The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas (25 page)

I kicked toward the knife and felt a searing pain in my ankle. Blood rushed onto my white Keds, and Lena smiled. Holding the branch with both hands, I swung it at her. I wiped the smile off her face, but she still had the knife, and my ankle was cut badly enough to fill my shoe with blood.

Irrationally, I thought how awful it would be for Michael and Paco to come home and find me dead in the yard.

I swung the branch again, and while Lena was adjusting her stance, I managed to swing it back the opposite direction. The second swing took her by surprise, so I kicked at the knife again. This time I connected. The knife flew out of her hand, and her head raised with a shocked glare. We both dived for the knife. I got to it first, but before I could stand up with it, she fell on me and her arm circled my neck in a steel vise.

Facedown, I clutched the knife under my midriff, but my victory had become a defeat. With her arm so hard against my throat that I feared the hiatal bone would break, I knew there was a good chance that Lena would strangle me to death.

Dimly, I heard the sound of a car racing to a stop nearby, then running footsteps crunching across the shell.

A man’s voice shouted, “It is finished! Let her go!”

Lena screamed, “Fool, she has the list!”

I felt a struggle above me, and then Lena’s arm slipped away from my throat and my face fell forward into the shell. A second later, Lena’s weight left my back, and I scrambled to a sitting position with bits of shell sticking into my flesh. My heart was racing, my ankle was pouring blood, and my nose was leaking.

Lena crouched a few feet away, her face twisted into a grimace of pure hatred. Peter held a gun to Lena’s temple. He looked resolute and devastated.

Peter said, “It’s over, Lena. Too many people have been destroyed.”

Lena said, “You are a fool, Peter. You have always been a fool.”

They both spoke English, as if they were speaking to each other through me.

Through my ruined lips, I said, “I gave the list to the FBI.”

Lena inclined her head toward my stairs. “
She
said you made copies of it. I want those copies.”

“I lied when I told her that. There are no copies. The FBI agent has the only copy that existed.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Call the FBI and ask. I have the agent’s number on my phone. Would you like to call him?”

Peter made a slashing motion with his hand. “I said
it’s over
!”

Lena said, “You do not decide what is over and what is not over! That is for me to decide!”

I struggled into a more comfortable position against the carport wall and looked toward Briana’s body. I wondered if the blood came from a vein or an artery.

I said, “Is Briana dead?”

Lena nodded with no more emotion than she would have shown if I’d asked if a plant needed watering.

“You killed her?”

“She ruined my business.”

“The counterfeit business was
yours
?”

She raised her head proudly. “The company that manufactures the merchandise is mine. You think that stupid woman could have run a company like mine? No brains, no business mind, no sense! Who takes a pair of shoes and leaves them on a man’s bed? I ask you, who? A crazy, stupid woman bringing down the police on our heads, that’s who! And who breaks into a house when she knows the police are watching her? If I had not saved the fool, we would all have been caught!”

I said, “You killed the FBI agent, too. You injected a muscle paralyzer into her and then slit her throat.”

“Who else? I could not trust my weak husband to do it. Like everything else, I had to do it myself. Men are fools! Soft, stupid fools like pretty women!”

Peter made a soft sound, as if he swallowed a sob.

I tried to remember what I’d been taught in the police academy about talking to irrational people.

“It must have been very difficult to kill that agent and get away so quickly.”

She looked proud. “I didn’t make a sound. I’m good at that. I slipped in the door the fool had left unlocked, and I moved through the house. But you had already come and spoiled it all. After you left, she ran to put on clothes. She was like a chicken, no brains. I waited to guide her to the car where Peter waited like a faithful dog. But the other woman came in the same way I had, through the back, her badge and guns ready to arrest Briana, arrest me, ruin our work and our lives. She was a fool, too, to come alone. She was arrogant, wanted the glory of the arrest without assistance from her colleagues. She never saw me before I killed her.”

“So Briana lied when she said she didn’t know who killed the woman.”

Lena smiled grimly but didn’t answer.

As if he had to give Lena deserved credit, Peter said, “Briana’s only talent is dishonesty.”

