The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives (18 page)

“He’s big, long-haired, orange, with a white-tipped tail. His name is Cosmo.”

I tried to remember if he’d been wearing a collar in the store, but Gia frowned and pulled her notepad toward her.

“Hold on. I think somebody just called about the same cat.”

My face lit up. “Did they see him?”

“No, but they said they were looking for him, too.”

I felt my heart start beating a little faster. Was it possible it was Mr. Hoskins?

I said, “Was it an older man?”

She shook her head and leaned forward, as if she had some juicy gossip to share and didn’t want anyone to hear. “No. It was Mrs. Silverthorn.”

I said, “Huh?”

“The cat lady. She’s that old woman that everybody says is crazy and lives in that haunted mansion down at the end of the Key. She said she was looking for a large tabby with a white-tipped tail, and that it answered to the name Moses Cosmo Thornwall.”

I said, “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. It has to be the same cat, don’t you think? I mean, what are the odds? And to be honest, she didn’t sound all that crazy. She said whoever found him would be handsomely paid. Those were her exact words, ‘handsomely paid.’ Weird, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, weird.”

Handsomely paid.
Where had I heard those words before? I remembered Ethan saying that Mrs. Silverthorn owned some of the buildings along Ocean Boulevard, including the bookstore. Detective McKenzie had probably gotten in touch with her to find out if she knew anything about Mr. Hoskins, and being a certified “cat lady” she must have decided that until her missing tenant was found, Cosmo was her responsibility. Any cat lover would do the same.

Gia crinkled her nose. “Dixie. You sure you’re okay?”

I realized I’d been standing there staring off into the distance, completely lost in thought. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just remembered I have an appointment with a new client. Will you say hi to Dr. Layton for me?”

“She’ll be out any minute. Do you want to wait?”

I headed for the door. “No, I’ve gotta run. But if anybody else calls about that cat, can you let me know?”

I didn’t hear her answer. I was already out the door and headed for the car.

*   *   *

I always like to meet with new clients in their homes before their humans go away. It helps the animals know I’m welcome, and I get to see how they interact with their owners and what their routines are. Plus, I just like to know who I’m working for. In this case, I was pretty sure I’d already figured out that part.

I had written the address down in the notebook I keep in my backpack, and I was watching the street numbers as I headed south on Midnight Pass. The numbers get bigger the farther south you go, so I knew it had to be well past my house, near the very end of the Key. Down here, the island gets more and more narrow and finally divides into two parallel spits of sand like the sharp tines of an olive fork. Midnight Pass forms one of the tines. It comes to a dead stop at the very tip, and just before that, Blind Pass Road branches off and forms the other tine.

It’s mostly small vacation bungalows and little hotels scrunched up next to each other, but I had a feeling where I was headed was a bit different. I was keeping an eye on the numbers on the mailboxes when, sure enough, I came to an ancient stand of pines in a lush bed of saw palmetto on the right side of the road, with two stone pillars and a narrow, weedy lane that disappeared into the woods.

There was a rusty iron gate swung partially open off the left pillar, but the other half of the gate had been taken down and was leaning against the pillar on the right. I had a feeling it had been standing there for quite some time—it was choked with invasive cat’s-claw and rosary pea vines.

I slowed down to check the address. The tangle of vines near the base of the pillar on the right had been cut away to reveal a weather-stained marble placard embedded in stone. Carved deeply into its surface was the number 9500.

I looked over at my notebook lying open on the passenger seat. It said 9500 Blind Pass Road. Even though I’d pretty much figured it out already, my jaw dropped open and I let the Bronco crawl to a stop.

I was at the gates of the Silverthorn Mansion.

17

Low-hanging branches caressed the hood of the Bronco as I inched down the winding driveway. It was paved in an intricate pattern of diamond-shaped red-clay bricks and covered in weeds. There were stucco walls that undulated along the sides of the lane like lizard tails, but as the road curved gently to the right, they crumbled into defeated heaps of pink-and-white rubble, and the view opened up to the ocean.

