Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

He said, “Ms. Hemingway?”

I nodded and we shook hands. He had a nice handshake, not the sweaty clasp I’d have expected from somebody in such a sleazy office. He was also a lot younger than the aged sign on the door had led me to expect. He gestured to a leather chair with a seat hollowed and darkened by decades of rear ends. I sat down and crossed my legs, giving the room’s drab walls and musty bookshelves a quick once-over. I hadn’t spoken yet, and that seemed to amuse him.

Before he sat down, he leaned forward to hand me a brown leather folder, and I caught a whiff of lime and musk and sweet cigar.

He said, “I think this will clear up some of your questions.”

He leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head and watched me. Like a blind woman expecting Braille, I ran my fingertips over the folder before I opened it. It had a grainy texture like painted-over grit. Slowly, I opened it and read the heading on the first page: “The Marilee Doerring Living Trust.”

The first few pages were standard explanations for a revocable living trust, and I skimmed through them quickly. Florida probate laws are so complicated and expensive that most Floridians have revocable living trusts instead of wills. A revocable living trust holds whatever assets a person chooses to put in it until the person either dies or revokes the trust. If it hasn’t been revoked when the person dies, an assigned trustee carries out the wishes expressed in the trust without having to pay probate fees or being under the constraint of a court’s supervision.

After the explanatory section, there was a quitclaim deed to Marilee’s house, and then four more pages of legal explanation. On page five, under a section headed “Trust Income and Principal Distribution,” were instructions for the trustee in the event of Marilee’s death. Mainly, the instructions specified that all listed assets were under the control of the trustee, to sell or maintain as the trustee saw fit, for the benefit of the named beneficiary. Listed assets were Marilee’s house, her car, and all personal possessions within the house.

I was named trustee.

The beneficiary was Ghost.

At Ghost’s death, any remaining assets would go to me.

I looked up at the attorney and caught his amused look.

“This can’t be right,” I said. “What about Marilee’s grandmother?”

“Ms. Doerring had a separate irrevocable trust set up for her grandmother,” he said, “fully funded with enough to take care of her for the rest of her life. The revocable trust for the cat will hold up, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried! I don’t want it. I don’t want Ghost, and I don’t want the responsibility of handling all that money.”

He shrugged. “Sorry. You’ve got it anyway. The cat and the money.”

“Can she just do that? Without asking me?”

“Can and did,” he said.

“Can I refuse it?”

“Yes. If you refuse, everything in the trust reverts to the state.”

“Including the cat?”

“Including the cat.”

I shuddered. That was pretty much the same thing as saying the cat would be euthanized.

“When did you draw this up?”

He pointed at the folder. “It’s dated there. I didn’t draw it up, my grandfather did. He passed away a few months ago, and I’ve taken over his practice. I never met Ms. Doerring.”

I flipped some pages to find the date the trust had been signed. It had been a little over a year before, shortly after I’d begun taking care of Ghost when Marilee went out of town, when Ghost had been still a kitten.

“You’re not Ethan Crane?”

“I am, but not the same Ethan Crane who drew up that document.”

He really was a handsome man, and it annoyed me that I was aware of that, especially when I was seeing my life pass before my eyes like somebody going down for the third time.

He leaned across the desk and clasped his palms together. “Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds. There are no bank accounts involved, no stocks or bonds or cash other than what’s in the house. You’ve got complete power of attorney, so you can do whatever you want to with the house, the car, the jewelry, whatever her personal possessions were. If you want to, you can move into the house with the cat and use the car and everything else as if it’s your own. If you don’t want to do that, put the house on the market and let an estate-liquidation company sell the rest of it. So long as you see that the cat’s well cared for until it dies a natural death, you can do whatever you want to with the assets in the trust. It’s a pretty sweet deal.”

I could feel my lower lip creeping out like a sulky four-year-old’s, and I felt like throwing myself on the floor and kicking and screaming. A healthy, happy, active cat can live twenty years or more, and Ghost was less than two. The last thing I wanted was to complicate my life for the next twenty years with a dependent. I didn’t want Ghost for my own. When Michael and I were growing up, we’d always had pets, but I didn’t want a pet now. Owning a pet requires a commitment. It forces you to have a close relationship with a living being with needs and feelings. I didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. I didn’t want a close relationship with anybody, no matter how many legs he had.

I stood up. “What do I do now?”

He rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Whatever you want to do. That’s the beauty of a living trust. You’re the trustee, and that’s that. Get a death certificate from the Sheriff’s Department, and then all you need is the power of attorney in that folder.”

His hand felt so warm that I knew my own must be frigid. I tucked the folder under my arm and walked out of his office like a condemned woman on her way to the execution chamber. I could feel him watching me, and for a humiliating moment I hoped my butt looked good.

In a bemused daze, I drove home. Michael’s car was still gone, but Paco’s Harley was under the carport. More than likely, he was in bed catching up on lost sleep from whatever job he’d been doing—a job that had involved a drug sting at Crescent Beach. I might never know what had been in the canvas bag I’d seen a woman pick up, because Paco’s life could depend on my not knowing. I accepted that the same way I had accepted department secrets that Todd hadn’t told me. It comes with having detectives and undercover cops in the family.

What I didn’t accept was what I’d just learned from Ethan Crane.

I kicked off the heels and changed clothes again, pulling on a clean pair of shorts and a sleeveless T. My brain was screaming for sleep, but I was too disturbed to lie down and shut my eyes. I stripped my bed and threw the sheets in the washer with some towels and dirty clothes. While the washer chugged away my body’s cells and scents, I attacked the bathroom like an avenging Fury until every square inch sparkled and smelled of bleach. I love the smell of chlorine bleach. Breathing it makes me feel I’m cleaning my brain of old gunk while I’m destroying germs and stains. By the time I put the last polishing rub on the sink’s water spigot, I felt cleaner inside, as if all the images of violence and ugliness of the last few days had been polished away.

I padded barefoot to the office–closet and read the living trust again. It still said the same thing. I was now Ghost’s legal keeper, and I had complete control over Marilee’s house, her car, and everything in her house.

Boy-howdy.

Whoop-de-do.

Shit.

My office phone rang and I froze, waiting for the answering machine to click on. It was a man, and not a voice I recognized. This one was sure to be a reporter. He said, “I called before. I’d like to talk to you, Miss Hemingway.”