Lena said, “I stripped the agent of all identifying evidence and fled—but stupid Briana had let the list fall from her handbag. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

His voice heavy with sadness, Peter said, “Lena, I don’t know the woman you have become. You have lost sight of our reason for being. You have become the thing we always hated, the greedy, dishonest, murderous people we’ve fought all our lives.”

Lena gave him a withering look that held an ambitious woman’s scorn for a less ambitious man. With no warning, he fired his gun. Lena’s head flew apart, her torso snapped backward, one arm flying up, her knees crumpling. Odd how the body reacts before the first drop of blood has time to leave the body, as if it feels the shock of death even before its spirit has left. As her body hit the ground, I felt a stab of pity.

Wailing, Peter fell on her body, cupping himself around her like a lover. His gun had fallen. I scrabbled to my knees and crawled to the branch. I broke off a sturdy twig, crawled to the gun, and slipped the twig through the trigger ring so I could lift it without touching it. Like a three-legged cat, I crawled to the Bronco with Peter’s gun hanging from one hand. At the Bronco, I managed to hoist myself up on one leg and reach to the glove box and get my own gun.

The red haze had returned in front of my eyes, and my fingers trembled when I got my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 911.

I gave my name and address and said, “I want to report two murders. Both killers are on the scene. One is dead.”

“Are you in danger, ma’am?”

I looked at Peter’s quivering form holding Lena as if she were his lifeline.

“No, but I have a deep cut on my leg and I’m losing a lot of blood.”

“Help is on the way.”

I ended the call and everything went black.

I woke up to the sound of sirens and the feel of hands lifting me onto a stretcher. I couldn’t get my eyelids open, so I didn’t see the people who were lifting me, but I thought I might be hallucinating anyway because I heard Guidry’s voice saying, “I don’t
know
what happened! I just got here!”

The next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed and a nurse was standing beside me adjusting a bag of fluid on an IV stand.

She saw me looking at her and said, “Hi. Everything’s fine. You’re back from surgery and your leg’s going to be just fine.”

Michael’s worried face swam into view. Paco was beside him trying to smile but failing. There was Guidry again, too, and he didn’t seem to be a hallucination.

Steven was also there, all ramrod straight and embarrassed. The other men stood on the opposite side of my bed from him, as if they had consigned him to the outer fringes of decency.

The nurse said, “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain in your leg right now?”

My leg hurt like a mother-effer.

I said, “Ten.”

She put a call button in my hand. “Push this button whenever you feel pain, and it will release some morphine. Don’t be stoic. Pain is not good. Don’t be afraid you’ll get too much morphine, either. The amount you can get in any given time is controlled, so make sure you stay ahead of the pain.”

I pushed the button. In seconds, the pain lessened to a tolerable level.

I said, “I love you.”

She laughed. “Okay, gentlemen, you can have a few minutes with her, but
only
a few minutes.”

She left the room, and Steven spoke.

“Ms. Hemingway, I apologize for this, but I have to ask you what happened.”

“Lena ran at me when I got out of my car. She had a hypodermic needle in one hand and a knife in the other.”

Suddenly alarmed, I looked at Michael and Paco. “Be careful around the driveway. That needle is on the ground. It probably has curare in it. Don’t walk around barefoot until it’s removed.”

Paco said, “Dixie, the crime-scene people are there. They’ll cover every inch of the place. They’ll find it.”

Of course they would. I felt stupid for not remembering that. I closed my eyes. My leg didn’t hurt at all.

Steven said, “So Lena was running at you with a needle and a knife. Then what happened?”

I opened my eyes. “I had this branch in my hand, and it knocked the needle out of her hand.”

“A branch?”

I closed my eyes. I was very sleepy. “It had fallen from the oak tree.”

“Ms. Hemingway, try to stay with me, and I’ll get out of your hair forever.”

I opened my eyes. “Lena and I fought. I kicked at her knife, and she cut me. I knocked the knife out of her hand, and I got to it before she did, but she was choking me. Then Peter came and pulled her off me. He shot her in the head.” To my total surprise, I began to sob. “Her head blew up, brains and bone all over the place.”

