Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof

“Don’t be afraid of okra, Dixie, it’s a respectable vegetable.”

“It’s slimy.”

“Lots of good stuff is slimy.”

He turned to waggle his eyebrows at me in a mock-lewd parody, but his eyes remained worried.

“Dixie, I hope you’re not going to get involved in another murder investigation. I don’t think I can go through that again.”

“This one doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“You knew the dead woman. You’re taking care of her cat. That involves you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know anything other than what I’ve already told Sergeant Owens.”

“Which doesn’t answer my question.”

I carried my empty bowl and cup to the sink and rinsed them before I put them in the dishwasher.

I said, “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Uh-huh.”

Michael’s forehead was wrinkled with worry, but there wasn’t anything I could say that would relieve his mind.

No way was I staying out of this murder investigation. What had happened to Laura could have happened to me or to any other woman. I was going to do everything I could to see that Laura Halston’s killer was caught and put away forever.

15

Istood a long time under a hot shower, but it didn’t wash away the memory of the bloody paw prints leading from Laura’s front door or my sense of outraged grief. Fatigue made me feel like a balloon that had lost its air, but before I fell into bed for a nap, I called Guidry. Miracle of miracles, he answered his cell phone.

I said, “Guidry, I forgot to tell Sergeant Owens about a man who came to her house while I was there Sunday night. He called, too, and begged her to let him in. She didn’t, even after he banged on the door. She said he was stalking her.”

“He have a name?”

“She didn’t say a name, but she said she’d met him at the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial. She went there with a sprained knee and he was there too.”

“Okay.”

“There’s another man, too. Thuggish guy named Gorgon. I don’t know much about him, but Maurice at the Lyon’s Mane said he was after Laura too.”

“Dixie, I don’t know what the hell you just said.”

“The Lyon’s Mane is a hair salon. It’s owned by Maurice and Ruby. Maurice does Laura’s hair. Did. Gorgon is one of their clients too. Gets his manicures there. According to Maurice, he was putting a lot of pressure on Laura.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Maurice.”

“There’s something else. A man I’ve put in charge of the dog next door saw Laura leave her house this morning about five o’clock to go running.”

The line was silent for a moment, and I knew Guidry was deciphering what I’d meant about a man I’d put in charge of a dog. I wasn’t in a mood to spoon-feed him, so I let him figure it out for himself.

He rallied and said, “He’s sure about the time?”

“Not positive, but around that time. He gets up early, and he’d taken Mazie outside for a few minutes when he saw her.”

“Okay.” His voice was oddly flat.

I said, “Did you contact her family?”

“Her sister will be here as soon as she can. Probably tomorrow.”

“When is the autopsy scheduled?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“She was my friend.”

“Owens said you barely knew her.”

“That’s true, but she was still my friend.”

“Autopsy will be tomorrow morning.”

“Have you found her husband?”

“Dr. Reginald Halston, the surgeon? The one in Dallas?”

I didn’t like the way his tone had gone crispy.

“Yeah, that one.”

“We have somebody working on it.”

After I hung up, I crawled in bed and allowed myself to drift off to sleep. But even as my brain pulled the blinds to darken its rooms, I couldn’t ignore an internal blinking red light that said Guidry didn’t believe what I’d told him. When I woke up, the red light was still blinking, but I didn’t know exactly what Guidry didn’t believe or why he didn’t believe it.

It was almost time for my afternoon rounds, so I pulled my hair into a ponytail and put on fresh clothes. Then I clattered down the stairs and across the cypress deck to Michael’s back door. The gumbo and rice had disappeared, probably into freezer containers, and Michael had disappeared too. Damn. I had hoped he would give me something else to eat. It had been almost four hours since the little bowl of sweetened rice I’d had for breakfast, and it had long since been converted into energy. Now I needed a new source. Preferably one that didn’t require any effort on my part, because I was still drained from the morning’s shock.

I could have dived into Michael’s cavernous refrigerator and found something to eat, but that was almost sure to require heating something or slicing something or spreading mayo or mustard on something, all of which seemed as daunting as climbing Everest.

Ella Fitzgerald trotted into the kitchen and made a few musical firping and trilling sounds, but that didn’t fill my empty stomach or tell me where Michael was. I got a handful of cookies from the jar on the counter, gave Ella a pat on the head and promised her I would groom her when I came home that night, and trudged out to the Bronco. Tossing back cookies, I drove to Tom Hale’s condo.

From the living room where he was watching TV, Tom said, “Hey, Dixie. Have you heard about this?”

I went to stand beside his wheelchair and looked at the screen, where a young woman pointed at a spot that had been roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. Under the shot on the screen, a hyperventilating banner told us we were watching a special news bulletin. To prove it, the young woman was pertly announcing that a woman had been murdered in the house behind the tape. She sounded so thrilled you would have thought she was reporting a sale on Manolo Blahniks. Not that I’ve ever worn Manolo Blahniks, but sometimes when I’m waiting on line at Publix, I leaf through a Vogue , so I know what they are.

Tom said, “That happened over at Fish Hawk Lagoon.”

“I know, I was there when they found her body.”

Tom turned his wheelchair to look directly at me. “What is it with you? You have a magnet that attracts dead bodies?”

“I just happened to be next door when her cat ran out, and I went to see why he was out. I saw bloody paw prints from the front door and called nine-one-one.”

“They don’t say who she is.”

“They always wait until they’ve notified the family.”

I didn’t look at him when I said that. I’d told Michael her name, and I shouldn’t have.

“They didn’t say how she got killed either. You say there was blood the cat had stepped in?”

Billy Elliot whuffed from the foyer to let me know he had enjoyed listening to me and Tom as much as he could stand, so I used that as an excuse not to answer. Billy needs his daily runs the way hopeless addicts need their fixes. I got his leash from the foyer closet, snapped it on his collar, and let him pull me toward the front door. But inside, a shrill voice was shouting, She was stabbed to death! Her ex-husband used to carve his initials on her skin with scalpels, and now he’s killed her!

On the way to the elevator, my cell phone rang. Only a handful of people have my cell number, so when it rings I know it’s important. Billy Elliot looked over his shoulder when I answered, the expression on his face exactly the way I feel when I hear people answer their phones in public. Like, Excuse me, but do you have to do that now?

Without any preamble, Guidry said, “Dixie, what’s the guy’s name who says he saw the Halston woman leaving her house this morning?”

“Pete Madeira.”

“Got a number for him?”