Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof

“I imagine he will.”

“These calls you’re going to make, are all the houses empty? I mean, except for the pets? No people?”

I knew what he was getting at. If Vaught was determined to get me, he could follow me and surprise me inside a pet’s house.

I said, “I’ve got my thirty-eight now. Until Vaught is picked up, I’m carrying it with me.”

He nodded and closed his notepad. “I’ll just wait until you leave.”

I knew what that meant too. Vaught could be lurking nearby waiting for me to come out.

Together, Morgan and I went down my stairs to the carport, and Morgan waited until I was in the Bronco. I drove out first, with Morgan following me. In my rearview mirror, I could see him talking on his phone.

For the rest of the afternoon, I was hyperalert for Frederick Vaught. At every pet’s house, I locked the door behind me when I went in and I was extra cautious when I left. Even in ordinary circumstances pet sitters have to be vigilant for creeps hiding in the bushes, but in this case I had even more reason to take care, and I knew who the creep was.

Even on edge and watching for Vaught to pop up in front of me in his freaky monster getup, I was still acutely aware that breakfast had been a long time ago. Maybe fear makes me hungry, but I kept thinking about what I could eat for dinner without having to go to a lot of effort to get it. Michael was on duty at the firehouse, so he couldn’t feed me, and I had no idea what Paco was doing.

By the time I was playing with the last cat on my schedule, I was having visions of platters of food set in front of me. The food on the platters was indistinct, but there was a lot of it and I knew it would be delicious. That’s the good thing about visions, you don’t have to be specific about the details.

I was just telling the last cat goodbye when my cell phone rang.

It was Michael, with a curious sound to his voice. “Are you near a TV?”

“I’m at a cat’s house.”

“Turn on the TV quick, Channel Eight.”

He sounded so urgent that I obediently went to the TV set, punched it on, and found the channel. With the phone at my ear, I looked at a close-up of a young news reporter holding a microphone close to her ruby-red lips. 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 gushing that viewers were seeing a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The camera pulled back to show another person standing beside her, and I made the kind of sound you make when somebody punches you in the stomach. The other person was Frederick Vaught, but without his ski mask and gloves.

On the phone, Michael said, “That guy claims he killed the woman you knew.”

I couldn’t answer. All I could do was breathe.

On-screen, the reporter was trying her best not to sound too perky, given that it was a murder she was talking about, but it was a stretch for her.

Shoving the microphone into Vaught’s face, she said, “Without going into any detail about the manner in which you killed Ms. Halston, would you repeat the main point of what you’ve told me?”

Vaught stared directly into the camera and spoke in a deliberate monotone. “I had a romantic relationship with Laura Halston, and we had a lover’s quarrel. In a moment of passion, I stabbed her. I feel incalculable remorse for what I’ve done, and I therefore make a full confession in a vain attempt to expiate my crime.”

There was a disturbance off camera, with sounds of raised voices. The camera swung to a uniformed deputy with about thirty pounds of guns and radios and flashlights dripping from his belt. He seemed to be seriously contemplating a crime of his own.

Stepping to the reporter, he said, “Ma’am, this interview is over.”

Widening her eyes in mock innocence, she said, “Mr. Vaught called the press conference, officer.”

Another officer must have persuaded the cameraman to aim his camera away, because the screen went dark while a muffled voice read Vaught his Miranda rights. I imagined Vaught was being handcuffed at the time, and that he was enjoying it immensely.

Every crime brings out mentally deranged people who confess their guilt. Some of them may actually believe they committed the crime, others just want the momentary attention. Vaught was either crazy enough to believe himself actually guilty, or crazy enough to enjoy the limelight of TV interviewers and cameras.

Michael said, “What do you think?”

“In the first place, Laura Halston wouldn’t have touched Frederick Vaught with a ten-foot eyebrow pencil, so that stuff about being her lover is a lot of hooey. In the second place, Vaught is crazy. I’m talking bona fide mentally ill, like he should be locked up. He came in my apartment today dressed up like some geek version of Darth Vader.”

Michael’s voice sharpened. “He came in your apartment?”

“It’s okay. I got rid of him, and I called nine-one-one. There’s been an alert out for his arrest.”

“Well, now they’ve got him.”

“And he’s having his fifteen minutes of fame. They’ll find out he’s lying and let him go.”

“Couldn’t he be telling the truth about killing her and lying about the reason? Maybe he killed her because she wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

I said, “Huh,” because he had a point. I would never believe Frederick Vaught had been romantically involved with Laura, but he could have killed her in a frustrated rage because she rejected him.

Michael said, “Call me before you go home tonight, okay?”

That’s my big brother, always concerned about me, always wanting to protect me. I promised I would call him, knowing he would get in touch with Paco if he could, knowing they would join forces to keep the big bad world away from me. We’re a family, and that’s what families do.

Knowing that Vaught was in custody made me less wary, but it didn’t make me less hungry. Streetlights had come on, and early-bird diners were already headed home with leftovers packaged in little square Styrofoam boxes. I would have paid a dollar and a quarter for one of those little boxes.

Thinking Pete might be starving too, I called him before I went to the Kitty Haven to get Leo.

He said, “Thanks, Dixie, but I heated a can of soup earlier. After I get Purr-C home, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal or something.”

“I’m picking him up in a few minutes.”

“Okay, that’s good. I forgot about the sheets from my bed, but they’re in the washer now. It’ll just take awhile to dry them and put them back on the bed, and then I’ll be ready. But I don’t think you should bring Purr-C in here. I wouldn’t want Mazie to come home and smell cat in the house.”

It wouldn’t have been ethical to take a pet into another pet’s home in any case, but it was thoughtful of Pete to consider how Mazie would feel. I told him I’d get Leo, aka Purr-C, and be there in half an hour.

I wished I had a chunk of cheese or an apple or at least some crackers. I rummaged around in my bag and found a box of breath mints and ate a few. They weren’t very nourishing, but they gave me something to chew.

At the Kitty Haven, I took the .38 and the Speed Loader from my pocket and stashed them in the glove box. With Vaught in custody, I didn’t have to go around armed like a vigilante. Besides, I don’t like to take a gun inside a gentle place like the Kitty Haven. I got one of my emergency cardboard cat carriers from the back of the Bronco and took it inside. Marge had gone to her own apartment in the back, and a nighttime assistant was lolling on a velour sofa in the front room with a few cats piled on her. The TV was on with the sound turned low, and the cats were as slow to take their eyes off the screen as the human.