Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

Mr. Harwick said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s that way with everyone.”

He scooped Charlotte up in his arms and cooed to her, “And the B stands for baby, because that’s what she is, my baby.”

I had to chuckle at the sight of a grown man in a business suit babbling like a little girl at a fluffy Siamese cat. Animals have an uncanny way of bringing out the sweet side of even the most hard-edged customer.

Mrs. Harwick shuddered like a minister finding a roach clip in the collection plate. “That cat is not your baby.”

Charlotte chose that moment to hiss again. She squirmed out of Mr. Harwick’s arms and ran into the kitchen without so much as a “nice to meet you.” I feel that way myself sometimes, so I didn’t take offense.

“Bit of an attitude problem,” Mr. Harwick said. “I’ll show you where we keep her food.”

The first thing I noticed about the kitchen was that it was twice the size of my entire apartment. There was a center island as big as the king-sized bed upstairs, made out of what looked like one solid piece of snow white marble. Dangling over it was a pair of crystal chandeliers, these twice the size of the one in the bathroom, and there were two ovens set side by side in the wall. I barely know what to do with one oven, but apparently the Harwicks needed two.

As I looked around the kitchen, making small sounds of delight like I was at a fireworks display, I realized there were actually two of everything: two refrigerators, two ovens, even two dishwashers. It was the Noah’s Ark of kitchens. At one end of the island were two stainless-steel sinks, and dozens of gleaming copper pots of all shapes and sizes were hanging everywhere.

“My brother is a cook,” I gushed. “He’d love your kitchen.”

“Well, Tina here is the chef in the family,” Mr. Harwick said as he pulled up a stool and spread several official-looking files across the island. “Although these days she only uses the kitchen for special occasions.”

I said, “Special occasions, you mean like holidays?” I wondered if there wasn’t another kitchen somewhere that Mrs. Harwick used for nonspecial occasions.

“No,” Mr. Harwick said, “I mean like when the pool boy is hungry.”

He pushed one of the files toward me. “This is the emergency file. It has numbers for my office and my secretary’s home number, along with the telephone number and address of the hotel where we’ll be staying and my personal cell phone number. You’ll find contact numbers for the alarm company, the housekeepers, the plumber, the electrician, and so forth. Of course, if there’s anything wrong, you’ll call me directly first.”

I wondered why, if I was supposed to call him first, he wanted to give me all this information, but I could tell Mr. Harwick was the kind of man that liked to cover all his bases. I could appreciate that kind of thoroughness. In my police training, I’d been taught to anticipate danger before it happens, and that comes in handy every once in a while. In fact, it’s not a bad way to operate in any situation. In Mr. Harwick’s case, though, it did seem a little over the top.

“This is Charlotte’s file. It has a copy of her medical history and all her records, as well as the numbers of her veterinarian, her backup veterinarian, and the emergency animal hospital. Her eating schedule is there, too, just in case you forget, along with a list of all her vitamins and supplements.”

He stood up and crossed over to a wall of cabinets, opening one to reveal row upon row of cans and boxes of cat food.

He said, “It’s her choice. She eats both wet and dry. She’ll let you know what she wants. And there’s yogurt in the refrigerator. She gets one teaspoon diluted in warm water mixed in with every meal. Please don’t forget that, otherwise her irritable bowel syndrome kicks in. Everything you need to know is in the file, except for the alarm code. You should write that down.”

I reached for my backpack. Mrs. Harwick had moved out to the living room just off the kitchen, and I could see her through the arched doorway, looking at the pool just outside a pair of large sliding glass doors. I opened my pack and took out the notebook I keep with information on all my pet clients and any medications they take or special dietary requirements. I even make a note of their favorite toys and where they like to hide.

Mr. Harwick was pleased. “Ah, a fellow note taker, I see.”

I said, “Mr. Harwick, I run my pet-sitting business with the same professional attention to detail that I devoted to being a police officer. I always take notes and keep records of everything I do. That comes in handy sometimes.”

“I bet it does.”

“I can assure you that Charlotte and Mrs. Harwick’s aquarium will be in good hands while you’re away.”

He snorted. “Oh, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the fish. But you should write down the alarm code. It’s my wife’s birthday: ten nineteen.”

“Ten nineteen,” I repeated as I wrote in my notebook.

“Nineteen is the day, by the way, not the year.”

“Very funny,” Mrs. Harwick said.

She was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen now, and for the first time I noticed she was really quite beautiful. With one hand resting on the side of her neck, she looked like she was posing for the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. She had silver hair piled casually on top of her head, and her body was long and graceful like a dancer’s. I said a little silent prayer that I looked half as good as she did when I was her age.

I wasn’t sure if Mr. Harwick’s teasing banter was just a game they played—you can never really know what goes on in the vast world of two people in love—but she seemed genuinely hurt by his joke. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye, and I could tell she was trying to come up with some stinging retort. Mr. Harwick, on the other hand, seemed to barely notice her.

He said, “The password is Tiger. Every window on both floors is tied into the system as well, so if you open anything while you’re here you have to make sure you close it before you go. The lanai is wired, too. We keep the alarm on at all times when we’re not here. You should do the same. The only people that know the code and the password are the housekeeper and the pool man. And the kids, of course.”

“The kids?”

“Becca and August, but I doubt you’ll see them very often.”

“Oh, they live here?”

“They do,” he said, “but Becca’s started her freshman year at college, and August just got a job at the golf club, so they won’t be in your way.”

I wrote both their names down in my notebook and tried not to look mystified as to why Becca and August couldn’t just take care of the pets themselves.

“You may be wondering what the hell we need you for when we have two grown, perfectly capable adults living in our house.”

“Oh, no.” I blushed. “I completely understand.”

“Good,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain it to me one day. They came as a package deal with Mrs. Harwick, so my DNA’s got absolutely nothing to do with it.” He handed me the files. “The pool boy’s name is Kenny Newman. His number is there should you need him.”

A little too excitedly, I said, “Oh, I know Kenny! I mean, I used to look after his cat.”

I didn’t say it, but Kenny also worked for me sometimes as an overnight dog sitter. We had met when he hired me to take care of his elderly orange tabby, Mister T, who was a very sweet old guy. I was the first person Kenny called when Mister T died, and we had been friends ever since.

And now I knew exactly why Mrs. Harwick might think it was a special occasion to whip up a snack if the pool man was hungry. Kenny looked like he fell off the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. He was tall and broad shouldered, with long sandy-blond hair and eyelashes any woman would kill for. A bit scruffy, perhaps, and a little rough around the edges, but that only made him even more irresistible to women. He lived in a rickety old houseboat behind Hoppie’s Restaurant on the south end of the Key. In exchange for doing odd jobs around the place, Hoppie let him live on the boat for free. The occasional dog-sitting gig at night was perfect for him—it provided a comfortable bed and a decent shower every once in a while. He parked his small truck in the client’s driveway, which was a good signal to would-be burglars that somebody was home. It was great for me because he provided company for the dogs at night, and he fed and walked them before he left in the morning, saving me a trip.