Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

Whenever I spend the night with any of my dogs, which I usually do if their humans are going to be out of town, I always take their collars off before bed. I figure they don’t want to sleep in their day clothes any more than I do, and I think they actually sleep better that way. Now almost all of my clients do the same thing. Rufus scampered around my feet while I got his collar out of the drawer in the hall desk. He stood as still as he could, or at least as still as his eagerly wagging rump would allow, while I fastened his collar around his neck.

Rufus isn’t a power-walking type of dog. Most schnauzers would rather sniff and hunt when they’re outside, and Rufus is no exception. He’s always on the lookout for lizards and squirrels and snakes. I don’t think he’d have the slightest idea what to do with one if he ever caught it, but he thoroughly enjoys the chase. I brought along my handy thirty-foot retractable leash so Rufus could skitter here and there while we walked.

I hooked the end of the leash to his collar and snapped a couple of clip weights to the handle and headed out the door. While Rufus did his business and scampered about, I did some arm raises and bicep curls. I wanted to keep myself occupied. From now on I was going to start being a little more disciplined with myself, and that included getting a good workout every day. I must have looked like a deranged person flapping my arms up and down at the end of Rufus’s leash, but I didn’t care.

After a perfectly uneventful walk around the block and a good long brushing session, I gave Rufus a kiss on the nose and a little hug. The Graysons were taking him to visit their son in North Carolina later in the afternoon, so I knew I wasn’t going to see him for a few days.

At the Kitty Haven, Marge was on the phone talking to a rescue center in Jacksonville about two older cats they had brought in but couldn’t afford to keep. If Marge didn’t take them, they’d have to be put down. She was arranging for Jaz to make the four-hour drive to pick up the cats and bring them back to the Haven. Marge waved and pointed me to the back, where I found Charlotte in one of the private cubicles.

She was her usual snarky self. With all the food and love she was getting from Marge and Jaz, I wasn’t too worried about her, but I knew she’d probably be a lot happier once she was back in her own home. I didn’t allow myself to think about what her life was going to be like without Mr. Harwick, or whether she knew that he was gone. It was too much to bear.

She hissed dismissively at me as I sat down on the floor next to her, but I knew she didn’t really mean it. Stroking her from head to tail while she arched her back and pushed herself against my hand, I told her it wouldn’t be much longer before she was back home, and I did my best to form a mental picture of her curled up among the pillows in the Harwicks’ big canopy bed. I like to do that just in case cats can read minds. Of course it’s crazy, but I do it anyway.

Tom Hale was out of town at a convention and had taken Billy Elliot with him, so I was pretty much done for the morning. I figured by now the news was probably out about Mr. Harwick, and since one of the reporters had seemed to recognize me, I didn’t feel like making an appearance at the diner. I knew everyone would be full of questions, and I was trying my best to forget about yesterday’s events. Also I imagined Judy would want to know all about my D-word with Ethan, and if she found out I was planning on canceling it she’d probably want to give me a good beating.

At the intersection of Beach Road and Midnight Pass, I turned left and followed Higel’s dogleg over the north bridge. Another left and I followed Tamiami Trail around the bay, where tall-masted ships rode at anchor, their masts sparkling in the bright sunshine. A quick zag off course, a quick swing through Whole Foods for some soup and some other goodies and a bouquet of daisies, and then I was back on Tamiami Trail to the Bayfront Village, a posh retirement condo and one of the worst architectural disasters ever to blight Sarasota.

Bayfront is home to several hundred well-to-do seniors who either don’t notice the folly of mixing Ionic, Gothic, Elizabethan, and Colonial architecture all in one building or are too busy having fun to care. The interior design is as bad as the exterior, with murals of foxhunting scenes keeping company with paintings of circus clowns, the Mahabharata, and bucolic fields of sunflowers and bluebonnets. But happy, energetic seniors bounce past the bizarre decor on their way to tennis or golf or theater, and not one of them seems to mind living in an interior decorator’s living version of hell. These are what I call “don’t-give-a-damn” seniors. They’re more active than most people half their age, they’re having more fun than most people half their age, and, well, basically they don’t give a damn.

The concierge waved to me from her sleek French Provincial desk and gestured for me to go on up. As soon as I got in the elevator, the knot I had felt in my chest ever since I’d discovered Mr. Harwick’s body loosened a bit. Just knowing that Cora Mathers was waiting for me on the sixth floor made everything feel a little lighter.

Cora is eighty-something years old, and I am lucky to know her, although the way we met is not the prettiest story in history. Her granddaughter, Marilee, had been a friend and a client, and to make a long story short, Marilee was murdered by a crazed neighbor. Marilee had already set her grandmother up in Bayfront Village with enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life. The remainder of her estate, which was sizable to put it mildly, was willed to her cat, a blue Abysinnian named Ghost. She made me the executor of Ghost’s estate.

Once I found a good home for Ghost, I put the estate in Tom Hale’s hands and have pretty much avoided thinking about it ever since. After Marilee’s funeral, I continued to stop in now and then to make sure that Ghost was being well cared for, and I also visited Cora at least once a week. At first I’d done it out of a feeling of misplaced guilt and responsibility, but that had changed, and Cora and I had become genuine friends. I don’t think there’s any topic that we haven’t thoroughly discussed, some of which would be a surprise to most people. Women my age and women Cora’s age aren’t assumed to have much in common, especially when it comes to romance and sex and love, but that’s a lot of hooey. The only difference between Cora and me is that she has more wrinkles and more experience. Otherwise, inside our skins we’re both the same.

I smelled Cora’s apartment as soon as the elevator doors opened. About once a week, she makes bread in an ancient bread-making machine. At some point in the kneading process, which Cora keeps a secret, she throws in a cup of frozen semisweet chocolate chips. The result is a chewy bread with a crunchy crust filled with little lakes of oozy chocolate. Cora insists that the bread be torn into hunks rather than sliced, and when those hunks are slathered with butter, I guarantee that strong women will swoon and muscled men will whimper with weak-kneed delight.

The concierge had alerted Cora that I was on the way up, so she was outside her door waiting for me when I stepped out of the elevator and went down the hall towards her apartment. Cora is the size of a malnourished sixth grader, with knobby little knees and freckled arms. Her hair is thin and fine as goose down and floats above her scalp in a cottony cloud. She whooped when she saw me, rising up and down on her toes in a semblance of jumping for joy.

I said, “Do I smell chocolate bread?”

“It’s still cooling! What’s that you’ve got?” As greedy as a child, she grabbed the Whole Foods bag and peered inside. “Oh, goody goody! I just love their soup!”