Standing before me like a queen at her coronation was a towering mansion of white limestone, at least four stories high and nearly encased in a woody green tangle of the same vines that were overtaking the front gate. They snaked around an army of massive columns that formed an elegant portico along the entire width of the front entrance and then weaved their way through the stone parapets on each of the floors above, finally twining all the way up a cluster of towering openwork spires and reaching up gracefully to the sky. Where the roof wasn’t concealed under a blanket of decaying leaves, I could see a patchwork of crumbling slate tiles the color of faded dollar bills.

Spread out in front of the house was a sweeping circular courtyard around a massive marble urn in the center that looked like a giant’s chili bowl, and off to one side was an open rectangle, formed by a low, vine-covered colonnade that I took to be the parking area. I pulled in and cut the engine.

I felt like I’d wandered into a fairy tale, where a castle had been picked up in a faraway land and plopped down on the beach, which of course is exactly what it was. I tried to imagine what it must have cost for the Silverthorns to dismantle a house like this, bring it all the way from the English countryside to a remote corner of a tiny Florida key, and then rebuild it piece by piece. It was probably more money than I’d ever see in my entire life. For the Silverthorns, it was probably just a drop in the bucket.

I grabbed my backpack and slipped my notebook down in the side pocket. As I headed across the courtyard, weeds brushing against my ankles, I had the distinct feeling that someone was watching me. All the windows looked like panels from a cathedral, with intricately shaped pieces of colored glass glittering in the sun, but I couldn’t see any light or movement inside. The giant’s chili bowl in the center of the courtyard was filled with fetid, brackish water. It looked as if it had once been a magnificent fountain, but now it was just a playground for a bazillion mosquito larvae.

Just then someone appeared from around the portico, an older man, with gray hair and a pale complexion. When he saw me he paused and straightened his jacket, which was black and slightly worn but formal looking, almost like a tuxedo jacket, over a crisp white dress shirt. I saw the gleam of a silver cuff link at his wrist as he walked over and extended his hand.

“Oliver Silverthorn. How very kind of you to come.”

I said, “Oh, thanks. Except I don’t really know why I’m here.”

“Ah yes, the eternal question. My wife will fill you in on the details. I’m just off to repair a broken screen, but Janet will see you in.”

He motioned to a long expanse of marble steps leading up to the front entrance and was about to turn away when he paused, leveling me with his deep gray eyes. His tone was suddenly serious.

“Miss Hemingway, I know we’ve only just met, but I wonder if I might ask you a favor. My wife is a rather secretive woman, always has been. She’s going to ask that you keep the nature of your employment here a secret from me. I’d be most grateful if you’d play along.”

I thought,
My employment here?
That sounded like I was the new full-time cat nanny—and then I remembered Ethan saying he’d heard the mansion was filled with hundreds of cats. Of course, my first instinct was to ask him why in the world she’d want to keep it a secret from her own husband, but I figured for now I’d just shut up and nod politely.

He smiled. “I know, it’s unusual. My wife tends to worry too much, especially when it comes to cats. She feels a certain kinship to them and always has. I’m afraid I don’t quite share her love for our feline friends, but I understand that her heart is in the right place. I’ve always been more inclined to the canine species myself.”

I nodded. “I think it says a lot about a person what kind of pets they’re drawn to.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I’m drawn to dogs because they make you feel loved no matter what. They’re always there; they love you unconditionally. But then at the same time, I’m drawn to cats precisely because they do have conditions, so if a cat loves you, you know you’re something special.”

He folded his hands together and chuckled. “Well, then, I suppose the best of all worlds would be to have the love of both, wouldn’t it? In my younger days, I was very active with our local dramatic society. We destroyed a nineteenth-century classic,
Charley’s Aunt,
myself in the title role, and to get ourselves back in the good graces of the community, the entire cast volunteered at the local animal shelter. I’ve still got more than a few cat scars on my arms to prove it. So I do admire their beauty, but I prefer to admire it from a good, safe distance.”

I nodded. “Well, I admire any man who volunteers at an animal shelter whether he likes cats or not.”

