Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof

Guidry yelled, “Dixie! Talk to me!”

I put the phone on the counter because I needed both hands to hold the Glock. I had to watch Freuland, and I also had to be ready to stop Celeste. The knife blade reappeared, slowly edging forward. Bright, shiny, silver.

Guidry barked, “I’m on my way!”

The silver object went still, and Pete’s voice said, “Dixie?”

I swear I think my ears wiggled a little bit in disbelief.

“Pete?”

With saxophone in hand, Pete stepped behind the bar so I could get a good look at him. His fuzzy eyebrows were lowered like a mastiff’s, and his jaw was clenched in a way I’d never imagined Pete capable of. He didn’t look like a sweet octogenarian clown, he looked like a man who would as soon kill you as smile at you.

With a glance at Freuland groaning on the floor, he said, “Looks like you’ve got him under control.”

I picked up the phone. “It’s okay, it’s Pete. I thought it was Celeste Autrey, but it’s Pete.”

Looking like himself again, Pete said, “Celeste is in the living room.”

For the second time that evening, I was struck speechless. While I gaped at him, he said, “Don’t worry, she’s asleep.”

Oh, shit, it must have been Celeste’s body I heard hitting the floor.

Guidry said, “Talk to me!”

I said, “I’ve got Martin Freuland covered, and I need backup. Freuland came to get his money, and he tried to kill me. But he didn’t kill Laura, Celeste did.” Weakly, I added, “Celeste is here too.”

Guidry said, “I’m two minutes away, and some units are even closer.”

As he said it, a loud rapping sounded at the front door, and a voice yelled, “Sheriff’s Department!”

Pete sidled away and hollered, “Come on in!”

I heard a man say, “Sir, what’s going on here?”

I yelled, “Freuland’s in here!”

A deputy rounded the corner from the living room and in one sweep took in the bullet hole in the cabinet, the Glock in my hand, and Freuland’s agonized writhing.

Still quivering, I handed the gun to him and crossed my arms over my chest.

“This man tried to kill me with this gun. His aim went bad when I kicked him in the balls.”

The deputy winced. “Lieutenant Guidry is on his way.”

In the living room, the other deputy said, “Sir, what’s the story with the woman?”

Pete said, “Wait, I haven’t explained that to Dixie yet.”

He popped back into view behind the bar with his saxophone tucked under one arm and Leo cradled against his chest. Leo looked surprisingly contented.

“Dixie, I didn’t get a chance to tell you what happened with Celeste. I was on the way to my car to put my saxophone in there and I saw her cross the street from the hedge where the jogging trail is. For a minute I thought it was Laura, and then I remembered Laura was dead. That’s who I saw Tuesday morning! She looks like Laura when she’s got on all that jogging stuff. Anyway, she ran in behind the trees so I knew she was coming in here. I don’t trust that woman, and I didn’t like the idea of her coming in on you like that, so I came down to see what she was up to. The front door was open, and she just came in. When I got to the door, I could see her in the living room, and she had a big knife in her hand. She looked like she was planning something bad with that knife, so I snuck up on her real quiet.”

The deputy and I stared at him with big round eyes.

The deputy said, “And then?”

In the living room, Guidry’s voice barked a question, and we all looked toward the sound. He spoke a minute to the living room deputy and then came to stand beside Pete.

I turned to face him in all my snotty, tangled, smeared glory, and gave him a megawatt smile. I felt a little bit like a director of a play announcing the characters and their roles. There in Laura’s kitchen we had a big moaning man in a thousand-dollar suit rolling on the floor and clutching his genitals with both hands. We had two million dollars bundled in neat packages like Hershey’s chocolate bars. We had a long-tailed cat who had exacted feline revenge by tripping his owner’s killer. Last but by no means least, we had an octogenarian who had cold-cocked a killer with his saxophone. And we had me, girl pet sitter, size six, thank you very much, five-foot-three inches tall, who had just felled the big man in the suit.

I said, “Celeste Autrey murdered Laura Halston. She stabbed her to death and then mutilated her face.” I pointed to Freuland. “And he paid her to do it.”

Freuland shuddered and tried to roll to a sitting position. Guidry was instantly beside him, one hand helping him sit up, the other putting a handcuff on one of his wrists. As he cuffed the other wrist, he Mirandaed him, his voice even and deliberate.

In a dramatic show of indignation, Freuland jerked his torso away, but he was still so groggy from my kick that he toppled over and landed with his head pillowed on a bag of money. It seemed a fitting support.

EMTs were suddenly in the house to get Celeste. Still holding Leo in his arms, Pete stepped away from the bar to watch them haul her away, while Guidry motioned the deputies to help Freuland to his feet. Freuland’s face was pasty, with beads of sweat dripping on his silk suit. In minutes, they were all gone except for Pete and me and Guidry and the first deputies who’d arrived.

One of them said what I’d been dreading. “Lieutenant Guidry, we were just getting a statement from this gentleman when you came. He followed the woman into the house and stopped her.”

Guidry said, “Stopped her?”

Pete drew himself as tall as possible and tilted his chin toward Leo.

“This here’s my cat. Name’s Purr-C. He was supposed to be in a carrying case”—here he gave me a stern look—“but I guess he got out. Anyway, I was behind Celeste and she had that knife up, and she was listening to Dixie and that man, and it seemed to me that she didn’t plan anything good for either of them.”

I realized I’d stopped breathing, and forced myself to inhale.

Pete said, “There was a big blasting sound, and a man hollered real loud. I knew he was hurt, but I didn’t know what had happened to Dixie. I started running to see if she was all right, and then Celeste stepped on Purr-C’s tail. Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with cats, but when a cat’s tail is stepped on it makes a horrible noise, yowling and screeching like nobody’s business, and that must have startled Celeste because she commenced yowling and screeching too, and with all that screeching and her with that knife in her hand, I thought it would be best if I put a stop to it.”

I felt light-headed. Pete had been such a gentle man when I first met him.

The deputy said, “Sir?”

Touching the side of his neck, Pete said, “So I just tapped her with my saxophone.”

Guidry said, “You knocked her out ?”

“But not hard. See, I was a clown for a long time with Ringling, and you learn a lot of things when you’re a clown. Some little-town bullies think killing a clown would be better sport than killing deer or grizzlies, so clowns have to learn to protect themselves.” With a note of pride, he said, “I know sixty-six places to tap a person and put them to sleep.”

We all went still. I was sure every person in that room believed that tapping a person in some of those sixty-six places would put them to sleep for good.

Pete seemed to know that we knew that, because he rushed to reassure us. “She’ll sleep for about an hour is all, then she’ll wake up yakking like always. If I was you, I’d make sure she’s tied down before she wakes up. That woman is a she-devil for sure. She gets ahold of a knife, she’ll slit your throats and tell God you cut yourself shaving.”