The Cat Sitter’s Cradle (23 page)

She disappeared down the hall while I sat down on the couch and braced myself. Henry
the VIII jumped into my lap and pawed at my hand, trying to get me to pet him.

From down the hallway, Joyce let out a little laugh and then I heard,
“Ay dios mío.”

As I rubbed Henry the VIII behind the ears, I wondered how angry or afraid Corina
would be when she heard what we had to say. I didn’t think she was capable of violence,
but I also knew that anybody, animal or human, can be pretty unpredictable when backed
into a corner. I hoped she would understand that we were only looking out for her
best interest, but I wasn’t sure how easy it was going to be to get her to see that.

Joyce said, “Hey, Dixie, why don’t you come back here?”

Henry the VIII jumped off my lap and went scampering down the hall ahead of me. Joyce
was leaning in the doorway of Corina’s bedroom with a sad smile on her face.

“She’s gone.”

The room had been meticulously cleaned. The bedspread was completely smooth, its corners
neatly tucked in, and the pillows were leaned up against the headboard with their
edges perfectly parallel to one another. Lined up on the edge of the bed and organized
in neat piles were all of the things I had bought for the baby. The clothes, the diapers,
the creams, the bottles, the blankets. Everything.

On the dresser in front of the mirror was Joyce’s antique birdcage. It was as clean
as if René had never existed, and inside, leaning against one of the little wooden
perches, was a plain white envelope. Joyce opened the cage door and pulled it out.
Written in a childish hand on its face were the words
I’M SORRY
.

We both slumped down on the bed and sat numbly for a minute or so.

Finally Joyce said, “Well, I guess I better open it.”

She slid her fingers across the flap of the envelope and took a deep breath.

There was no letter inside.

Just two slightly wrinkled thousand-dollar bills.

*   *   *

I have a theory about cats. It’s based on my own ranking system, which I call the
Kitty Craziness Factor, or KCF. It measures the level of feline loopiness in a household—like
how much racing up and down the stairs there is, or climbing on furniture and pouncing
on imaginary mice. The higher the Kitty Craziness Factor, the more loopiness. So in
a household where the KCF is high, there might be, for example, spelunking down the
living room curtains or skydiving off the refrigerator.

The process of determining the Kitty Craziness Factor is pretty simple. You just count
the number of cats. A household with only one cat has a KCF of one. A household with
two cats has a KCF of two. A household with three cats has a KCF of seven. I don’t
know why a household with three cats has more than three times the loopiness of a
household with only two cats, but it’s a scientific fact.

Betty and Grace Piker were two retired sisters who had a long-standing agreement with
each other. If one found a cat and wanted to bring it home, the other would stop her—using
physical force if necessary. They had seven cats, all rescues. It wasn’t even possible
to measure the KCF in their household; it was completely off the charts.

The Piker sisters had gone to Orlando to visit their niece, who had just given birth.
They were only staying for the day, so all I needed to do was check on the cats and
feed them. The sisters were planning on being back home that evening.

All the cats were napping when I arrived, so things were relatively subdued. I washed
out the food bowls and lined them up in a row on the kitchen counter. In each bowl
I mixed a cup of dry cat kibble with just a little warm water from the tap. Then I
opened the cabinet and pulled out a can of sardines.

Suddenly all seven cats stampeded into the kitchen, circling at my feet and bleating
excitedly. I hadn’t even opened the can yet. I could swear they knew the sound it
made when it clinked down on the countertop.

As I distributed the bowls around the kitchen to give everybody a little elbow room
to dine in private, I felt like Dame Wiggins of Lee, a character from one of the books
my grandmother used to read to me when I was a little girl. The book had been a gift
to me from my brother on my very first birthday. Dame Wiggins had seven wonderful
cats that could all cook and sew. When they weren’t outside ice-skating on the pond
or flying kites, they were inside helping Dame Wiggins of Lee with all her daily chores.

I said, “Anybody want to come home and help me with the laundry?”

There were no takers. They were all too busy concentrating on their yummy sardines
to pay me any mind.

