Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow is right. They got her used to that kind of lifestyle, and then they expected her to go back to living in a trailer park?”

I had to agree that the idea of Marilee Doerring in a double-wide was a stretch of the imagination.

“She called Harrison when she got that letter. He said she’d had a free ride for eighteen years and now it was time she grew up.”

I could almost hear Harrison Frazier’s bitter voice speaking the words, the voice of a man who had been caught fooling around with trailer-park trash when he was fifteen and had been paying the price ever since, literally and figuratively.

“I heard she got some money from Dr. Coffey, too.”

“Yeah, but every cent went to buying that place for Cora and setting up a fund that will take care of her if she ever needs a nursing home. Cora worked her ass off raising Marilee, and Marilee never forgot it.”

“So when Frazier cut her off—”

“She went totally bonkers.”

“Is that when she got in touch with her daughter?”

Shuga leaned forward and jabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray.

“She had a plan to get close to the girl and make the Fraziers squirm. Harrison has other kids, he wouldn’t want them to know he had raped Marilee when she was fifteen and got her pregnant.”

So much for the story Marilee had told Cora about her daughter finding her through an agency.

“She was going to say she was raped?”

Shuga nodded, her eyes bright with grim shrewdness. She wasn’t disappointed in Marilee the way I was. She understood how Marilee’s mind worked. She had pulled herself out of the same environment, told the same lies, created the same illusions, made the same place for herself in the world of money and possessions. She and Marilee had both played the hand nature had dealt them, the same way I had and everybody else does.

I stood up to go. “I have to find a home for Marilee’s cat, and I need your approval of whatever I do.”

“Hell, I don’t care what you do. If you’re thinking about sticking me with it, forget it.”

Shuga didn’t get up, and I didn’t say goodbye. I felt her eyes boring into my back as I went out the glass doors and got in the Bronco.

I drove down Roberts Point Road, pulled into a driveway, and dialed Guidry again. This time when he snapped “Guidry,” I said, “Dixie Hemingway” just as crisply.

“What have you got, Dixie?”

“Shuga Reasnor says Marilee and Harrison Frazier went away for a few days almost every month for eighteen years. Marilee was in love with him and thought he loved her. Then she got a letter from his attorney saying the quarter of a million she had been getting every year was over. The lady was pissed. She got in touch with her daughter, whose name is Lily. She was going to pressure Frazier to keep paying. Her plan was to claim he raped her when she was fifteen.”

“Interesting. Have the reporters got to you yet?”

“Reporters?”

“You know, the people who shove microphones in your face and yell questions at you.”

“You think they’ll do that?”

“Come on, they’ve already figured out that Marilee and Frazier had something going, and nothing sells like sex. Now that Marilee’s dead, they’ll really be licking their chops. You found both bodies and you take care of her cat. Hell, the Today show will probably want to interview you.”

My throat closed up and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

“Dixie?”

I clicked off without saying goodbye. I knew Guidry was right. Just the fact that I was a pet-sitter who’d found the dead body of one of Florida’s first families was enough to make me fodder for reporters, and somebody was bound to do a story about Marilee and her orphaned cat. While they were setting up that story, they’d probably dig up footage of me going crazy wild three years ago while cameras rolled. And the worst of it was that I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t do it again. Put me under enough stress and I could blow like Vesuvius.

Twenty-Two

Grimly, I pulled out of the driveway into traffic. I had to go on. Not just go on with my afternoon pet visits, but go on with my life. I couldn’t let fear rule me, not even fear of myself.

My mouth still had the bitter taste of the hospital’s coffee, and my mind jumped to the coconut cream pies that Tanisha makes at the Village Diner. Late as I was, I rationalized that except for a little bitty tub of yogurt, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. It would only take a few minutes to have pie and good coffee, and then I would be stronger and braver.

Judy was pouring coffee at a table near the front door when I walked in, and a look of surprise crossed her face when she saw me. I waved to her and plucked a Sunday Herald-Tribune from a thin stack by the cashier stand before I slid into a booth. Judy went to the back to get a coffee mug and setup for me, and I spread the paper on the table and scanned the article headings. The President had just issued a denial of something his opponents had accused him of, a CEO had just been indicted for cheating thousands of investors, some scientists had developed a way to alter another seed to make it sterile, and a question had been raised in Sarasota about the way the Sheriff’s Department was handling the investigation of the murders of Harrison Frazier and Marilee Doerring.

Judy plunked a mug on the table and poured coffee in it, but my eyes were locked on the article. It seemed that popular radio psychologist Dr. Win was claiming the Sheriff’s Department was showing undue bias toward a former deputy by not arresting her. The woman in question was me. The article went on to say that I was known to have been dismissed from the department because of emotional instability following the tragic deaths of my husband and child, and that I had started taking care of pets after being declared unfit for law enforcement. The author of the article said he had interviewed Dr. Win but had not been able to locate me. Without coming right out and saying so, the implication was that I was hiding.

My heart was pounding hard. In a related article, other people had been interviewed for their opinions about me. As Marilee’s ex-fiancé, Dr. Gerald Coffey said I had accosted him while he was eating breakfast on the morning of the murder, and that my behavior had been irrational and alarming. There were even quotes from a couple of people whose pets I had taken care of. They said they probably wouldn’t hire me again because it was just too creepy the way I’d found two dead bodies, and how could they be sure I hadn’t had something to do with them being dead? There were also several quotes from clients who said they thought the whole idea was ridiculous and that I was an excellent pet-sitter. But you could almost read a hint of doubt in their words.

Judy said, “You just now seeing that?”

I nodded, struck dumb with sick apprehension.

“Don’t let it get to you. Stupid son of a bitch didn’t have anything real to write about, so he made up a bunch of shit. Nobody’ll pay it any mind.”

“Yes, they will. Who wants to give their house key to somebody who’s accused of murder?”

“You should sue that bastard,” she said. “Sue him for slander and libel and defamation of character and loss of income and loss of reputation.”

“Maybe I could sue him for my wrinkles while I’m at it.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Don’t let this go by without a fight, Dixie. This is your name we’re talking about.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That wouldn’t stop people from wondering about me.”

“People who know you won’t believe it, and that’s all that matters. What do you want to eat?”