Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof

I didn’t indulge myself, just stayed in long enough to scrub down one side and up the other, letting the water fall hard on my hair but not actually shampooing it. Well, I may have run a teensy bit of shampoo through it and rinsed it out, but it wasn’t a true shampoo with huge lather or anything, and I only used a dollop of conditioner so it wouldn’t fan out from my head like a sunflower.

Out of the shower, I ran a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, smeared on some moisturizer with sun block, and ran a quick slick of lipstick over my mouth. As I ran to the office-closet still damp, I gathered my wet hair into a ponytail. It didn’t take five minutes to pull on underwear, clean shorts, a T, and lace up clean Keds. A new and better-smelling woman, I was halfway to the front door when I remembered the key to Laura’s house, and ran back to the bathroom to fish it out of the pocket in my dirty shorts.

As I raced back toward the front door, a very large man dressed head to toe in black loomed in the doorway between my bedroom and living room. Except for his eyes and lips, his head and face were entirely covered by a dark ski mask, and he wore leather driving gloves on his hammy hands.

I came to a thudding halt with about a million thoughts running through my mind. One was that in my haste I’d left the front door unlocked and the shutters up. So much for the lecture I’d given Pete about keeping doors locked because a killer was loose. The other was that my .38 was six feet away in its special case inside a secret drawer on the wall side of my bed.

Through a slit in the mask thin as a mushroom gill, he said, “No doubt my presence is unwelcome, but it would behoove you to eschew any thoughts of escape. I assure you I have taken every precaution to complete the task for which I came.”

Oh, Jesus, it was Frederick Vaught.

There have been a few times in my life when some wisdom I didn’t know I had takes over. This was one of them.

With a nervous giggle, I said, “Oh, my gosh! You scared me half to death! Richard put you up to this, didn’t he? I swear, that boy will do anything for a practical joke. When he gets here, I’m sure the two of you will have a big laugh at how high I jumped.”

The eyes outlined by the ski mask’s holes wavered slightly.

I said, “For a minute there, I thought you were Richard, all dressed up to scare me. But he’s bigger than you. And excuse me for saying it, but he’s in better shape too. Probably from his wrestling. Or maybe it’s just that he climbs utility poles all day. Being a lineman builds muscles.”

Vaught’s eyes shifted with uncertainty. I didn’t blame him. I was almost beginning to believe in a lineman named Richard myself.

Tilting my head to one side, I said, “If I were you, I’d take the mask off now. A joke is a joke, but Richard’s a good friend of my brother’s, and my brother will be royally pissed if he thinks you overdid it making like the bogeyman with his little sister. I mean, my brother has a sense of humor as good as anybody’s, but he’s not going to think this is funny.”

Vaught gave a quick look over his shoulder and then fled through the living room and out the open front door. I already had my cell phone out and was punching 911 when I heard a car door slam. I sprinted to close the French doors and lower the shutters as the operator answered.

Crisply, I gave her my name and the address. Crisply, I told her an intruder wearing a ski mask had come into my apartment. Crisply, I told her he had already left the scene, and I promised I would remain there until officers came to investigate. I was calm, cool, collected. It was amazing.

While I waited, I went to the bedroom and pulled my bed from the wall. I opened the drawer built into my bed and looked at the guns nestled in their specially built niches. I no longer have the SigSauers issued by the Sheriff’s Department because they had to be returned when Todd was killed and I was put on indefinite leave. But I have Todd’s old backup guns and my own. I took my favorite, a Smith & Wesson .38, from its niche. I dropped five rounds into the cylinder and another five in a Speed Loader to put in my pocket. My hands were trembling, a peculiarity I noted from what seemed a far distance, as if I were watching somebody’s hands on a movie screen.

The doorbell rang, and I marched to the front door to peer through a slit in the hurricane shutters. I wasn’t taking any chances. I was cool. Deputy Jesse Morgan stood on the other side of the door, his diamond stud glinting in the afternoon sunlight. His face was as impassive as ever.

I raised the shutters and opened the French door. I said, “Deputy Morgan, we have to stop meeting like this.”

Then I burst into convulsive sobs. I don’t know which of us was more surprised.

31

Deputy Morgan said, “Miz Hemingway?”

I erased the air with the flat of my hand, denying what I was doing even as I did it.

Snuffling like a kid, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying, I’m not hurt.”

“You reported an intruder?”

“His name is Frederick Vaught. He’s a suspect in the Laura Halston murder. He was stalking her. He used to be a nurse, but he lost his license for abusing elderly patients. He may have killed some of them.”

While I leaked tears, Morgan pulled out his notepad and wrote the name. “You’ve had contact with him before?”

“He was waiting outside the Sea Breeze when I ran with a dog this morning. He told me to quit asking questions about him.”

“You’d been asking questions about him?”

“I overheard him talking to a patient at the Bayfront nursing unit, and I asked who he was. Lieutenant Guidry knows all about it.”

Morgan took in the information about Guidry and nodded.

“And this guy, Vaught, he came in your house?”

I snuffled some more and pointed toward the door into the bedroom, where my bed was still pulled away from the wall.

“I was running out, and he just stepped into the doorway.”

“He threaten you?”

“He said it would behoove me to eschew any thoughts of escape, because he had taken every precaution to complete the task for which he came.”

Morgan looked up from his notepad.

I said, “He talks like that. Like a dictionary. That’s how I knew it was him.”

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“He was wearing a ski mask. Also gloves.”

My voice quivered when I said the part about gloves. Laura’s killer had worn gloves.

“But you didn’t see his face.”

“Trust me, that man was Frederick Vaught.”

Morgan studied me for a moment. “How’d you get rid of him?”

“I pretended to believe he was pulling a prank, that it was a big joke that somebody named Richard had put him up to. I said Richard would be here any minute, and that Richard was a good friend of my brother’s.”

“And he believed that?”

“I guess he did, he ran out.”

For some reason the tears came back then, and I stood there for a minute and bawled like an idiot while Morgan looked extremely uncomfortable.

When I could speak, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

In about three strides, Morgan walked over to my breakfast bar where a roll of paper towels stood. Tearing off a towel, he came back and handed it to me.

“Sure you do. That was a close call. If you hadn’t played it right, no telling what would have happened. That was a smart thing you did.”

Shakily, I mopped my face and blew my nose. “Thanks.”

“Are you going to be home for a while?”

“No, I have rounds to make. My pets. Dogs, cats, you know.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay, I’ll put out an alert about Vaught and I’ll contact Lieutenant Guidry. I imagine he’ll want to talk to you about it.”