She said, “Marge isn’t here. Some lady called, said she’d seen a box of kittens on the side of the road, so of course Marge ran off to save them.”
Charlotte had poked an arm out of one of the air holes in her crate and was frantically waving it around trying to get our attention.
I said, “That’s okay, I’m just dropping off a temporary orphan.”
“Awww, what’s her name?”
“Charlotte, or sometimes she’s called Queen B.”
I unfolded the top of the crate. Charlotte poked her head out and hissed, but I could tell her heart wasn’t really in it.
Jaz knelt down. “Oh my goodness, she’s not in a very good mood, is she?”
“Well, don’t take it personally. She’s grumpy even on a good day, and so far she has not had a good day.”
Jaz picked Charlotte up out of the box and cradled her like a baby. “Poor Queen B, did you have a bad morning?”
I cringed, waiting for Charlotte to go ballistic, but instead she buried her face into Jaz’s armpit and started purring like a miniature jackhammer.
I said, “Wow, I think she likes you, which is good because she could definitely use some extra TLC today, and she hasn’t had any breakfast.”
“Oh, I think we can take care of that. We have all kinds of goodies around here that nobody can resist, no matter how big a grump they are!”
I gave Charlotte a little scratch between the ears. “Okay, well, tell Marge I’ll give her a call. It should only be a couple of days.”
Jaz flashed me a big smile. “Don’t worry, she’s in good hands.”
I winked. “I know she is.”
I barely remember the rest of my morning. I had a few more pets to check in on, and then I must have switched into autopilot, like a homing pigeon drawn to her coop, because the next thing I knew I was dragging myself up the stairs to my apartment. Michael and Paco were both at work, which was a relief, because I knew if they saw me they’d know right away something was wrong, and I just didn’t have the energy to explain it to them. Plus, I didn’t think I could even if I tried. My brain felt like cold mush, and I needed some time to sort it all out. Not to mention the fact that I was absolutely starving.
I didn’t even say hi to Ella Fitzgerald, who was napping in a little shaft of sunlight from the kitchen window. I headed straight for the refrigerator and reached for half a grapefruit, but just behind it was a chocolate brownie calling my name. I slapped the grapefruit aside and went for the brownie, practically devouring it in one gulp. Clearly I needed some comfort food. I found a bag of corn chips in the cabinet and was about to rip it open and down them, too, when I remembered my date with Ethan the following night. The last thing I needed to be worried about was fat hips. I stopped myself, put the grapefruit in a bowl, and glumly carried it out to the porch with one of the silver-plated grapefruit spoons my grandmother left me.
I sat down on the hammock and looked out at the waves lapping up on the beach. Ella Fitzgerald followed me out and rolled around at my feet, scratching her back on the rough wood flooring.
Where could I even start? My head was spinning with questions. Why had Mr. Harwick come home, and why had he left Mrs. Harwick in Tampa? Perhaps they’d had a fight. Given the way they treated each other in front of me, I had a feeling things could get a lot nastier when they were alone. Had he just gotten up in the middle of the night and snuck out of their hotel room? And if so, what did he think would happen when Mrs. Harwick woke up in the morning and discovered he wasn’t there? Maybe it was just one of the stupid games they played, goading each other on, each of them trying to get under the other’s skin. But I knew that wasn’t right. When I answered Mr. Harwick’s phone, there had been a note of desperation in Mrs. Harwick’s voice. She was genuinely worried.
Then I think I actually said out loud, “No!”
I shook my head like a salt shaker, literally trying to empty it out, and took a bite of grapefruit. I decided it was time to give myself a good talking-to.
I told myself enough is enough. How Mr. Harwick got in that pool, and who put him there, was none of my damn business. He had a wife and two grown children and an entire police department to help figure it out. He didn’t need me. I wasn’t his wife or his daughter, and I’m certainly not a homicide detective. I’m a cat sitter. Besides, maybe he hadn’t even been murdered at all. I thought of the liquor bottle on the coffee table—I hadn’t noticed that the night before. Maybe he’d just gotten drunk and fallen in the pool all by himself. Although, there had been two glasses.
No. I shook my head again.
If what Michael had said was true, Mr. Harwick traveled in circles that I did not want to get mixed up in: cutthroats and thieves and oil potentates and foreign dictators. He was a principal figure in one of the largest companies in the world, a company synonymous with greed and wealth. There were probably people all over the planet that would jump for joy at the news that he’d been found dead at the bottom of a pool, and probably just as many that would have pushed him in themselves. I didn’t want to be involved any more than I already was. And anyway, Detective McKenzie seemed like a perfectly capable detective. I was sure she didn’t need my help.
Except …
It was hard not to compare McKenzie to her predecessor. Guidry had probably been the finest homicide detective Siesta Key would ever know. Everything about him was smooth and flawless, from the way his mind worked right down to his fine Italian shoes and imported linen slacks. Okay, I might or might not have been in love with him, but any fool could see that Samantha McKenzie was his polar opposite. She was obviously intelligent, but she was about as stylish as a sack of wet rats. I couldn’t imagine her wearing expensive Italian shoes any more than I could picture Guidry wearing a beige blouse with ruffles, although it made me giggle a bit to try.
