She looked down and spread her palms open.
“I broke the fall with my hands. I’m convinced that’s where my arthritis came from. Dixie, do you have someone?”
That caught me off guard. I said, “What do you mean, someone?”
“Someone special in your life.”
“Umm. I do. Sort of. I mean it’s complicated.”
She stared at me, unblinking, with a desperate look in her eyes. I knew she wanted an honest answer.
I said, “I’ve been alone for a while, so it’s hard. I mean, it’s such a compromise…”
“A compromise?”
“Well, I mean I like my life the way it is. It’s just hard to compromise no matter how much in love you think you are.”
She thought for a moment and then looked out at the pool. “I think you should stay away from Kenny Newman. I’m afraid of him.”
“Mrs. Harwick, I’m not involved with Kenny Newman, and I never have been. I really only know him through work.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I jumped to that conclusion. To be honest, I think I was a little jealous. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always had a little crush on Kenny, which I’m sure you can understand.” She smiled sadly. “Well, I’m glad you have someone you can share your life with.”
She looked down at the cigarette, still lying with its lit end over the edge of the coffee table, only now there was a half-inch-long tail of ashes. She flicked the ashes into the palm of her hand and dumped them along with the cigarette into a bowl on the table next to the couch. She shook her head. “Disgusting habit. I haven’t smoked in twenty years.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’s the driver.”
She stood up slowly, and we walked to the front door.
“Dixie, I hope you don’t mind feeding the fish a while longer. I realize it’s not at all what we planned, but until they find out who did this, I can’t stay in this house.”
“It’s not a problem at all. I can feed them as long as you want, and I’ve already talked to the Kitty Haven. Charlotte can stay there as long as necessary.”
Her eyes glassed over, and she nodded mutely. I watched from the porch as the driver helped her into the backseat of the car. She had been so vital and strong that first day we met. Now, just a few days later, she seemed old and frail.
The driver closed the door, and as he walked around the front of the car and got in the driver’s seat, Mrs. Harwick sat perfectly still, her eyes wide open and gazing forward. I was waiting to give her a smile or a wave, but as the car moved forward she didn’t look back.
I trudged up the stairs with heavy legs. Mrs. Harwick seemed to have lost not only her husband, but her soul mate. I had been wrong about them. They had been together so long their bickering had become just another mode of communication. What I had thought was bitterness and sarcasm was really just harmless play, like two old dogs rolling around in the grass and chewing on each other’s ears.
In the master bathroom, I slid open one of the pocket doors on the side of the aquarium and opened the cabinet where all the food and chemicals were kept. I pulled out a water-testing strip and dipped it into the aquarium for a few seconds, then watched the little squares on the strip change color. I compared them with the examples printed on the side of the bottle. Everything matched perfectly, which was a relief. I didn’t have to add any chemicals to the tank. I remembered Mrs. Harwick saying that just the slightest imbalance in the chemistry could be fatal to the fish.
After I sprinkled some food in, I slid the lid of the tank closed, flicked off the light, and closed the pocket door behind me. The bathroom was the same, except the towel that had been lying on the counter was gone, along with all the little yellow evidence markers, and the harp-toting angels flying around on the ceiling looked a little more heavenly and glowing in the late-afternoon light.
I thought to myself, If I were Becca, I would probably have spent a lot of time in here, too. I went over to the little alcove opposite the aquarium and sat down on the velvet bench. I closed my eyes and the image of Mrs. Harwick’s face came into view. There was so much sorrow in her vacant stare that I could barely take it. She must have been so terrified when she woke up that morning in Tampa and realized that her husband wasn’t lying in bed next to her. I hoped someone had been with her when she was told what had happened. The thought of her sitting alone in a hotel room to hear that news was just too terrible to think about. And now it was beginning to look like Detective McKenzie might have been right about Becca, that she was on drugs.
That’s when it finally dawned on me.
Becca had said that Mr. and Mrs. Harwick had basically disowned August for getting mixed up with drugs, and that he’d been forced to get a job at the golf club. That was one of the main reasons she’d been afraid to talk to her parents: She was worried they’d cut her off, too. And who could blame her? If I’d had that kind of money growing up, I don’t think I’d be too happy about losing it either.
Now, though, I remembered something August said the first day I met him. He had just searched through the house and found Charlotte out on the lanai. We were walking up the driveway together, and when we passed his car he said, “How do you like my new wheels?” If he’d been cut off financially from his parents, forced to get some menial job at a golf course, how in the world could he have afforded to buy a brand-new, expensive-looking sports car? Where would he have gotten the money for something like that?
It was simple. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before.
August wasn’t “mixed up” in drugs. He was dealing them, and Becca knew it. Detective McKenzie had mentioned Becca had taken something from her brother’s room. Was it possible Becca had found his stash of money and drugs and stolen it?
Then there was the question of that packet of letters that Kenny supposedly gave Mr. Harwick. Where was it? And if it wasn’t hidden in the house, who had taken it?