Guidry leaped to hand me a tissue, and Michael said, “I think she’s talked enough.”

Steven said, “What about Briana?”

“Lena had already killed Briana before I got home. I guess they both thought I had a copy of the list in my apartment.”

Steven said, “Did Peter kill Lena in self-defense?”

While I tried to get my brain to sift through all the implications of the question, Guidry said, “This is not a court of law. She’s given you everything you need to know.”

He said it in his homicide-detective voice, and Steven dipped his chin a fraction in silent acknowledgement of Guidry’s knowledge and experience.

Steven said, “Okay, I’ll leave you for now. I hope you have a speedy recovery.”

He left without saying good-bye to the men in the room. They all watched him go with narrowed eyes showing their disdain for him. As far as they were concerned, he was responsible for my cut leg.

I felt a surge of alarm and tried to sit up, sending a current of pain to my foot.

“My pets! I have to get somebody to run with Billy Elliot and take care of the cats!”

Guidry said, “I’ve already taken care of that. While you were in surgery, I called all the owners and explained the situation. They all said they had backup plans, and for you not to worry. Tom Hale said that his girlfriend would run with Billy Elliot until you’re back on the job.”

“When will that be?”

They looked uncomfortable, Paco and Guidry turning to Michael to answer the question.

“The doc says you’ll need about six weeks to recover. You’ll be able to get around in a walking cast sooner than that, but you had a deep cut, and you have to give it time to heal.”

I hit the morphine button and closed my eyes.

I heard Paco whisper something, and Michael spoke again.

“Okay, kid, Paco and I are going to go home now. Our place is swarming with cops, and Ella’s probably freaking out. Don’t worry about anything. Everything is going to work out great. We’ll clean that stain on your porch, and when you come home everything will be absolutely normal. Including you.”

He leaned close and kissed my forehead. “Love you, kid.”

Paco did the same, adding a whispered, “Don’t get amorous with Guidry in this bed. It’s too narrow. You’d fall out and break your other foot.”

I smiled weakly, but I didn’t think anything would ever seem funny again.

I heard the door close, then heard Guidry drag a chair close to the bed.

With my eyes still closed, I said, “Where did you come from?”

“After we talked on the phone, I had a stroke of good sense and drove to the airport. Hopped the next flight out and got to SRQ before sunset. Rented a car and drove to your place expecting to surprise you. Instead, I found EMTs loading you into an ambulance, a couple of dead bodies, and Sergeant Owens Mirandizing a weeping guy in handcuffs. I grabbed your backpack from your Bronco, because I knew you kept your phone and your client records in it, and followed the ambulance to the hospital. I still don’t know who all those dead people were, or what their connection was to you.”

“It was Cupcake’s cat.”

“What?”

“Cupcake’s cat took a paper that Briana dropped when she left a pair of Nikes on his bed, and everybody thought I found it.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you. Go to sleep.”

“Why did you come?”

Even in my drugged state, I knew he took a long time to answer.

“We’ll talk when you’re awake.”

My eyelids flew open. “I’m awake now.”

Guidry eased his butt down on the side of the bed and took my hand. “I wanted to see you.”

I came more alert. “Why now?”

He took a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure your decision not to come to New Orleans was final.”

“You’ve met somebody.”

“It’s not serious.”

“But it could become serious.”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Ethan Crane asked me out.”

Guidry squeezed my hand. “We are who we are, Dixie.”

I punched the morphine button and closed my eyes.

With my voice slurred and drowsy, I said, “I remember a novel set in India about a pair of star-crossed lovers. The woman in the story said,
We are peacock and tiger.
I guess we’re like that, too.”

“Are you saying I’m a peacock?”

I giggled. “Well, you’re the one with the fancy clothes. Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

“My older sister is the buyer for the men’s department at Nordstrom’s in Houston. She gives them to me.”

“I hope she makes sure they’re not fakes.”

I drifted to sleep for a minute or an hour, and Guidry touched my shoulder.