Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

It was close to eight o’clock when I fed the last cat and went home. Michael and Paco were on the terrace between the house and the carport, firing up the grill.

Michael said, “Hurry up, Dixie, we’re waiting for you.”

I ran upstairs, peeled off my clothes, and tossed them and my Keds on top of the things already in the washer. I took a quick shower, toweled my body and hair dry, and pulled on a short strapless cotton dress and some flip-flops. My answering machine was blinking, so before I went downstairs, I punched the play button and got Shuga Reasnor’s voice.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “And I’d like to talk to you some more about the cat. Could you come to my place? Please call me as soon as you can. Or just come on by. I’ll be here all day.” She left her address and hung up, and the machine’s robotic voice announced that the call had come in at 4:37. I glared at the machine. I didn’t want to go see the woman, and I didn’t want to call her back.

I took a deep breath and dialed her number. I got her machine, which thrilled me so much that I punched my fist into the air in a “Yes!” sign.

Shuga’s recorded voice said, “You have reached…” and gave her phone number. Why do people give you their phone number when you’ve just called it?

Talking fast in case she was monitoring her calls and might pick up, I said, “Miss Reasnor, this is Dixie Hemingway. I got your message, and I’ll try to stop by your place tomorrow morning around nine o’clock.”

I was so relieved that I didn’t have to talk to Shuga Reasnor three times in one day that I almost skipped down the stairs to the terrace, where the outdoor table was set, the grill was ready, and the wine was chilling in a bucket.

Michael said, “Well, the queen has arrived, so we can eat.”

I stuck out my tongue at him, and Paco shook his head. “You two are so mature,” he said.

Michael is the cook of the family. Even when we were kids, he was the family cook. He’s the cook at the firehouse, too. Michael believes that George Foreman’s grill has done more for the civilized world than Einstein’s theory of relativity, and he loves to do things that take a long time, like ribs and briskets and turkeys.

Michael was four and I was two when our mother left us the first time. Our father was pulling a twenty-four-hour shift at the firehouse and didn’t know she had gone, so Michael took care of us until he got home. He fed us cold cereal with milk until we ran out of milk, and then we ate cold dry cereal. He climbed on a chair and got the peanut butter jar from the cupboard, and he found a jar of grape jelly in the refrigerator. We didn’t have any bread, so we ate it with a spoon.

When our father came home, he found us curled up together like puppies, jelly-smeared and confused, but none the worse for wear. Our mother came back in a few days, and our life took up as if she’d never been gone. She left us for good when I was nine and Michael was eleven. Our father had died putting out a fire by then, so we went to live with our grandparents in their house on the Gulf. Now we’ve come full circle. Michael moved back into the house when our grandparents died, and I moved into the garage apartment after Todd and Christy died. And Michael’s still feeding me.

We were so practiced at getting dinner together that we all went into action like a circus act. Michael brushed olive oil on three pompano, dusted them with salt and pepper, and stretched them on the grill. Paco brought out a big wooden bowl of salad and a tray of sliced eggplant and zucchini from the kitchen, and I slathered the veggie slices with oil. Michael laid them on the grill with the pompano, and Paco tossed the salad with olive oil and lemon juice. Michael turned the fish, and I poured the wine. Michael turned the veggies, and Paco pulled out my chair. Michael flipped pompano and veggies onto a platter, and Paco and I grabbed our forks.

If there’s any better way to end a day than sitting on a terrace with your favorite people while you eat fresh-caught fish and watch a spectacular sunset, I’ve never found it. The men had shaved and changed out of their scrungy shorts and sweatshirts with the sleeves cut out. Michael wore white linen pants and a crisp cotton shirt with thin blue and white stripes, and Paco had on black pants and a white linen shirt. Easy with themselves and the world, they exuded that special masculine energy that goes along with vibrant health and well-honed muscles. There were women all over Sarasota who would have given one of their ovaries to be with either of them, and I had them both. I also had their undivided attention.

Over dinner, I told them everything I knew about the murder. I told them about finding the lanai door open and the bedroom and closet ransacked, and about finding the dead body. About leaving Ghost with Mrs. Winnick and how weird she was, and about meeting Dr. Win and how it had looked like the Winnicks had just had a fight. I gave them a word-by-word account of my conversation with Guidry and told about speaking to Dr. Coffey and Shuga Reasnor. I told them what Judy had said about Marilee and how she’d dumped Dr. Coffey, and about his bimbo girlfriend coming out of cocaine alley.

At appropriate intervals, one or both of them said, “Huh,” and when I mentioned Dr. Win, they both twisted their mouths to simulate throwing up. They were especially interested in the gross details about the dead man, and shook their heads with prim disapproval when I told them how Marilee had conned Dr. Coffey. I guess men don’t get much pleasure out of hearing how a woman has tricked a man into giving her a million dollars.

Nine

When I was done telling it all, Michael set his wineglass down with a firm thud. “Stay out of it, Dixie. Let the homicide guys handle it.”

Paco nodded soberly. “Dixie, you can get in the middle of something you don’t want to be in. Stay out of it.”

“I’m staying out of it! Did I say I wasn’t staying out of it? I’m just concerned about the cat. What if Marilee Doerring never comes home? Some people don’t, you know.”

I saw the looks on their faces and stopped. Okay, so I was getting a little overheated about the cat.

“I’ll stay out of it,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

Michael smiled and said, “Okay, folks, let’s get off this subject. I make a motion that we all go over to the Crab House for a while.”

Paco got up and started gathering plates. “Good idea. Come on, Dixie, let’s hustle.”

I knew what they were doing. Neither of them wanted me to go to bed thinking about death and loss. To tell the truth, I didn’t want me to do that, either. It was almost my bedtime, but the day’s excitement and my long nap had left me wide-awake.

The Crab House is a bayside waterfront bar that has entertainment ranging from female impersonators to stand-up comics to rhythm and blues. It’s the kind of place where you don’t have to arrive on a Ducati and look fetching in black leather, but it helps. There’s a wooden porch across the back where people can eat dinner beside the dock. Inside, tables line the perimeter of an oblong room separated from the porch by a glass wall. Half the patrons come from the key and half from boats that tie up at the dock. They’re mostly gay, mostly good-natured, and mostly free of prejudice toward straights. My kind of place.

The bandstand and a small dance floor is to the right of the entrance, and even before we opened the door, we could hear rollicking honky-tonk piano music. Several people were dancing, and as we went toward the tables, we automatically began bobbing our heads and dipping our knees to the music. We took a table in the corner and ordered margaritas from a finger-snapping, hip-twitching waiter.