Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

TWENTY-ONE

Ramón Gutierrez’s funeral was held Friday noon at St. Martha’s Catholic Church at the corner of Orange and Fruitville on the mainland. The church’s chin rests on the sidewalk on Orange, and a surprisingly large crowd was climbing the steps to the front door when I got there. Some were probably there because they were members of the church or the Spanish community and wanted to show their support for Paloma, and some were probably drawn by the aura of mystery and violence surrounding her husband’s death.

I sat at the back and watched mourners speak to Paloma and Jochim with the pitying and slightly fearful look that people save for those whose lives have been touched by unspeakable tragedy. Before the service began, Paloma stood up and surveyed the crowd face by face, as if she wanted to burn us all into her memory. She looked surprised when she saw me, then gave me a tremulous smile and raised her hand in a tiny wave.

Mercifully, the priest spoke of Ramón’s life and not of how he died. When the service ended, half the crowd got in line to view the remains, while the other half, including me, headed for the exits. Two or three people ahead of me, a woman in a long dark dress with black hair hanging loose over her shoulders caught my attention. The square line of her shoulders and her rigid spine were so like Jessica Ballantyne’s that I watched her move toward the front door. As if she felt my gaze, she turned and looked straight at me. It was Jessica, and her eyes rounded in surprise when she saw me. It didn’t look like pleasant surprise. She quickly turned away and hurried out the front door and down the steps.

I pushed through the people in front of me in time to see her run down the sidewalk and disappear around the Fruitville corner. At the curb, a thin young man in a dark suit stood watching her too. As I came down the steps, he looked over his shoulder toward me. Even with his dark glasses, I could see him register the same surprise I’d got from Jessica. In a flash, he slipped through the crowd and disappeared too, leaving me rooted to the spot with a vague sense that I knew him.

Since I was in downtown Sarasota, I drove a block to Lemon—we like to name our streets after as many local fruits as possible—where we now have our very own Whole Foods market. Wandering the aisles in that organic emporium, I am always like a newly arrived immigrant made woozy by glorious abundance. The sight of bright-eyed fish caught hours ago in Alaska, red radish globes so recently pulled from the earth that the leaves are still crisp, and creamy cheeses and rich chocolate just off the plane from France never fails to make me thankful that I live in a country where such things are possible. I ended up buying an enormous bunch of yellow freesia, a Mediterranean dip of feta, sun-ripened tomatoes, and Greek olives, and a package of miniature pita for the dip.

Leaving the market, I caught myself watching for another glimpse of Jessica Ballantyne. What was she doing at Ramón’s funeral? For that matter, who was that skinny man who’d been watching her, and why did he look so familiar?

I thought about it all the way home, and I was still thinking about it when I put the freesia in a big blue vase and set it in the middle of my kitchen bar where I could see it from just about every spot in my apartment. I did some laundry, spiffed up the kitchen a bit and deep-cleaned my bathroom until I was a little high on chlorine fumes, then got the Mediterranean dip and the pita and went to my office-closet to catch up on business.

I’m a stickler for detail about my pet-sitting duties. I keep a record for every pet, with every pill given, every bath, every flea or tick treatment administered, and any unusual things the pet did that might signal an infection or some other health problem. When the owners come back, I give them a note of all those things along with my bill. That way, they don’t duplicate treatments, and if there’s the possibility of a problem, they can watch for more symptoms.

Before I had a chance to even taste the Mediterranean dip, the phone rang. Holding a torn triangle of pita at the ready, I waited for the machine to tell me who was calling.

It was a woman’s voice, thin and uncertain. “My name is Paloma Gutierrez. I wish to speak to—”

I dropped the pita and snagged the phone. “This is Dixie, Paloma.”

“Oh.” She laughed nervously, the way people do when they’ve been speaking to an electronic voice that’s suddenly replaced by the human original. “I … um … I have been thinking about what you said.”

“About the kitten?”

There was a pause, as if she were shocked, and I mentally slapped myself.

She said, “No, but it was because of the kitten that I decided to call you. I mean, I saw how much you cared about it, and that made me think about how you said I should remember that Ramón loved me. And he did, you know? He truly did, even though …”

Her voice trailed away, and I swallowed the dry grit of anxiety. I was glad she’d lost some of the bitter jealousy she’d had when we first spoke, but had she called just to tell me that she knew her husband had loved her?

“Paloma, could we meet someplace and talk?”

“Jochim doesn’t want me to tell you anything.”

“Jochim has a man’s fear of the truth. Women know it’s the only power we have.”

I heard a sharp little intake of breath. “Yes. That is true.”

I waited, clamping my teeth together to keep from bellowing Please tell me what you know!

She said, “Do you know the Sweet Pea Café? I will meet you there in thirty minutes. I can’t stay long.”

I said, “Bless you, Paloma,” and really meant it.

Sarasota has a large Amish community. The men wear traditional beards and denim overalls, the women wear modest cotton dresses and little lacy bun covers over their upswept hair. Young Amish men and women zoom through the streets on bicycles, while their parents and grandparents opt for more sedate three-wheelers, some of them with seats wide enough for husband and wife together. Either because they are naturally entrepreneurial or because they can only indulge their love for sugary desserts if they make them, a lot of Amish operate restaurants serving the kind of hearty fare they ate before they left the farm and retired to Sarasota for an easier life.

The Sweet Pea is a cheery little Amish café with ruffled yellow curtains on the windows and religious music playing in the background. At this in-between hour—early for the dinner crowd and late for the lunch bunch—only a few tables and booths were occupied, mostly by elderly Amish couples who had parked their trikes on the sidewalk outside the door.

When I got there, “The First Noel” was playing too loud on the sound system, and Paloma was already seated in a booth at the back, a wan little figure looking like an exhausted teenager who needed a good night’s sleep.

TWENTY-TWO

I slid in the booth opposite Paloma, and a sweet-faced waitress in an obviously homemade dress brought me a mug of hot coffee without being told.

Raising her voice to speak over the music, the waitress said, “Our special today is meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Would you like that, or would you like to see a menu?”

Out of consideration for Paloma’s grief, I hesitated. I remembered what it was like to be unable to swallow anything other than tears, and I didn’t want to seem crass. On the other hand, it had been a long time since breakfast, and I love the unabashed over-buttered, over-creamed, deep-fried, gooey, over-sugared excessiveness of Amish food, even if most Amish cafés consider canned green beans a vegetable.

I said, “The meat loaf, please, with a side of fried okra.”