Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

I called Guidry to see if he knew anything, but he didn’t answer his cell, so I left a message.

I fed Ghost, showered, and changed clothes, then went out to the lanai to get the grooming supplies I’d left on the table when I combed him. Phillip’s window was dark. I walked to the side screened door to look at it, as if the window held some secret that might help Phillip live. Phillip’s phone message now made perfect sense. He had already decided to kill himself when he called. He had wanted to thank me and to apologize for lying before he died. He should have known he didn’t need to apologize to me, especially not for lying about being gay.

A coil of surprise moved at the base of my skull, and I looked at Phillip’s window again. Drought-tolerant Bahia grass grew from Marilee’s lanai to the wooden fence that marked the back boundary at the woods, with a bed of low junipers separating her yard from the Winnicks’. I opened the lanai’s screened side door, stepped out onto the grass, and went to stand at Phillip’s window. From that spot, I looked toward Marilee’s driveway. It was completely hidden from view by the corner of her house. Even the street in front of her house was invisible from Phillip’s window. I walked down the side of his house until I came to a spot where I could see Marilee’s driveway and the walk from her front door. It was at the very front of the Winnicks’ house, next to their garage. If Phillip had seen a Miata pull into Marilee’s driveway, it hadn’t been from his window.

With my mind whirling, I went back to Marilee’s lanai and picked up my grooming supplies. As I was going through the glass door, my cell phone started beeping from the kitchen bar and I hurriedly pulled the slider closed and sprinted to answer it. It was Michael, his voice anxious because I hadn’t answered promptly. I told him I was absolutely jim-dandy and not to worry. I still hadn’t told him about the safe, but now didn’t seem the time. I also didn’t tell him that I’d just discovered that Phillip had lied to me.

I put my grooming supplies in the Bronco and went back to the kitchen. I was hungry, but there was still the danger of being caught out by a reporter or by Bull Banks out on bail, so I toasted some waffles from Marilee’s freezer and ate them dry while I thought about Phillip’s lie. He had lied either about where he’d been when he saw a woman leave Marilee’s house or about what he’d seen. I tried to put myself in the shoes of an eighteen-year-old kid who had seen something connected with a murder. Could he have heard a woman’s footsteps and a car’s engine and then exaggerated, saying he’d seen a woman walking and a black Miata pulling in the driveway? Maybe. Or maybe the Miata pulled back far enough for him to see it in the street when it drove away. It made me too sad when I thought that Phillip might not live to explain what he’d lied about, so I wrenched my mind away from the lie and focused on the combination to Marilee’s safe.

I hadn’t given up on the expectation that it would involve numbers most familiar to Marilee, but I had already tried the obvious ones. I got a bottle of water from the refrigerator and leaned on the bar to drink it, staring blindly at the phone on the counter. Ghost came and wound sinuously around my legs, rubbing his silky hair against my bare skin. Marilee had probably stood in exactly this spot a million times, talking on the phone while he rubbed against her ankles.

Marilee had loved Ghost. She had chosen a strange name for him, but I supposed it had meaning to her. Thinking about that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise to attention. What if Marilee hadn’t been thinking of numbers when she chose a combination for the safe? What if she had been thinking of a word? I grabbed a pen and wrote Ghost . Then I looked at the phone’s keypad and put the corresponding number under each letter.

I went to the safe and punched in 4 4 6 7 8. A satisfying click told me I had guessed right. The combination to the safe was the name Ghost. Now that I had figured it out, it made perfect sense. All I had to do now was find the key to open the second lock.

I toasted some more waffles and tried to think where I would hide a key if I were Marilee. The killer had ransacked her closet and the drawers in her bedroom and bathroom. I had assumed he’d been searching for the safe, but maybe he’d known where the safe was and had been searching for the key. If that were true, maybe he’d had reason to search where he did.

I got a black plastic garbage bag and went into Marilee’s bathroom. Ghost sat on the countertop and watched me empty bottles of lotions and boxes of powder, throwing the empties in the trash. I checked for a key inside every bottle and jar in the medicine chest and tossed them, too. Except for some aspirin and several bottles of vaginal gel guaranteed to feel like natural secretions, Marilee’s medicine cabinet was as innocent as a twelve-year-old girl’s. No prescription painkillers, no tranquilizers or antidepressants, no stimulants or hormones. Except for an occasional headache or dry vagina, Marilee had apparently been bloomingly healthy.

I gathered up some unopened bottles of perfume and cologne and bath oil to take to Cora along with a bunch of scented candles with virgin wicks. The rest went in the trash bag, including half a dozen sticks of mascara and enough lipsticks to paint the lips of every woman in Sarasota and still have some left over for Bradenton. Ghost followed me when I hauled the bag out to the garage and stashed it in the garbage can. I made a mental note to remember to put the can out at the curb Thursday night, then went back into the kitchen.

Getting rid of the bathroom trash had made me feel more organized. I hadn’t found the key, but at least I was doing something constructive.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked around. Get focused, I told myself. Think.

I put a colander in the sink. Then I went through all the cupboards and got out every sack of flour and sugar and cornmeal, every box of cereal, every jar of spices, every opened package of anything. Ghost sat on the counter, intently watching my every move, his head turning like somebody watching a tennis match while I sifted everything through the colander. I ended up with a sinkful of dry stuff that would probably stop up the drains.

I looked at Ghost. “I should have done this over the wastebasket, shouldn’t I?”

He looked at me and let the vertical aperture in his eyes widen, but not in a judgmental way.

I scooped the mess into a big bowl and dumped it into a garbage can under the sink, but I hadn’t given up yet. I got out all the jars in the refrigerator and lined them up next to the sink. I stuck my hand inside jars of jelly and jam and pickle relish and mayonnaise and mustard. All I got for my trouble was yucky fingers and gross condiments which I then tossed in the trash. Ghost’s whiskers wavered and he scooted back from the sink’s edge, disgust written all over his face.

Pointedly, he got to his feet and arched his back and yawned. I knew what he was saying: It was bedtime, and I was wasting my time. But I couldn’t stop. I searched the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer and meat drawer. I got out every opened bag of frozen vegetables and dumped them in the colander, running hot water on them in case the key was frozen inside a solid mass of peas or carrots. At least I could get rid of the ruined vegetables by pushing them down the disposal.

Ghost left me when I turned on the disposal. He had been loyal, but even an Abyssinian’s loyalty has its limits.

I sat down at the bar and glumly considered my options. If I told Guidry about the safe, he could have somebody from the department crack it. But that would mean I’d have to tell him about the invoice I’d found in Marilee’s mail. And then I’d have to come up with a good explanation for not telling him before. And what if the safe held a wad of cash or valuable jewels? Common sense told me I was still a possible suspect. The same common sense told me that nobody considered me a strong suspect, because I’d had nothing to gain by the murders. But if there was a chunk of money in the safe, Guidry might think I’d known about it all along.