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Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof

ALSO BY BLAIZE CLEMENT

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund

Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

Cat Sitter on a

Hot Tin Roof

A Dixie Hemingway Mystery

B L A I Z E C L E M E N T

Minotaur Books New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Thomas Dunne Book for Minotaur Books.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

CAT SITTER ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Copyright © 2008 by Blaize Clement. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clement, Blaize.

Cat sitter on a hot tin roof : a Dixie Hemingway mystery / Blaize Clement.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36955-2

ISBN-10: 0-312-36955-7

1. Hemingway, Dixie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Florida—Sarasota—Fiction. 3. Sarasota (Fla.)—Fiction. 4. Pet sitting—Fiction. 5. Cats—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.L463C38 2009

813'.6—dc22

2008030121

First Edition: January 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to:

Kay Adams, Edith and John Rozendaal, Suzanne Beecher, Nancy Thomas, Jane Phelan, Kate Holmes, Greg Jorgensen, and Madeline Mora-Summonte for their support and friendship.

Roland Rio for keeping my computer running smoothly.

Tara Bolesta for taking care of boring stuff like filing so I could concentrate on writing.

Linda and Tom Witter for keeping my house clean when I was too distracted by plot and characters to notice dust.

Doris and Todd Finney for keeping my roots touched up so I didn’t get depressed.

Bill Sullivan, true Sarasota crime-scene cleaner, for letting me use his name.

Phyllis Ullrich of Southeastern Guide Dogs for information about service dogs.

Kathy Alexander of Therapy Dogs Sarasota for information and introduction to her therapy puppies.

D. P. Lyle, M.D., of the Writers Medical and Forensics Lab, for information about post-op stages following brain surgery.

Marcia Markland, Diana Szu, Hector DeJean, Jessica Rotondi, and the rest of the super team at St. Martin’s.

Annelise Robey and her cohorts at the Jane Rotrosen Agency.

And most of all, Don, Kit, John, David, Amy, Jesse, Kim, Travis, Sarah, and Sierra for being the greatest family in the universe.

If I were who I would be

Then I’d be who I am not

Here am I where I must be

Where I would be I cannot

—Adapted from “Katie Cruel”

Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof

1

It was early April, about nine o’clock in the morning, when I first met Laura Halston. Well, I didn’t exactly meet her. It was more that I almost ran her down.

I was easing my Bronco around a curve on the single narrow lane in Fish Hawk Lagoon, a heavily wooded area on the north end of Siesta Key. Driving there is like going through a tunnel cut in a mountain. Towering oaks meet overhead to block out the sky, and one side of the meandering street is edged with wildly growing bougainvillea, sea grape, potato vine, and practically every known variety of palm and pine. On the other side, a manicured hibiscus hedge screens a jogging path so nobody can see rich runners sweat.

As I rounded a curve, a woman in running gear leaped into the street from the wooded side and raced toward the hibiscus hedge. If I’d been going a nanosecond faster I would have hit her. I came to a jolting stop as she turned her head, and for a second I saw stark terror in her eyes. At the curb, she swooped in a graceful arc and picked up a dark brown cat with a long lashing tail. Holding the cat firmly in her arms, she pulled iPod wires from her ears and turned toward me in fury.

“Idiot! Bitch! You nearly hit me!”

I don’t take kindly to being called an idiot or a bitch, especially by a woman who looked like she had an IQ smaller than her size zero waist. She was about my age, which is thirty-three, and I pegged her as either a runway model or a rich man’s trifle. Like the cat, she was an exquisite creature, but her beauty seemed accidental, an unplanned coming together of parts that shouldn’t have fit but did. Almost albino pale, she was fine-boned and slim, with tousled white-blond hair cut high at the back of her neck and flopping over eyebrows too thick, too dark, too crude. Her eyes were like jade stones set too far apart, her nose was a fraction too long and thin, her chin too pointed. She should not have been beautiful, but she was. She also had the snottiness of a woman accustomed to getting anything she wanted because she was beautiful.

With what I thought was remarkable restraint, I said, “Here’s a hot tip. The best way to avoid being hit by a car is to avoid jumping in front of one.”

Twin patches of pink outrage gave her pale face some color. “How could I know you were there? I couldn’t hear you! You’re sneaking around in a . . . in a stealth car! What are you doing here anyway? These are private streets!”

I could hear faint music from her dangling iPod earbuds. I was pretty sure it was Pink, so my estimation of her went up a few notches.

I said, “Maybe if you weren’t listening to music, you could hear better. That’s Pink’s latest cut, isn’t it?”

She looked surprised. Her mouth got ready to say something mean and then changed its mind.

I said, “Look, I’m sorry I startled you. I’m Dixie Hemingway. I’m a pet sitter. I have a client in the neighborhood.”

Her face relaxed a bit, but she didn’t seem the type to apologize for being rude.

I said, “That’s a gorgeous cat. Havana Brown?”

It was the magic phrase. Pet owners melt like bubble gum on a hot sidewalk when you compliment their babies.

She said, “His name is Leo. An old boyfriend gave him to me, only he called him Cohiba, for the cigars. Dumb, huh? What cat’s gonna come when you say Here , Cohiba ? I changed it right away. He hates being cooped up in the house. Well, so do I, to tell the truth. Anyway, when I opened the door to go running, he ran out with me. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to catch him, so I guess I should thank you for scaring him so he stopped.”

The transformation from fury to friendly had happened so fast it was like watching a cartoon. When she wasn’t angry, her eyes sparkled with energy and she spoke in a breathless rush, as if she had so much to say that she was afraid she’d never get it all said.

Now that I had complimented her cat and apologized for almost running her down, and she had introduced the cat and sort of exonerated me because I’d made him stop so she could catch him, there wasn’t much else to talk about.