Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

If it also became public knowledge that Harry Henry had made the ransom call, the world would assume that Harry had killed Victor Salazar and that he had a million dollars in ransom money stashed somewhere. If Maureen had killed Victor herself, would she let Harry take the rap? It was a dumb question. Of course she would. If Maureen had to name the one person in the entire world who deserved her greatest loyalty, she would name herself.

I didn’t linger over coffee, but left while the rain was still slanting down in opaque sheets. I was drenched by the time I got to the Bronco, and shivered when I started the motor and a blast of cold air came from the AC vents. I let the defogger run long enough to get rid of the moisture on the glass, started the wipers front and back, and eased into sparse traffic. I headed south toward home, but when I got to the turnoff to my lane, I kept going south.

I wanted to talk to Harry Henry again, and this time I wasn’t going to let him lie to me.

27

At the marina, rain and steam rising from the bay shrouded boats and birds, and made the few scurrying people indistinct. Wet as a drowned rat, I walked down the wooden dock looking for Harry’s house boat. According to local gossip, it was a forty-foot relic from a time when house boats were mostly boxy cabins set on pontoon-floated decks. Even without that description, I would have known it by the figurehead lashed to the front—a department store mannequin in a painted-on bikini. Harry probably thought it added a sophisticated touch.

Off the dock, a quintet of white yellow-billed pelicans sailed through the downpour like majestic dowager swans. One of their plain brown cousins had compactly folded himself neck-to-back on Harry’s deck, and an immature blue heron with mud-colored feathers stood atop the cabin perfecting his neck stretches.

A skiff from an anchored pink catamaran was tied up on one side of the house boat, and a runabout was on the other side. A man shiny-wet as a dolphin was aboard the runabout gathering up empty beer cans and dropping them into a black garbage bag.

Nodding to him, I stepped off the dock to Harry’s deck and pounded on the cabin door. “Harry, it’s Dixie! Are you in there?”

The only response was the sound of rain and waves slapping against pontoons.

I circled the main cabin, peering into the shadows for Harry or Hef. All I saw were clean boards and carefully stored equipment. Harry might be eccentric, but he was neat. Fishing equipment took up the port side—rods of every type for freshwater fishing, a line of gaffs arranged from a three-footer to a six-footer, along with buoys, sinkers, cast nets, bait nets, fishing line, snorkels, and spear guns. Harry took his fishing seriously. He even had a chest-high stack of wooden crab traps ready—five of them, the legal limit for one person. A length of fine cotton twine had been tossed over the stack for tying the traps’ exit doors closed. I like those exit doors. If a trap is left underwater too long, the twine disintegrates and the exit door swings open so the crab can escape.

Back at the door, I knocked again, just in case.

Behind me, the man from the runabout hollered, “Harry’s not there.”

I turned and yelled through the rain. “You have any idea where he is?”

“Key’s above the door! Women use it all the time.”

Before I could tell him that I wasn’t one of Harry’s women, he gave me a knowing grin and walked away, swinging his plastic bag with a jaunty air as if he weren’t soaking wet and walking through hard rain.

I waited until he was out of sight and then felt above the door for a key. Yep, it was there, but I pulled my hand down empty. It was one thing for a woman to use the key to open Harry’s door if he’d told her to use it. But Harry didn’t exactly expect me. And he hadn’t exactly given me permission to enter his house boat when he wasn’t there. Which would make it a little bit like breaking and entering if I went in.

On the other hand, Harry’s neighbor had told me to enter. You could even say he had given me permission to enter. He might not be authorized to give me permission, but how could I know that? I had shown up at Harry’s door, and a man who could very well be his best friend in all the world had told me to use the key. So I asked myself what any responsible, law-abiding person would do. And the answer was that a reasonable person would use the key and go in and wait for Harry.

I reached up again and got the key. I looked around to make sure nobody was on any of the other slipped boats watching me—just in case I might be lying to myself. Then I slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open and hurried inside.

The cabin was as neat as the deck. Square room with pecky cypress walls hung with framed photographs of sea and shore life. Single bench bed covered by a quilt neatly tucked in. Immaculate galley kitchen with an eating bar. Shoved against the wall, a long wooden table with two drawers on its outer side. The top was loaded with careful stacks of Sports Illustrated and Reader’s Digest . I didn’t know what was in the drawers.

Three things were obvious: One, Harry wasn’t home. Two, I was doing something that any court in the world would say was a violation of the law, not to mention just plain bad manners. Three, I wanted to know what was in those table drawers.

Their contents were as organized as everything else. The first one held checkbooks, boxes of printed checks, a hand calculator, a package of AA batteries, and a collection of pens and sharpened pencils. The second drawer had a phone book, some warranty papers for a boat motor, a digital camera, and a box of nice linen stationery. I opened the box. It didn’t look as if Harry had ever used the stationery because the display envelope was still under a flat ribbon tied around the paper. The box also held a square pink envelope like greeting cards come in. My fingers trembled when I pulled out the paper folded inside it.

Even after fifteen years, I recognized the loopy handwriting, the humpbacked letters, the little open circles for dots on the i ’s. I suppose people who don’t grow up keep the same handwriting they had when they were teenagers. As I read it, I could hear Maureen’s voice.

Mrs. Salazar, we have your husband. If you want him returned alive, put a million dollars in small bills in a duff el bag and leave it in your gazebo at midnight tomorrow. Do not call the police or tell anybody. We will be watching you, and if you talk to anybody, we will kill your husband and feed him to the sharks.

Under my breath, I whispered, “Oh, Mo.”

Now I knew why Maureen had been so sure what the kidnapper had said on the phone. She had written the script. Probably made several drafts before she’d decided on the final one, then gave it to Harry to read when he called her.

She had also sullied my memories of an innocent time that had been precious to me, a time before she chose money over love, and before I learned that choosing love doesn’t mean you get to keep it.

The question was: What should I do about it?

Some old friendships are like cozy nests you can crawl into when you need comfort. Others are like giant squid, with tentacles lined with toothy suction cups that attach themselves to you and leave permanent scars.

I had let Maureen use me because her father had abandoned her and her mother had been a shrew. I had understood her, and I’d let compassion make me a martyr. So which one of us was the dumb one?

I pulled out my cellphone and punched in Guidry’s number. His voice mail answered, which allowed me to be brisk and businesslike.

I said, “Maureen Salazar wrote the script that Harry Henry used when he called her to demand ransom money for Victor’s kidnapping. If you should happen to get a search warrant to look for it on Harry’s house boat, you’ll find it in a drawer in a long table.”