Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

Houses have signature odors as distinctive as a human’s individual scent. I couldn’t have accurately described the unique breath of the Trillins’ house, but I knew it well enough to detect a change in it.

At about the same instant I realized an intruder was in the house, a willowy woman with skim-milky skin stepped from the living room into the foyer. Her long titian hair was lit by subtle hues that only occur on very small children and women with expensive colorists. She wore bright scarlet lipstick, and her fingernails and toenails were the same bright red. Except for an oversized, brightly printed man’s shirt hanging unbuttoned from her narrow shoulders, she was naked.

I tried not to look, but it’s not every day you run into a naked woman with a Brazilian wax job in the shape of a valentine heart. The pubic heart was red like her hair, which made the old naughty doggerel run through my head: Mix another batch and dye your snatch to match!

She gave me a gracious, hostessy smile and extended a limp hand as if she expected me to cross the foyer and shake it.

In a husky, seductive voice, she said, “I’m Briana.”

Under the terms of my contract with my clients, I make it clear that I need the names of all the people who have permission to come in while they’re gone. Otherwise, if I find anybody in the house, I’ll take them as unlawful intruders and act accordingly.

I said, “I can’t let you stay here without the owner’s permission.”

Her smile grew more serene. “You don’t understand. I’m Cupcake’s wife.”

I said, “That will come as a surprise to the wife with him right now.”

Her eyes clouded in momentary confusion. “Excuse me?”

My throat tightened. The woman seemed to really believe what she’d said.

From somewhere in the house, a faint noise sounded—the click a refrigerator door makes when it’s surreptitiously closed, maybe, or the snick! from unlocking a glass slider to a lanai.

Without another word, I stepped backward and pulled the door shut behind me. Outside, I took out my cell phone to call the cops, and then hesitated. Ordinary people can have intruders in their house and it never makes the papers. Cupcake was famous, and reporters would salivate at a report of a naked woman in his house while he and his wife were away.

Instead of dialing 911, I called Cupcake.

Cupcake answered with a note of concern in his voice. “Dixie?”

For some reason, I was surprised that caller ID worked all the way across the Atlantic.

I said, “There’s a woman in your house. She says her name is Briana. I think somebody else may be in there, too.”

Cupcake said, “Oh, ma-a-a-an .”

He sounded like a kid learning his ball game has been called off.

He lowered the phone to yell at his wife. “Jancey, it’s Dixie. There’s another woman. This one broke into the house.”

Jancey took the phone. “She’s in our house ?”

I said, “I’m afraid so.”

Cupcake said something too muffled for me to hear, and Jancey quit talking to me to talk to him.

“Are you kidding me? She’s in our house, Cupcake! In our shower! Sleeping in our bed! And you want to protect her?”

I grinned. Cupcake’s tender heart sometimes forces Jancey to play the heavy.

There were some more muffled sounds, probably Cupcake wresting the phone from her.

He said, “Those women that stalk us have to be some kind of sick. I feel sorry for them.”

Jancey yelled, “They stalk Cupcake, not me!”

Cupcake sighed. “Call the police, but try to get them to commit her or put her in a hospital or something.”

I said, “She acted like she knew you. Do you know anybody named Briana?”

“Never heard of her.”

Jancey got on the phone again. “Dixie, get that woman out of my house. Are the cats okay?”

“I haven’t seen them yet. I came outside to call you as soon as she told me she was Cupcake’s wife.”

“She said what ? Oh my God!”

I could have slapped myself for telling her that. What woman wants to hear that another woman is going around claiming her husband? But it was done, and I couldn’t take it back. At least I hadn’t told about the woman being naked, or about the huge shirt she’d worn. I was pretty sure the shirt was one of Cupcake’s.

I hurried to tell Jancey I would have the woman taken away, got off the line, and called 911.

“I’m a pet sitter, and I just walked in on an intruder in a client’s house. A woman. She seemed mentally disturbed and should be handled with care. There may be another person in the house as well.”

I gave the address, but when the dispatcher asked for the homeowner’s name, I tried to distract her.

“It’s a gated community. Whoever comes will have to use a code to get in. I guess they could use mine.”

Crisply, the dispatcher said, “No problem, ma’am. We have our own code. A deputy will be there shortly.”

I grinned and shut off the phone. I knew about the bar code affixed to the side of every Sarasota County emergency and law enforcement vehicle. As the vehicle approaches the gate, an electronic reader scans the code and automatically opens the gate.

I also knew that reporters with police scanners listened to 911 calls. I doubted that any of them knew Cupcake’s address, and I didn’t think they’d go to the effort of looking up the address I’d given the dispatcher. At least I hoped they wouldn’t. I hoped they’d yawn and wait for something juicier than a cat sitter calling about an intruder. If the stars were in the right alignment for Cupcake, the woman in his house would be hustled off without the world ever knowing she’d been there.

I waited in the Bronco, imagining Briana inside the house wondering why I was still there. Or maybe she wasn’t. She had seemed so spaced out that she might have forgotten me as soon as I left. Cupcake was right, the woman was mentally ill. Jancey was probably right, too. The woman had probably been in their bed and in their shower.

Deputy Jesse Morgan and an unsworn female deputy from the Community Policing unit arrived in separate cars, both parking behind me in the driveway and walking toward me with the near swagger that uniforms give both men and women. I didn’t know the woman, but Morgan and I had met a few times in situations I didn’t want to remember. I was never sure if he thought I was a total kook or if he thought I just had really bad luck.

Morgan is one of Siesta Key’s sworn deputies, meaning he carries a gun. He’s lean, with sharp cheekbones and knuckles, and hair trimmed so short as to be almost nonexistent. He wears dark mirrored shades that hide any emotion in his eyes, but one ear sports a small diamond stud. I’m not sure what that diamond says, but it’s about the only thing about Morgan that indicates a personal life outside the sheriff’s department. The Key has so little true crime that most of our law enforcement is done by the unsworn deputies of the Community Policing unit, like the woman with him. Community Police officers wear dark green shorts and white knit shirts. Except for a gun, their belts bristle with the same equipment used by the sworn deputies.

Morgan greeted me with the halfhearted enthusiasm with which a dog greets a vet wearing rubber gloves and holding a syringe. Civil, but pretty sure he’s not going to like what’s coming. He introduced Deputy Clara Beene, and she and I did a brief handshake. Beene seemed more intrigued by the house and grounds than by me, so I figured she had never heard of me. Like I said, my fame is very limited.

I said, “I’m taking care of two cats that live here. When I went in, I found a woman in the house. She claimed to be the wife of the owner, but I know she’s not. I think somebody else was in there, too. I came out and called the owners. They don’t know who the woman is. They think she must be mentally disturbed, and they asked for her to be committed to a hospital or something instead of put in jail.”