isolated from the outside world, and with no earthly idea where her husband was or why he had disappeared. For all she knew he was dead, and now I understood why she always looked so exhausted and tortured—her life was a living hell, and all because she had tried to save her child.
Except, I thought, lots of people deal with sick children, and they don’t all go around robbing banks to pay their medical bills. Not to mention the fact that if I didn’t report Janet’s whereabouts to the authorities, I would essentially be committing a very serious crime.
As I unlocked the Bronco and jumped into the driver’s seat I mumbled to myself, “It’s called aiding and abetting, you dummy.”
No. I just couldn’t take that kind of risk, not even for Janet.
Except then I thought of the pain she must have been in—to lose her child like that, and now the only thing standing between her suffering and a little bit of relief was me. Except I knew without a doubt that if she turned herself in right away she’d have a much easier time in court … and it wasn’t like she and Baldy were murdering thieves. They were just small-time bank robbers, right?
Except how exactly had they robbed all those banks? Had Janet held a gun to the teller’s head while Baldy filled a bag with cash? I mean, robbing a bank is one thing, but robbing a bank with a deadly weapon could mean life in prison for both of them. Except they just didn’t seem capable of that kind of violent crime … except what did I know? They could just as easily have been cold-blooded killers, except …
Except, except, except!
In the car all the way home, I shook my head and sighed so many times I must have looked like a bobblehead doll. Yet again I’d managed to get myself tangled up in a seriously complicated mess, but there was no way out. I’d given my word to Baldy. I couldn’t very well change my mind now and turn his wife in to the police. That would have been wrong, no matter how hard I tried to justify it.
I told myself that if Baldy and his wife had fallen into a life of crime as a way of paying for their child’s medical bills, then that meant they’d been abandoned from the get-go, that society had turned its back on them. No parent should ever be put in that kind of situation, no matter who they are or where they come from or how they got here, and I knew I’d never be able to look myself in the eye again if I betrayed my promise to Baldy. My only choice was to deliver his message to her.
I just hoped I wouldn’t go to jail for it.
Meanwhile, the whole time I was engaged in that mental game of tug-of-war, there was a little voice in the back of my mind, repeating the same words over and over again: What you do with chocolate? What you do with chocolate? I shook my head like an Etch A Sketch that needs erasing. The man was on enough painkillers to down an elephant, that was all. Somehow he’d gotten chocolate on the brain, a condition I could completely understand, and with all those drugs, not to mention the head trauma, he had just hallucinated some crazy scene where he gave me chocolates … some chocolates that for some reason he didn’t want me to eat.
As I pulled into the driveway, I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. I’m not exactly the most religious person in the world, but I do believe that we each have some kind of higher power—some presence that watches over us all, pulling the strings and keeping everything spinning. Whatever it is, I was beginning to think that my higher power had a very mischievous sense of humor. On top of all the craziness that had unfolded in the last few days, the moment I had decided to go on a diet it seemed like there was something tempting me to break it every five minutes. I was beginning to feel like a character in a book, where everywhere I turned the author put some chocolate in my path just to torture me.
* * *
As I came around the curve and saw the carport under my apartment, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Michael’s car was in its regular spot, and so was Paco’s. As an undercover agent, Paco rubs elbows with all kinds of shady characters—corporate embezzlers, drug dealers, gang members—and as for Michael, fighting fires isn’t exactly the safest activity in the world, so a full carport always means one thing: I can rest a little bit easier. It’s like a big ball of tension in the pit of my stomach just starts melting away.
Of course, a full carport usually means I’m probably getting a gourmet meal for dinner, so that feeling in my stomach could just be hunger.
Either way, as I crunched across the driveway to the steps, the sight of Michael and Paco busily moving around in their kitchen helped take my mind off everything. I decided that, at least for tonight, I’d just let it all go and try to have a nice, relaxed evening with Ethan.
He was taking me to Yolanda, the Spanish restaurant where we’d had our very first official date, so I definitely didn’t want to spend the whole night thinking about Baldy and Janet and Mr. Hoskins and Cosmo. It helped that I didn’t have Mr. Silverthorn’s number; otherwise I would probably have been calling him every half hour to find out how his search was going. I didn’t even know if he owned a cell phone at all, but I had already decided that it wouldn’t hurt to sneak away at some point during our date and give Mrs. Silverthorn a quick call, just to see if there was any news.
Once inside, I dropped my backpack in the middle of the floor and sat down on the couch. There was just one more little thing I needed to take care of if I really wanted to have a nice night and focus all my attention on Ethan.
I reached down in the side pocket of my cargo shorts and pulled out my souvenir from the Silverthorn Mansion—the shredded remains of my book’s missing chapter.
I laid it down on my lap and whispered, “Okay. How in the world did you end up in that tree?”
Given the week I’d had, I half expected it to answer me, but of course it didn’t. It just sat there all shredded and mute—clearly it wasn’t giving up its secrets that easily—so I unfolded the loose covering of lavender fabric and drew out the pen-and-ink drawing.
“And who the
hell are you?”
The woman peered back at me, tight-lipped and sly. I flipped it over. It wasn’t signed anywhere, but I knew it had to have been one of Mr. Hoskins’s drawings. The only difference was that it looked almost like a preliminary sketch. The style was the same, but it wasn’t as detailed and intricate as the other drawings.
I studied the woman’s face, hoping there might be something I recognized, some identifiable feature, like a mole or a tattoo, but there was nothing. She could have been any pretty young woman with long dark hair … but of course, I had my theories.
The top page was mostly intact. Even though the lower portion was nibbled a bit at the ends, and the paper was all buckled and water stained, I could still make out the chapter title. It was “Gardeners Beware.”
I read the first paragraph.
Now let the reader turn to Figure 9, where such a beauty as Abrus precatorius is depicted. If the reader wishes to preserve his muscle for other household chores, he may allow such a vine to o’ertake his fields, which it will do in short order, smothering all other plants in its path and establishing a garden that is, if not attractive, forever free of fret and fidget. We hasten to add, however, that the fruit from which this industrious vine gets its common name, rosary pea, is quite deadly. It is in fact considered the most poisonous seed of them all, so unless the gardener has less charitable uses in mind, he would do well to avoid the cheerily colored berry altogether.
I hadn’t even finished the last sentence when I grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table and punched in Detective McKenzie’s number.
“McKenzie here.”
I said, “Detective, this may sound crazy, but has the coroner determined Mr. Hoskins’s cause of death?”
She said, “Dixie, the cause of death is gun wounds. That was obvious from the beginning.”
I frowned. “I know he was shot, but did you run blood tests? Was there anything odd in his blood?”
“Dixie, what’s going on?”
“Remember when I told you about that book I bought in the bookstore that night? Remember I said it was missing a section? Well, get this—I was in the top of that big magnolia tree at the Silverthorn Mansion, and I found the missing section in a squirrel hole.”
The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives Page 21