While they ate, I did a quick run through the house, righting overturned trash baskets
and checking for any other accidents. In the guest bathroom, somebody had made confetti
of the toilet paper roll, and there was a scattering of kitty litter that had been
pawed out of one of the three litter boxes in the laundry room. They might not have
been as neat and tidy as Dame Wiggins of Lee’s cats, but they were just as wonderful.

By the time I had cleaned the litter boxes and put everything back in order, everyone
was done with dinner and the Kitty Craziness Factor was through the roof. Usually
I worry about leaving my pets all alone in their houses—even if I’ve spent a good
chunk of time playing with them—but these guys provided each other with so much attention
and exercise that I didn’t feel guilty leaving them. In fact, I think if they’d been
able to open a can of sardines by themselves, they wouldn’t have needed me at all.

I was headed out to the car when my cell phone rang. It was Detective McKenzie. I
imagined Kenny had told her his story by now, and she was probably calling to find
out what he’d told me and if our stories matched.

Before I answered, I took a deep breath. I wanted to be ready for whatever tricks
she had up her sleeve.

“Dixie, I wanted to let you know our crime units are pulling out of the Harwick house
now.”

I said, “Oh, okay. I guess I can bring the cat back?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Mrs. Harwick isn’t coming home yet. She’s afraid to sleep
in the house until the killer has been caught. She’s asked if you could continue to
feed her fish for a little while longer.”

I could tell by the tone in McKenzie’s voice that Mrs. Harwick was probably still
in a state of shock. If it were me, I don’t think I’d ever want to go home again.

The last time we had talked, McKenzie mentioned that a doctor had been called in for
Mrs. Harwick, probably to prescribe some sort of sedative to help her sleep. I wanted
to know if that had helped at all, but I knew it wasn’t my place to ask.

McKenzie said, “Still no word from Kenny Newman?”

I closed my eyes and silently shook my head. “Oh, no.”

“What? I’m assuming you’ve not heard from him?”

I sighed. “Detective McKenzie, he showed up at my apartment late last night. I’m sorry
I didn’t call you. He promised he was turning himself in as soon as he left. I just
assumed he was telling the truth.”

There was a slight pause on the line, and then she said, “We need to talk. Where’s
convenient for you?”

*   *   *

We agreed to meet near the pavilion at Siesta Key Beach. We were alone except for
a group of teenagers in swimming trunks and bikinis, huddled around their soft drinks
and eating hot dogs at one of the picnic tables. They were tearing little pieces of
their hot dog buns and tossing them to the sparrows that were pecking around under
the tables.

Detective McKenzie was waiting for me at one of the benches that face the beach. In
her plain tan skirt and navy blue blazer, she stood out like a sore thumb. I got the
feeling she didn’t spend a lot of time on the beach, and she had probably never worn
a bikini in her life. She was wearing a pair of big-framed sunglasses, and her frizzy
sorrel hair was pulled under a wide-brimmed straw hat, which provided some protection
for her pale, freckled skin from the hot afternoon sun.

When I walked up, she stood and shook my hand firmly.

“Thanks for meeting me, Dixie. It’s much easier to talk in person than on the phone.”

I muttered something vague like “Sure is,” but the truth was I didn’t want to talk
to her at all. For some insane reason I still felt a lingering loyalty to Kenny, some
inexplicable desire to protect him, even though he’d given me his word that he would
turn himself in to the police as soon as he left my apartment. Apparently he’d had
other plans.

As I sat down she said, “First of all, does he have Becca?”

I shook my head sadly. “No. He says he has no idea where she is.”

“Alright. And I don’t suppose he told you where he’s staying.”

I shook my head again. “No.”

She smiled uncomfortably. “Well, now that we’ve got that over with. Tell me everything
that happened last night.”

I told her the entire story, including how Kenny had asked me not to let the police
hear the message he’d left on my answering machine. She pulled her clipboard out of
her bag and made a few notes as I talked, but she didn’t say a word until I got to
the part where Kenny said he was Mr. Harwick’s son.

