Blaize Clement - Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

“I saw my husband come out of this house with something in his arms. He carried it across the backyard and walked along the fence beside the woods, and then he disappeared from my view. I didn’t know what it was that he carried. Then he came back here to the house again. In a little while, he went out to the driveway and got into that man’s car and drove away.”

I pushed my foot a few inches to the left and said, “What time was this?”

Wearily, she said, “It was exactly five minutes past one. I know because I looked at the clock on the microwave after he left.”

I pulled my right foot alongside the left one, trying to make it look as if I were just adjusting my posture, and said, “You must have been extremely concerned. I mean, it didn’t look good for your family, did it?”

“I had to do something. A woman like you can’t understand what it is to be a good wife and mother. You can’t know how a real woman will go to any length to save her family.”

For a minute there, I’d been feeling sorry for her, but that brought me back to reality. “What did you do, Mrs. Winnick? How did you save your family?”

“I came over here and saw what had happened. Saw the mess here. The shower was still running, that naked man hanging out of the tub and blood on the floor. That piece of pipe next to him. It was awful. I turned off the shower and put the man on the floor while I cleaned everything. I went out the side door and put the pipe in the garbage can at the street. Then I went back home.”

Above her head, Ghost had gone into a stalking crouch on the armoire, neck stretched forward and down, legs bent and quivering, tail swishing side to side. I had seen cats go into that pose just before sinking their fangs into a snake’s body and flinging it side to side until it died. Olga Winnick and her alcohol fumes had become an enemy, prey to be pounced upon and crushed.

The shrill beep-beep-beep of my cell phone sounded from the kitchen, and all three of us went rigid. Distracted, Ghost’s head twisted nervously toward the sound.

I said, “I really should answer that.”

She grimaced. “You underestimate my intelligence, Miss Hemingway.”

“Not true, Mrs. Winnick. I think you’ve been brilliant. I’m really impressed. But you left out the part about dressing the man and taping his head to the cat’s water bowl.”

She sighed again and gave me an irritated glare. “That wasn’t until later. Carl was home when I got back. He had driven the man’s car to the Landings and parked it there, then he took a taxi to the Sea Breeze and walked home. He was shaken and humble. We had a long talk. He begged me for forgiveness and I forgave him for what he’d done. It was one of the best talks we’ve ever had.”

“How nice for you.”

“Yes. Then he told me he thought there were photographs the police might find, and I came back to look for them. While I was looking, the man made a sound. He wasn’t dead after all, you see. I knew he could identify Carl, so I dressed him and dragged him into the kitchen and taped his head to the water bowl. I would have put him in the tub, but he was too heavy and I didn’t want to ask Carl to help. He was far too upset by then to be of much use anyway.”

“It was a little after four o’clock when you left here, wasn’t it?”

Her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. “How did you know that?”

“Because Phillip saw you. I guess he’s more like you than I realized, because he made up a big lie to save you.”

“That’s not true! Phillip was asleep.”

“Phillip had been playing piano at the Crab House, Mrs. Winnick. He had just climbed back in his window when he saw you leave Marilee’s lanai.”

A tremor played over her face, as if her nerve endings were readjusting themselves, and the hand with the knife raised an inch.

Okay, if I was dead anyway, I might as well say what would hurt her the most.

“Phillip knew what you did. He loved you so much that he didn’t tell, but he knew. He killed himself keeping your terrible secret.”

“I don’t want to hear any more!”

She charged toward me with the knife held high, enveloped in a miasma of alcohol and revenge. I lunged for the lamp and jerked it forward, pulling the cord out of the wall and plunging the room into darkness. But the thing was incredibly heavy and too thick to wrap my hand around. In the darkness, I could see her silhouette flying toward me.

I did the only thing that seemed halfway logical. I dived for her legs, hoping to knock her down before her knife plunged into my back.

As I hit her, she screamed and flailed the air. I scrabbled behind her and straightened up, ready to grab her knife hand. Something soft brushed across my face, and she screamed again. I realized it was a scream of pain and that it was Ghost’s tail I had felt. Ghost was on her head, raking his claws across her face and shoulders.

I sprinted to the kitchen and grabbed my gun. I was halfway down the hall with it when I doubled back to get my cell phone. As I left the kitchen, I heard the thud of footsteps running down the hall toward the bedroom. I knew who it was. I also knew Ghost would be killed if I didn’t get to him in time.

With my gun held in both hands, I rounded the bedroom door. The overhead light was on, and Olga was on her knees, thrashing her head and howling in agony. Ghost was still on her head with his claws embedded in her skull. Her face was shredded, with so much blood spilling from it that her features had disappeared. Carl Winnick stood beside her with a gun trained on Ghost, probably the same gun Phillip had used to shoot himself.

“Be still!” he shouted to Olga. “Stop moving!”

I yelled, “Drop the gun, Winnick!”

He turned his head toward me, wide-eyed and ashen, then swung the gun in my direction.

A shot rang out and his throat burst in a flare of red blood. Ghost screamed and jumped from Olga’s head and streaked from the room. Winnick crumpled to the floor beside Olga, and a geyser of blood shot toward the ceiling. Covered with her own blood and his, Olga leaned over him and shrieked a sound so full of grief and rage that it will live in my head forever.

Suddenly, the room was filled with people running past me. In a daze, I turned toward the doorway where Guidry was holstering his Sig Sauer.

“Your brother called us,” he said. “When you didn’t answer your cell, he knew you were in trouble.”

His gray eyes were calm, watching me closely.

“I had it under control,” I said, but my voice warbled.

“You had it under superb control, Dixie.”

The next thing I knew, my face was buried in his chest, and his arms were holding me close. Except for Michael and Paco, I hadn’t felt a man’s arms around me since Todd died. I hadn’t thought I wanted a man’s arms around me, but this felt very familiar and comforting.

Thirty-Four

Sunlight glittered on the sailboats rocking at anchor in Sarasota Bay. A few seagulls strolled along the sidewalk, hoping for handouts. Phillip and I sat quietly, the way people do when there’s too much to say to trust yourself to speak. Phillip’s forehead still bore an ugly channel from the bullet he fired with the intention of killing himself. If he hadn’t jerked his head back just before he pulled the trigger, he would have hit the frontal lobe of his brain. If he’d jerked it forward instead of backward, he would have hit the cortex. As it was, he was physically and neurologically intact. Psychologically, he had a lot of healing to do.

A bold seagull stepped forward and pecked at Phillip’s shoelace. Phillip waggled his foot and the gull fluttered its wings in a show of sassiness and then took flight, sailing out over the boats in a graceful swoop.