by John Clement
Also, it helps me forget how I got here.
There were a couple of seagulls ambling around on the deck down below where we eat dinner most nights. They were probably hunting for crumbs or leftovers, but they looked more like mall guards doing an early-morning security check. I still wasn’t completely awake, so at first I didn’t notice that the white hush of the ocean had taken on another familiar sound, sort of like distant radio static. I thought maybe I’d forgotten to turn the radio alarm off, but then I realized it wasn’t static at all: there was a car coming up the crushed-shell lane from the main road.
Tourist season doesn’t officially begin until November, but the most eager snowbirds start arriving now, around mid-October, when it’s just starting to get seriously cold up north. But it was far too early for tourists to be snooping about, and I knew Michael and Paco were both at work.
“No way,” I whispered out loud.
But then, sure enough, there was a flash of chrome through the leaves and what looked like a giant green station wagon slowly making its way around the curve in the drive. I felt like a deer in the headlights.
Or, more precisely, like a butt-naked woman on her balcony.
I don’t exactly make a habit of traipsing around outside in my birthday suit, but with Michael and Paco both gone I hadn’t given it a second thought. Now, whoever was coming up the driveway had a clear view of my front door, and it was far too late to slip back inside without being spotted.
If it was Michael or Paco, I might have been a little embarrassed, but it certainly wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Then the thought flashed across my mind: What if it was a client? Or maybe an old colleague from the sheriff’s department? Or the meter man? All of those possibilities seemed unlikely given the hour, but there was no time to think, so I did what any reasonable person would have done in the same situation.
I dove for the hammock.
It wasn’t really a station wagon. More like a tank. One of those huge suburban SUVs that people ferry kids and bags of groceries around in. Fixed to the hood just above the shiny chrome grill was a silvery logo: the letter B, with gleaming feathered wings sprouting from its sides.
The car rolled to a stop just shy of the deck, and as I snuck one hand out and grabbed the railing to steady the hammock, the driver’s side door swung open and out stepped a man in his midsixties, about six feet tall, with a nose like the beak of a hawk and eyes to match.
“Here we are!”
He was wearing standard rich-tourist couture: shorts the color of an easter egg (in this case bright yellow) and a white short-sleeved polo shirt with the collar flipped up jauntily.
The woman rose up and pivoted around on one foot like a ballerina popping out of a music box. She wore taupe jodhpurs and a white blousey dress shirt with rolled sleeves, and even at this distance, buried in pillows and peering through the ropes of the hammock, I could see the glitter of a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, along with matching diamond pendants hanging from her ears. Even her long, silvery blond hair looked expensive.
She said, “Garth, it’s perfect.”
“I know.” He folded his arms over his chest and looked around. “I told you it was perfect. Didn’t I say it was perfect?”
“You did.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking of Christopher Columbus, all puffed up and congratulating himself on his new “discovery.”
She said, “But then again, you say the same thing about every house we find, so you can’t blame me for being a little dubious.”
He snorted. “I can and I do.”
I slunk down a little farther in the pillows and closed my eyes, hoping it made me more invisible. I knew if they decided to come up the steps I’d be forced to reveal myself, so to speak, but they didn’t seem one bit concerned somebody might be home. While the woman stepped up on the deck between the carport and the main house, the man walked under me. I could see the white of his shirt between the floorboards of the balcony as he snooped around my car.
“Edith, look at this old Bronco. We’ve got one of these down at the club. Belonged to Hank Patterson. You remember old Hank Patterson from Crown Oil?”
“God, no.”
“Well, the story is he chatted up some girl at the bar young enough to be his daughter. Then she ended up driving him home because he was too drunk to drive. Well, don’t ask me what happened next, but guess what happened next?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, don’t tell me.”
“He walks through the front door and his wife is there, mad as hell. She says, ‘Hank, where the hell is the Bronco?’ And the bastard says, calm as rain, ‘I donated it to the club.’ And that was that! Now they use it to bring the pheasants down to the range.”
