Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

When the boat tilted slowly to the starboard side there was no doubt. Someone had stepped on board.

My heart started to pound so hard that for a moment I thought I might have a heart attack. I heard footsteps moving slowly across the upper deck as I glanced over at the port side window, but all I could see were tiny reflections of light in the falling rain.

The footsteps stopped for a moment but then crossed directly over my head. There was another pause, and then I knew someone was slowly descending the steps. A shadow appeared in the narrow strip of light under the cabin door directly in front of me.

I moved my hand to the side and slid it down between the cushions of the armchair. It came to rest on the barrel of my Smith & Wesson .38 pistol. I could feel its cold, hard steel on the tips of my fingers.

Closing my eyes again, I took a deep breath. This wasn’t exactly the craziest thing I had ever done, but it was definitely right up there in the top ten. For some reason, though, I felt okay. I thought to myself, No matter what happens, I’ve done the right thing.

I heard the cabin door swing open, and I raised my eyes.

Standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light shining down from the dock, was Mrs. Harwick.

She didn’t see me at first. She fumbled around in the outer pocket of her shoulder bag and then pulled out a small yellow flashlight. When she flicked it on, the light pointed directly at my face. She jumped back, and her hand flew up to her mouth, stifling a scream.

I said, “Mrs. Harwick, it’s Dixie.”

“Oh God! Dixie, you scared me to death. What are you doing here?”

I said, “I brought the letters here to hide them. Didn’t August tell you?”

She put her hand over her heart and tried to regain her breath. “He did. That’s why I’m here.”

“But I told August I would give them to the police in the morning.”

She said, “I know, Dixie, but I came to get them. When the police read those letters, they’ll know why Kenny Newman killed my husband. He wanted revenge, and he wanted money. But I’m worried about you. They already think you and Kenny are lovers. They’ll think you were involved somehow, and I don’t want that. I should hand them over myself.”

I said, “You think it was Kenny?”

She nodded. “I do. I’m sure of it.”

I leaned over and pulled the package out of my backpack and handed it to her.

She held it to her chest. “I’m going to take this to the police right now. The sooner they have it, the better. In the meantime, you should go home. You look like you could use a drink, and it’s late. I don’t think we’re safe here.”

As she turned I said, “Mrs. Harwick. Do you want me to bring Charlotte back home now?”

“Oh, Dixie, I’m really not much of a cat person. Maybe your cat kennel could find a good home for her?”

I nodded mutely. I had more or less expected her to say that, but it still made me a little sad to hear it out loud. Charlotte had really been Mr. Harwick’s cat.

She turned toward the steps, but I stopped her again. “And you knew your husband was Kenny’s father?”

She sighed and looked back at me. “I did. He never told me, but I figured it out long ago.”

I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest, and for a second I worried she would actually hear it. I said, “I remember something you told me the first time we ever met. We had walked out to my car, and you were telling me about checking the water in the fish tank. Do you remember? You said fish seem like such strong creatures, but given just the slightest chemical imbalance, they can wind up dead at the bottom of the tank.”

She had an exasperated look on her face. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because when I found that little plastic bottle of butorphanol, which I’m sure has your fingerprints on it, I wondered if you hadn’t planned on killing your husband for a long time.”

Her eyes turned to narrow slits. “How dare you. How dare you accuse me of such a thing. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You found your son’s supply of butorphanol, and you took some of it. That’s what he meant when he accused Becca of stealing something from his room.”

Mrs. Harwick leaned against the doorway of the cabin, and I was reminded of that first day I met her, when she stood with her arm on the back of her neck in the doorway of the living room and looked so beautiful and elegant.

“Oh, my,” she said. “You’re such a smart girl, aren’t you? And then what happened?”

I could feel myself trembling, but I held on to the arms of the chair. I didn’t want her to see how terrified I was. “I think Mr. Harwick did tell you he was Kenny’s father. In fact, I think he even told you he was going home to meet with Kenny the night he died, and I think you went home with him. You must have hid upstairs and listened. You heard their entire conversation. You heard your husband say he wanted to give his fortune to Kenny. You heard him say his stepchildren were useless. Then, after Kenny left, you came downstairs and had a drink with your husband. I imagine you might have been arguing about Kenny. At some point, when he wasn’t looking, you poured that vial of butorphanol into his glass.”

Mrs. Harwick laughed incredulously. “This is ridiculous. What are you even saying?”

“Butorphanol is a narcotic. It acts very quickly. You must have led your husband out to the lanai. Once the drug took effect, either he fell into the pool or you rolled him in.”

“And why in the world would I do that?”

“Because you didn’t want to share his money. Because you were looking out for your own children.”

She shook her head. “You stupid woman. I was in Tampa that night.”

I said, “That’s what I thought, too, until I saw that receipt, the one in the bag with the butorphanol. The receipt was for seventy-nine dollars, which is probably about what a taxi would cost from Sarasota to Tampa.”

She shook her head. “You’re crazy. You have no idea what happened.”

I kept my voice level. “Mrs. Harwick, the taxi driver wrote an address on that receipt. I recognized it from the files your husband gave me with your contact information. It was the address of the hotel you stayed at with your husband in Tampa. 1146 Del Rio Way.”

A smile played across her lips. “You certainly have it all figured out, don’t you?”

I said, “No, not everything. There’s some kind of code written at the bottom of the receipt. It says ‘230A1P.’ I didn’t know what that meant at first, but I knew it wouldn’t be too hard for the police to talk to the taxi company and get their records, especially since it’s all computerized these days. If I was a taxi driver, I think I’d definitely remember driving a beautiful older woman from Sarasota to Tampa in the middle of the night. Say around 2:30 A.M., and I think ‘1P’ stands for ‘one passenger.’”

She put her hand on the clasp of her shoulder bag, and I immediately had the feeling that August wasn’t the only one in the family that carried a gun.

She said, “Dixie, I’m afraid you’re going to be very sorry you ever met me.”

I said, “Mrs. Harwick, you should know that when I heard your car drive up just now, I called the police. They’ll be here any minute.”

She was still holding the packet to her chest. She glanced around the room. I wondered if she wasn’t thinking about running, but then she casually reached over and dropped the packet into the wood-burning stove. The flames leaped up around it, and the cabin filled with the smell of burning plastic.

She turned to me calmly and said, “When the police arrive, I’m going to tell them that you and your lover, Kenny Newman, called me here tonight to blackmail me. I’m going to tell them that you first tried to blackmail my husband. You threatened to expose his true identity. When he wouldn’t cooperate, you drugged him and pushed him into the pool. I’ll tell them you told me to take a taxi back to Tampa or you’d kill me, too, and that if I ever breathed a word of what happened that night, you’d kill both my children.”