Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

In a low menacing voice, she said, “Drop the weapons, Walt.”

Both men froze, and for an instant a play of emotions rippled across their faces.

Low as an exhaled breath, Kurtz said, “Jessie.”

The word held so much love and longing that I forgot about the guns and looked at him. He wore the smile of a happy man, and his eyes burned with new excitement.

Cahill let the guns fall to the floor.

Kurtz said, “God, Jessie, I’ve dreamed for two years that you came back to me. I thought it was an impossible fantasy. When Dixie told me you were alive, I was afraid to believe it, afraid it would turn out to be a hoax.”

Jessica’s face remained still, but her eyes showed the turmoil she felt.

Gilda had been ignored as long as she could stand. Still bleeding from Ziggy’s claws, her arms windmilled as she bounced in place.

“He killed Ramón!”

The woman’s one-track focus was beginning to get on my nerves, but at least she was telling the truth.

I said, “She’s right, Jessica. Ken Kurtz killed the guard.”

With her eyes still locked on Kurtz’s, Jessica said, “Is that true, Ken?”

Kurtz flapped his hand. “Don’t get distracted by extraneous details, Jessica. The important thing is that we’re together again. You’re a scientist, a brilliant scientist. Together we can do everything we always dreamed of doing.”

Jessica said, “I was sent here to arrest you.”

“They’ll drop it, Jessie. I can name a long list of judges and congressmen and FDA people who’ve been bought by BiZogen or ZIGI. There’ll be some media flap for a while, and then it’ll die down. Don’t worry about it.”

Her voice went even huskier than usual. “I understood how you felt about our colleagues being killed, but I’ll never understand how you could deliberately murder a man.”

He went very still, as if her words held coded meaning that only an old lover with intimate knowledge of another’s pitch and turn of phrase could translate. Then he raised a hand to his face, where spasms moved like small jerking animals under his blue skin. In that moment, he was such a pitiable figure that every eye in the room fixed on his quivering visage. Nobody noticed his other hand plunge into his pocket until he pulled out a small gun. It appeared to be a Smith & Wesson

.38 Special, a revolver with a two-inch barrel. Since revolvers don’t leave casings, I supposed it was the gun he’d used to kill Ramón, the same gun he’d worn under his robe when I first met him. Now I knew why he’d fussed with the logs in the basket. That’s where he’d hidden the gun.

From the corridor, somebody yelled, “Freeze!”

In the next instant, what looked like half the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department exploded into the room from all directions, all with their weapons trained on Ken Kurtz.

Like a highway accident in which a second of chaos seems to stretch into sequential minutes, time slowed to a crawl.

Kurtz pivoted toward the southern corridor with his gun raised and pointed directly at deputies there. At that same moment, Ziggy panicked from all the new smells and sounds and streaked across the room, running straight toward the deputies in the southern corridor. Seeing a small dragon coming at him, the nearest one jerked his weapon toward him.

I yelled, “Don’t hurt the iguana!”

With his body still turning toward the southern corridor and his gun still raised, Kurtz became aware of Ziggy’s blind run and of the deputy’s startled reaction. Instinctively, he leaped toward Ziggy, for an exquisite moment spread-eagled above him. At that precise instant, Jessica put a bullet through his neck.

Kurtz fell on top of Ziggy and rolled to his side facing Jessica. His gun fell from his hand, and in the moment before death claimed him, it looked as if his eyes were focused on her with calm acceptance.

Ziggy scrambled free and scuttled away, his tail dragging through Kurtz’s blood to form a red connection between blue man and green beast.

The room went eerily quiet.

With his own gun drawn, Guidry came around the corner from the north corridor.

He said, “Jessica Ballantyne?”

With tears streaming down her face, she handed him her gun. “I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lieutenant.”

Guidry’s gray eyes were watching her intently. “I think you’d better sit down.”

“I’m quite all right, Lieutenant.”

With his phone to his ear, Guidry came to stand in front of me. Behind him, an officer was arresting Gilda, and another officer was cuffing Cahill and advising him of his rights.

Guidry clicked his phone closed. “Thanks for leaving the back door open for us.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“An officer tailed Gilda here, then watched you come in. While he waited for backups, the other two dropped in. You must have sent out invitations.”

“Kurtz killed Ramón, not Gilda. The man’s name is Cahill. He’s a rival scientist. He’s the one who hit me, and he tried to steal Ziggy.” In sudden alarm, I said, “Don’t let anything happen to Ziggy! He’s producing bird flu vaccine.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll protect him.”

Guidry’s level voice was reassuring. Something bad had happened, it was being handled. Other bad things would undoubtedly happen in the future, and they would be handled too. The world keeps spinning, the sun rises and sets, the tides come in and go out, people cope with life.

One of Guidry’s men took Jessica’s arm and steered her out the front door. As she passed me, our eyes met and we sent each other a silent message that only two women could exchange.

Jessica asked my understanding for sparing the man she loved public humiliation and personal suffering.

I assured her that I would pretend she had killed Kurtz to keep him from taking out a law-enforcement officer.

Then I went to pick Ziggy up and move him to a safe place, because that’s what I do.

TWENTY-NINE

I made a frantic predawn call to the head of the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. When I told him everything I knew about Ziggy, he acted as if he heard bizarre stories like that every day. Four hours later, he arrived with four pre-med students who tenderly carried Ziggy to their van. Before the day was over, he called to tell me he had removed Ziggy’s catheter and that Ziggy was fine. He also said he and his wife and kids wanted to make Ziggy a part of their family. Since there was nobody to say he couldn’t, I gave my own grateful permission. We didn’t discuss Ziggy’s vaccine-producing capabilities. That was something for the vet to discuss with research biologists, but I knew he would make sure Ziggy was protected.

On Christmas Eve, I left Ella snoozing in her new kitty bed while I went to Midnight Spanish Mass at St. Martha’s. I’m not Catholic and I don’t speak Spanish, so it was especially comforting to be with strangers united by a story the credulous take literally and the literate take metaphorically—either way, it transcends dogma or fact. I sat at the back and let the words and music and ritual create a space for my mind to take in the idea of omnipresent love present in every newborn, in every parent, in every man and woman with the courage to trust the wisdom in their hearts. When the service ended, I had moved a little closer to remembering what life and love is all about.

Guidry was at the door waiting for me.

I didn’t know what that meant.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything.

He looped an arm around my shoulders and we stepped into the dark night together.

Also by BLAIZE CLEMENT

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund