Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

I studied the woman’s face, hoping there might be something I recognized, some identifiable feature, like a mole or a tattoo, but there was nothing. She could have been any pretty young woman with long dark hair … but of course, I had my theories.

The top page was mostly intact. Even though the lower portion was nibbled a bit at the ends, and the paper was all buckled and water stained, I could still make out the chapter title. It was “Gardeners Beware.”

I read the first paragraph.

Now let the reader turn to Figure 9, where such a beauty as Abrus precatorius is depicted. If the reader wishes to preserve his muscle for other household chores, he may allow such a vine to o’ertake his fields, which it will do in short order, smothering all other plants in its path and establishing a garden that is, if not attractive, forever free of fret and fidget. We hasten to add, however, that the fruit from which this industrious vine gets its common name, rosary pea, is quite deadly. It is in fact considered the most poisonous seed of them all, so unless the gardener has less charitable uses in mind, he would do well to avoid the cheerily colored berry altogether.

I hadn’t even finished the last sentence when I grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table and punched in Detective McKenzie’s number.

“McKenzie here.”

I said, “Detective, this may sound crazy, but has the coroner determined Mr. Hoskins’s cause of death?”

She said, “Dixie, the cause of death is gun wounds. That was obvious from the beginning.”

I frowned. “I know he was shot, but did you run blood tests? Was there anything odd in his blood?”

“Dixie, what’s going on?”

“Remember when I told you about that book I bought in the bookstore that night? Remember I said it was missing a section? Well, get this—I was in the top of that big magnolia tree at the Silverthorn Mansion, and I found the missing section in a squirrel hole.”

There was a pause. “A squirrel hole.”

“Yes, a squirrel jumped out and it had a piece of paper in its mouth. They were using it as a nest.”

“The squirrels were using the hole for a nest…”

“No, no. The book. They were using the book, chewing it up and building a nest with it in the garden shed. At first I couldn’t figure out how it got there—”

“I’m trying to figure out how you got there, but go on.”

“It’s a long story. I didn’t have a chance to look at it until now, but listen—it’s all about poisons. The whole chapter is plants that gardeners should avoid if they have pets.”

She sighed. “Dixie, it sounds interesting, but I don’t see the connection.”

I said, “The very first paragraph is about rosary pea vine. It’s like the most poisonous seed in the world, and it’s growing all over the Silverthorn Mansion. It’s basically covering everything that doesn’t move.”

“Yes?”

“So, I mean, don’t you think that’s kind of weird? There’s a book in Mr. Hoskins’s store that’s missing the last chapter, and then the next thing you know Mr. Hoskins is dead and the missing section is all about poisons and it’s hidden in a tree surrounded by poisonous vines? I know it seems crazy, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this one. If you run those tests, you’ll find poison in his blood.”

“Dixie. We ran tests. His blood was clean. There were no foreign substances at all. No poisons. No drugs. Nothing. There was head trauma, so we think he was knocked unconscious first, and then he was dragged into the crawl space and shot once in the chest. We know how he died.”

I winced. I wished I’d been spared that detail. “Are you sure?”

“Dixie, I wish you were right, I really do. I’d love to have a lead on this case, but I just don’t see a connection. There was no poisoning.”

I nodded. “Okay, but there’s one more thing. Inside the book is one of Mr. Hoskins’s drawings. It’s a woman … and she’s nude.”

“Okay … go on.”

“Well, doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Dixie, what does it tell me?”

I sighed and shook my head, defeated. “I have no idea.”

She thought for a moment. “You’re sure it’s one of Mr. Hoskins’s drawings?”

“I’m not positive, but I think so. It’s not signed or anything, but the woman looks a lot like the woman in a couple of other drawings in the store.”

“Alright. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll send an officer over first thing in the morning to pick it up. For now, keep it someplace safe. Though I must say, it’s not exactly earth-shattering that you’ve got a book from Mr. Hoskins’s bookstore with a drawing by Mr. Hoskins in it. Even given the strange circumstances of where you found it, there are a lot of reasons why someone might hide a nude drawing.”

Half whispering, I said, “I know…”

I was thinking about Janet. If I was going to turn her in, now was the time. If I didn’t tell McKenzie what I knew right away, it would be pretty hard explaining why later … but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t shake the notion that, even though what Janet had done was completely wrong, I knew with all my heart that in her mind she felt there was no other choice.

“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

McKenzie’s voice snapped me back to the present. I shook my head. “Um … no, that was it.”

“You’re sure?”

I could tell by the sound of her voice she knew there was something more, but I held firm. “Yep.”

After we hung up, I laid the phone down on the coffee table and just stared at it. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Detective McKenzie didn’t have a few psychically gifted ancestors of her own.

* * *

For the next half hour or so I managed to keep my mind off everything by straightening up the apartment. I got out some glass cleaner and my trusty bottle of bleach-and-water mix and cleaned the heck out of anything that was glass, porcelain, or chrome until all the accumulated grime was a distant memory. Then I took a long hot shower until all the accumulated grime in my head was a distant memory, too. Feeling completely renewed, I toweled myself off and padded naked into my closet to see if I could drum up a date-worthy outfit to wear.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fashionista. It’s not that I don’t like nice clothes, I do, but unlike most women I just don’t like shopping for them. In fact, I’d be tickled pink if I never had to see another mall for as long as I live, even if it meant wearing the same clothes every day until they fell off in tatters and I had to go around stark-raving mad and naked to boot—which may very well happen one day. Standing in the middle of my closet and surveying my measly collection of outfits, though, I wished I had a slightly better attitude.

There were only a few viable options, one of which was a beautiful plum-colored evening dress, but I’d worn that the first time we’d gone to Yolanda and it didn’t seem right to wear it twice in the same place, so instead I decided on something a little less fancy. I laid out a white silk blouse with mother-of-pearl buttons, a low-cut yellow cotton camisole, and a pair of cream-colored linen capris.

Looking in the mirror over the desk, I applied a little makeup, with just enough blush and eyeliner to make it look like I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. That took me a good ten minutes. Then I pulled the hair dryer out from under the sink, blew off the dust, and coaxed my hair into a state of natural, windswept fluffiness—as if I’d just come in from a fun, carefree day at the beach. That took another ten minutes at least. Then I got dressed, which took another half hour because I changed my mind about what to wear ten times, and just when I’d given up and settled on my first choice—with a resolution to go to the mall as soon as possible—I heard Ethan’s car rolling up the driveway. I knew I had just enough time to slip my bare feet into a pair of nice low-heeled sandals before he could climb the steps and knock on the door.