My brain was starting to hurt. I rubbed my hands over my eyes and took a deep breath. Somehow I’d done it again. I’d gotten all mixed up in something that was none of my business. I had told myself that it was none of my business a hundred times, but somehow that didn’t matter. I just kept getting sucked in.
I looked up at the fish tank. The mermaid was sitting inside her simple, peaceful little world with that same insipid look in her eyes and stupid smirk painted on her face. As I was about to mutter something disparaging about her ridiculously exaggerated boobs, I stopped myself. Wait a minute, I thought. This mermaid is trying to tell you something.
She was gazing serenely out one of the bathroom windows, as though she was mesmerized by how the sun was glittering through it and sending little prisms of color reflecting around the room, as though she was being transported to some magical, far-off land.
I thought, You’re exactly right. I need to do that. I need to gaze off into the distance with an empty head. I need to wear a bikini. I need to drink some margaritas in the middle of the day. I need a damn break. I need to get away.
And I knew exactly who I wanted to get away with.
23
I looked at my watch. It said exactly 4:38, which meant it was exactly a minute past 4:30. I like to be on time, so I trick myself. I set all my clocks seven minutes fast. That way if I’m running late or hit traffic, I always have a few minutes to spare. I knew Ethan usually left his office around 4:30 every afternoon and walked over to the café for a cup of coffee. I decided I’d drive by and see if I could catch him. It was silly, but I knew it would cheer me up. My conversation with Mrs. Harwick had put me in a lousy mood.
The coffee shop is right on the corner at the light. As I pulled up to the curb, Ethan was just coming out the door with a coffee and a bagel. I honked the horn and rolled down the passenger window. He was deep in thought, probably mulling over the details of a case he was working on, but when he saw me his face lit up and he came bounding over and stuck his head in the window. If he’d had a
tail he would have wagged it.
“Hey! Fancy meeting you here!”
“Well, not really. I’m sort of stalking you. I know you usually get coffee around now, so—”
“Hold on. You drove over here just so you’d run into me?”
I shrugged. “Well, I was sort of in the neighborhood, but basically yes.”
“Wow. That is the best thing that’s happened to me all day.”
I could literally feel my heart racing. “Me, too.”
“So, when am I seeing you again? I am seeing you again, right?”
I said, “Yes. In fact I have a fantasy that we’re sharing a margarita on some faraway island in the middle of the day.”
“I have some fantasies, too, but we can go over those later.”
Huh.
He looked at his watch. “I wish I’d known you were going to be stalking me. I would have made some excuse not to go back to the office.”
“No, it’s okay. I need to get home anyway.”
“Maybe I could stop by later?”
“Definitely.”
He smiled. “Good. I’ll call you. I had a great time last night. I even enjoyed all the crazy drama.”
“There won’t be any more craziness, I promise.”
His eyebrows went up, and I braced myself for whatever sarcastic yet witty remark he was about to make. Instead he said, “Damn, look at this beautiful automobile.”
He tipped his chin at a car that had just rolled up next to us and was waiting for the light to turn green, but I didn’t look over. I had no interest in some silly car. I was more interested in how excited Ethan was. He was beaming like a dog in a butcher shop.
“That’s a Fiero Miyata. They only make about a hundred of them a year, and you need major connections just to get on the waiting list. That little baby probably costs a cool hundred thousand at least.”
I’ll never understand what it is with boys and their cars. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a nice car as much as the next person, but as far as I’m concerned, cars are just like shoes—they help you get from one place to another. I wouldn’t waste a hundred thousand dollars on a fancy designer car any more than I’d waste it on a pair of fancy designer shoes. Except that I have been known to have a weakness for shoes. So I might fantasize about buying a hundred-thousand-dollar pair of shoes, if they even make such a thing, but I’d never actually do it. I mean, they’d have to be pretty nice shoes.
Ethan saw the grin on my face as I was watching him. “What?”
I said, “I’m just wondering if I’ll ever see that gleam in your eye when you’re looking at me.”
He laughed. “Oh, you’re way hotter than that car. But still … you have to admit. That is one nice car.”
With a cheesy wink, he headed off down the sidewalk. I watched him go and thought to myself, and that is one cute butt.
As the light changed to green, I turned to look and my smile instantly vanished. I couldn’t see who was driving, but I recognized the car immediately. It was the same black sports car that August was driving the first time I met him outside his parents’ house. In and of itself, that was no big deal. We live on a tiny island, so people’s paths are bound to cross every once in a while, and I run into people I know all the time. What made my jaw drop open and my eyebrows jump was that I thought I recognized the person that was sitting in the passenger seat.
The windows were rolled up and slightly tinted, so I couldn’t see the face clearly. I waited until the car had gone through the light, and then I pulled out onto the road a few cars back. I followed it all the way up Higel Avenue and through Bay Island to the bridge that crosses over Roberts Bay onto the mainland. At Tamiami Trail, the car turned north and headed out of town. I kept a safe distance just in case they saw me and got suspicious. We drove on for about five miles, and then finally made a right onto University.
