Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

I rolled over on my back and then slowly sat up on my elbows, trying as hard as I could to ignore the pain as I waited for my blurry eyes to focus. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the window illuminating tiny specks of dust floating in the air, and I tried to decipher by the sun’s angle what time it was … until I remembered my cell phone in my back pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

It was 6:30, which meant I must have been out cold for at least a half hour. I was about to close the phone and lay it on the floor next to me when I noticed something else on the screen. There was one missed call and a new voice mail: It was from Mrs. Keller.

I almost laughed out loud at the irony of it. While I was lying there knocked out cold on the floor of her laundry room, she had left a message. I wondered if she’d called to ask me to mail that box in the foyer, or maybe to warn me about statue-wielding, mask-wearing degenerates sneaking around inside her house looking for unsuspecting cat sitters.

I had a view through the laundry room into the kitchen, which opened up into the living room beyond, and at first everything seemed perfectly normal, but then the gauzy curtains behind the couch billowed out slightly and I realized with a jolt that the folding glass doors leading to the back garden were standing wide open. In front of the couch was a marble-topped coffee table, and when I saw what was sitting on top of it, I froze.

There were two tapered candles. One red, the other black, and they were both lit. Their yellow-white flames were flickering gently in the breeze from the open doors.

I flipped my phone open and punched in the numbers as fast as I could.

“911. What is your emergency?”

I whispered, “This is Dixie Hemingway, I have a code 11-99. Somebody just hit me over the head with a statue and I think it’s possible they’re still in the house.”

The operator’s voice was thin and nasal. He said, “They hit you with a statue?”

“Yeah, a little statue made of stone or marble or something.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No, but it knocked me out and I just woke up.”

“What’s your location, ma’am?”

“I’m … in the laundry room.”

“Okay … I’m showing an address of 22 Island Circle, is that correct?”

Close enough, I thought. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Are you able to get out of the house safely?”

I looked around for Barney but he had disappeared. “Um, I don’t know.”

“I’m sending help now. Stay where you are.”

I slid my hand down my hip and felt for my holster. “Okay. I’ll search the house.”

His voice rose. “Excuse me? No, you need to stay right where you are. You need to—”

I interrupted as I felt my fingers close around the handle of my pistol. “It’s okay, I’m a sheriff’s dep—”

But before I could finish I looked down at my hand. I was holding my little flashlight out in front of me, absentmindedly fluttering my thumb around its base looking for the safety release.

The operator’s voice cut through. “Ma’am? You need to stay put, do you hear me?”

Just then the room started spinning.

“Yeah,” I whispered as I let my head touch the floor with a gentle thud. “I hear you.”

* * *

I’m not completely sure how long I lay there before they arrived, but it felt like an eternity. I spent the entire time straining to hear any sounds from inside the house, which wasn’t easy since the ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop and I felt like I’d been injected with a dose of morphine big enough to take down the Jolly Green Giant. There were literally waves of sleepiness washing over me.

I tried not to think about the fact that I’d just mistaken my flashlight for a pistol, or that I even thought I was carrying a pistol in the first place. Instead, I concentrated on what I’d learned in law enforcement training about concussions and ran down the symptoms: Trauma to the head? Yep. Extreme Lethargy? Yep. Mental confusion? Well, I’d come back to that one, but it wasn’t looking good.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

It was bad enough some low-life punk had snuck up on me, and worse still that he’d hammered me to the ground with a big-bosomed Buddha, or that he’d taken the time to light a couple of candles, which was super creepy, but the worst part was the possibility that he might still be lurking around inside the house somewhere. You’d think the thought of that would have sent me into a total panic, but it didn’t. I just kept telling myself everything would be fine as long as I stayed calm and alert.

Barney Feldman had taken up his post again, purring loudly and watching over me with a serene expression on his face. That made me feel better, too. I figured if there actually was somebody in the house Barney wouldn’t have been so relaxed. Just as I was congratulating myself for staying awake in spite of the overwhelming urge to sleep, I felt something press my hand gently. I opened my eyes to find, not Barney Feldman looking down at me, but Deputy Jesse Morgan. He was kneeling at my side.

“Dixie? You okay?”

I thought for a moment. I’ve known Morgan for years. He’s one of the Key’s few sworn deputies, which basically means he’s licensed to carry a gun. He’s about as fun as a barrel of monkeys, minus the monkeys, but he’s tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones, broad shoulders, and a buzzed, military-style haircut—exactly the type of guy you want around if there’s any trouble.

I said, “I’m fine … sort of.”

“You’ve got a pretty good bump there.”

I reached up and ran my fingers through my hair. There was a tender bulge the size of a small plum on the very top of my head.

I said, “Yeah, I was here taking care of the Kellers’ cat, and somebody snuck up and hit me.”

He frowned. “Somebody hit you?”

“Yeah, with a statue. It was a fat bald woman, and her toes were painted red.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A fat, bald woman with red toes hit you?”

Morgan’s not the brightest bulb in the box. I shook my head. “No, the statue. Dick Cheney hit me.”

He squinted his eyes and nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“He was about my height, more or less, and dressed head to toe in black.”

“Dick Cheney.”

“Yeah, one of the masks … he had one of the masks on. And I left the front door unlocked, so I don’t know if he was already here or if he snuck in after me.”

He nodded. “Okay, I think we better get you to a hospital.”

“No!”

I pushed over to my side and tried to stand up, but Morgan held me there. “Whoa, slow down now, little lady, let’s call an ambulance first.”

I decided to ignore the “little lady” comment and suppressed the desire to sock him in his little man parts. I said, “No. No way. I am not going to the hospital. And we need to make sure he’s not still hiding in the house somewhere!”

Morgan put his hands on both my shoulders and looked me squarely in the eye. “Dixie. You’ve got a concussion. Believe it or not, the first thing we did was search the house. There’s nobody here.”

I squeezed my eyes shut a couple of times and then nodded. “Okay, good. But I don’t have a concussion, so no hospital.”

“I’m pretty sure you do, and anyway that’s my call, not yours.”

“Believe me, I’d know if I had a concussion, and I don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You told the 911 operator you’re a sheriff’s deputy.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah. You did.”

I didn’t remember doing that, but then again, I didn’t remember not doing it, either. I shook my head slowly. “No. She must have heard me wrong.”

“You mean he ?”