Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

Ethan said, “Wow. That’s heavy.”

Kenny laughed sadly and shook his head. “I know. It’s crazy.”

“So, why did he get in touch with you?”

He shrugged. “Guilt. He felt guilty, and he wanted to make it up to me somehow.”

We sat there for a few moments in silence. I wanted to believe him, as far-fetched as his story was, but there was still one thing I didn’t understand. I was almost afraid to ask, because I didn’t think I was going to like the answer.

I said, “Kenny, why did you come to Siesta Key?”

He shook his head. “I wanted to see him. I wanted to know who he was. I … I wanted to know why. Why did he leave us? I wanted him to look me in the face and explain it, man to man. I mean, I get it—he wanted to run away. Everybody feels like that once in a while, right? But how could he just leave his family like that? I felt like I couldn’t go on with my life until I had an answer. So one day I just packed up my truck and drove down here. I didn’t tell anybody where I was going.”

“But how did you find him?”

“It was easy. The return address on his letters was always the same—a post office box in Siesta Key. There’s only one post office here. So I just hung out in the parking lot until I saw somebody that looked familiar, and then I followed him home.”

He picked up the photo and slipped it back into his breast pocket. “At first he had written that he lived like a bum, slept on the beach, jumped from job to job, didn’t have any friends. But eventually he admitted that was a lie, too. Turned out he was filthy rich and he wanted to make it up to me. He said his stepkids were worthless and I could have it all. It was too late to change what he had done, but at least he could set me up for life. He wanted to buy me a house and everything.”

I frowned. “So that’s why you’re here.”

He shook his head. “No. No way. I didn’t come here to get rich.”

“Then why did you pretend to be a pool cleaner and work your way into his home?”

“I didn’t pretend. I was broke. I started cleaning pools because I didn’t have enough money to get back to California. So I made up some flyers saying I cleaned pools and could do odd jobs and started leaving them around town. One day this dude calls me up and asks if I can clean his pool, somebody had referred me. When he gave me his address I knew right away. It was Roy Harwick.”

I said, “And you never told him who you were?”

“No. I was going to. But things got a little complicated…”

“You mean Becca.”

Kenny’s face flushed red as he looked down at his hands. “Yeah. Becca.”

Ethan turned to me and whispered, “Who’s Becca?”

“Mr. Harwick’s daughter. She’s pregnant.”

He nodded. “Ah, of course.”

I could tell Ethan was getting a little impatient with the whole story, and to be honest so was I. Kenny must have wanted something more from the Harwicks. Why else would he come all this way and infiltrate himself into their home, not to mention their daughter?

“So when was the last time you saw your father?”

He looked down at the floor, struggling to keep his emotions under control. “It was at his house. The night before you found him.”

I shook my head. “No, Kenny. You’re lying. Mr. and Mrs. Harwick were in Tampa that night.”

He let out a little laugh. “Really? Well, as soon as he heard what I had to say, he came right back home, didn’t he?”

For the first time I could feel his anger, not just at Mr. Harwick but at the world. I think I would probably have felt the same. If he was telling the truth, his father’s selfishness had triggered a chain of events that led to his mother’s suicide. He had already grieved away his childhood over the drowning of his father, and now it looked like he was going to have to do it all over again.

I said, “What did you say to him?”

“When he answered the phone I said, ‘Mr. Harwick, my name isn’t Kenny. It’s Daniel. Daniel Imperiori. I’m your son.’”

The human brain is such an amazing thing. It’s constantly absorbing new things and adapting and changing. Scientists have even proven that a person’s intelligence isn’t some static constant, like an IQ number, but something that can be improved just by giving it the right combination of food, rest, and exercise. It’s like a kitten—but kittens can be very predictable. I guarantee that if you wiggle the tip of a peacock feather in front of a kitten, some magical unseen force will immediately take over, and that kitten will pounce on that feather without a moment’s thought.

It’s kind of the same with the human brain. It can be pretty predictable, too. As a cop, I learned to recognize certain signals that people give off when they’re being less than honest. For example, if you’re making something up that’s not true, nine times out of ten your eyes will wander to the right without your even knowing it. But if you’re telling the truth, trying to remember something that actually happened, most of the time your eyes will wander to the left. As Kenny remembered his conversation with Mr. Harwick, I noticed his eyes. He wasn’t lying.

“What was his reaction when you told him who you were?”

“Nothing at first. I started to think he was going to hang up on me. Then he said, ‘What do you want?’ I told him I wanted to talk and that it couldn’t wait, so he said to meet him at his house that night. He was whispering, so I knew he didn’t want Mrs. Harwick to know about it.”

“What time did you meet him?”

“Late. When I left it was almost midnight.”

His words hung in the air. I knew Ethan and I were both silently thinking the same thing: And where exactly was Mr. Harwick when you left?

He looked from me to Ethan and then back again. “Look. I didn’t kill him. I know what you must think, but it’s not like I planned it to happen this way. I admit—it was totally cool to be able to watch him, to be right there under his nose. But once I saw what kind of person he was, the way he treated people, the way he made his money, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I was sorry I ever met him. Dixie, you have to believe me.”

I said, “I understand, but you’re going to have a tough time convincing the police of that. Mr. Harwick was a very wealthy man. You show up, his only living son, the abandoned heir to his fortune, and then all of a sudden he’s found dead in the bottom of a swimming pool and you were the last person to see him. It’s a little hard to believe you wouldn’t want all that money.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said, too. But I’m not stupid. I know what Sonnebrook is, and I don’t want anything to do with that crap. I told him he could take his money and rot in hell—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath.

I glanced over at Ethan, and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

Kenny regained himself and said, “So that’s why I gave him everything.”

“Gave him what?”

“A big envelope with all the letters he sent me. All the letters where he admitted he was my father, where he said he wanted to leave everything to me. All of it. There were even checks he sent me that I never cashed. The only thing I kept was this photo, just to remind me of what could have been. He said he didn’t care. He could still leave his money to me and I couldn’t stop him. I said, ‘If there’s anything I learned from you, it’s how to disappear. So good luck with that.’ Then I left.”

I said, “Okay. Kenny, or Daniel … what am I supposed to call you?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anymore. Just call me Kenny. I’m used to it now.”

“You’re going to leave here, and you’re going straight to the police. I’ll back your story up. If you tell them everything you’ve told us, they’ll believe you.”