Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

Whatever it was that Shuga had hoped to get was something very important to her, and it seemed strange that she hadn’t said what it was, the way one woman would tell another. “I loaned her my best shirt and I want it back.” Or “I took a bracelet off the last time I was here and forgot it.” Instead, she had looked pinched and grim when I told her she’d have to reveal what she took and sign a statement listing everything. Shuga didn’t want anybody to know what she was taking from Marilee’s house. I wondered if this was the first time she had come looking for it, or if she had been the person who’d ransacked Marilee’s bedroom and closet.

Phillip had said the woman he’d seen had dark hair, but in the dark Shuga’s hair might have looked dark. Maybe Shuga had entered through the lanai and killed Frazier and Marilee, searched for whatever it was she wanted, and then left in a black Miata driven by an accomplice. But who was the accomplice? And who took Marilee’s body to the woods? Marilee was small, but Shuga didn’t seem muscular enough to carry her body that far.

I finally got out of the car and used my key to go inside. I flipped the switch to bathe the foyer in muted light, and sniffed at the cherry-scented air. I made a tour of the house, ending up in the kitchen, where I stayed clear of the spot where Frazier’s body had lain. It was the first time I’d ever been the first person in a house after the crime-scene cleaners, and I found the experience more disquieting than finding the dead body. Crime-scene cleaners remove not only spilled blood and body fluids but every living microbe, which leaves a house strangely absent of life. I had never realized before how invisible agents in our homes are constantly throwing off subtle scents and energies that create the essence of our interiors. Without them, a house is as impersonal as a tray of surgical instruments.

I went to the garage, where Marilee’s Ferrari took up half the space. The other half held a plastic garbage can, empty red and blue recycle bins, a stepladder, some stacked paint cans, and a few folding chairs propped against the wall. I knew the investigating team had thoroughly checked the car, but I opened the passenger door anyway. The Ferrari had creamy leather seats, so soft you could have made underwear from them. I ran my hand inside the storage pocket and under the seat. I opened the glove box and took out the sole content, a thin leather folder which held registration and insurance information. Otherwise, there was nothing. No maps, no sunglasses, no boxes of Kleenex or breath mints or leftover napkins from a fast-food drive-through. Not even a CD in the CD holder.

I opened the trunk and shined my penlight inside. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a speck of dust in it. I hadn’t learned a thing except that Marilee had been an extremely tidy woman who’d kept her car as fastidiously neat and clean as she’d kept her house and person. The remote control for the garage door was clipped to the sun visor, and I slipped it into my pocket. Before I went back in the house, I positioned the recycle bins and garbage can against the garage wall, next to the folding chairs and stepladder.

Twenty-Nine

When I got home, I saw Michael’s car, but neither he nor Paco was outside, and their house was dark. It was close to nine o’clock and I’d been up seventeen hours. It seemed like a week since I’d eaten my turkey sandwich at the beach.

Forlornly, I went upstairs and cleaned up a bit, then went back down to go someplace for dinner. Paco called to me from the cypress deck, and I made a detour to where he was sitting in the waning light nursing a beer. He had removed his bushy beard and mop of unruly hair, and only a redness along his jawline betrayed the spirit gum that had held his beard firm. Nobody would dream this smooth-shaven guy with short-cropped hair and John Lennon eyeglasses was the same person as the scruffy beach bum he’d been at noon.

I went inside and got a beer and some cheese and crackers and joined him. We sat watching the light fading on the horizon while baby wavelets sucked at the shoreline.

Paco broke the silence. “Are you okay?”

I took a bite of cheese and chewed it morosely. I was way hungrier than cheese.

“I guess. I haven’t done anything too outrageous, so I guess I’m cool.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what? The thing at the beach or the thing here?”

“The thing at the beach didn’t happen. The thing here did.”

“How did you catch him? Did you know he was coming here?”

“I noticed him watching you at the beach, and I thought I recognized him. After the thing that didn’t happen was over, I got the Harley and left. Later, when I was driving home, he pulled out of a parking lot in front of me. I followed him, and when he turned into our drive, I went on past and then doubled back and walked down the lane. He had pulled his car into the trees, but he was an easy mark. He’s not the brightest bulb in the string, believe me. He was looking around trying to figure out where to hide when I rushed him.”

“If you hadn’t come home when you did—”

“Dumb luck.”

“I don’t think so. I think somebody was watching over me.”

He gave me a searching look, knowing I meant Todd. “Okay.”

“What will happen to Bull Banks now?”

“Unless they can hold him on something more than beating up a gay kid, he’ll be out on bail in no time. With luck, he’ll get sent up as a three-time loser, but in the meantime he’ll be out, without a whole lot to lose. Which is why I want you to be extra careful, Dixie. Bull Banks wouldn’t be following you just because you’re a hot babe, somebody’s paying him.”

“You think I’m a hot babe?”

He gave me an exaggerated leer. “Hon, if I was straight, I’d jump your bones in a minute.”

“Do you think I should be scared?”

“You think I’m in danger of becoming straight?”

“No, I mean should I be scared of Bull Banks?”

“Damn right you should. Dixie, can you find someplace else to stay for a while? Until this whole thing is cleared up?”

I started to tell him about Marilee’s trust, then decided to wait and tell him and Michael at the same time.

“Paco, where is Michael?”

“In bed with a headache. Too much sun today. He’s sort of lobster-colored.”

“Tom Hale invited me to stay at his place for a while.”

“He’s the guy at the Sea Breeze? That’s a fairly secure place. Do it. I’m leaving in a little while and I don’t want you here alone. Especially with Michael out like a light.”

I got up and gathered our empty bottles. “I’ll get my things together.”

“Dixie? It’ll just be for a couple of days.”

I heard the concern in his voice and smiled back at him.

“I know. I’ll be fine.”

It took me less than fifteen minutes to throw some clothes in a duffel bag and copy Marilee’s Social Security number and birth date from her tax return. Then I drove straight to Marilee’s house. I used Marilee’s remote control to open the garage door, and pulled the Bronco inside. Funny how things have a way of working out the way you intended all along.

My heart was jumping like crazy against my ribs. If Guidry knew what I was doing, he would have my head on a platter. If Michael and Paco knew what I was doing, they would have my whole self on a platter. I intended to find Marilee’s new wall safe, and I intended to open it. Call it intuition, a hunch, or an informed guess, but I was convinced that whatever was in that safe was the reason Harrison Frazier and Marilee had been murdered.

A little voice sitting on my shoulder yelled that the killer had trashed Marilee’s bedroom, looking for whatever was in the safe, and might come back to try again. I could imagine newspaper headlines screaming “Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter!” But I had been cowering from danger too long, protecting myself from ugly reality like I was a delicate flower that would wither at a breath of hot air. If I went on like that, I might never get back my courage or my ability to live in the real world. Besides, I kept seeing the words Marilee had written to her daughter, and imagining how awful it must have been to miss seeing her daughter grow up. This was something between Marilee and me—mothers banded together against everything and everybody who would take our children away from us.