Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

My face flamed again and I pressed my lips together. I had seen the blood, and Morgan had given a murder code, not a suicide code. So Briana had been either shot or cut. But I was a former deputy, and I knew better than to ask Morgan which it had been. In the first place, the department wouldn’t give any information until after the medical examiner had signed off on the body. In the second place, my presence would automatically make me one of the suspects.

Morgan and Beene strode down a walk leading to the back of the house, probably looking for signs of forcible entry. I walked to my Bronco and leaned on the back bumper. I pulled out my cell phone and called Cupcake again.

He answered on the first ring. “Dixie, did they get her out?”

I cleared my throat. “Cupcake, I hate to tell you this, but the woman is dead.”

“What do you mean, dead?”

“I mean dead dead, as in no longer living. While I called you and nine-one-one and waited for the deputies to get here, somebody came in and killed her.”

A beat or two went by. “Dixie, if this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

I heard Jancey in the distance. “Is that Dixie? Did she get rid of that woman?”

I said, “It’s no joke, Cupcake. I thought somebody was in the house with her because I heard a noise, but what I heard must have been a killer entering the house. I’m here with a couple of deputies waiting for the crime-scene people. I imagine I’ll be one of the suspects.”

“Good God, Dixie, why would they suspect you?”

“Because I was here.”

He heaved a great sigh, as if I had just confirmed some awful suspicion he’d long held. “Are the cats okay?”

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t see them, but they’re probably hiding. I won’t know anything until the crime-scene investigators get here.”

“I think we’d better come home now.”

“Probably.”

We promised each other we’d stay in touch, and I turned off my phone.

Cupcake wanted to come home because he was concerned about his cats and his house, and because he was creeped out at learning that a woman who’d been stalking him had been murdered. He didn’t realize yet that he would also be on a list of suspects. Criminal investigators know that most murders are personal, so if a stalker gets murdered in the home of a famous person, that famous person is going to be suspected of having something to do with it even if he was in another country when the murder took place.

Morgan and Beene were still investigating the back and sides of the house when several vehicles pulled into the driveway behind my Bronco. An ambulance with two EMTs, an unmarked officer’s car driven by Sergeant Woodrow Owens, and a green and white deputy’s vehicle with two deputies I didn’t know. I straightened up when I saw Sergeant Owens. Owens is a tall, lanky African American with basset eyes and a slow drawl that masks one of the quickest minds in the universe. I was in his unit when I was a deputy, so standing up straight was an instinctive reflex because Owens didn’t brook any lazy-ass slouching. He had also been the officer who had come in person to tell me my husband and little girl were dead. I hadn’t stood up straight then, but buckled like a felled tree. Owens had held me tenderly as a mother.

He said, “Dixie? What’s the story?”

“I’m cat sitting for Mr. and Mrs. Trillin.”

Before he could ask what I knew he would ask, I said, “Yes, that’s Cupcake Trillin. His wife is Jancey Trillin. They’re in Italy. I went inside the house and found a woman named Briana in there. She claimed to be Cupcake’s wife, but I knew that wasn’t true, and she seemed mentally unhinged, so I came outside and called Cupcake to make sure she didn’t have permission to be in his house. He said he’d never heard of her, so I called nine-one-one, and Deputy Morgan came with another deputy named Beene from Community Policing. They went inside and found the woman dead. I saw blood, so she was either shot or stabbed. I didn’t hear a gunshot while I waited.”

“Where are the deputies now?”

Just as he asked, Morgan and Beene rounded the far corner of the house. When they saw the cars and officers, they broke into a trot and joined me and Owens.

Morgan said, “We checked all the outside doors and windows. Didn’t see any sign of forcible entry.”

Owens turned to the gathered deputies and EMTs and tilted his head toward the house. “Let’s go in.”

I said, “Don’t let the cats out.”

Every head turned to give me an incredulous gape.

I shrugged. “Sorry, but my job is to take care of the two cats in the house. If you’d like, I can take them to a boarding place so they won’t be in your way.”

They all exchanged looks, imagining going about their jobs while two cats climbed over a dead body and tracked through blood.

Owens said, “Okay, come in and get them.”

I said, “I’ll get carrying cases,” and loped off to the Bronco for two folding cardboard cat carriers.

The officers waited until I was in line, then moved forward with Owens in the lead. He and the EMTs went straight to the woman’s body, while the other deputies fanned out to search the house. I pretended to look for cats behind the sofas and chairs, but I was pretty sure that I would find Elvis and Lucy in the media room in their overhead runway or at the top of their fancy climbing tree. If they’d been scared by strangers in the house, they would have climbed the tree for safety. If they hadn’t even known strangers were there, they would be up the tree anyway because it was their favorite place.

Owens stood up from his stooped position over the woman’s body. “Dixie, can you identify her?”

“I’ve only seen her once.”

“That’s more than anybody else has seen her. Just take a look and tell us if she’s the same woman who introduced herself as … what did you say her name was?”

“Briana. Officer Beene has heard of her. She’s a famous model, just uses the one name.”

“Okay, is this dead woman the same woman who said her name was Briana?”

The EMTs stood up and backed away so I could get a clear view, and I crossed the room. Suddenly shy in the presence of death, I looked at the body before I looked at her face. Something seemed wrong. The woman had a stocky build, for one thing, not long and limber the way Briana had been. She was no longer nude under a big printed shirt but wore utilitarian khaki slacks and a bloodstained white shirt. She wore shoes as well, sensible low-heeled and laced-up leather. Not the kind of clothes I expected a famous model to wear. When I let my gaze travel upward, I saw dark, short-cropped hair. I did not allow myself to linger over the grinning slit in the woman’s throat.

I felt off balance, as if somebody was playing a trick on me.

I said, “That’s not the woman who was here earlier.”

Owens said, “You sure?”

“Positive. Briana was thin and had long red hair. It’s not the same woman. I’ve never seen this woman before.”

I dared to scan her body again. Her arms were flung out as if she’d been trying to catch herself as she fell. Her hands were tanned, with square palms and sturdy fingers.

I said, “Briana had very white skin. Like it never was in the sun.”

Owens ran his own plate-sized hand over his face. “Damn.”

We all stood for a moment out of an unspoken need to put a space in the time between acknowledging death and attending to it. I moved first.

“Is it okay if I go through the house to get the cats?”

The sergeant’s skinny chest rose, taking in air before he moved on to the grisly business at hand. “Don’t touch anything. If you see anything you haven’t seen before, let me know.”