The Cat Sitter's Cradle

by John Clement,Blaize Clement

  The bathroom was just what you’d expect from people that have more money than they know what to do with: a gleaming marble floor, gold-laced wallpaper, a crystal chandelier dripping with thousands of twinkling diamonds, a gold-plated toilet with matching faucets, and a vaulted ceiling painted with harp-toting cherubs flying around in fluffy pink clouds. At one end of the bathroom were two multicolored stained-glass windows that glittered like a kaleidoscope, and between them was a cozy little nook and a peach-colored velvet bench where a person could sit and contemplate her navel, inspect her tan lines, or make a call from the gold-plated antique telephone sitting in its own little alcove in the wall.

  But the focal point of the bathroom was a fish tank. And I don’t mean a nice little tank on a stand with some goldfish and a couple of snails. I mean a humongous aquarium that took up an entire wall from floor to ceiling, with fish of every size, shape, and color swimming around in wide, slow circles, opening and closing their mouths in that eerie way fish do.

  Artfully arranged around the inside of the tank were pieces of coral almost as tall as me, and holding court at center stage was a life-sized, brightly painted, porcelain mermaid. She had violet eyes, light pink skin, and flowing red hair, with a turquoise bikini top over melon-sized breasts, and a long blue-and-green tail that spread out across the floor of the tank. She was sitting on a gold-and-black treasure chest looking over her shoulder with a coy purse to her lips, like a pin-up movie star.

  “These are goldflake angels,” Mrs. Harwick said, pointing out a group of slender, butter-colored fish congregated at the base of the mermaid’s tail. “And that sinister-looking creature hovering around the treasure chest is a dragon eel—very rare species, my son had it brought over from Japan. Priceless! And there’s a dozen butterfly fish, seahorses, rabbit fish, damsels, a porcupine fish, ten albino tangs…”

  She turned and gave me a meaningful look. “Anybody can get yellow tangs. These are albino tangs. I’d say there’s at least three or four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of fish in this tank. Roy thinks I’m out of my mind to spend so much money on them, but they make me happy, and that’s what it’s really all about it, isn’t it?”

  I must have still been staring openmouthed at the life-sized mermaid, because Mrs. Harwick laughed and said, “Isn’t she fabulous? We found her in the islands. Roy, what island was it again?”

  Mr. Harwick was standing in the bathroom doorway staring blankly at the tank. He wore a black, three-piece, pin-striped suit and a wide maroon tie. He must have been at least a foot shorter than Mrs. Harwick. He had thin hands and a balding pate, which he had skillfully camouflaged with jet black hair combed over from the back of his head, but I could tell that in his younger days he had probably been quite handsome. He wasn’t a big man, but he had the air of someone who is accustomed to getting his way, a man with power and money.

  “Barbuda,” he said without blinking.

  “Oh, Dixie, Barbuda is fabulous. Have you ever been?”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud, not just because the idea of traveling to some far-off exotic island was not exactly in my budget, but also because I had absolutely no idea where Barbuda was. “No,” I mumbled, “but I’d love to go sometime.”

  “Honey,” Mr. Harwick growled, “why don’t you show her how you feed the fish?”

  The aquarium was flanked on either side by two large pocket doors that slid open to reveal a hidden walkway around the back of the tank. There was a built-in cabinet with an impressive assortment of aquarium supplies: fish food, water testers, medications, and dozens of different-colored bottles filled with all sorts of chemicals and water conditioners. On the wall directly behind the tank was a collection of nets of various sizes, as well as a couple of long poles with hooks on one end to move shells and things around inside the tank. Mrs. Harwick led me up several narrow steps to a platform at the back of the tank and slid open a panel on the top.

  “Sprinkle it,” she said, gracefully waving her heavily bejeweled fingers over the surface of the water, “from one end to the other. You don’t just take a handful of food and plop it down in one place like a fool. It has to be spread across the surface to mimic the way it is in nature.”

