Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

I made a face at the phone and said, “I’ll just bet you would!”

Then he said, “I got your name from Ray at the Crab House,” and I snagged the phone before he could hang up.

“Hello, this is Dixie.”

“I’m calling about Phil. Do you know how he is?”

“He’s going to be all right, I think. He has some broken ribs and a broken nose, but he’s not terribly hurt.”

“His hands?”

“His hands weren’t hurt. I think he must have tucked them under his arms to protect them.”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah. His head was totally uncovered. But it could have been a lot worse. A dog started barking and the attacker ran away.”

“I’ve called the hospital several times, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

I said, “Did you drive Phil home yesterday morning?”

I could hear a quick intake of air, and for a moment I was afraid he wasn’t going to answer.

He said, “Phil told me about you. He likes you. He said you weren’t going to out him to his folks.”

“I wouldn’t have either.”

“Do they know yet?”

“I really don’t know what they know. Look, could we meet and talk someplace?”

There was another long pause and then he sighed. “Do you think it would help Phil?”

“I don’t know. It might, and it certainly won’t hurt him.”

“Where would you like to meet?”

“How about Bayfront Park in twenty minutes?”

“How will I know you?”

“I’ll be the blonde sitting on a bench facing the waterfront. You can’t miss me.”

“Okay.”

Almost exactly twenty minutes later, I drove under the arched entrance to Bayfront Park, a hiccup of land jutting into Sarasota Bay. I parked in a space facing the bay and followed the sidewalk that curves around the park. Bayfront Park had been Christy’s favorite place in the whole world. She and I had spent a lot of time at the Steigerwaldt–Jockey Children’s Fountain, her favorite, and we’d both loved the wonderful flying dolphins on the Dolphin Fountain.

Benches line the walkway, and on any day people are sitting on them, mesmerized by the view of Sarasota Bay. I found an empty one and plunked myself down and waited. A thin young man in chinos and a white knit shirt turned from where he’d been standing looking out at the moored boats, then looked around to see if anybody was with me. After a minute or two, he walked toward me. He was younger than I’d expected, twenty-two maybe, and had pale skin that wasn’t well acquainted with sunshine. His hair was sandy brown above dark sunglasses that I suspected were worn more to hide his eyes than to shield them from the sun.

He stopped in front of me and said, “Miss Hemingway?”

“It’s Dixie,” I said, and put out my hand.

He had a nice handshake, firm and dry. He sat down beside me and said, “I’m Greg.”

I nodded, wondering if it was his real name.

“Greg, I appreciate your meeting with me. I’m just trying to help find out who hurt Phil.”

He took a deep breath, the way people do when they’ve been holding their breath, and gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”

“You don’t know me from Adam,” I said. “Of course you’re nervous.”

He grinned and nodded. “I guess you’d like to know how I know Phil.”

“If you don’t mind telling me.”

“We met at summer music camp a couple of years ago. I was a counselor, and Phil and I just hit it off. When I graduated from Juilliard, I got a job with the Sarasota Symphony Orchestra and looked Phil up. I’m a violist.”

“Do all you musicians go to Juilliard?”

He smiled. “No, just some of us.”

“Juilliard’s very important to Phillip’s mother.”

“I know. I think that’s the main reason he’s going there. He says she’s had her heart set on Juilliard for him since he first started playing piano.”

“You think he’s just going to please her?”

“Not completely. But he’d like to do something that would make her happier. He feels protective toward her. From what he says, she’s pretty depressed. Phil’s her whole life.”

“I’d been thinking you two might have met at the Crab House.”

He laughed. “No, that place is too noisy for me.”

“But you do go there and pick Phillip up when he’s through playing?”

He colored. “We have a late supper and spend some time together, then I take him home. Well, not home exactly. I take him to that spot where you found him there on Midnight Pass Road. He walks the rest of the way home.”

“Had you ever noticed anybody there at that time? An early jogger maybe, or somebody walking a dog?”

“Never. There’s never a soul out at that hour.”

“Somebody was there yesterday. Did you see anybody then?”

He shook his head. “He must have been hiding in the trees and grabbed Phil after I left.”

“Did you see a car parked on the side of the street? Anything?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Greg, do you know anybody who drives a black Miata?”

“I don’t think so.”

“When you go to pick Phil up at the Crab House, have you ever seen a bald-headed man hanging out in the parking lot?”

He frowned and took off his glasses. He had intelligent green eyes, and without his glasses, he looked no older than Phillip. “You know, I have seen a man like that. I noticed him the first time because he was standing next to a car, looking into it like he might be thinking about breaking into it. When I drove up, he walked off and went around the corner to the side of the building. Then I saw him again a couple of nights later. He was just leaning against the wall near the front door like he was waiting for something. Not like he was waiting for some body , but for some thing , like something to happen. Why? Was that who beat Phil up?”

“It might be. Somebody in the neighborhood saw a bald-headed man running along beside the woods right after Phillip was attacked.”

“Do you think he was hanging around the Crab House to watch for Phil?”

“I think he might have been, yes.”

“But why?”

“Greg, has Phillip talked to you about the murder that happened in the house next door to him?”

“A little.”

“He saw a woman come out of the house on the morning the murder was committed. I think somebody wants to make sure he doesn’t tell who the woman was. Do you have any idea who it might have been?”

He looked shocked. “He hasn’t said a word about it.”

His surprise seemed genuine, and so was mine. I thought Phillip would have confided that secret.

Greg said, “You know, he’s been awfully quiet since that happened. Maybe that’s why.”

“Quiet?”

“Withdrawn, not himself. I was afraid it was something to do with us, but maybe it was because of the murder.”

“Did he mention seeing a black Miata next door?”

He shook his head. “I can’t remember anything about a Miata ever coming up. All he said about the murder was that you’d found a dead man in the next-door neighbor’s house and took the woman’s cat over to his house to stay for a while. He said his mother was annoyed because she not only hates the woman, she hates cats. That’s when I understood what a cold woman his mother must be. I know some people like dogs better than cats, but to hate cats?”

I studied him for a minute. He had a kind, intelligent face that I liked. “You have a cat?”

“Not anymore. I left her with my mother when I went off to school, and now they’ve bonded and Mom won’t let me move her. Actually, she was supposed to be the family cat when we got her, but she sort of adopted me, and after a while the whole family thought of her as my cat. She got really depressed when I left for college, but my mother spent a lot of time with her and she got over it. We got her when I was eight, so she’s pretty old now.”