Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

Hetty looked at Ben, also in foster care, who was lying on her feet.

“How did you get the marshal to tell you all this? Isn’t the Witness Protection Program supposed to be a secret?”

My face grew warm. “My brother beat him up, and then Guidry came and was going to arrest him. So he showed Guidry his credentials and explained it all.”

“Your brother beat him up?”

My face got hotter. “I thought the marshal was going to attack me, so I kicked him down the stairs that go up to my garage apartment. My brother drove in just as I kicked him, and he thought I needed protecting. My brother’s a little bit, um, physical when he gets mad.”

Hetty hid a smile behind her hand. “I think that’s nice. Brothers should protect their sisters.”

“I guess the marshal could have been nasty about it, pressed charges or something, but he let it go.”

Hetty’s face grew sad again. “So Jaz is missing, and nobody knows where she is.”

“I’m afraid so.”

There wasn’t anything else to say, and I needed to go home and sleep for a few million years.

As she walked me to the front door, Hetty said, “She’s a good girl, Dixie. She deserves a lot better.”

I thought of what Cora had said. “I guess they all deserve a lot better, Hetty.”

At the door, she said, “If you hear anything, will you let me know?”

“Of course.”

I was on the walk when Hetty called after me. “Dixie, if they find Jaz, does that mean she’ll have to go back to California?”

At first I thought she meant if they found Jaz’s body. But when I turned to look at her I realized she was referring to a living Jaz.

“I don’t know, Hetty.”

“I was just thinking, if they’d let her stay here in Florida, and if she wanted to, you know, I’d be pleased to have her live with me.”

My eyes burned, and I had to make several tries before I could speak. “I’ll tell them that.”

As I drove away, I muttered, “Tell who ? The government? The gang? Nobody cares where she lives.”

That wasn’t true, of course. Hetty cared.

When I got home, Michael had a light supper waiting on the deck. I charged upstairs for a fast shower and clean clothes and joined him. Ella was on a chaise in her diva pose, content in her harness with a thin leash attached to a leg of the chaise. The two place settings on the table looked pitifully few. There should have been three.

On the horizon, a thin band of white clouds promised to hide the sun’s setting, but we took seats facing west just in case. Supper began with creamy vichyssoise, then switched to roasted chicken and a green salad. We ate hot french bread with it. We drank chilled white wine. We didn’t talk much, just mostly said, “Mmmmm.”

The cloud bank on the horizon glowed gold and saffron as the sun dipped behind it, and rays of pink and yellow shot toward the heavens. But the sun slipped into the sea without showing itself, a striptease artist coy behind a gauzy fan.

When the colors above the clouds had dulled, Michael brought out a plate of fat strawberries whose tips had been dipped in chocolate.

Michael ate one or two strawberries, I ate about half a dozen. Chocolate brings out the hog in me.

When I’d finally stuffed myself as much as possible, I said, “Guidry met me in Tom Hale’s parking lot this afternoon. He wanted me to listen to a tape of the message Maureen got from the kidnappers.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m almost positive it was Harry Henry’s voice. He even called her Mo at first, and then changed the Mo to Mrs.”

Michael snorted, either to indicate how dumb he thought Harry was to have given himself away like that, or to indicate how dumb he thought Harry was in general.

I said, “Guidry said Maureen had already told him it was Harry.”

Michael moved his wineglass in little circles on the tabletop.

I said, “When she came to see me that night, she was so upset about that call. She quoted it word for word, exactly the way Harry had said it. Doesn’t that seem weird to you? That she would have played it so many times she knew it by heart, but she didn’t recognize Harry’s voice until after Victor’s body was found? Doesn’t that seem weird?”

“Everything about that woman is weird.”

“Cora Mathers thinks nobody would grow up bad if they were loved enough. Do you believe that?”

“Hell, Dixie, I don’t know.”

“Hetty Soames wants to be Jaz’s foster mother if they find her alive.”

“Hunh.”

“Michael, do you have any idea where Paco is?”

He stood up and began gathering dishes to take inside. He said, “Paco and I have an understanding. He doesn’t tell me how to put out fires, and I don’t tell him how to catch criminals. Paco is wherever he is. When he’s finished doing whatever he’s doing, he’ll be home. End of discussion.”

I carried Ella inside and helped Michael tidy up the kitchen. Then I kissed them both good night and went up to my apartment and fell into bed.

In my dreams, I entered a restaurant looking for the perfect stranger. I didn’t have any notions of what that might be, just let my inner guide direct me. In the bar area, none of the line of people perched on stools met whatever criteria my guide had set, so I crossed over to the other side and looked at the diners sitting at tables. Nothing moved me toward any of them.

Just as I was beginning to think I’d got my dream message all wrong, a man came through double doors from a glass-walled kitchen. He wore a chef’s tall hat and an immaculate white apron, and he carried a live stone crab in one hand. He stopped when he saw me, and for a second the only motion was the crab’s waving claws. Diners fell silent watching us watch each other, and the waiters drew to attention against the walls.

I moved toward him, slowly and deliberately. He waited, the crab held shoulder high and beady-eyed. The room was silent as white.

I reached him and took the crab from his grip, holding it out to the side to escape its grasping claws.

The man said, “Good. I’ve been waiting for you to figure that out.”

I woke up with a start and lay staring into the darkness. I didn’t have a clue what the dream meant, but it wasn’t any more confusing than my waking life.

26

The breeze was brisk and smelled of rain when I went out the next morning, and the curdled sky was not so tall. A few agitated gulls flapped above the waves, and on the beach a clawing surf tried to escape the pulsing sea. I stood on my porch a moment to inhale the salty day, then thumped down the stairs to the carport. Seabirds slept on every car, no doubt thinking themselves smart to get a pregame seat before the clouds burst.

At Tom Hale’s dark apartment, I slipped in quickly and hustled Billy Elliot out with a minimum of smooching. At least between Billy and me. A faint scent of perfume in the air made me think Tom had an overnight guest again, so there may have been other smooching.

In the parking lot, security lamps cast wide pools of light on the oval track where Billy and I ran, but the sky was too overcast to let any dawning light through. We both looked up frequently. Billy probably hoped he’d get to sprint through a warm shower, I hoped the rain would hold off until Billy and I had finished our run. Besides Ruthie and Big Bubba, my other clients for the day were seven cats—including two pairs—and a ferret. I would inevitably end up trailing cat hair. I hoped it wouldn’t be stuck to wet clothes.

After Billy and I had made it around the last loop, and he had raised his leg one more time to announce to all the subsequent dogs on the track that he was still the number one honcho, we skipped back into the lobby. A jelly-bottomed woman in skin-tight lycra leggings popped out of the elevator before we got to it. She had slept-on hair and a bright-eyed Yorkie on a leash. The Yorkie was the size of a Hostess Sno Ball and was dancing with excitement. The woman looked as if she hadn’t been awake more than two minutes.