  I was pretty sure there wasn’t a single creature in this tank that thought it was living free in the open ocean with a golden toilet, a crystal chandelier, and a tarted-up mermaid nearby, but I didn’t say a word. From our vantage point, I could see down the mermaid’s cleavage. There was a tiny hermit crab nestled there, snug as a bug in a boob.

  “I’ve written out the feeding instructions for you,” Mrs. Harwick said, stepping down off the platform. “It’s really quite simple, so I’m sure you’ll do fine. I probably don’t need to tell you this but, if you do have to put your hands in the water for any reason, I’d recommend taking any rings or bracelets off first, the water is probably not the best thing for…”

  She trailed off as she glanced down at my hands, which of course had no rings or bracelets of any kind. She blushed a little, and I got the feeling that in her world a woman whose hands aren’t decked out in gold and jewels is a woman to be pitied.

  As if she were trying to make up for some indecorous offense, she extended her left hand out to me. There was a sparkling wrist cuff about an inch wide around her wrist.

  “This one’s got about two hundred diamonds on it, and I promise you that Japanese eel will swallow just about anything!”

  She laughed, and I nodded enthusiastically. How true! I thought. The last thing a girl needs is a Japanese eel eating her diamonds.

  Mrs. Harwick closed the pocket door, and I followed her out of the bathroom and down a short hallway lined with mahogany dressers that led to the master bedroom. There was a king-sized canopy bed, draped in folds of yellow and red silk, with white tassels at each corner the size of overfed guinea pigs and an arrangement of pillows leaning against the headboard that can only be described as epic. The second-floor hallway was wide enough to drive through in a Cadillac, and everywhere I looked the walls were covered with big, expensive-looking paintings, the type I’d only ever seen in school trips to the museum. There was a wide curving staircase of white marble that led down to the main entry, where two life-sized statues of Roman gods guarded the arched entrance to the sprawling living room. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there were even a couple of Picassos hanging over the sofa.

  Mr. Harwick was standing at the bar, pouring himself a drink. There was a cat circling his feet and rubbing itself against his ankles.

  “And this,” Mrs. Harwick said, waving her arm at the cat dismissively, “is Charlotte.”

  I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Siamese cats. They’re smart as a whip and intensely loyal, and their origin is steeped in mystery. Some historians believe they were a favorite of the kings and queens of ancient Siam, where their name meant “moon diamond.” All it took was one look in Charlotte’s sparkling azure eyes to know why. She was long and sleek, with a dark, silver-tipped chocolate coat.

  “We call her Queen B,” said Mrs. Harwick.

  I knelt down and held out the back of my hand for Charlotte to sniff—my standard cat greeting. She took one step back and hissed.

  “The B does not stand for beautiful.”

  I grinned. “Are you saying Charlotte has a bit of an attitude?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Mr. Harwick said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s that way with everyone.”

  He scooped Charlotte up in his arms and cooed to her, “And the B stands for baby, because that’s what she is, my baby.”

  I had to chuckle at the sight of a grown man in a business suit babbling like a little girl at a fluffy Siamese cat. Animals have an uncanny way of bringing out the sweet side of even the most hard-edged customer.

  Mrs. Harwick shuddered like a minister finding a roach clip in the collection plate. “That cat is not your baby.”

  Charlotte chose th
at moment to hiss again. She squirmed out of Mr. Harwick’s arms and ran into the kitchen without so much as a “nice to meet you.” I feel that way myself sometimes, so I didn’t take offense.

  “Bit of an attitude problem,” Mr. Harwick said. “I’ll show you where we keep her food.”

  The first thing I noticed about the kitchen was that it was twice the size of my entire apartment. There was a center island as big as the king-sized bed upstairs, made out of what looked like one solid piece of snow white marble. Dangling over it was a pair of crystal chandeliers, these twice the size of the one in the bathroom, and there were two ovens set side by side in the wall. I barely know what to do with one oven, but apparently the Harwicks needed two.

