The Cat Sitter’s Cradle (17 page)

Plus, the sun was setting, and I had one more item on my to-do list before I could
throw my exhausted bones into bed and put this whole day out of its misery.

15

When my grandparents moved here, the Key was a completely different world. First of
all, there weren’t nearly as many houses as there are now, not to mention condos and
high-rise apartment buildings and restaurants and shops and chic hotels. It was just
a quiet fishing village, and what few houses there were certainly never made it onto
the cover of
Fancy-Pants Mansion
magazine. Secondly, there was no such thing as a “private” beach. Even when Michael
and I were kids, we would roam for hours on end exploring every inch of the island,
and not once did we ever encounter a
NO TRESPASSING
sign. Back then most of the island was covered in sea grape and sugarberry trees
and live oaks that towered over jungles of saw palmetto, wild olive, and creeping
moonflower vines. It felt like our own personal jungle for two.

These days people like to joke that if you look away too long, the jungle starts to
creep in and reclaim its stake. That definitely seems to be the case on Windy Way,
where the houses peek out from behind a densely woven curtain of tree limbs and vines,
and you have to carefully maneuver your car around the occasional island that’s opened
up in the middle of the one-lane road, where patches of saw grass have sprouted and
overly ambitious cabbage palms are poking their way through.

I pulled into the driveway of a low-slung ranch house with pale gray siding and a
lipstick red front door. A huge live oak huddled over the house like a regular at
the neighborhood bar, resting its leafy elbows on the peak of the roof. Mrs. Langham
was sitting in a beach chair in the open bay of the garage with her feet propped up
on an old ice cooler. She was stick-thin with salt-and-pepper hair and bright pink
lipstick. Perched on the bridge of her nose was a pair of bifocals attached to a string
of white plastic beads around her neck, and she was busily pulling a needle and thread
through an embroidery frame—probably an applique for a dress she was working on. As
I walked up she laid the embroidery frame down in her lap and slid her glasses off.

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in!”

I said, “I know, I know. I’ve been meaning to call you forever.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about it. I knew you’d come sniffing around one of these days
when you got desperate enough. Come on back. It’s in the sewing room.”

The last time I saw Mrs. Langham was months ago when I had dropped by on a whim. She
had been my grandmother’s seamstress, so I’d known her since I was just a little girl.
I remembered lying on the floor of the sewing room in this very house, playing with
her black poodle while she and my grandmother talked about clothes and men and neighborhood
gossip. It turned out she had made a few outfits for my mother, too. Seeing me had
reminded her how stylish my mother was, and before I knew it she was measuring me
for an evening dress and talking about “low cut” this and “plunging” that. I went
along with it because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but when she called to let
me know the dress was finished, I chickened out.

When I was nine, and my mother ran away to start a new life or hide from her old one—I’ve
never been quite sure which—she left nearly all her things behind, including most
of her clothes. We still have a trunk of them in the attic. I used to sneak up every
once in a while and go through them, remembering how pretty she was, what she smelled
like, how she looked in a particular hat or dress—a dress more than likely made in
this very sewing room. So when Mrs. Langham had called to tell me the dress was ready,
it set off some strange emotional reaction in me, and I just didn’t want to go back.
Plus, the thought of wearing some sexy getup made me feel like I had a fur ball stuck
in the back of my throat. I’m nothing like my mother. I’m a T-shirt and shorts kind
of girl. Always have been, always will be.

Mrs Langham didn’t give up easily, though. She called several times over the next
couple of months, and each time I made up another excuse to postpone a fitting. Finally,
after a couple of unreturned messages, she just stopped calling.

I followed Mrs. Langham through the house to the guest bedroom, which had been converted
to a sewing room with worktables and sewing machines in the middle, a full-length
mirror on one wall, and a pegboard with hundreds of spools of colored thread on the
opposite wall. Mrs. Langham swung open the doors of a huge armoire in the corner and
pulled out a dress with a dramatic flourish. It was about the most hideous shade of
purple I’d ever laid eyes on.

