Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

“I’m fine. Good to hear from you.”

“I know this is a busy time of the year, with the holidays and all, but if you’re free this evening, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

He had no idea how free all my evenings were. He also had no idea how I hated the whole idea of dating. I opened my mouth to tell him I was tied up until Easter.

My lips said, “Sure. Where shall I meet you?”

A beat passed while he registered that I would take my own wheels. “How about the Crab House at seven?”

“Better make it closer to eight-thirty. I have a full schedule today.”

He chuckled lightly. “Okay, I’ll meet you tonight at eight-thirty. Looking forward to it.”

I nodded at the phone and then found my voice. “Good.’Bye.”

As I hung up, it occurred to me that I’d just said what sounded like a curt Goodbye . What I’d actually said hadn’t been much less curt, but I had to fight myself to keep from calling him back and saying, “I didn’t say Goodbye, I said Good.’Bye .” Another reason to hate dating and all the rules and crap that go with it.

I got up and pawed through my few clothes. If I was going to start going out with men, and it looked possible, I was going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe. Dresses. Skirts. Shoes and purses. The thought made me almost gag, but I had to start thinking like a grown-up, acting like a grown-up, dressing like a grown-up. I couldn’t go through life forever in shorts and jeans and T-shirts and Keds.

It was time to leave for my afternoon pet visits—all of them except Ken Kurtz. I wasn’t going to deliver a message to him, and I wasn’t going back to his house for any reason except to feed Ziggy. Furthermore, I wasn’t going until tomorrow. If either Ziggy or Kurtz got hungry before I came, they could damn well call out for pizza. But first I had to let Michael know what was going on.

I found him in his kitchen spreading freshly toasted chili-cayenne pecan halves on paper towels. When Michael and Paco moved into our grandparents’ house, they left it pretty much the way it had always been, except for the kitchen. Now the kitchen is outfitted with Sub-Zero appliances, an enormous grill, and every gizmo ever made for professional cooks. A wide butcher-block island has a salad sink at one end and stools on each side at the other end for eating. Since Michael does the cooking at the firehouse as well as for me and Paco, his freezer is always stuffed and he spends a lot of his off time cooking things for fellow firefighters.

Firefighters must like things hot, because chili-cayenne pecans are Michael’s annual Christmas treat for the firehouse. I popped one in my mouth and then did an Indian war dance while I fanned my lips and whimpered.

He waved a wooden spoon at me. “Coffee’s fresh. Pour me a cup too, would you?”

Still fanning my lips, I got down mugs and splashed hot coffee into them. When I handed one to Michael, he stopped me with his spoon on my chest.

“Okay, something’s wrong, and I want to know what it is.”

I took my coffee to the big butcher-block island and perched on a bar stool.

I said, “A man working as a security guard for Ken Kurtz was murdered early this morning. He was shot in the head in the guardhouse.”

Michael rotated his spoon, meaning Get on with it . “I heard that on the news. What does it have to do with you?”

I swallowed coffee and tried to think of a way to tell the story that didn’t make me seem crazy.

“Ken Kurtz has an iguana I was hired to feed, so I had to go to his house.”

Michael’s eyes were getting brighter blue, a sure sign his patience was wearing thin. “So?”

“I went there twice, once to get out of the rain and once to feed the iguana. The first time, I saw the dead guard and I didn’t report it. The second time, I went for the iguana, only I hadn’t realized the first time that it was the iguana’s house because I’d never been there before, because the man who hired me wasn’t really Ken Kurtz, he just pretended to be. And there’s a woman mixed up in it somehow. Two women, really, the nurse and the woman with a bulldog, but the nurse ran away and Kurtz claims the other woman is dead. But I think he’s lying because he has her picture and I’m sure it’s the same woman.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look higher than Michael’s belt, but from the stiff way he stood, I was pretty sure I hadn’t done a good job of telling the story like a sane person.

He said, “Anything else?”

My voice came out weak as a new kitten’s. “A Herald-Tribune deliveryman called nine-one-one to report the guard was shot. He had seen me leaving as he drove in the driveway, and he reported that too, so Guidry has me as the only person seen leaving the crime site. The ME has put the time of death within the last few hours before it was reported. Guidry took my thirty-eight for ballistics testing.”

Michael moved to the bar stool across from me. He had gone so pale I could see tiny freckles I’d never noticed before dotting his cheekbones.

“Are you saying you’re a murder suspect?”

“Only because the Herald-Tribune guy saw me. When they do the ballistics test, they’ll know it wasn’t my gun.”

I tried to make my voice sound positive, but the truth was that Guidry hadn’t told me if they’d recovered an intact bullet or a casing. If they hadn’t, a ballistics test on my gun wouldn’t help me a bit.

When a bullet travels through a gun barrel, the bullet takes on marks unique to that particular barrel. Any bullet fired from a specific gun will show the same marks, unless there’s been some intentional alteration between firings. Or unless the bullet itself is distorted because of hitting bone or passing through a body and hitting something else hard. Shell casings leave distinctive marks too, so the Forensics firearm examiner would be able to match a casing to the gun that fired it—unless no casing was found.

“But until then you’re a suspect, right?”

I was surprised at how calm he sounded. Then I noticed the handle of his coffee cup lying on the bar. He had snapped it clean off.

Miserably, I said, “Michael, I try to stay out of these things, I really do. I don’t know how I get involved.”

“The important question,” he said, “is how to get you uninvolved.”

It was way too late for that and we both knew it, but for a few moments we pretended there was a way out and that I would find it.

I said, “By the way, I won’t be here for dinner tonight. I have a date.”

I tried for nonchalance, but my voice came out squeaky.

Michael’s eyebrows climbed nearly to his hairline. He and Paco had been pushing me to get a man in my life for over two years.

Trying equally hard to sound like it was something I did every day, Michael said, “Actually, I won’t be here either. One of the guys at the station needs to take the night off for his daughter’s wedding, so I’m going to cover for him. A date with who?”

“Whom. Ethan Crane, the lawyer.”

“Ahhh.”

As I went out the door, I said, “This will all work out, Michael.”

He said, “Yeah,” and went back to laying out his pecan halves. I didn’t look at his face, but he actually sounded a bit hopeful. Only thing was, I knew it was because I’d told him I had a date.

At Tom Hale’s condo at the Sea Breeze, Tom stayed out of sight while I snapped on Billy Elliot’s leash. Downstairs, we ran around the parking lot several times like demented dervishes. I was still wheezing when we got back to Tom’s apartment, but Billy Elliot was grinning and calm. As I hung Billy’s leash in the hall closet, Tom rolled into the living room with a smile that managed to be both smug and sheepish, one of those sexual reactions peculiar to men.