Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

Without waiting for them, I turned and moved rapidly toward the media room.

Steven said, “What are you doing, Ms. Hemingway?”

“Elvis has stashed a paper in one of the condos on the climbing tree.”

“Excuse me?”

The outraged disdain in his voice was palpable. It said he was an important man with an important case to solve and I was wasting his time looking for a scrap of paper a cat had hidden.

I whirled so fast that Jancey jerked her end of the ladder and bumped it against the wall.

I said, “You know, I’ve had it with you guys! You waltz in here with your leather jacket and your beard thing, and you let me think you’re a homicide detective when you’re really an FBI agent but you’re just on loan as an FBI agent because you’re really with Interpol, and you investigated us and you questioned us and you warned us that we’re in danger, and in the meantime I’m the one who got worked over with a sap and I’m the one who was stalked by Briana, and you and your leather jacket didn’t do a damn thing to protect me. Now I’m here to solve your case for you and you have the unmitigated audacity to question what I’m doing! Talk about a weenie thinking it’s a salami! Please, please, please just shut the hell up and let me get the evidence you need so the rest of us can get on with our lives!”

His green eyes met mine, and a spark of humor took the place of outrage. “I beg your pardon. Please show me the evidence.”

I knew he meant it as an apology, but I didn’t forgive him. I was tired of the whole thing. I wanted to be done with Briana and her sordid enterprise.

In the media room, the humans clustered together and watched me scan the places the cats used for hiding or sleeping. The cat condos were at different levels on the climbing tree, all covered in soft fuzzy fabric, each a different size and color. They looked a bit like a cluster of colorful houses clinging to a Mediterranean hillside.

Without speaking, I motioned to Cupcake to bring the ladder forward. He obeyed as silently as I had flapped my hand. I had become the imperious director of a play, and all the stagehands moved at my command. I pointed to the spot where I wanted the ladder set, and Cupcake carefully spread its legs and made sure it was secure for me to climb.

Figuring I’d begin with the easiest ones, I had chosen a fat turquoise condo on a lower limb of the tree. I could get to it by climbing only four or five rungs of the ladder. When I looked inside, I saw a felt mouse and a single strand of heavy string. I climbed down and motioned Cupcake to move the ladder. The next short tube was ruby red. It must have been a favorite spot of Lucy’s, because it held a nice supply of white cat hair. Otherwise, it was completely empty. I pointed at another wide tube, Cupcake repositioned the ladder, and I climbed up again. This time I found paper, but it was a grocery store receipt, not the paper I wanted.

Jancey and Steven stood silently watching while Cupcake and I went through our routine. I motioned where I wanted the ladder, he moved it, I climbed up and peered inside a condo, then climbed down, and we repeated the whole process with another tube.

Twenty feet above us, Elvis and Lucy watched from their racetrack at the ceiling. The track had padded sides to keep them from accidentally slipping off while they bounded after each other, so we could only see their heads and wide eyes looking down at us. Maybe it was my imagination, but they seemed to be offended that I was snooping into their napping and hiding places. I didn’t blame them.

I prayed that Elvis hadn’t dropped the list on the racetrack. Getting up that high and inspecting every foot of the track would take people with more experience and taller ladders than I had.

I was mentally thumbing through the names of painters and paperhangers I knew when I climbed to the top rung of the ladder and looked into a bright orange tube. A crumpled slip of thin paper lay pushed against one side, as if a cat had napped with the paper against his back. Holding my breath, I reached inside and pulled the paper out. About six inches long and four inches wide, it had been folded and stuffed in a handbag, held between a cat’s teeth, laid upon, and pushed between a cat’s body and the side of the tube. It held the imprint of feline incisors, and the ink was blurred by cat spit, but the names, addresses, and phone numbers were legible. I recognized some of the names of upscale stores where wealthy tourists shop when they come to southwest Florida.

I looked up at Elvis, who was fixing me with the steely-eyed look of a department store detective about to make an arrest.

“Sorry, Elvis.”

Clutching the list with the same determination with which Elvis had held it, I climbed down the ladder. I held the paper out to Steven.

“These are Briana’s local contacts. I’m sure she has a similar list for other cities, but this is the one she and her rivals thought I had. She had it in her handbag when she broke in here to leave the Nikes on the bed. The cat got it and took it up to his hiding place on the climbing tree. Briana’s former boyfriend gave the list to her before he went to prison. His partners saw that as a betrayal, so they had him killed. Their security people knocked me out because they thought I had the list.”

Steven took the paper and gave it a cursory glance. “How do you know this?”

“Briana came in one of the houses where I was pet sitting. She offered to cut me in on her business because she thought I had the list of merchant names. She had the counterfeit merchandise, so she thought we could be partners. I told her I had made multiple copies of the list and that I would make them public if anybody leaned on me.”

He nodded as if he approved. I didn’t care.

I said, “This has to stop, Steven, and it has to stop now. The stalking, the assaults, the home intrusions. You’re the law enforcement officer here, not me. So stop all this.”

Steven opened a small notebook, carefully laid the list of names inside it, and closed it.

“Two details still to be answered, Ms. Hemingway: Why the Nikes on the bed, and who killed the woman?”

“Like I said, Steven, it’s your job to figure those things out, not ours. Briana told me the woman was an FBI agent. I assume that means your people were already watching Briana before the murder.”

Cupcake said, “They must not have been watching very well.”

Steven flushed, and I realized that humiliation was part of the reason the FBI hadn’t released the murdered agent’s name. Cupcake was right. They hadn’t protected one of their own, and she’d been murdered.

Steven said, “Ms. Hemingway, did Briana say anything about the murder?”

“She claims she doesn’t know who did it. I didn’t press her on it.”

“So how did your meeting end?”

“I told her to leave me alone, and to leave Cupcake and Jancey alone.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. She left, and I finished my rounds and came here.”

“How did you know where you’d find the list?”

I shrugged. “I know Elvis. He has a paper fetish.”

He looked as if he doubted that a cat could have a fetish of any kind but wisely kept quiet about it. He thanked me for giving him the list, apologized to Cupcake and Jancey for the inconvenience they’d endured, and went off in his nondescript brown sedan to do FBI things.

Cupcake and Jancey and I said exhausted good-byes, and I went off in my Bronco to find solace in my apartment. I didn’t see them do it, but I’d bet good money that Elvis and Lucy bounded down to snuggle into their favorite roosts on the climbing tree. Whether you’re a cat or a human, nothing makes you feel as safe as the comfort of a soft enclosure.