  As I looked around the kitchen, making small sounds of delight like I was at a fireworks display, I realized there were actually two of everything: two refrigerators, two ovens, even two dishwashers. It was the Noah’s Ark of kitchens. At one end of the island were two stainless-steel sinks, and dozens of gleaming copper pots of all shapes and sizes were hanging everywhere.

  “My brother is a cook,” I gushed. “He’d love your kitchen.”

  “Well, Tina here is the chef in the family,” Mr. Harwick said as he pulled up a stool and spread several official-looking files across the island. “Although these days she only uses the kitchen for special occasions.”

  I said, “Special occasions, you mean like holidays?” I wondered if there wasn’t another kitchen somewhere that Mrs. Harwick used for nonspecial occasions.

  “No,” Mr. Harwick said, “I mean like when the pool boy is hungry.”

  He pushed one of the files toward me. “This is the emergency file. It has numbers for my office and my secretary’s home number, along with the telephone number and address of the hotel where we’ll be staying and my personal cell phone number. You’ll find contact numbers for the alarm company, the housekeepers, the plumber, the electrician, and so forth. Of course, if there’s anything wrong, you’ll call me directly first.”

  I wondered why, if I was supposed to call him first, he wanted to give me all this information, but I could tell Mr. Harwick was the kind of man that liked to cover all his bases. I could appreciate that kind of thoroughness. In my police training, I’d been taught to anticipate danger before it happens, and that comes in handy every once in a while. In fact, it’s not a bad way to operate in any situation. In Mr. Harwick’s case, though, it did seem a little over the top.

  “This is Charlotte’s file. It has a copy of her medical history and all her records, as well as the numbers of her veterinarian, her backup veterinarian, and the emergency animal hospital. Her eating schedule is there, too, just in case you forget, along with a list of all her vitamins and supplements.”

  He stood up and crossed over to a wall of cabinets, opening one to reveal row upon row of cans and boxes of cat food.

  He said, “It’s her choice. She eats both wet and dry. She’ll let you know what she wants. And there’s yogurt in the refrigerator. She gets one teaspoon diluted in warm water mixed in with every meal. Please don’t forget that, otherwise her irritable bowel syndrome kicks in. Everything you need to know is in the file, except for the alarm code. You should write that down.”

  I reached for my backpack. Mrs. Harwick had moved out to the living room just off the kitchen, and I could see her through the arched doorway, looking at the pool just outside a pair of large sliding glass doors. I opened my pack and took out the notebook I keep with information on all my pet clients and any medications they take or special dietary requirements. I even make a note of their favorite toys and where they like to hide.

  Mr. Harwick was pleased. “Ah, a fellow note taker, I see.”

  I said, “Mr. Harwick, I run my pet-sitting business with the same professional attention to detail that I devoted to being a police officer. I always take notes and keep records of everything I do. That comes in handy sometimes.”

  “I bet it does.”

  “I can assure you that Charlotte and Mrs. Harwick’s aquarium will be in good hands while you’re away.”

  He snorted. “Oh, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the fish. But you should write down the alarm code. It’s my wife’s birthday: ten nineteen.”

  “Ten nineteen,” I repeated as I wrote in my notebook.

  “Nineteen is the day, by the way, not the year.”

  “Very funny,” Mrs. Harwick said.

  She was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen now, and for the first time I noticed she was really quite beautiful. With one hand resting on the side of her neck, she looked like she was posing for the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. She had silver hair piled casually on top of her head, and her body was long and graceful like a dancer’s. I said a little silent prayer that I looked half as good as she did when I was her age.

  I wasn’t sure if Mr. Harwick’s teasing banter was just a game they played—you can never really know what goes on in the vast world of two people in love—but she seemed genuinely hurt by his joke. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye, and I could tell she was trying to come up with some stinging retort. Mr. Harwick, on the other hand, seemed to barely notice her.