He stood a little taller now, and I could tell in his younger days he’d probably been quite handsome. His hair was long and silvery, combed straight back over his head, and his gray eyes were speckled with ocean blue so it seemed like they were constantly glittering. There was a genteel, almost royal air about him. In my cat-hair-covered shorts and T-shirt, I felt a little bit like a country bumpkin in the presence of the king.

“Well, don’t let me keep you, Miss Hemingway. I believe you and Mrs. Silverthorn are going to get along splendidly. She loves cats, and she also has a weakness for chocolate. It’s served daily with tea.”

He winked and bowed slightly and then headed across the courtyard toward the far corner of the house. I took a deep breath and sighed. He seemed like a very nice gentleman, but so far the Silverthorn Mansion was turning out to be just as strange and mysterious as I had always imagined it would be.

“Well,” I muttered to myself, “at least there’ll be chocolate.”

Avoiding the cracked sections, I went up the sweeping marble steps to the front entrance, where I was greeted with a pair of brass elephant’s heads, oxidized in the moist, salty air with a pearlescent coating of emerald green and verdigris. They were hung one each on a pair of arched wooden doors painted a mossy black, flanked by fluted marble urns spilling over with dead weeds and twigs. I was looking for the doorbell when I realized the elephants’ heads were actually giant door-knockers.

I wasn’t sure which door I should use, so I just guessed. I took a deep breath and raised the trunk of the elephant on the right and let it fall back to the door with a solid thud. Little green flecks of oxidized metal chipped off on my fingers. I would have expected the trunk to be polished to a golden shine from years of use, but it was just as green and mottled as the rest of the elephant’s head.

I was about to raise the trunk again when the round handle on the opposite door made a click and then turned slowly. The door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair tied in pigtails hanging limply down her back, wearing a simple black skirt and a pearl gray blouse under a white apron. She was alarmingly thin, with broad, bony shoulders and lips stretched into a taut line, as if they were holding something in.

I said, “Hi, I’m Dixie Hemingway. I have an appointment with Mrs. Silverthorn?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose slightly, but she didn’t say a word as she stepped back and opened the door a little wider. Her face was hardened beyond its years and pale—I don’t think she’d seen the light of day in months—and her eyes looked red and swollen. It occurred to me that she’d been crying when I knocked on the door.

We stepped into a large cathedral-like foyer, with vaulted ceilings, parquet floors of faded black and white, and a sweeping staircase big enough for a herd of buffalo to go up and down comfortably. All around the perimeter of the foyer were royal blue velvet drapes, easily twenty feet long, their dusty bottoms ballooned on the parquet floors like a southern belle’s party dress. Every ten feet or so they were bunched open with gold ropes and tassels, revealing tall panels of silvered mirrors, framed in gilded wood. More than a few of the mirrors were cracked, and some were missing altogether, revealing a crumbling layer of horsehair plaster and lathing underneath.

The girl nodded silently, which I took to mean that I should wait here, and then she turned to one of the mirrored panels, which slid open to a long hallway lined with stained-glass windows on one side, but I didn’t see much more than that because she quickly slid the door closed behind her.

I looked around. Ethan had been right. It was obvious the Silverthorns were struggling to keep the whole place from falling in around them—from all appearances, they were holding on to it like a dog to a chew-toy. The floor was filthy, covered in a thin layer of dust and grime, and there were clouds of cobwebs arching across the ceiling, dotted with the desiccated bodies of insects trapped in suspended animation.

I heard three short chirps, like a telephone bell, come from somewhere upstairs, and then I noticed a pathway in the grime on the floor that led from the sliding door the girl had disappeared through across the foyer and up the right side of the staircase. I don’t think the floors had been mopped in years. It made me thankful for my teeny little apartment. I can basically mop the whole place with a couple of wet paper towels.

I thought,
If only Michael could see me now.
We’d spent practically our entire childhoods fantasizing about what this house looked like on the inside, making up stories about ghosts and missing children locked inside its numerous underground torture chambers, and now here I was, smack-dab in the middle of it, about to meet with the infamous Mrs. Silverthorn, live and in person.