Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

by Blaize Clement

  I went into my office-closet to check on messages. All but one were from people wanting to know my rates. I took their numbers to call back. The other was from Ethan Crane. Ethan’s an attorney, but he’s more interested in getting justice than in getting rich, so I don’t hold that against him. I’d first met him when he handled the estate of a cat I was responsible for. Later, he took over the management of a foundation set up by a man whose murder indirectly led to my killing somebody. I don’t hold that against him either.

  Ethan is also one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen in my life, and the second man I’d recently realized I was attracted to. In a sexual sort of way, I mean. In a holy-smokes-he’s-hot kind of way.

  Which was all very confusing because all my pores had only recently commenced salivating whenever I was around Guidry, so what the heck was I doing feeling sexual toward Ethan Crane? It was like my body had been without sex or romance for so long it had lost its ability to make choices.

  Ethan’s message was short and to the point. “Hi, Dixie, Ethan Crane here. Say, I was driving down Midnight Pass Road this morning and saw your Bronco in a driveway where there were a bunch of sheriff’s cars and a crime scene tape. I hope everything is okay with you. I think about you a lot. Could we have dinner one evening? Give me a call, okay?”

  There’s a lot to be said for having dinner with a man who isn’t mad at you, so I punched in his private number. He picked up the phone on the first ring.

  “Hi, Dixie, how are you?”

  Damn, I always forget about caller ID. Knowing he’d known it was me before he answered made me stutter a little bit.

  “I’m fine. Good to hear from you.”

  “I know this is a busy time of the year, with the holidays and all, but if you’re free this evening, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  He had no idea how free all my evenings were. He also had no idea how I hated the whole idea of dating. I opened my mouth to tell him I was tied up until Easter.

  My lips said, “Sure. Where shall I meet you?”

  A beat passed while he registered that I would take my own wheels. “How about the Crab House at seven?”

  “Better make it closer to eight-thirty. I have a full schedule today.”

  He chuckled lightly. “Okay, I’ll meet you tonight at eight-thirty. Looking forward to it.”

  I nodded at the phone and then found my voice. “Good.’Bye.”

  As I hung up, it occurred to me that I’d just said what sounded like a curt Goodbye. What I’d actually said hadn’t been much less curt, but I had to fight myself to keep from calling him back and saying, “I didn’t say Goodbye, I said Good.’Bye.” Another reason to hate dating and all the rules and crap that go with it.

  I got up and pawed through my few clothes. If I was going to start going out with men, and it looked possible, I was going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe. Dresses. Skirts. Shoes and purses. The thought made me almost gag, but I had to start thinking like a grown-up, acting like a grown-up, dressing like a grown-up. I couldn’t go through life forever in shorts and jeans and T-shirts and Keds.

  It was time to leave for my afternoon pet visits—all of them except Ken Kurtz. I wasn’t going to deliver a message to him, and I wasn’t going back to his house for any reason except to feed Ziggy. Furthermore, I wasn’t going until tomorrow. If either Ziggy or Kurtz got hungry before I came, they could damn well call out for pizza. But first I had to let Michael know what was going on.

  I found him in his kitchen spreading freshly toasted chili-cayenne pecan halves on paper towels. When Michael and Paco moved into our grandparents’ house, they left it pretty much the way it had always been, except for the kitchen. Now the kitchen is outfitted with Sub-Zero appliances, an enormous grill, and every gizmo ever made for professional cooks. A wide butcher-block island has a salad sink at one end and stools on each side at the other end for eating. Since Michael does the cooking at the firehouse as well as for me and Paco, his freezer is always stuffed and he spends a lot of his off time cooking things for fellow firefighters.

  Firefighters must like things hot, because chili-cayenne pecans are Michael’s annual Christmas treat for the firehouse. I popped one in my mouth and then did an Indian war dance while I fanned my lips and whimpered.

  He waved a wooden spoon at me. “Coffee’s fresh. Pour me a cup too, would you?”

  Still fanning my lips, I got down mugs and splashed hot coffee into them. When I handed one to Michael, he stopped me with his spoon on my chest.

