Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter And The Canary

She stepped forward and extended her hand, adjusting the canvas bag that was slung over her shoulder, and just then there came from somewhere inside it the muffled sound of a cell-phone ringing. She ignored it.

I said, “Hi, Detective McKenzie.”

She said, “Hi, Dixie.”

The first time I met Detective Samantha McKenzie was at the house of one of my former clients, the Harwicks. They lived in a huge, ornate mansion off Jungle Plum Road at the north end of the Key. I’d been hired to take care of their massive tank of exotic fish, as well as their cat, Charlotte, a cantankerous but beautiful Siamese diva with a luxurious, silver-tipped chocolate coat. On my first day there, I found Charlotte lurking around the edge of the swimming pool in the back, tentatively batting one paw at the surface of the water, and when I went out to fetch her I saw a dark shape lying at the bottom of the pool.

That dark shape, unfortunately, turned out to be Charlotte’s owner, Mr. Harwick.

Detective McKenzie was assigned to the case—she had just joined the sheriff’s office a few months earlier—and the moment she started questioning me, I knew I’d never met anyone like her. The way Detective McKenzie’s mind works is unique: it’s not unlike a runaway roller coaster. It twists and turns, careening from one track to another at dizzying speeds and with no apparent rhyme or reason. Plus, she’s blunt and no-nonsense, which comes off as sheer rudeness. It was only after I’d gotten to know her a little better that I realized it’s not rudeness at all, but rather an inability (or flat-out refusal) to adhere to all the social rules and common niceties that the rest of us follow.

To add insult to injury, she also has the unsettling habit of avoiding direct eye contact. Instead, she fixes her gaze just slightly off to the side or at the center of your forehead, which is precisely what she was doing right now.

“I understand you’ve had quite a shock.”

I said, “I’ll be fine … but the woman inside. Do you know who she is?”

She tilted her head. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

I said, “No. I have no idea. I couldn’t see her face, and everything happened so fast.”

Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment I saw a look of confusion flash across her face. “So, you didn’t notice…?”

I said, “Didn’t notice … what?”

A pained smile formed on her lips, which seemed more than anything else to confirm my worst fears. Almost immediately, a trembling started at the base of my spine and crept all the way down to the souls of my feet. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have turned on my heels right then and headed straight for the Bronco. I figured if I moved fast enough, I could be out the driveway and crashing through those traffic cones before anybody even knew what was happening.

Instead, I took a deep breath.

“Detective McKenzie, didn’t notice what ?”

8

I can’t say for certain how long I was standing there, staring at McKenzie’s gray eyes and waiting for an answer. It felt like an eternity, but in the time that passed all I managed to do was curl my trembling hands into fists and prop them unsteadily on my hips. The tight smile on McKenzie’s face hadn’t wavered, but I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. I could see it in her eyes.

She said, “Dixie, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come inside and take another look.”

A voice inside my head murmured, No way. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was going back inside that house unless it was to get Franklin and Gigi out. But then I thought of Caroline, and all I could hear was her cheerful voice on the phone … Seriously, Dixie. Is it crazy to get on a boat and go sailing off into the wild blue yonder with a man I barely know?

I said, “Detective McKenzie, I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired, and I need to find a place for Franklin and Gigi to stay for the night, since I’m assuming they can’t stay here, and I need to get Charlie home before his owners start worrying. So please, just tell me … is it her?”

She frowned. “Is it who?”

I took a deep breath. “Caroline. Is it Caroline’s body in there?”

For the first time, her face softened. “Dixie, I’m sorry, but I don’t know. I was actually hoping you might be able to answer that.”

I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just a little flustered.”

“So, you didn’t recognize her at all?”

“No. In fact, I thought she was a man at first.”

“At first?”

“Yes, because of the suit.”

“But then you realized you were wrong when you looked under the scarf.”

“No, I didn’t look under the scarf.”

She nodded. “You overheard Morgan’s call to dispatch.”

“Yes. He asked me to wait in the car while he checked things out, and I heard everything over the radio.”

“So you didn’t touch the body at all?”

I frowned. I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to figure out if I was stupid enough to tamper with a dead body or if I was stupid enough not to attempt resuscitation.

“I did. I felt the wrist. It was her right arm. She was stiff, and there was no pulse and the skin was stone cold, so I knew right away. And everything happened so fast I didn’t have time to do anything else, and I had Charlie with me. He was still on the porch, so I closed the door and locked it. And then I put Charlie in the car and called 911.”

“Why did you lock the house?”

I thought for a moment. “I have no idea. I just did.”

“Okay. Let’s go have a look, but first…”

She stepped aside, and just behind her was the lanky boy I’d seen earlier. He had taken off his red baseball cap and was hugging it to his chest, smiling meekly. I realized he must have been standing there the entire time. I’d been so riled up I hadn’t even noticed.

McKenzie said, “Dixie, this is Matthew.”

He was dressed in a white oxford button-down a couple sizes too big for his skinny frame, tucked into a pair of faded blue jeans that were practically threadbare at the knees. His mop of white-blond hair was parted neatly to one side, falling across his forehead and shading his eyes. He had a moody, almost sad expression on his face, and before he spoke I would have put his age at somewhere around sixteen and a half.

He put his hand out. “I’m Detective Carthage. Nice to meet you.”

His voice was deeper than I had expected, and despite the fact that he seemed rather meek and more than a little awkward, his grip was firm and confident. As I shook his hand, McKenzie absentmindedly adjusted the thin scarf around her neck.

She said, “Yes. Detective Matthew Carthage. I promise I’ll stop doing that eventually. We’re very lucky to have him on our team. He’ll be working with me on a few cases, beginning with this one.”

I said, “Oh, I thought you were a neighbor … or something.”

I was about to say neighborhood kid, but luckily I stopped myself in time.

He blushed. “I’ll be following Detective McKenzie for a few weeks. Learning the ropes, so to speak.”

McKenzie reached into her shoulder bag. “Well, now that we’ve all met each other…”

She pulled out an aluminum clipboard with a yellow lined notebook attached, bulging with Post-its and miscellaneous papers folded inside, and as she flipped through the top pages I noticed every square inch from top to bottom was filled with tiny blue handwriting. When she finally came to a blank page, she flipped the whole mess over and secured it to the clipboard with a green rubber band, and then looked me straight in the middle of my forehead.