The woman nodded as she drew a couple of stray hairs behind her ear. “That’s a beautiful story.”
He put his hands on his hips and scanned the line of the overhang that runs the length of the balcony. “Looks like they’ve got a renter up there. You know, if you tore this carport down, there’d be room for a cabana.”
My eyes widened.
The woman sighed. “You mean a guesthouse.”
“No, Edith. I mean a cabana. To go with the pool. Maybe even an outdoor kitchen—à la belle étoile. Who the hell needs a guesthouse anyway?”
She shrugged. “Well, it definitely needs a pool, but I’d say tear it all down and start over.”
The man took a few confident steps toward the main house. “I’d say this is a hundred years old at least. They don’t make ’em like this anymore. It’s got charm. We could probably get it on a list of historical homes. That could jack up the value considerably.”
The woman stepped off the deck and reached into the front seat of the car for her purse. “Ha. As far as I’m concerned, charm just means dirty. All that old wood and drafty windows. And Garth, who cares about value anyway? It’s not like we’re flipping it.”
He said, “Well, tear it down then. Either way, it’s all about location. That’s the thing to think about.”
She tipped her head to one side as she lit her cigarette with a tiny white lighter. “Well, you’ll get no argument from me on that point.”
“Refreshing.”
I had pressed my face down into the hammock to get a better view, and it was starting to feel like the ropes were burning into my cheeks. The man came back around to the car’s side and put one foot up on the runner board.
“Beachfront property, Edith. Doesn’t get any better than that.” He tipped his chin at the ocean. “Wanna go down there and check it out?”
The woman took one long drag of her cigarette and then flicked it across the driveway with a shrug. “Meh. You’ve seen one beach, you’ve seen ’em all.”
At that point, naked or not, I was one millisecond away from rising out of the hammock like Godzilla from the sea and pelting them with a few carefully chosen epithets—if not a couple of wrought-iron ice cream chairs—along with a ten-second deadline to get the hell off my property. Luckily for everybody involved, they both got back in their stupid green tank and pulled out, leaving an invisible cloud of foul-smelling exhaust in their path.
I sat up out of the pillows and blinked.
Tear it down!?
Never mind the audacity, slithering around somebody else’s house unannounced and uninvited, but the mere thought that they’d tear our house down—the house my grandparents bought when they were newlyweds, the house Michael and I grew up in after our father died fighting a fire and our mother ran off … At this point, this old house is like a member of the family. And we’ve lost enough family as it is. We’ll never sell.
Not while I’m still breathing.
I made a mental note to try to remember everything those two old fools had said so I could tell Michael and Paco all about it when they got home. I had a moment of regret I hadn’t flown off the balcony to let them know exactly what they could do with their plans for the future, but I’m sure they would have called the fun
ny farm and reported a naked lunatic on the loose.
As it turned out, ending up tied to a bed in a mental hospital would not have been the worst thing in the world. In fact, given what was waiting for me around the corner—or should I say, behind that door to Caroline’s front hall?—a nice medicated rest would have been just what the doctor ordered.
4
As soon as the coast was clear and my early-morning intruders had moved on to their next potential demolition site, I streaked back inside. I was completely behind schedule now, but fortunately my morning routine is quick and simple. I can practically do it in my sleep. My feet were still damp from the misty air outside, so I tiptoed to the closet, careful not to slip on the terra-cotta tile.
Despite the fact that my apartment is small, my walk-in closet is big enough to hold a world-class collection of designer shoes and expensive haute couture. Instead, I’ve got a filing cabinet and a small desk in one corner. Pretty much every stitch of clothing I own fits on one six-foot rack.
There was a time when I had tons of clothes, although none of it was exactly what you’d call high-end—casual stuff for dinner with friends from work, vaguely sexy stuff for a standing Friday-night date, rugged stuff for running around with the kids at the playground … but things are simpler now.
