Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

Judy returned with my usual two eggs over easy with extra-crisp home fries and a biscuit. As if she knew I was on my last nerve, she put the plate down and refilled my mug without comment.

I thanked her and fell on the food like a ravenous wolf. In the midst of mopping up egg yolk with my biscuit, I suddenly remembered my date with Ethan, which was now several hours closer than it had been the last time I thought of it. I guzzled the last drop of coffee and looked around for Judy, who was coming toward me with her pot held out like a rescue lamp.

She said, “Good grief, girl, when’s the last time you ate?”

“I know. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say it’s awful. More like a substitute for sex. If you were getting any, you wouldn’t be eating like there’s no tomorrow. That’s what I always think when I see those big fat women putting away another helping of mashed potatoes. Poor things probably haven’t had good sex in years. Maybe never. All those diet books people read, that’s a lot of hooey. Women having good sex don’t gain weight, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

With an emphatic nod, she turned away to slap down a check on the table across the aisle. I held my mug with both hands and wondered what she would say if I told her I was probably going to have sex tonight. Good, bad, or mediocre, it was probably going to happen. I tried not to groan out loud at the thought. I hoped I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. I hoped I remembered how to act in bed.

The blonde across the aisle stood up and gathered her folded newspaper. Then in one smooth motion, she pivoted and sat in the seat across from me. I blinked at her a couple of times and then slammed my mug on the table.

“Bitch, you’re the one who called me!”

“I couldn’t think of anything else. I had to bring attention to that house. Besides, I knew if you showed up talking about an iguana named ZIGI, he would know he was in danger.”

“Anything else I can do for you? Polish your shoes? Fluff your blond wig?”

“I understand your anger.”

“Oh, great! Now you’re going to play shrink.”

She folded the edge of her newspaper into a triangle. “I have to know something. The woman who lived with him, were they lovers?”

“Does it matter?”

She sighed. “I suppose you’ve guessed that I’m new to this. I don’t imagine I’ll ever do it again.”

“Do what? Impersonate Irishmen?”

“Work as an undercover investigator.”

“For BiZogen?”

“No, the FBI. They knew Ken and I had worked together. They thought I would be able to track him down before ZIGI’s people did.”

“No offense, Jessica, but that has to mean they didn’t think it was important enough to put one of their real investigators on it.”

She nodded meekly. “It’s the war on terrorism. All the agents who know what they’re doing are looking for men with wires coming out of their shoes.”

“You suck as an undercover investigator. I have pets that could do better.”

“Ken is right about BiZogen causing our friends to die. They drowned because of BiZogen’s negligence. I’m sure that’s why he contacted ZIGI. I find that somewhat endearing, don’t you?”

I leaned closer to her and spoke very slowly. “I don’t find any of this endearing. What about the murdered guard?”

“I don’t know who did that, Dixie, and it’s not part of my job. That’s something for the local law-enforcement people to handle.”

“What about Gilda?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. What about Gilda? Who is she? What is she to Ken? You say Ken kept my photograph beside his bed, but he apparently took another woman into it.”

“Well, to be fair, he did think you were dead.”

“I would not have taken a lover so soon if I’d thought he had died.”

Neither would I, obviously.

I said, “How did you find him?”

She looked smug. “It wasn’t hard, actually. Ken is a dedicated wine collector, and he always ordered wine from the same company. I simply went there and told them Ken had sent me to select wine to be shipped to him. Then I had them verify the address for me.”

I wasn’t surprised. Criminal investigators maintain that half their arrests are due to criminals doing something stupid. Bank robbers write demand notes on the back of personalized deposit slips. People on the lam use their credit cards at hotels and restaurants. Hardened killers survive bullets and barbed wire and snarling dogs to escape from maximum-security prisons and then head straight to their mothers’ kitchens. It’s like we all have a fatal flaw that trips us up, and if we turn to the dark side we take our fatal flaw with us.

Ken Kurtz was a scientific genius, but his persistence in a known habit had allowed Jessica to trace him to Siesta Key, which was dumb. Furthermore, a man who claimed to subsist on Gilda’s health shakes surely couldn’t drink the wine he collected, which made having it even dumber.

Just as I was congratulating myself on being smarter than Kurtz, a little doubt crept into my mind. The wine could be a deliberate ploy. Kurtz might want people to concentrate on his wine so they wouldn’t notice something more important.

The smart-ass voice in my head said, Which would be what?

I didn’t have an answer, but I wasn’t sure anymore that I was so smart.

I said, “And the stolen car?”

“My employer provided the car. I don’t know if they knew it was stolen.”

“Your heart isn’t in this job, is it?”

“It’s just that I feel the same way Ken does about what happened at the lab.”

“But you took a job for the FBI.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Seems pretty simple to me. You’re pissed at Ken Kurtz because you think he abandoned you to die, so you’re working to help the FBI arrest him for industrial espionage. But for old times’ sake, you’re giving him advance warning so he can run away or hide the research or somehow save himself before the Feds with the big guns move in. That about it?”

“What he’s doing is wrong, but I understand why he’s doing it.”

I leaned back against the booth seat and let a moment of silence pass.

“Jessica, this isn’t just about Ken Kurtz and his research. A man was murdered. Whoever killed the guard may have been there to kill Kurtz. You said yourself that the rivalry between BiZogen and ZIGI was cutthroat. With or without the FBI’s involvement, BiZogen is probably out to kill him.”

“If they get his research back, they won’t kill him.”

“Because they’re such warm, fuzzy people.”

“No, because Ken is such a brilliant researcher. They’d rather hire him back than kill him.”

I said, “Kurtz seems certain that Gilda will return, but he didn’t say why. He claims the packages she took from the refrigerator were vials of antidote for whatever it is that has turned him blue and given him nerve damage. But anybody in as bad shape as he is would be more concerned about losing his antidote, so I don’t believe him. Do you have any idea what was in those vials, or why he’s so sure she’ll be back?”

“If they’re lovers—”

I banged the table with my fist. “Forget the lover crap! Come on, you’re a researcher too. What would have been stored in the refrigerator in wrapped packages? It must be something that has to be replaced. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so sure Gilda was coming back.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“What are you going to do, Jessica? Seems to me you’ve pretty much blown your cover and lost all your effectiveness as an FBI agent. Why don’t you just go whole hog and quit? Go see Kurtz. You love him, he loves you, you’re both brilliant scientists—maybe you can figure out a way to give the research back to BiZogen and keep Ken out of prison.”