I tried my best to sound happy. “Oh wow! It’s purple!”

“No, no, no. It’s rose. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Just give it a chance. You
have the same coloring as your mother. I promise you, this shade was perfect for her,
and it’s perfect for you. It will look stunning with that beautiful blond hair of
yours.”

I stood there speechless, racking my brain for some excuse to make a quick escape.

“Come on, Dixie,” she said, holding the dress out. “Trust an old lady.”

Reluctantly, I stepped out of my clothes and slid the dress down over my head. There
was a dressmaker’s form on a stand in the middle of the room. Mrs. Langham wheeled
it aside, and I stepped in front of the mirror. When I looked up, I nearly gasped
out loud.

She was right. It was a good color on me. In fact, it was beautiful. It wrapped over
both shoulders, crossing in the front to form a plunging neckline, but not in a vulgar
way, and then gathered in very close at the waist and dropped down just above the
knee.

“Oh,” I said. “I look good.”

Mrs. Langham perched her glasses on the tip of her nose and looked me up and down
like a rancher appraising a prize steer at market.

“No, my dear. You look
hot.
”

16

The next morning, I woke at 4:00
A.M.
to the sound of my radio alarm playing “Walk Like an Egyptian.” My thoughts bopped
along to the beat of it for a few short but blissful moments.

Slide your feet up the streets, bend your back.

Shift your arm then you pull it back.

Then everything that had happened the day before came rushing into my brain like a
hangover headache. My right shoulder ached as if I’d competed in a one-armed weight-lifting
competition, and I realized with a jolt that it was from pulling Mr. Harwick’s heavy,
water-sodden body up to the edge of the pool. I switched on the bedside lamp and sat
up. If it weren’t for the fact that there were half a dozen animals depending on me
for breakfast, I would’ve pulled the plug on the alarm clock and slept the rest of
the day with the blinds closed.

I dragged my legs off the bed and walked zombielike into the bathroom and splashed
myself with cold water. I looked at my bleary eyes and puffy morning face in the mirror
as I brushed my teeth. From the back of my head I heard a tiny voice say sarcastically,
Oh, you’re gonna look great for Ethan tonight!

I pulled my hair into a ponytail, grabbed clean shorts, a bra, and a tee from the
closet, and slid my bare feet into a pair of white Keds.

It was still pitch dark outside, but I could see glittering reflections of the moon
off the waves rolling in on the beach. I leaned on the porch railing and let the cool
salty air fill my lungs. Along the edge of the horizon was a sliver of coral pink
light edging the night sky out of its way.

Like I always do in the morning, I checked out the situation in the carport. My Bronco
was sitting there all by its lonesome except for a couple of pelicans dozing on the
hood. Paco’s Harley was parked in the corner, but his truck was gone, which meant
he was still out somewhere on an undercover job, hunting down a drug kingpin or infiltrating
a street gang. The Special Investigative Bureau isn’t exactly a nine-to-five job,
so no one ever knows what Paco’s schedule is, and Michael and I both worry about him
when he’s not home.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I remembered that Michael’s shift at the firehouse
would be ending tonight. With everything that had happened in the last twenty-four
hours, I’d be happy to have a big strong man around.

My brain felt like it was repeatedly shuffling a deck of cards, except instead of
clubs and spades and diamonds and hearts, the cards were all images of everything
that had happened in the last several days: Mrs. Harwick sprinkling fish food across
the surface of the tank, Becca rolled up in a sobbing mess on the bathroom floor,
Mr. Harwick’s stupefied face staring up at me on the side of the pool. I was suddenly
filled with the most profound feeling of dread, and then all the cards in my head
scattered, leaving behind one lonely image: Ethan Crane.

Sweet Ethan Crane. He was a good man, and he cared for me, but I was stupid to have
agreed to go on a date with him. It would never work. For one, I was still reeling
from my parting with Guidry, and … and what? It just didn’t feel right. If I was being
honest with myself, it was impossible to know if what I was feeling for him was love,
and not loneliness or lust or fatigue looking for a resting place.