As I pulled on my standard cat-sitter uniform—cargo shorts, white sleeveless T, and a pair of white Keds—I surveyed the stacks of bills and papers spread across my desk. One of the advantages of growing up in a sleepy beach town is that you develop a pretty laid-back attitude about most things, but when it comes to work, I run a very tight ship. In fact, I like to think I operate my pet-sitting business with the same discipline and dedication I brought to being a sheriff’s deputy. I’m always prepared, I’m respectful and kind to everyone I meet (furry, feathered, or otherwise), and I keep a spiral notebook with detailed notes on every pet I’ve ever cared for—what medications they take, what their favorite snacks are, and what kinds of games they like to play. Filing, however, is not my strongest skill. In fact, I like to pretend I have a private secretary named Dammit.
I shuffled things around on my desk and muttered under my breath, “Dammit, when are you going to get this place organized?”
Usually Dammit just rolls her eyes and mutters, “Oh, don’t have a cow. I’ll do it later,” but of course she never does.
I finally found my calendar under a collection of bills and cat-treat coupons and went over the day’s schedule. There were my regular morning clients first and then the rest were all felines. The Webers were volunteering again at the Women’s Exchange, but today they were only working the second shift, so I planned to swing by and pick Charlie up after I started my afternoon rounds. My final appointment of the day was reserved for the Scarlet Woman of Siesta Key.
The plan was to time my arrival at Caroline’s about forty-five minutes early and then, once Gigi was taken care of, I’d stop in next door for a quick meet and greet. The only problem was that I’d forgotten to mention to Ms. Kramer’s assistant that I’d have a deranged Lhasa apso with me. I didn’t like the idea of bringing someone’s dog to an initial meeting, especially a dog as unpredictable as Charlie, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Downstairs, there was a giant pelican roosting on the handlebars of my bike. I felt bad making him move, especially since I could easily have taken the Bronco, but I wanted to enjoy the cool morning air while I could. I knew within a couple of hours the roads would be more crowded, plus the sun would be out and it would be way too hot for pedaling around all day.
With a little encouragement, the pelican hopped over to the hood of the Bronco and then watched me with an incriminating glare as I backed out and rolled across the courtyard and down the curving driveway. Normally, the sound of the bike’s wheels on the crushed shell sends the parakeets in the treetops into a flutter, but my morning explorers had already woken them up, so everything was eerily still as I made my way down to the main road.
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, I felt just slightly off-kilter. Biking around town usually makes me feel free as a country cat, but it wasn’t working this time. I still felt … I don’t know … nervous isn’t exactly the right word, but something close to it. All six of my morning clients had been perfect angels overnight—no accidents to clean up or destroyed houseplants to doctor—but still I felt a tiny bit of foreboding every time I took out my keys and unlocked another front door. Even a quick nap before my afternoon rounds was completely useless.
The temperature had risen as the day went on, plus I couldn’t very well pedal around with Charlie in tow, so after my nap I left my bike at home and switched to the Bronco. Luckily, I’d left all the windows open from the night before so it wasn’t a broiling inferno inside—more like a toasty oven. I cranked up the AC, and it cooled off nicely.
At the Weber’s house, Charlie was waiting for me just inside the gate to the backyard, which was a good thing since it meant I didn’t have to go hunting for him. As soon as he saw me coming up the side driveway, he ran to his little igloo doghouse on the porch and brought back one of the many stuffed toys he keeps there—this time a ragged yellow giraffe—and shook it at me tauntingly.
I unlatched the gate and tried to be firm. “No, sir. We’ve got work to do. I promise we’ll play when we get home later.”
He ignored that and ran around in circles while I pulled his leash off a peg by the back door, and then I ran around in circles trying to hook it onto his collar. Finally, I gave up and let him run ahead to the Bronco, where he waited by the passenger door with his giraffe in his mouth and his tail wagging excitedly.
Just like people, animals are a lot happier when they have a purpose in life, and I was beginning to think Charlie was enjoying his part-time employment. For the rest of my afternoon stops, he kept himself on good behavior (relatively speaking), and it made me smile every time I thought of it. Elba Kramer wasn’t the only one around here with her own personal assistant.