I’d almost put the whole thing out of my mind. I had even started to swing a bit in the hammock, absentmindedly eating my grapefruit and imagining Guidry in a skirt and high heels, when it hit me.
I jumped off the hammock. Poor Ella scattered out from under me like it was a bomb raid. I raced inside to the answering machine and hit the PLAY button. There were no new messages, just the one Kenny had left me the day before:
“Dixie, it’s Kenny. Listen, I should have told you, but I couldn’t. Something’s about to go down and … it’s big. I can’t tell you what it is, and probably by the time you hear this I’ll be gone. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for not being honest with you from the start. I was scared, and now it’s too late. I hope you’ll understand that I didn’t have a choice.”
The machine beeped and clicked off. I sat down on the edge of my bed and cradled my head in my hands. This whole time I had assumed he was planning on telling Becca he couldn’t handle having a baby, that he was running away, moving on to another town and starting all over again. Was it possible he’d planned on something else? Detective McKenzie would need to hear about this, but before I could jump to any conclusions, I picked up the phone and started dialing.
I hadn’t even thought what I would say if he picked up, but I was relieved this time when I got Kenny’s voice mail. At least that meant he hadn’t canceled his phone service.
I said, “Kenny, this is Dixie. You need to call me. Right away. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I just need to talk to you before … before things get out of hand. I’m not mad at you, I just need you to call me the minute you get this, okay?”
I paused for a second, as if he might answer, and then hung up. I peeled off my clothes, tossed them on top of the washer, and stepped into the shower. I stood there for a few blissful moments and let the hot water stream down my body. When Becca had first poured her heart out to me, she had said she was completely afraid of telling her mother she was pregnant by the pool man. Could Becca have turned to her stepfather for help? Perhaps he’d snuck out and driven home in the middle of the night. Tampa is only a little more than an hour away by car. Maybe he’d come home to consol
e Becca, only to find her in the house alone with Kenny … and then what? Had there been a fight?
I knew there were things in Kenny’s past that he wasn’t proud of. Michael and Paco were right, why else would he live on a boat and only work odd jobs for cash? Even so, I couldn’t imagine him hurting a flea. And yes, Becca was impetuous, immature, and an emotional disaster, and she didn’t seem too fond of her stepfather, either, but she couldn’t be a murderer. She just couldn’t. I started to feel a little knot at the center of my chest. It was just a small tightening of the muscles there.
I toweled myself off and put on a clean pair of shorts, a sleeveless white tee, and a fresh pair of Keds. I sat down at my desk, and Ella hopped up and curled into a purring ball in my lap. I ran my hand down the length of her spine and thought, If only she could talk to Charlotte in whatever secret language cats speak, then we’d have some answers. I shuddered at the thought that poor Charlotte must have witnessed everything that had happened.
Forget it. I opened some mail and paid a few bills, trying to think about anything else. I left a message for a prospective client, a woman with a Yorkshire terrier that lives out on South Coconut Bayou, and then I tried to balance my checkbook, but it was no use. I had given myself a good talking-to, but apparently my self hadn’t been listening. My mind kept flashing back to one particular moment. When I had pulled the body up on to the edge of the pool and moved the tangle of black hair away, I hadn’t for one second considered the possibility that it might be Mr. Harwick.
But I wasn’t surprised when I saw his face. I wasn’t surprised one bit.
13
Some afternoons on the Key can be as hot as blue blazes, especially in the summer when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. The crickets and birds and frogs all take a break, finding cover in the shade and giving their voices a well-deserved rest. Afternoon clouds sneak in off the shore all demure and innocent, but before you know it they let loose with a torrent of rain and lightning bolts, sending golfers and beachcombers dashing for cover. Then, just as quickly as they rolled in, the clouds roll out. The sun shines through again, the leaves all sparkle, and the crickets, birds, and frogs start warming up for their evening performance, which usually begins about the same time the sun starts her slow descent into the Gulf.
It was a little after two o’clock when I headed out for my afternoon rounds. I called Dr. Layton to let her know I’d be late picking up our feathered friend. I didn’t tell her why. I was itching to talk to somebody about what had happened, but I knew I couldn’t, especially since there hadn’t been an official announcement from the police yet and I didn’t want to do anything that might compromise the investigation. Instead, I told her I’d had a “client-related mishap” and left it to her imagination. She told me not to worry, that René was doing fine. He was in his cage on Gia’s desk by the front window, basking in all the love and attention he was getting from everybody in the clinic.
I imagined that by now Mrs. Harwick was on her way back from Tampa, and somebody had probably gotten hold of Becca and told her what had happened. Becca’s relationship to her stepfather seemed complicated, but I knew it must have been devastating for her, especially when she was already in such emotional turmoil. I hadn’t heard from Detective McKenzie yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d get the call to meet her at the station. I was dreading it. Being back at that station brings up all kinds of memories that I long ago figured out how to suppress.
At the Suttons’ house, Sophie had knocked over a potted palm in the living room, which wasn’t all that surprising. On the outside, Sophie looks like a sweet, domesticated house cat, but inside she’s a tiger, and a very frisky tiger at that, so she’s always on the prowl for mischief. There was so much dirt scattered around I think she must have spent half the day engaged in a mighty battle with an imaginary mouse, or at least I hoped it was imaginary. I righted the palm and vacuumed up the dirt while Sophie watched me from the back of an armchair with a mildly disdainful look, as if I was spoiling all the fun. But I didn’t feel too guilty. I had something else in store for her.
I like to get all the grooming out of the way in the morning so afternoons are free for playtime. Sophie must have known what was coming next, because after I put the vacuum away and headed for the kitchen, she ran ahead and raced around the center island a couple of times, slipping and sliding on the tile floor. That’s her warm-up.
I pulled a white Ping-Pong ball out of my pocket and held it out at arm’s length. “Ready?”
She made a sound that was less like meow and more like ackackack! and twitched her whiskers with pure, unadulterated excitement.
I let the ball drop, and then both Sophie and the Ping-Pong ball went bopping and bouncing all over the kitchen for a good five minutes. That gave me the opportunity to check the house for any other mayhem she might have wreaked, and it gave her the opportunity to unleash some of that boundless kitty power. She was still at it when I came back, so I even had time to fill her bowl with fresh water and get her dinner ready. If I ever come up with a way to harness the energy created by a cat and a Ping-Pong ball, we won’t need to dig any more oil wells and us cat owners will all be billionaires.
I still had a couple more clients to check on, but first I wanted to stop by Dr. Layton’s office. I knew Joyce and Corina were waiting to hear how René was doing, and I was eager to get him back to Joyce’s so I could get the news on Corina’s appointment with the doctor. I prayed her baby had gotten a good bill of health—things were already hard enough as they were, and Corina didn’t need any more problems on her plate. Thinking about Corina and her baby made the wings of my heart flutter a bit and the corners of my mouth sneak up in a little smile. It made me feel good to know we’d at least given Corina a safe place to stay while she got her bearings. That was one less thing she needed to worry about.
I parked outside Dr. Layton’s office and grabbed René’s cage from the back. Before I went in, I fished my cell phone out and dialed Kenny’s number again. It went straight to his voice mail. If Ken knew what was good for him, he would’ve called me back by now. I figured he probably didn’t like the idea that I was trying to track him down, but he certainly wasn’t going to be any happier when he started getting calls from the homicide department—and if he didn’t talk to me first there was a pretty good chance he’d wind up at the top of the suspects list.
Inside, René was in a cage on Gia’s desk with a view of the waiting room, where there were four or five people watching him with the attention normally reserved for a good TV show, like he was their own personal nature channel. They all looked up at me when I came in, waiting to see my reaction to such a rare and splendid thing. He was clearly the star of the clinic.
Gia waved and said to René, “Here’s your mommy!”
I felt a little blush of pride, as if I’d hatched René myself. Sometimes I like to stand out from the crowd. Having everyone think I was the lucky owner of such an exotic bird made me feel a little special. Gia signaled for me to come on back while she ran to fetch Dr. Layton, and René let out a high-pitched cool! as I came around to the side of his cage. He was swinging on one of the perches, using his long tail feathers for balance. He looked at me with one eye and then the other and then went back to pecking at a slice of fresh orange.
Dr. Layton said, “He’s very talkative today. He’s been entertaining everybody with all kinds of whistles and calls.”
I wanted to say that I’d only heard one or two, but I didn’t want anyone in the waiting room to know I was just the bird chauffeur, so I nodded dumbly.
“He’s still a little tired though, so I’d say it’s a good idea to let him rest as much as possible over the next few days. Whatever he’s been through was pretty hard on him, but his appetite has definitely picked up since yesterday. He’s probably already gained a few ounces. I sent some blood samples over to the lab for testing, but in the meantime, I don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned. He’s
a very healthy boy.”
I let out a sigh of relief. With everything that had happened today, getting some good news felt like hitting the jackpot at a slot machine.
Dr. Layton looked me up and down. “On the other hand, you’re looking a little beat. You okay?”
I nodded as I took out my checkbook. “It’s been a very long day.”
She wagged a finger at me. “First of all, go home and get some rest, and second, put that checkbook away.”
“No, you have to let me pay you.”
“No ma’am, you saved that bird’s life, you don’t owe me a penny.”
I wagged my finger back at her. “What about the lab fees?”
“Oh no. Do not try to sass a sasser. That’s a fight you are definitely not going to win. First of all, I always devote a portion of my work to charity, and if there was ever an animal in need of a little charity, this is it. And secondly, he’s out of his normal environment and he’s completely defenseless. If you and your friend hadn’t taken him in he would’ve wound up somebody’s supper. So you don’t owe me a penny. Of course, it’s a good thing you waited a bit before you stuck him in the freezer.”
I nodded in agreement as I set René’s antique cage on the desk. Gia helped me transfer him from his state-of-the-art number. He didn’t look at all upset to be leaving his fancy modern digs, probably because he was eager to get back to Joyce’s house—which I guessed was now what he thought of as home. I wondered if Joyce had considered the fact that she’d now taken in three boarders. She’d been living alone for so long, I think she was probably grateful for the company.
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