She held up one hand to stop me. “Wait a minute. He’s been working in the Harwick
house for months.”

“I know. He was going to tell them who he was, but I think he was scared.”

“So he never told them?”

“He did. He called Mr. Harwick.”

“When?”

“The night before I found him in the pool.”

“Does Mrs. Harwick know about this?”

I said, “I don’t think so. Mr. Harwick was whispering on the phone, so Kenny got the
impression he was trying to hide it from her. They agreed to meet at the house, and
Mr. Harwick drove back from Tampa that night. They met alone. He told Kenny he was
sorry, and he wanted to make it up to him. He said he would buy Kenny a house and
give him money and put him in his will, but Kenny didn’t want anything to do with
it. He told Mr. Harwick that he wasn’t there for money. He just wanted his father
to tell him to his face why he had run away.”

She took off her sunglasses and looked me squarely in the eye. “Dixie, let me get
this straight. It’s the middle of the night. This man who’s been missing since Mr.
Harwick drowned shows up at your door out of nowhere. You know the police are looking
for him. You’re all alone. Why in the world would you let him in your house?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I suddenly felt my cheeks turning red. “Well … I
wasn’t alone, actually.”

She waved her hand like a teacher erasing a chalkboard. “Okay, forget that. Why would
you let him in your house
at all
?”

I thought for a moment, but I couldn’t come up with a good answer. “It was stupid.
I shouldn’t have let him in. I guess I trusted him.”

She put her sunglasses back on. “Yes, I’m beginning to see that. So how did their
meeting end?”

“Kenny told Mr. Harwick he didn’t want anything from him, including his money. And
to prove it, he gave him an envelope with all the letters that Mr. Harwick had ever
sent him, including checks that he never cashed.”

I paused for a moment. I knew that what I was about to say was not going to sound
good, but I also knew I didn’t have a choice. “He also said that he told his father
he could take his money and rot in hell. Then he left.”

Detective McKenzie frowned. “This packet of letters, did he say where it was?”

“No. He said he gave it to Mr. Harwick before he left.”

She nodded. “That’s interesting. There was no packet of letters in that house when
we searched it.”

The teenagers had gone down to the beach and were running in and out of the waves
and laughing in that carefree way kids do. A small brown sparrow perched on the table
next to ours and pitched a couple of bossy chirps at us. I think he was checking to
see if we had any hot dog buns for him.

It was hard to tell what Detective McKenzie was thinking. She had laid her clipboard
down in her lap and was resting her hands on it.

“Dixie, tell me what you know about Becca.”

“I’ve only met her a couple of times, but she seems like a sweet girl, just a little
in over her head.”

“Mrs. Harwick tells me that Becca can be emotional. Does that sound right to you?”

“Yeah, I would say she definitely has a flare for the dramatic.”

“And that day you found her crying on the floor in her parents’ bathroom, did you
wonder why she was there, instead of her own room?”

“No. It’s a pretty nice bathroom, and the aquarium is kind of soothing, so I got the
impression she spent a lot of time in there.”

“Did anything seem strange about her?”

I said, “Other than that she was totally freaking out?”

“I understand she was upset, but the way you described it made me wonder if there
wasn’t something else going on, something that might have been influencing her behavior.”

“You mean … like drugs?”

She nodded.

“It’s possible. Like I said, I didn’t know her before all this, so I couldn’t say
if the way she was acting was normal for her or not. But she did say her brother had
been involved with drugs. That’s why he got a job at the golf club, because the Harwicks
cut him off when they found out.”

She nodded. “Mrs. Harwick mentioned that. She also told me she overheard an argument
between Becca and August. Apparently something was missing from August’s room, but
Becca denied having anything to do with it. Do you know what that might have been
about?”

“No. She didn’t say anything about that to me.”

“Alright, one last thing. I keep going back to your porcupine fish. You didn’t notice
if it was alarmed that morning you talked to Becca?”

“No, definitely not, I would have remembered that for sure.”

“Do you think a loud noise could have caused it to puff up like it did?”

“Definitely. Especially if the noise was nearby.”