Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

“Maybe it’s time for you to get another cat, one that’s all your own.”

“I’ve thought about it, but I’ll have to wait until I can afford one. You know, the vet bills and the food and all. I still have a school loan to pay, so it may be a few years before I can take on that kind of responsibility.”

The more I knew about this young man, the better I liked him.

“Greg, if Phillip knows who the killer is, his life is in danger. I don’t want to alarm you, but if the killer has seen you and Phillip together, he may think Phillip told you what he knows. Until this whole thing is over, make sure you’re not alone in a secluded spot.”

He gave me a wide-eyed stare. “I can’t believe all this is happening.”

“It should be over soon. Just be careful.”

Twenty-Eight

Greg and I promised to stay in touch, and I left him staring out at Sarasota Bay. For the next couple of hours, I was too busy with my afternoon pet visits to think about everything that had happened. To tell the truth, I was on sensory overload. I couldn’t take in much more. The wonder was that I had been able to withstand as much as I had. I took it as a good sign. I must have gotten stronger without even knowing it.

It was almost sunset when I got to Tom Hale’s apartment and ran with Billy Elliot. When we got back upstairs and I took his leash off, I went into the kitchen and sat down at the table where Tom was pushing buttons on a calculator and writing numbers on a form of some kind. He gave me a puzzled look over his glasses, and then laid down his pen.

“What’s wrong, Dixie?”

“Tom, did you know that Marilee Doerring had a living trust that left her house to her cat?”

He did one of those blinking head jerks that people do when they hear something shocking, and then he laughed.

“I didn’t know it, but I’m not surprised. She had a kind heart.”

“You were her CPA. How come you didn’t know that?”

“Because it had nothing to do with how she paid taxes.”

I picked up a pencil on the table and studied it intently. Nice point. No teeth marks.

I said, “She made me trustee.”

“Why is it that I don’t think you’re happy about that?”

“Because it sucks, that’s why. I don’t want that responsibility, Tom. I don’t want the house, I don’t want the car, I don’t want the cat. I don’t think it’s fair that she could just dump it on me without my permission.”

I sounded a lot like Shuga Reasnor, but it was how I felt.

“Being trustee doesn’t mean you have to take care of the cat personally. You can hire somebody else to do it. There must be a thousand people right here in Sarasota who would jump at the chance to move into that house and take care of the cat for you. Hell, if I didn’t think Billy Elliott would be jealous, I’d do it.”

Hearing that affected my brain like I’d just had a slug of double-caffeine coffee.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. You’re only responsible for seeing that her wishes are carried out. You don’t have to take on each responsibility personally.”

“Will you take care of all the financial stuff for me?”

“Sure. You decide what you want to do and how you want it done, and I’ll take care of it. I’ll pay myself a fee from the estate. I’d recommend that you sell that Ferrari right away. I can handle that for you.”

I was feeling better and better. Maybe Marilee hadn’t played a dirty trick on me after all. Except that a lot of people would consider having the trust a huge bonanza for me. A lot of people might also think I had known about the trust all along. A lot of people might consider it a motive for murder.

When I left Tom, I drove to Bayfront Village. The woman at the front desk saw me when I came in the door and immediately picked up the phone to call Cora. Cora must have answered on the first ring, because the woman waved me on before I got to her desk.

“She’s waiting for you,” she chirped, as if my visit were a magnificent gift. I suppose in a retirement home, all visitors are considered a magnificent gift.

Cora had opened her door a crack again, and I rapped on it with my knuckles and pushed it open. No lights were burning, and the apartment had the dreary look of space where sunlight had recently withdrawn its warmth. Cora was sitting in a wing-back chair by the glass doors to the sunporch, still in her nightgown, her wispy white hair sticking up in the gloom like apparitional floss. I switched on a lamp and sat down in a chair at an angle to her. Neither of us said anything for several minutes, just sat there in the half-lit room and breathed in and out.

After a while, Cora sighed. “They say God never gives us more than we can handle, but sometimes I think God has overestimated what I can take.”

I said, “Have you eaten anything since this morning?”

She looked startled, as if the idea itself was foreign. “Well, hon, I don’t remember if I did or not.”

I got up and went in the little kitchen, switching on fluorescent lights that made harsh reflections on the white countertops. I found a can of vegetable soup, and while it heated, I made a pot of tea and got out cups and saucers for two. I poured the soup into a pretty blue pottery bowl, added crackers and butter, and carried the supper tray to the living room.

Cora eyed the tray with a flicker of interest. “There’s a TV tray behind the sofa there,” she said. I put the tray down on a lamp table and looked behind the sofa, where a wooden TV tray was folded flat. I pulled it out and set it up in front of Cora’s chair, put a napkin in her lap, and arranged her meager meal.

“You’d make a good waitress,” she said.

I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down and watched her take a few tentative spoonfuls.

“It’s good,” she said. “I didn’t think I was hungry, but I guess I am.”

For a few minutes, the only sound was the click of spoon against bowl and Cora’s faint slurping noises. She ate the entire bowl of soup and several buttered crackers before she pronounced herself full.

I removed the TV tray and poured us both another cup of tea. Her color was better now and her eyes had lost some of their stunned dullness.

I said, “Cora, do you know an attorney named Ethan Crane?”

“Well, I did, Dixie, but Ethan’s been gone now for a good while, a year maybe. Did you know him, too?”

“No, but his grandson called me today and asked me to stop by his office. It seems he has taken over Mr. Crane’s practice. His name is also Ethan Crane. Do you know the grandson?”

“No, I can’t say as I do. He’s taken over Ethan’s practice?”

“That’s what he said. He had a living trust that his grandfather had drawn up for Marilee. Do you know about that?”

She frowned. “A living what?”

“A trust. It’s a kind of will. According to the younger Mr. Crane, Marilee had two trusts, one for you and this other one that he talked to me about. Do you know about the trust she set up for you?”

“Oh my, yes, I know all about it. I have a copy of it. It’s personal, dear, so I won’t tell you what’s in it, but I won’t ever have to worry about running out of money.”

Her face crumpled and she sobbed quietly with her hands over her face. I waited, knowing that tears would come like that for a while, just spring out when she least expected them, as if there were a well of tears inside her that had to pour out on their own time. When she was cried out, I got up and got Kleenex for her from the bathroom and sat back down.

“Cora, the trust that Mr. Crane wanted to talk to me about was different from the one Marilee had for you. This one was for her cat.”

Cora stared at me wide-eyed. “Her cat?”