Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter And The Canary

McKenzie said, “Tom, can we have a minute?”

I heard a man’s voice from inside. “Sure, I’m done in here for now anyway.”

McKenzie stepped back and the crime scene photographer I’d seen before emerged. There were two cameras hanging from his neck and a small spiral notebook tucked into his breast pocket. He drew McKenzie aside and muttered something under his breath.

She said, “Yeah, let me bag it up first, and then let’s get closeup shots of both the front and back.”

I glanced up at the Kramer house. It was dark on the third floor, but the curtains in one of the windows had a pale bluish glow, as if lit from within by a television, and just then the curtains parted open and a woman appeared.

She had on a white blouse, or perhaps a nightgown, with a very low-cut opening. It plunged almost to her waist, and even from this distance I could tell its edges were scalloped and embroidered with what looked like lacy flowers. I couldn’t quite see her face, but I was pretty sure I recognized her hair immediately. It was long, jet black, and perfectly straight—exactly the way I remembered it when her face had been pasted all over the tabloids and local news shows.

It was Elba Kramer.

I think I must have been in some sort of catatonic state, because the first thing that came to mind was that I might be able to get her attention and let her know I hadn’t forgotten our meeting, which of course would have been insane, given the circumstances. Luckily, before I could do anything stupid—like wave or call out her name—the curtains fell back and she disappeared.

The crime scene photographer stepped off the porch and took a couple of pictures of the yard and then moved down the side of the house closest to Ms. Kramer’s, taking pictures of just about everything the entire way.

McKenzie turned, her expression somber, and said, “You might want to take a couple of deep breaths.”

I didn’t follow her advice. My palms were sweaty, and I could feel my heart pounding, but for some reason I wanted her to think I was fine, that I wasn’t the fading flower she assumed, that I’d seen a dead body before, and that I couldn’t imagine why she suddenly thought I was so delicate.

But I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.

I think I’d been holding on to the possibility that I’d imagined the whole thing, because when I stepped up to the doorway and saw the body again, my heart sank. It was still there, surrounded by blood-soaked magazines and pieces of junk mail, dressed in a man’s three-piece suit, light blue, with a green-and-yellow striped tie. There was a black leather belt with a square silver buckle around the waist, and the shoes were black leather too. They seemed newly polished, and I noticed both shoelaces were neatly tied in tight bows.

McKenzie stepped carefully so as not to disturb any of the mail on the floor, and then knelt down next to the body.

She said, “Ready?”

I clenched my fists and nodded. With one gloved hand, she reached out and gently lifted one corner of the scarf.

I gasped.

The girl had short, dark hair. Her face was round and white as snow, with a delicate nose and lips turned a pale shade of lilac. Her mouth was hanging open, as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of an unexpected surprise, and her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. She had a handlebar mustache drawn with what looked like dark brown eyebrow pencil above her lips, and there were long sideburns drawn on either side of her face.

Despite all that, I recognized her right away. “Sara…”

McKenzie turned to me, her eyes wide. “What?”

I stammered. “I’m not sure. She looks like someone … the girl that works at the food stand at the beach pavilion, but her hair’s different. It’s blond, almost the exact same color as mine, and she has a pierced eyebrow.”

McKenzie leaned in a little closer. At the far edge of the girl’s right eyebrow were two tiny, almost imperceptible holes, one above and one just below.

She said, “Do you see that?”

I nodded.

She lifted the scarf a little higher, and now I could see the girl wore a short, dark wig. It had been pulled to one side. Underneath was a stocking cap, covering locks of light blond hair.

I shook my head slowly. “It’s her.”

McKenzie let the the scarf fall back in place. “I’m thinking perhaps she was on her way to some kind of costume party … but there’s one more thing.”

She lifted the opposite corner of the scarf.

“This…”

Peeking out from under the scarf, just above the breast pocket, was a small yellow rectangle about three inches wide and two inches tall. At first, I thought it might have been a business card, but it was folded in half, like one of those placeholders they use at fancy dinners. It was held to the lapel of the jacket with what looked like a hat pin, at least five inches long, at the tip of which was a glistening black pearl, roughly the size of a green pea.

I said, “What is it?”

She motioned me closer. “You tell me.”

At the center of the card, written in neat cursive handwriting, were five words …

Just then, a strange sensation washed over me. My body felt like rubber, and the ground seemed suddenly unreliable, as if I were standing on a pier that had come unhooked from its mooring and was slowly moving out with the tide.

I whispered, “What does it say?”

But I didn’t need her to tell me. I could see it as clear as rain.

It said, SEE YOU IN HELL, DIXIE .

10

I woke with a dull throb camped out in the back of my skull, and my lips felt as dry and cracked as a couple of peanut shells. Without even opening my eyes, I knew Ella Fitzgerald was in her favorite position: stretched across my chest with her paws tucked under my chin. Outside, the birds were calling out tentatively to one another, and for a few blissful moments I thought of nothing but the thrum of Ella’s soft purrs, mixed with the rhythmic swoosh of the waves rolling in on the beach down below.

It had not been a good night.

I hadn’t slept well—not a big surprise, considering the circumstances. Every time I came close to falling asleep, a glowing yellow rectangle would float into view, as if it were seared onto the inside of my eyelids, and then I’d watch helplessly as an invisible hand etched a message across the middle of it in delicate curving script, as if hand-lettered with a feathered quill …

SEE YOU IN HELL, DIXIE.

Next, Sara Potts’s face would materialize, her blue eyes peering over the card, wide and imploring, and then my heart would start racing and I’d bolt up in a sweat. That happened over and over again, to the point where I no longer knew if I was awake or dreaming.

I’d spent the entire night checking the long window that runs along the top of the wall opposite my bed, and now when I opened my eyes, I could just make out the vaguest hint of light beginning to overtake the darkness outside. I ran my hand down Ella’s back.

“Finally,” I whispered.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. She said, “Mmmeep.”

Ella got her name from the jazzy scatting noises she makes, and it fits her personality perfectly. She’s regal and classy, but with a true rebel’s spirit. She’s a calico Persian mix, meaning mostly Persian, but her coat has distinct blocks of vivid russet brown, snow white, and charcoal black. She was originally a gift to me from a client that had to leave town unexpectedly, but it didn’t take her long to figure out that all the good stuff comes out of Michael and Paco’s kitchen. She loves me, I’m sure of that, but her heart belongs to her daddies.

I whispered “sorry” to Ella for disturbing her beauty rest and then rolled over to find Gigi watching me from the bedside table. He’d spent the night in an old hamster cage I found in the attic. I’d laid some rag towels on the bottom to make a soft bed for him, and I’d left a bowl of water and some carrot sticks mixed with a little of Ella’s cat kibble in one corner. It wasn’t exactly the palatial digs he was used to, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt him to see how the other half lives for a night or two until I could take him back home.