By the time we finally finished up with my afternoon clients and pulled into Caroline’s driveway, I was thoroughly pooped and so was Charlie. He was stretched out on the passenger seat with his chin resting on his giraffe, held in place between his paws. I switched off the ignition and told him to stay put while I got his leash, but he just lifted his head and sniffed the air tentatively.
I gave him a quick shoulder rub. “I know, buddy. Being a cat sitter isn’t as easy as you thought, huh? All we have to do is feed Gigi, then a quick meeting next door, and then we’re done for the day.”
At that he stood up and wagged his tail in agreement, although his expression seemed more curious than eager. As I got out of the car, I glanced across the street to see if there were any signs of Mr. Scotland, and, sure enough, there he was, sitting in one of the wicker rocking chairs on the front porch with a book in his lap. He was wearing tan shorts and a T-shirt now, and even from a distance I could make out the tanned muscles of his arms. With the setting sun streaking the sky pink and amber overhead, the scene looked like something from a sexy postcard or a romantic movie. A baseball cap shaded his eyes, so I wasn’t sure if he was watching me, but as soon as I raised my arm to wave, he immediately waved back.
“Gid evenin’ mess!”
I said, “Hi there. How’s your vacation going so far?”
He flashed a white smile. “Hay rot braw!”
I smiled back and nodded, having no idea what the hell he’d said. Charlie pulled me all the way up the walk to Caroline’s front porch, ignoring my halfhearted commands to heel, and the closer we got to the front door, the more determined he became. The driveway had been baking in the hot sun all day, so I figured it was probably still too hot for his little paws. Either that or he was looking forward to adding a few more scratches to that parlor door.
I said, “Charlie, don’t even think about it. From now on, you’re staying on leash.”
But I don’t think he even heard me. He was too busy sniffing
around the doorjamb, holding his tail out straight like an English pointer’s. I shook my head in admiration.
Lhasas aren’t exactly known for their tracking abilities, so it’s easy to forget that even a tiny puffball like Charlie has the same not-very-distant ancestor as every other dog in the world: the gray wolf. And, just like wolves in the wild, dogs have a sense of smell that borders on the supernatural. They can detect microbial disease in beehives, counterfeit DVDs in foreign shipments, elevated blood pressure in humans—even a tablespoon of sugar in an olympic-size swimming pool! It was no wonder Charlie could still sense that Mr. Scotland had been here. I figured that man’s smug, oozing charm could linger for days.
Just then, as if to prove my point, Charlie let out a low, rumbling growl.
“Charlie!” I tugged at his leash to get his attention. “I promise you there’s nothing to worry about.”
I glanced up to see if Mr. Scotland was still watching, but he must have gone inside. I flipped through my keys until I found Caroline’s, which was silver with a red rubber tag attached, and as I slipped it in the lock and turned the handle, Charlie surged forward, ready to rush in ahead of me.
I said, “Hold on there, Speed Racer.”
I pulled him back a few feet and made him sit, and then while I held one hand in front of his snout like a school crossing guard, I reached back and pushed the front door open with my right foot. Just then, Charlie looked down at the floor behind me and ever so slowly began wagging his tail.
I froze.
Dogs use their tails to communicate all kinds of things, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the particular signal Charlie was communicating was, “Hello, stranger.” I slowly turned and peered over my left shoulder. There, in the middle of Caroline’s front hall, surrounded by a sea of envelopes and flyers and plastic-wrapped catalogs, was a man.
His back was flat on the floor and his legs were laid out straight, but his left arm was at an odd angle, almost as if it didn’t belong to the rest of his body. He wore a light-blue, three-piece suit, with a green-and-yellow striped tie. There was a white silk scarf laid across his face, so I couldn’t see whether his eyes were open or not. As I leaned in closer, I realized the envelopes and mailers around his head and shoulders were soaked in blood.