  He said, “The password is Tiger. Every window on both floors is tied into the system as well, so if you open anything while you’re here you have to make sure you close it before you go. The lanai is wired, too. We keep the alarm on at all times when we’re not here. You should do the same. The only people that know the code and the password are the housekeeper and the pool man. And the kids, of course.”

  “The kids?”

  “Becca and August, but I doubt you’ll see them very often.”

  “Oh, they live here?”

  “They do,” he said, “but Becca’s started her freshman year at college, and August just got a job at the golf club, so they won’t be in your way.”

  I wrote both their names down in my notebook and tried not to look mystified as to why Becca and August couldn’t just take care of the pets themselves.

  “You may be wondering what the hell we need you for when we have two grown, perfectly capable adults living in our house.”

  “Oh, no.” I blushed. “I completely understand.”

  “Good,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain it to me one day. They came as a package deal with Mrs. Harwick, so my DNA’s got absolutely nothing to do with it.” He handed me the files. “The pool boy’s name is Kenny Newman. His number is there should you need him.”

  A little too excitedly, I said, “Oh, I know Kenny! I mean, I used to look after his cat.”

  I didn’t say it, but Kenny also worked for me sometimes as an overnight dog sitter. We had met when he hired me to take care of his elderly orange tabby, Mister T, who was a very sweet old guy. I was the first person Kenny called when Mister T died, and we had been friends ever since.

  And now I knew exactly why Mrs. Harwick might think it was a special occasion to whip up a snack if the pool man was hungry. Kenny looked like he fell off the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. He was tall and broad shouldered, with long sandy-blond hair and eyelashes any woman would kill for. A bit scruffy, perhaps, and a little rough around the edges, but that only made him even more irresistible to women. He lived in a rickety old houseboat behind Hoppie’s Restaurant on the south end of the Key. In exchange for doing odd jobs around the place, Hoppie let him live on the boat for free. The occasional dog-sitting gig at night was perfect for him—it provided a comfortable bed and a decent shower every once in a while. He parked his small truck in the client’s driveway, which was a good signal to would-be burglars that somebody was home. It was great for me because he provided company for the dogs at night, and he fed and walked them before he left in the morning, saving me a trip.

  Mrs. Harwick was studying me closely. She had a curious look on her face. “Kenny never mentioned he had a cat. What kind of cat is it?”

  “An orange tabby, but unfortunately it passed away a while ago.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, no. What was his name?”

  “Honey,” Mr. Harwick said, “I think Miss Hemingway probably has better things to do than stand around talking about the pool boy’s cat.”

  Before I could answer, there was a loud clumping sound from upstairs. I turned around half expecting to see the chandeliers over the kitchen island shaking.

  Mrs. Harwick said, “Oh, that’s our daughter.”

  She went out to the front foyer and called up the marble staircase.

  “Becca,” Mrs. Harwick called. “Come and meet the cat sitter.”

  There was a short pause, and then the clomping sound started again, growing louder and louder until finally a young woman dressed almost entirely in black appeared at the top of the stairs. From the sound of it I had expected her to be a linebacker-sized Amazon, but instead she was a petite wisp of a thing. She wore a short black shawl wrapped around her narrow shoulders, with a faded pink T-shirt and a tight black miniskirt over black tights, and black lace-up army boots with two-inch-thick rubber soles. Her hair was jet black, too. It fell across her forehead, half hiding her face. She looked like every sullen, angry teenager in the world, and I wondered if Christy would have gone through a similar stage had she been given the chance.

  “Becca, this is Dixie. She’ll be taking care of Charlotte while we’re away.”

  Becca came stomping down the stairs in her boots and shook my hand limply, mumbling something that sounded like “hello.” Her green eyes were framed in magenta eyeliner, and her lashes were thick with black mascara. She had her mother’s thin figure and pale skin, but where Mrs. Harwick was polished and confident, Becca was all sharp angles and angst-ridden. I immediately liked her.

  I leaned toward her and said, “Love your boots.”