Anyway, if a woman decides it is love she feels, how can she ever be sure the man
she loves is the right one? Then I pictured myself in that ridiculous purple dress
and laughed out loud. I must have been a fool to think I could pull that off.

Alright. Clearly I had fallen into a funk.

I knew it had mostly to do with Mr. Harwick, and I tried to give myself a break. Apparently,
failing to save a man’s life can put a real damper on your mood. I sighed and looked
up at the starlit sky. Somehow without even trying I had yet again gotten myself mixed
up in a whole mess of trouble, and yet again I had no idea why it kept happening.
One day I’m minding my own business, brushing out cat hair and picking up dog poop,
and the next I’m locking lips with a dead man on the side of a pool. I needed to try
to keep my mind on my own problems and my own life. I’m a pet sitter, damn it, not
a social worker, not a marriage counselor, not an emergency medical technician, and
not
a homicide detective.

I told myself that Mrs. Harwick was no shrinking violet. She was a smart, capable
woman. She didn’t need me to help her with the death of her husband, and no matter
how much experience I had in that department and no matter how strong the bond I had
felt with her, there was nothing I could do to make what she was about to go through
any easier.

Furthermore, Becca had a loving mother and a loving brother. She could depend on them
for any support she might need, and it was completely egotistical and frankly a little
crazy for me to think that I could help her through her stepfather’s death or the
mess she and Kenny had gotten themselves into. No matter how much I could relate to
what they were going through, there wasn’t a single thing I could do to make it easier
on any of them. The only thing that was going to help was the passage of time.

I didn’t know what to think about Kenny, but I decided he was none of my business
either. I’d spent too much time and energy defending him and trying to help him out,
and now I was beginning to see that Michael and Paco had been smart to be suspicious
of him. Perhaps Paco was right and I had been swayed by Kenny’s scruffy good looks,
or maybe somewhere hidden deep inside him was a genuinely good person, but he was
clearly making some very bad choices.

And if he’d had anything to do with Mr. Harwick’s drowning, I knew it wouldn’t take
Detective McKenzie very long to figure it out. She didn’t need my help either.

I told myself that if there was anybody that needed me right now, it was Corina, and
there was plenty I could do for her. She might have made some bad choices, too, but
at least she was trying her best to do better and make a better life for herself and
her baby, and she wasn’t hurting anybody in the process or acting out of pure selfishness
or greed. All she needed was a little push in the right direction and she’d be fine.

As for Ethan, I’d have to figure out a way to let him down easy. I needed to take
things a little slower and with a little more thought.

I remembered how I hadn’t been filled with so much angst and doubt when I first met
Todd. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, but Todd changed that. There was never
even the slightest doubt that he was the right man for me. When I held him in my arms,
it literally felt as if our hearts beat at the same exact rate. Sometimes I wonder
if my heart will ever find that particular rhythm again.

I decided that I’d been through too much bullshit in my life to complicate things
now, and losing Guidry to New Orleans was no bed of roses either. If Ethan didn’t
understand that, then he wasn’t the right man for me in the first place.

Feeling emboldened, I clattered down the stairs and hopped into the Bronco. The two
pelicans on the hood sullenly unfolded themselves and flapped off toward the water
as I backed out of the carport. I rolled down the driveway and turned onto Midnight
Pass Road, determined to have a nice, normal, boring day.

Rufus was as happy as usual to see me. As soon as I opened the front door he came
clicking across the hardwood floor, hopping up and down on his back legs and pawing
the air excitedly. Then he ran barking into the living room and grabbed his chew toy.
He shook it with all his might and then came racing back and dropped it at my feet
as a welcome gift.

Whenever I spend the night with any of my dogs, which I usually do if their humans
are going to be out of town, I always take their collars off before bed. I figure
they don’t want to sleep in their day clothes any more than I do, and I think they
actually sleep better that way. Now almost all of my clients do the same thing. Rufus
scampered around my feet while I got his collar out of the drawer in the hall desk.
He stood as still as he could, or at least as still as his eagerly wagging rump would
allow, while I fastened his collar around his neck.