I realized we were headed for the Sarasota International Airport, but then the car passed by the main entrance without even slowing. About a mile farther, it made a quick turn down a long gravel road that led into what looked like an old, abandoned factory. There were several hulking cinder-block structures with vaulted roofs clad in corrugated iron, clustered around a sprawling expanse of white-hot concrete baking in the late-afternoon sun. At the far end was a row of small, single-engine airplanes. I realized the buildings must have been airplane hangars. Adjacent to the concrete yard was an open field choked with tall grasses and weeds. I couldn’t see it from the street, but I knew there would be a long single-lane runway cut through its center.
There was no way I could have followed the car in without drawing attention to myself, so I sped on to the next light and made a U-turn. Before I got to the lane where they had turned, I pulled in behind a long, low warehouse with rusted corrugated roofing and slid to a stop, sending a cloud of dust into the air. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window as I shut the door. I knew what I was doing was completely foolish, but I needed to know if I was right about who was sitting in the passenger seat of that car.
I hustled across the graveled surface to the far end of the warehouse and carefully peeked around the corner. A field of grassy weeds lay between me and the cluster of airplane hangars. I could see the black sports car parked in the center of the concrete courtyard, and there were a couple of men in black shorts and dark blue polo shirts making their way toward the car. The driver’s door opened, and a tall, shaggy-haired man wearing a black suit stood up, but it was too far to make out his face through the waves of heat coming up from the concrete. I needed to get closer.
There was a chain-link fence smothered in vines alongside the warehouse, creating a narrow strip of dried-out brush about two feet wide.
I whispered to myself, “You are one hundred percent out of your mind.”
I squeezed through the gap between the chain-link fence and the warehouse and inched my way closer, ducking behind the weeds and dodging broken bottles and rotting trash banked up against the side of the building. At the end of the fence, I came to what looked like an old electrical generator, surrounded by a low concrete wall. I ducked down behind the wall and peered over the edge.
The man standing by the car was indeed August. He was talking to one of the traffic control men while one of the planes positioned itself at the head of the runway. It must have been a private charter plane. Another car had arrived now, a gray Mercedes sedan, and a conservatively dressed middle-aged couple was waiting with small rolling suitcases. They were probably wealthy travelers off to a private island resort somewhere.
As one of the men opened the door on the plane’s side and lowered the folding stairs, another man wearing a pilot’s cap came sauntering out of one of the hangars. The man talking to August shook his hand and then signaled for the couple to bring their bags over. August walked around to the passenger side of his car and opened the door. A woman stepped out, holding a small package in one arm and an overnight bag in the other.
It was Corina—and the small package she was holding was Dixie Joyce, wrapped in the fleecy pink blanket I’d bought her at Walmart.
I held my breath as August reached into the front seat of the car and brought out Corina’s handbag. There was a gentleness in the way he handed it to her, and the thought flashed across my mind that they were a couple. She draped the handbag over her shoulder, and they walked together to the plane. August handed her overnight bag up to one of the men inside and then watched as Corina made her way up the steps with Dixie Joyce in her arms. When she got to the top, she looked back nervously at August. He waved at her, and then she disappeared inside.
The two ground crewmen folded the steps up and latched the door, and then one of them whistled and gave a thumbs-up to the pilot. He and August waved to each other as the plane started rolling forward.
Just as the plane lifted off the ground, I felt two things. First was an extraordinarily confusing mix of thoughts and emotions—I knew it would be a while before I’d sorted through this one. Second w
as a firm tapping on my left shoulder. It was so unexpected that a high-pitched scream spontaneously flew out of my throat as I spun around, my hands raised in front of me like two karate sticks. Standing before me was an elderly man in a dark blue security uniform with trembling hands and a look of terror in his face equal only to mine.
“Young lady, this is private property you’re on.”
“I know, I’m so sorry—I’m leaving now.”
“Well, now hold on, missy. I have to report you for trespassing, so I’m gonna need to see your driver’s license first.”
I had to think fast. If he worked for the people that operated the private charter planes, the last thing I needed was a trespassing report with my name on it. They seemed pretty chummy with August, and I didn’t want him to find out that I had been snooping around watching him.
Of course, I could have made a run for it. The poor old security guy was so befuddled it was almost comical. He had pulled out a yellowed report pad that had obviously never been used and was shaking a ballpoint pen in the air, trying to get the ink to flow. I noticed a silver loop-chain ID bracelet on his wrist. My grandfather had worn the exact same bracelet.
Summoning up my inner busty blonde, I pointed to August’s car and said, “Oh, please don’t report me. Do you see that man? He’s my boyfriend. He just put his mistress on a private plane. I thought he was cheating on me, and now I know it for sure.”
“Little lady, that’s none of my business. I still gotta fill out a report.”
I started rummaging through my pockets, pretending to look for my wallet. “Great. My boyfriend finds out I got heart trouble and right away he runs out and gets another girl, and now I’m gonna get busted for it.”
He looked up. “You got heart trouble?”
I shifted my weight and glared at him. “Yeah, and I gotta take Plavix every day and I got a twenty-four-hour headache from it, too, but what do you care?”
The Cat Sitter's Cradle Page 19