Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

She replaced the phone and said, “She’s waiting for you.”

From the casual way she acted, I gathered that reporters covering Marilee’s murder hadn’t yet discovered that Cora was her grandmother. I took the elevator up and found Cora’s door open a crack.

I knocked and pushed the door open. “Cora?”

“I’m in here,” she called.

I followed her voice, making a right turn into a short hall that led to a large sunny bedroom. Cora was sitting upright in a bed that looked big enough to play hockey in. She wore a white pleated nightgown with a high collar and long sleeves, and her wispy white hair stuck out in all directions, like a newly hatched chick’s.

“I’m sorry, Dixie, I just don’t feel like getting up today.”

“Well, of course you don’t, Cora. Have you had anything to eat?”

“I’m not hungry, dear.”

“I know, but you should eat anyway. I’ll make you some tea.”

I didn’t give her a chance to argue, even though I remembered how she felt, throat closed tight with grief, stomach roiling in angry waves, lips compressed to keep from howling like an animal. I filled the teakettle, and while it came to a boil, I found bread and eggs in the refrigerator. I made buttered toast and a poached egg, poured a small glass of juice, and put together a breakfast tray that I carried into the bedroom.

“Oh, Dixie, honey, you didn’t need to do that. And anyway, I don’t want anything to eat.”

I poured a cup of tea and paraphrased what Judy had said to me. “Cora, if you let the slimeball who killed Marilee make you stop living, then he’s killed you, too. You need all your strength now to help put him behind bars, so eat the damned breakfast.”

Her head jerked up at me, eyes blazing, and then she suddenly laughed. “You know, you’re a lot like Marilee. She’s bossy, too. Was.”

She only picked at the egg, but she ate all the toast and drank the juice. When she was finished, I left the tea things on the tray and washed the dirty plate and glass in the kitchen.

Cora was out of bed when I went back into the bedroom, her bare toes peeking from under her nightie.

“Here,” she said, “you can have these. I was saving them to leave to Marilee, but now that she’s gone…”

She held out a pair of red glass earrings, the kind you see in a jumble of junk jewelry at a garage sale. My eyes misted as I took them. I wouldn’t have worn them to a ratturd exhibit, but I knew they held memories that made them beautiful to her.

“Thank you, Cora. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“No, dear, I’m fine. I’ll just rest for a couple of days and then I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.”

“I’ll drop by tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine, Dixie. You’re a sweet girl.”

I didn’t feel so sweet when I drove away. I felt pretty sour, as a matter of fact. Both Phillip and Cora, two people I had come to care about, were going to have to face harsh realities in the coming days and weeks, and it wasn’t fair.

It was noon, and I was starving. I don’t do too well without food administered prior to 10:00 A.M., preferably with lots of black coffee. I took Tamiami Trail, passing slumbering boats in the marina and following the curve of the waterfront, where large sculptures were lined up like unexpected rib ticklers. I turned right on Osprey and took the north bridge to the key, going straight to Anna’s Deli on Ocean Drive, where you can get the best sandwiches in the world.

Halfway to the take-out counter, I realized the couple ahead of me were Dr. Coffey and a young woman with frizzy blond hair hanging halfway to her butt. Her hand was raised to fiddle with a piece of hair at the back of her head, and a diamond the size of a doggy liver treat caught the light—a reminder to the rest of us that being a rich man’s bimbo might not get much respect, but it paid well. I turned aside and pretended to study the menu on the blackboard on the side wall while Coffey paid for their sandwiches.

As they walked out, I looked over my shoulder at the woman. She turned full face toward me, and I could see what Judy had meant about her probably being a doper. Glazed eyes with pupils expanded so wide they looked like black holes you could get sucked into, skin slightly sallow under her salon tan, a general look of being lost in some private space. Coffey didn’t see me, and he put a proprietary hand on the small of her back to propel her forward.

I went to the counter and ordered baked turkey with tarragon mayonnaise on a pumpernickel roll. “And a big dill pickle and two bags of chips,” I said.

The woman at the counter laughed, showing a row of glistening white teeth that went well with her ginger skin and hazel eyes. “You sound like you’re hungry.”

“I went past hunger a long time ago. Give me a brownie, too. A big one.”

“Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee. A triple, black.”

She walked to a butcher-block counter in the back and turned in the order to a person of indeterminate sex who had dreadlocks and wore an oversized white shirt. She came back and rang up the sale while I watched the sandwich person slather tarragon mayonnaise on two thick pumpernickel halves.

Keeping my mouth firmly under control to keep from drooling, I handed over some bills and said, “You know that couple that just left?”

“Dr. Coffey? Yeah, he comes in here every week on his day off. Always gets the same thing, ham and Swiss on rye. I don’t know how people eat the same thing all the time like that. I like a little variety in my life.”

“You know her too?”

She made a mouth and counted out my change. “Not really. Don’t want to, neither. Frankly, I don’t know what he sees in her.”

She leaned over and put her elbows on the counter, ready to get down to the nitty-gritty. “If you ask me, she’s bad news for him. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but who wants to have a man cut open your chest and mess with your heart when he’s dumb enough to hang out with a junkie like her?”

Personally, I didn’t want anybody cutting open my chest and messing with my heart, no matter who they hung out with, but I could see her point.

I said, “That’s funny, I’ve only heard about her two times, and both times people mentioned that she was a junkie.”

“Well, you can tell just by looking at her, can’t you?”

“You don’t think he uses, too?”

“He don’t seem the type, you know? That’s why it’s so weird that he’s with her. You’d think he’d have better taste. I mean, that woman is pure trash.”

The food-prep person had my sandwich assembled and was slicing it in half. He or she then wrapped it in that gray kind of waxed paper that you never see anyplace except in a deli, giving it a neat fold to keep all the goodies inside. The sandwich went in the bottom of a paper bag, with a dill pickle the size of a man’s dick wrapped and placed on top of it. Two bags of chips went in last. I was ready to leap over the counter and snatch it up, but the counter woman must have had eyes in the back of her head, because the second a stack of napkins was thrown in and the bag was neatly folded down, she went and got it.

“Enjoy,” she said.

I grabbed the giant-size coffee on the counter and headed for the door. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “See you.”

That’s the nice thing about living on the key. It’s small enough that when we say “See you,” we really mean it.

Twenty-Five

I drove half a block to the Crescent Beach parking lot, parked under some live oak trees, and jogged to the steps leading to the main pavilion. Ask anybody who lives on Siesta Key and we’ll proudly tell you that Crescent Beach was entered in the World Sand Challenge in 1987 and named the finest and whitest sand in the world. Heck, we’ll tell you even if you don’t ask. We’ll also tell you the sand is made of ancient quartz crystal, and that even when the temperature is hot enough to make your brain boil, the sand on Crescent Beach is still cool to your feet. Some people claim the beach has healing properties, and that Siesta Key is one of the energy centers of the planet. I don’t know if that’s true, but if you live on the key, even if you have surf at your front door like I do, you get a compulsion every now and then to go to Crescent Beach and scuff your bare feet in the sand.