  “Okay, something’s wrong, and I want to know what it is.”

  I took my coffee to the big butcher-block island and perched on a bar stool.

  I said, “A man working as a security guard for Ken Kurtz was murdered early this morning. He was shot in the head in the guardhouse.”

  Michael rotated his spoon, meaning Get on with it. “I heard that on the news. What does it have to do with you?”

  I swallowed coffee and tried to think of a way to tell the story that didn’t make me seem crazy.

  “Ken Kurtz has an iguana I was hired to feed, so I had to go to his house.”

  Michael’s eyes were getting brighter blue, a sure sign his patience was wearing thin. “So?”

  “I went there twice, once to get out of the rain and once to feed the iguana. The first time, I saw the dead guard and I didn’t report it. The second time, I went for the iguana, only I hadn’t realized the first time that it was the iguana’s house because I’d never been there before, because the man who hired me wasn’t really Ken Kurtz, he just pretended to be. And there’s a woman mixed up in it somehow. Two women, really, the nurse and the woman with a bulldog, but the nurse ran away and Kurtz claims the other woman is dead. But I think he’s lying because he has her picture and I’m sure it’s the same woman.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look higher than Michael’s belt, but from the stiff way he stood, I was pretty sure I hadn’t done a good job of telling the story like a sane person.

  He said, “Anything else?”

  My voice came out weak as a new kitten’s. “A Herald-Tribune deliveryman called nine-one-one to report the guard was shot. He had seen me leaving as he drove in the driveway, and he reported that too, so Guidry has me as the only person seen leaving the crime site. The ME has put the time of death within the last few hours before it was reported. Guidry took my thirty-eight for ballistics testing.”

  Michael moved to the bar stool across from me. He had gone so pale I could see tiny freckles I’d never noticed before dotting his cheekbones.

  “Are you saying you’re a murder suspect?”

  “Only because the Herald-Tribune guy saw me. When they do the ballistics test, they’ll know it wasn’t my gun.”

  I tried to make my voice sound positive, but the truth was that Guidry hadn’t told me if they’d recovered an intact bullet or a casing. If they hadn’t, a ballistics test on my gun wouldn’t help me a bit.

  When a bullet travels through a gun barrel, the bullet takes on marks unique to that particular barrel. Any bullet fired from a specific gun will show the same marks, unless there’s been some intentional alteration between firings. Or unless the bullet itself is distorted because of hitting bone or passing through a body and hitting something else hard. Shell casings leave distinctive marks too, so the Forensics firearm examiner would be able to match a casing to the gun that fired it—unless no casing was found.

  “But until then you’re a suspect, right?”

  I was surprised at how calm he sounded. Then I noticed the handle of his coffee cup lying on the bar. He had snapped it clean off.

  Miserably, I said, “Michael, I try to stay out of these things, I really do. I don’t know how I get involved.”

  “The important question,” he said, “is how to get you uninvolved.”

  It was way too late for that and we both knew it, but for a few moments we pretended there was a way out and that I would find it.

  I said, “By the
way, I won’t be here for dinner tonight. I have a date.”

  I tried for nonchalance, but my voice came out squeaky.

  Michael’s eyebrows climbed nearly to his hairline. He and Paco had been pushing me to get a man in my life for over two years.

  Trying equally hard to sound like it was something I did every day, Michael said, “Actually, I won’t be here either. One of the guys at the station needs to take the night off for his daughter’s wedding, so I’m going to cover for him. A date with who?”

  “Whom. Ethan Crane, the lawyer.”

  “Ahhh.”

  As I went out the door, I said, “This will all work out, Michael.”

  He said, “Yeah,” and went back to laying out his pecan halves. I didn’t look at his face, but he actually sounded a bit hopeful. Only thing was, I knew it was because I’d told him I had a date.

