Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter And The Canary

The car rolled to a stop just shy of the deck, and as I snuck one hand out and grabbed the railing to steady the hammock, the driver’s side door swung open and out stepped a man in his midsixties, about six feet tall, with a nose like the beak of a hawk and eyes to match.

“Here we are!”

He was wearing standard rich-tourist couture: shorts the color of an easter egg (in this case bright yellow) and a white short-sleeved polo shirt with the collar flipped up jauntily.

The woman rose up and pivoted around on one foot like a ballerina popping out of a music box. She wore taupe jodhpurs and a white blousey dress shirt with rolled sleeves, and even at this distance, buried in pillows and peering through the ropes of the hammock, I could see the glitter of a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, along with matching diamond pendants hanging from her ears. Even her long, silvery blond hair looked expensive.

She said, “Garth, it’s perfect.”

“I know.” He folded his arms over his chest and looked around. “I told you it was perfect. Didn’t I say it was perfect?”

“You did.”

I rolled my eyes, thinking of Christopher Columbus, all puffed up and congratulating himself on his new “discovery.”

She said, “But then again, you say the same thing about every house we find, so you can’t blame me for being a little dubious.”

He snorted. “I can and I do.”

I slunk down a little farther in the pillows and closed my eyes, hoping it made me more invisible. I knew if they decided to come up the steps I’d be forced to reveal myself, so to speak, but they didn’t seem one bit concerned somebody might be home. While the woman stepped up on the deck between the carport and the main house, the man walked under me. I could see the white of his shirt between the floorboards of the balcony as he snooped around my car.

“Edith, look at this old Bronco. We’ve got one of these down at the club. Belonged to Hank Patterson. You remember old Hank Patterson from Crown Oil?”

“God, no.”

“Well, the story is he chatted up some girl at the bar young enough to be his daughter. Then she ended up driving him home because he was too drunk to drive. Well, don’t ask me what happened next, but guess what happened next?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, don’t tell me.”

“He walks through the front door and his wife is there, mad as hell. She says, ‘Hank, where the hell is the Bronco?’ And the bastard says, calm as rain, ‘I donated it to the club.’ And that was that! Now they use it to bring the pheasants down to the range.”

The woman nodded as she drew a couple of stray hairs behind her ear. “That’s a beautiful story.”

He put his hands on his hips and scanned the line of the overhang that runs the length of the balcony. “Looks like they’ve got a renter up there. You know, if you tore this carport down, there’d be room for a cabana.”

My eyes widened.

The woman sighed. “You mean a guesthouse.”

“No, Edith. I mean a cabana. To go with the pool. Maybe even an outdoor kitchen— à la belle étoile . Who the hell needs a guesthouse anyway?”

She shrugged. “Well, it definitely needs a pool, but I’d say tear it all down and start over.”

The man took a few confident steps toward the main house. “I’d say this is a hundred years old at least. They don’t make ’em like this anymore. It’s got charm. We could probably get it on a list of historical homes. That could jack up the value considerably.”

The woman stepped off the deck and reached into the front seat of the car for her purse. “Ha. As far as I’m concerned, charm just means dirty . All that old wood and drafty windows. And Garth, who cares about value anyway? It’s not like we’re flipping it.”

He said, “Well, tear it down then. Either way, it’s all about location. That’s the thing to think about.”

She tipped her head to one side as she lit her cigarette with a tiny white lighter. “Well, you’ll get no argument from me on that point.”

“Refreshing.”

I had pressed my face down into the hammock to get a better view, and it was starting to feel like the ropes were burning into my cheeks. The man came back around to the car’s side and put one foot up on the runner board.

“Beachfront property, Edith. Doesn’t get any better than that.” He tipped his chin at the ocean. “Wanna go down there and check it out?”

The woman took one long drag of her cigarette and then flicked it across the driveway with a shrug. “ Meh . You’ve seen one beach, you’ve seen ’em all.”

At that point, naked or not, I was one millisecond away from rising out of the hammock like Godzilla from the sea and pelting them with a few carefully chosen epithets—if not a couple of wrought-iron ice cream chairs—along with a ten-second deadline to get the hell off my property. Luckily for everybody involved, they both got back in their stupid green tank and pulled out, leaving an invisible cloud of foul-smelling exhaust in their path.

I sat up out of the pillows and blinked.

Tear it down!?

Never mind the audacity, slithering around somebody else’s house unannounced and uninvited, but the mere thought that they’d tear our house down—the house my grandparents bought when they were newlyweds, the house Michael and I grew up in after our father died fighting a fire and our mother ran off … At this point, this old house is like a member of the family. And we’ve lost enough family as it is. We’ll never sell.

Not while I’m still breathing.

I made a mental note to try to remember everything those two old fools had said so I could tell Michael and Paco all about it when they got home. I had a moment of regret I hadn’t flown off the balcony to let them know exactly what they could do with their plans for the future, but I’m sure they would have called the funny farm and reported a naked lunatic on the loose.

As it turned out, ending up tied to a bed in a mental hospital would not have been the worst thing in the world. In fact, given what was waiting for me around the corner—or should I say, behind that door to Caroline’s front hall?—a nice medicated rest would have been just what the doctor ordered.

4

As soon as the coast was clear and my early-morning intruders had moved on to their next potential demolition site, I streaked back inside. I was completely behind schedule now, but fortunately my morning routine is quick and simple. I can practically do it in my sleep. My feet were still damp from the misty air outside, so I tiptoed to the closet, careful not to slip on the terra-cotta tile.

Despite the fact that my apartment is small, my walk-in closet is big enough to hold a world-class collection of designer shoes and expensive haute couture. Instead, I’ve got a filing cabinet and a small desk in one corner. Pretty much every stitch of clothing I own fits on one six-foot rack.

There was a time when I had tons of clothes, although none of it was exactly what you’d call high-end—casual stuff for dinner with friends from work, vaguely sexy stuff for a standing Friday-night date, rugged stuff for running around with the kids at the playground … but things are simpler now.

As I pulled on my standard cat-sitter uniform—cargo shorts, white sleeveless T, and a pair of white Keds—I surveyed the stacks of bills and papers spread across my desk. One of the advantages of growing up in a sleepy beach town is that you develop a pretty laid-back attitude about most things, but when it comes to work, I run a very tight ship. In fact, I like to think I operate my pet-sitting business with the same discipline and dedication I brought to being a sheriff’s deputy. I’m always prepared, I’m respectful and kind to everyone I meet (furry, feathered, or otherwise), and I keep a spiral notebook with detailed notes on every pet I’ve ever cared for—what medications they take, what their favorite snacks are, and what kinds of games they like to play. Filing, however, is not my strongest skill. In fact, I like to pretend I have a private secretary named Dammit.