Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

Of course they would. I felt stupid for not remembering that. I closed my eyes. My leg didn’t hurt at all.

Steven said, “So Lena was running at you with a needle and a knife. Then what happened?”

I opened my eyes. “I had this branch in my hand, and it knocked the needle out of her hand.”

“A branch?”

I closed my eyes. I was very sleepy. “It had fallen from the oak tree.”

“Ms. Hemingway, try to stay with me, and I’ll get out of your hair forever.”

I opened my eyes. “Lena and I fought. I kicked at her knife, and she cut me. I knocked the knife out of her hand, and I got to it before she did, but she was choking me. Then Peter came and pulled her off me. He shot her in the head.” To my total surprise, I began to sob. “Her head blew up, brains and bone all over the place.”

Guidry leaped to hand me a tissue, and Michael said, “I think she’s talked enough.”

Steven said, “What about Briana?”

“Lena had already killed Briana before I got home. I guess they both thought I had a copy of the list in my apartment.”

Steven said, “Did Peter kill Lena in self-defense?”

While I tried to get my brain to sift through all the implications of the question, Guidry said, “This is not a court of law. She’s given you everything you need to know.”

He said it in his homicide-detective voice, and Steven dipped his chin a fraction in silent acknowledgement of Guidry’s knowledge and experience.

Steven said, “Okay, I’ll leave you for now. I hope you have a speedy recovery.”

He left without saying good-bye to the men in the room. They all watched him go with narrowed eyes showing their disdain for him. As far as they were concerned, he was responsible for my cut leg.

I felt a surge of alarm and tried to sit up, sending a current of pain to my foot.

“My pets! I have to get somebody to run with Billy Elliot and take care of the cats!”

Guidry said, “I’ve already taken care of that. While you were in surgery, I called all the owners and explained the situation. They all said they had backup plans, and for you not to worry. Tom Hale said that his girlfriend would run with Billy Elliot until you’re back on the job.”

“When will that be?”

They looked uncomfortable, Paco and Guidry turning to Michael to answer the question.

“The doc says you’ll need about six weeks to recover. You’ll be able to get around in a walking cast sooner than that, but you had a deep cut, and you have to give it time to heal.”

I hit the morphine button and closed my eyes.

I heard Paco whisper something, and Michael spoke again.

“Okay, kid, Paco and I are going to go home now. Our place is swarming with cops, and Ella’s probably freaking out. Don’t worry about anything. Everything is going to work out great. We’ll clean that stain on your porch, and when you come home everything will be absolutely normal. Including you.”

He leaned close and kissed my forehead. “Love you, kid.”

Paco did the same, adding a whispered, “Don’t get amorous with Guidry in this bed. It’s too narrow. You’d fall out and break your other foot.”

I smiled weakly, but I didn’t think anything would ever seem funny again.

I heard the door close, then heard Guidry drag a chair close to the bed.

With my eyes still closed, I said, “Where did you come from?”

“After we talked on the phone, I had a stroke of good sense and drove to the airport. Hopped the next flight out and got to SRQ before sunset. Rented a car and drove to your place expecting to surprise you. Instead, I found EMTs loading you into an ambulance, a couple of dead bodies, and Sergeant Owens Mirandizing a weeping guy in handcuffs. I grabbed your backpack from your Bronco, because I knew you kept your phone and your client records in it, and followed the ambulance to the hospital. I still don’t know who all those dead people were, or what their connection was to you.”

“It was Cupcake’s cat.”

“What?”

“Cupcake’s cat took a paper that Briana dropped when she left a pair of Nikes on his bed, and everybody thought I found it.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you. Go to sleep.”

“Why did you come?”

Even in my drugged state, I knew he took a long time to answer.

“We’ll talk when you’re awake.”

My eyelids flew open. “I’m awake now.”

Guidry eased his butt down on the side of the bed and took my hand. “I wanted to see you.”

I came more alert. “Why now?”

He took a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure your decision not to come to New Orleans was final.”

“You’ve met somebody.”

“It’s not serious.”

“But it could become serious.”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Ethan Crane asked me out.”

Guidry squeezed my hand. “We are who we are, Dixie.”

I punched the morphine button and closed my eyes.

With my voice slurred and drowsy, I said, “I remember a novel set in India about a pair of star-crossed lovers. The woman in the story said, We are peacock and tiger. I guess we’re like that, too.”

“Are you saying I’m a peacock?”

I giggled. “Well, you’re the one with the fancy clothes. Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

“My older sister is the buyer for the men’s department at Nordstrom’s in Houston. She gives them to me.”

“I hope she makes sure they’re not fakes.”

I drifted to sleep for a minute or an hour, and Guidry touched my shoulder.

“Dixie? I have to catch a flight back home. Are we okay?”

“You know what I’m scared of? I’m scared one day I’ll want to be with you and you’ll be settled down with some other woman and not want me.”

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I’ll always love you. Be happy.”

He left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I watched his broad back and felt tears slip down my face. But I did not call him back.

I hit the morphine button again and let drugs carry me into oblivion.

23

At Briana’s memorial service, Cupcake pushed me in a wheelchair with a raised extension to hold my leg. It was a private ceremony that Cupcake had arranged and paid for. He and Jancey stood beside me near the open grave while a priest who had never met Briana mumbled words that might or might not have held meaning to her. There were no friends or family.

It was a brief service, with none of the melodrama that had attended Briana’s life. Instead, a biodegradable urn holding her ashes was lowered into a hole, Cupcake shoveled dirt from a waiting mound on it, and we all tossed a rose on the dirt.

I hadn’t liked Briana or respected her, but I admired her for overcoming deprivations I couldn’t even imagine.

As Cupcake trundled me across the bumpy cemetery grounds, I caught a glimpse of Steven leaning on a tombstone across the way.

When we’d all got settled in Cupcake’s car and were leaving the expanse of green grass interspersed by little white markers, Jancey said, “Cupcake, what will her marker say?”

“I told them to just put the name Briana Weiland and the date of her death. I don’t know her birth date.”

From my position stretched in the backseat, I said, “Do you think that was her real name?”

I saw Cupcake and Jancey exchange a look.

Cupcake said, “Her real name was Robbie Brasseaux.”

I felt like an idiot. I should have figured that out for myself.

“When did you know?”

“It was the Nikes. It took me a while to get it, but Robbie was the only person in the world who would have brought me those Nikes.”

My leg throbbed, and I wondered if I’d lost so much blood that I’d gone stupid.