  At Tom Hale’s condo at the Sea Breeze, Tom stayed out of sight while I snapped on Billy Elliot’s leash. Downstairs, we ran around the parking lot several times like demented dervishes. I was still wheezing when we got back to Tom’s apartment, but Billy Elliot was grinning and calm. As I hung Billy’s leash in the hall closet, Tom rolled into the living room with a smile that managed to be both smug and sheepish, one of those sexual reactions peculiar to men.

  He said, “Sorry about this morning, Dixie. I would’ve introduced you to Frannie, but you left too soon.”

  “I didn’t know you were involved with somebody. It sort of took me by surprise.”

  “Me too. I mean, I just recently decided to get involved. I figured I’ve been without love too long.”

  I gave him my best cynical look. “You decided to fall in love?”

  “Sure. Not that I wasn’t particular about the woman, but I’d made the choice to love before I met the person.”

  I must have looked unconvinced, because he gave me a somewhat pitying smile.

  “Love is always a decision, Dixie. It’s not something that descends on you like manna from heaven.”

  I thought about that remark for the rest of the afternoon, while I was walking the dogs on my list and while I was playing with the cats. At Muddy Cramer’s urine-stinky house, I found him clinging to the top of the Cramers’ silk velvet draperies, leaving shred marks with his claws and making heartrending cries of desperation. While I tried to coax him down, it occurred to me that humans are the only species that considers a house a shelter. Muddy had spent all his life in the open air, taking his chances with rain and wind and predators and traffic. While that’s not what anybody wants for a domestic cat, it had been Muddy’s life and he obviously didn’t consider it a blessing that the Cramers had rescued him from it.

  The sun sets early in December, around five-thirty, and it was almost seven when I headed home. What with changing clothes half a dozen times and changing my mind about my hair and makeup I don’t know how many times, I barely had time to shower, dress, and leave for the Crab House by eight-fifteen. I’d finally settled on a pair of butt-hugging black leather pants with short high-heeled boots and a fuzzy pink sweater. Hair left hanging. No makeup except gloss and mascara. Sort of an innocent-whore look.

  A full moon hung low on the fresh-washed horizon like a newly minted gold coin, bathing the key in such a flood of bright radiance that security lights were redundant. Driving past the Kurtz house, I looked toward the guardhouse and the palm hedge beyond it. In the bright moonlight, the place had a lost, forlorn look that gave me a guilty nudge. My angel self said it wouldn’t kill me to pop in and check on Kurtz and Ziggy and give him the key to his back door. My selfish self said to shut up, I didn’t have time, and anyway I didn’t want to. My selfish self won.

  The Crab House is at the southern tip of the key on the bay side. I thought it spoke well of Ethan that he’d suggested it, since it’s one of my favorite places. The clientele is a good mix of straight/gay, young/old, rich/ middle-class, some from boats tied up at the Crab House dock and some off shiny Vespas or Hogs. The food is good, the music is good, and those who are so inclined, which I never am, can dance on its tiny dance floor.

  I parked the Bronco at the side of the parking lot next to a car with two teenagers making out in the backseat. From the sounds coming through the open windows, I got the distinct impression of an impending orgasm, maybe two. For their sakes, I hoped it would be two. For my own sake, I hoped I got away before it happened. It had been four years since I’d known that kind of mindless joy, and now that I’d sort of decided to maybe put myself in a possible situation which might conceivably one day lead to me having an orgasm with a new man left me feeling weak and stupid, as if I needed a diagram of how to do it, like Insert Tab B into Slot A. As I hurried toward the door, I heard the girl in the car howl like a cat in heat. So much for missing the sound of her orgasm.

  When I opened the door, Ethan Crane was inside waiting for me, and when he saw me he got that look in his eyes that men get when they’re interested in making you yowl like an alley cat.

  Holy smoke, he was almost too good-looking.

  ELEVEN

  Smooth man that he is, Ethan had already snagged us a table, and he steered me there with a couple of fingers light on my fuzzy pink shoulder. One of the most strikingly handsome men in the world, Ethan is an arresting combination of Seminole Indian and some other genes that produced shiny shoulder-length black hair, deep-set dark eyes, an engaging white-toothed grin, and a firm, nicely muscled body. A woman who didn’t find him enticing would have to be either dead or hard-core lesbian. I’d noticed him even when I was almost numb, and it had scared me to death.

  Now that I was thawing out and thinking I might want to live like a woman after all, I still got flustered when I was around him. I was also confused. How could I feel such a strong pull from Guidry and still have deliciously indecent thoughts about Ethan Crane?

  I was acutely aware of the heat of his fingers through my sweater and relieved that our table was by the back glass wall. If we ran out of things to talk about, or if I became totally inarticulate, we could look out at the bay.

  A waiter slid up as soon as we were seated, and I had the feeling Ethan had engineered that too, probably with money and the promise of more with excellent service. He was that kind of man.

  I ordered a margarita—on ice, with salt—and Ethan ordered a beer. Somehow, that surprised me.

  I said, “I’d have expected you to order something more sophisticated, like special scotch that’s been filtered through oatmeal or something.”

  He shrugged. “You know how it is with us Injuns. We don’t do well with strong firewater.”

  His voice had a bite to it, as if he resented the stereotype, even though he was invoking it himself and even though he was only a quarter Seminole.

  I said, “Makes you crave more?”

  “No, makes me puke in the parking lot. Plays hell with a date.”

  That made me remember we were on a date, and I instantly tensed.

  He said, “You look terrific. I like that fuzzy stuff. What is it?”

  “Mohair. It’s mohair. Comes from a goat. I think it’s a goat. Maybe it’s a sheep. I’m not sure, goat or sheep.”

  Lord help me, my mouth wouldn’t shut up.

  His grin was a white slash in his bronze face. No doubt about it, he was one gorgeous Indian.

  The waiter whipped back with our drinks and asked if we wanted to order yet.

  Since I was suddenly famished, I nodded vigorously. Ethan allowed as how menus would be a good idea, and we spent the next few minutes deciding on what to eat. The waiter was at our side the instant we both decided on grilled grouper, which made me positive he’d been paid to shower us with attention.

  When the waiter left, Ethan said, “I’m glad to see you again. When I saw your car at that house, I was concerned.”

  His voice had gone deep and throaty. I thought of the teenagers in the car. I thought of how Ethan Crane would sound having an orgasm. I thought of how I would sound having an orgasm with Et
han Crane. I was very warm in my pink fuzzy sweater.

  To keep him from guessing my carnal thoughts, I said, “Do you happen to know anything about Ken Kurtz?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who lives in that house where the guard was killed.”

  “I didn’t know his name. The house was built by a corporation based on the Isle of Man.”

  “The Isle of what?”

  “Man. It’s in the Irish Sea off the northwest coast of England. It’s a little tax-free island where people keep money they don’t want traced.”

  “You mean Ken Kurtz doesn’t own the place?”

  “I don’t know who owns it. He could be doing business as the corporation, although the corporation itself was a shell for another company.”

  Suddenly Ethan Crane didn’t look so hot to me. For all I knew, he could be involved in whatever was going on with Ken Kurtz. Maybe his interest in me wasn’t personal at all. Maybe he had given my name and number to the Irishman who had called me.

  I said, “How do you know so much about who owns the Kurtz property?”

  The chill in my voice made him look up with a question in his eyes. “I served as escrow agent for the shell company.”

  That was even more suspicious, because Ethan wasn’t a real estate attorney.

  He must have sensed my withdrawal, because he almost blurted out an explanation.

  “I met an attorney in London a couple of years ago, and we exchanged business cards. You know, in case I ever needed a contact in London or in case he needed one in Sarasota, the kind of networking thing people do. I never expected anything to come of it, but he called me about this time last year and asked if I’d handle this transaction here on Siesta Key. His client wanted to buy an existing house to tear down and put up a new one, but they didn’t want any public notice of the purchase. I filled him in on Florida realty laws, told him they’d have to retain thirty percent of the existing house to avoid zoning changes and public postings. To keep their name out of it during construction, the sale would have to be a land contract rather than the usual possession-at-funding deal. That way, the seller retains title until final payment is made.”