Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

I said, “I know Becca’s been going through a lot of things in her life. When you’re a teenager, sometimes you think the world revolves around you. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

She was sitting perfectly still, her back ramrod straight, staring numbly out at the swimming pool.

She said, “Becca and I were riding bikes one morning. She couldn’t have been more than five or six, because I remember her bike still had training wheels. We were coming around a curve, and I rolled over a stick that had fallen in the path. It popped up and got stuck in the bicycle chain. The next thing I knew I was flying over the handlebars. I landed flat on my face. It nearly knocked me out. Becca saw me fall, but she just kept on riding. I remember her little legs just pumping away on the pedals.”

She looked down and spread her palms open.

“I broke the fall with my hands. I’m convinced that’s where my arthritis came from. Dixie, do you have someone?”

That caught me off guard. I said, “What do you mean, someone?”

“Someone special in your life.”

“Umm. I do. Sort of. I mean it’s complicated.”

She stared at me, unblinking, with a desperate look in her eyes. I knew she wanted an honest answer.

I said, “I’ve been alone for a while, so it’s hard. I mean, it’s such a compromise…”

“A compromise?”

“Well, I mean I like my life the way it is. It’s just hard to compromise no matter how much in love you think you are.”

She thought for a moment and then looked out at the pool. “I think you should stay away from Kenny Newman. I’m afraid of him.”

“Mrs. Harwick, I’m not involved with Kenny Newman, and I never have been. I really only know him through work.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I jumped to that conclusion. To be honest, I think I was a little jealous. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always had a little crush on Kenny, which I’m sure you can understand.” She smiled sadly. “Well, I’m glad you have someone you can share your life with.”

She looked down at the cigarette, still lying with its lit end over the edge of the coffee table, only now there was a half-inch-long tail of ashes. She flicked the ashes into the palm of her hand and dumped them along with the cigarette into a bowl on the table next to the couch. She shook her head. “Disgusting habit. I haven’t smoked in twenty years.”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s the driver.”

She stood up slowly, and we walked to the front door.

“Dixie, I hope you don’t mind feeding the fish a while longer. I realize it’s not at all what we planned, but until they find out who did this, I can’t stay in this house.”

“It’s not a problem at all. I can feed them as long as you want, and I’ve already talked to the Kitty Haven. Charlotte can stay there as long as necessary.”

Her eyes glassed over, and she nodded mutely. I watched from the porch as the driver helped her into the backseat of the car. She had been so vital and strong that first day we met. Now, just a few days later, she seemed old and frail.

The driver closed the door, and as he walked around the front of the car and got in the driver’s seat, Mrs. Harwick sat perfectly still, her eyes wide open and gazing forward. I was waiting to give her a smile or a wave, but as the car moved forward she didn’t look back.

I trudged up the stairs with heavy legs. Mrs. Harwick seemed to have lost not only her husband, but her soul mate. I had been wrong about them. They had been together so long their bickering had become just another mode of communication. What I had thought was bitterness and sarcasm was really just harmless play, like two old dogs rolling around in the grass and chewing on each other’s ears.

In the master bathroom, I slid open one of the pocket doors on the side of the aquarium and opened the cabinet where all the food and chemicals were kept. I pulled out a water-testing strip and dipped it into the aquarium for a few seconds, then watched the little squares on the strip change color. I compared them with the examples printed on the side of the bottle. Everything matched perfectly, which was a relief. I didn’t have to add any chemicals to the tank. I remembered Mrs. Harwick saying that just the slightest imbalance in the chemistry could be fatal to the fish.

After I sprinkled some food in, I slid the lid of the tank closed, flicked off the light, and closed the pocket door behind me. The bathroom was the same, except the towel that had been lying on the counter was gone, along with all the little yellow evidence markers, and the harp-toting angels flying around on the ceiling looked a little more heavenly and glowing in the late-afternoon light.

I thought to myself, If I were Becca, I would probably have spent a lot of time in here, too. I went over to the little alcove opposite the aquarium and sat down on the velvet bench. I closed my eyes and the image of Mrs. Harwick’s face came into view. There was so much sorrow in her vacant stare that I could barely take it. She must have been so terrified when she woke up that morning in Tampa and realized that her husband wasn’t lying in bed next to her. I hoped someone had been with her when she was told what had happened. The thought of her sitting alone in a hotel room to hear that news was just too terrible to think about. And now it was beginning to look like Detective McKenzie might have been right about Becca, that she was on drugs.

That’s when it finally dawned on me.

Becca had said that Mr. and Mrs. Harwick had basically disowned August for getting mixed up with drugs, and that he’d been forced to get a job at the golf club. That was one of the main reasons she’d been afraid to talk to her parents: She was worried they’d cut her off, too. And who could blame her? If I’d had that kind of money growing up, I don’t think I’d be too happy about losing it either.

Now, though, I remembered something August said the first day I met him. He had just searched through the house and found Charlotte out on the lanai. We were walking up the driveway together, and when we passed his car he said, “How do you like my new wheels?” If he’d been cut off financially from his parents, forced to get some menial job at a golf course, how in the world could he have afforded to buy a brand-new, expensive-looking sports car? Where would he have gotten the money for something like that?

It was simple. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before.

August wasn’t “mixed up” in drugs. He was dealing them, and Becca knew it. Detective McKenzie had mentioned Becca had taken something from her brother’s room. Was it possible Becca had found his stash of money and drugs and stolen it?

Then there was the question of that packet of letters that Kenny supposedly gave Mr. Harwick. Where was it? And if it wasn’t hidden in the house, who had taken it?

My brain was starting to hurt. I rubbed my hands over my eyes and took a deep breath. Somehow I’d done it again. I’d gotten all mixed up in something that was none of my business. I had told myself that it was none of my business a hundred times, but somehow that didn’t matter. I just kept getting sucked in.

I looked up at the fish tank. The mermaid was sitting inside her simple, peaceful little world with that same insipid look in her eyes and stupid smirk painted on her face. As I was about to mutter something disparaging about her ridiculously exaggerated boobs, I stopped myself. Wait a minute, I thought. This mermaid is trying to tell you something.

She was gazing serenely out one of the bathroom windows, as though she was mesmerized by how the sun was glittering through it and sending little prisms of color reflecting around the room, as though she was being transported to some magical, far-off land.