Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter (9 page)

Billy Elliot barreled along like he was back on the track with his greyhound buddies, and my muscles burned with the effort of keeping pace. We rounded the end of the parking lot and thundered around the central esplanade of palmettos and hibiscus. At the entrance, where Guidry waited, I pulled Billy Elliot to a halt but left him enough leash to explore a bit. I dragged my aching legs to Guidry’s window, panting like Billy Elliot but managing to keep my tongue from lolling out the sides of my mouth.

Guidry grinned at me. “Now I see how you can get away with eating all that bacon.”

I made a wheezing sound.

“I got a message you’d called,” he said.

“Yeah, I wanted to know when I can bring the cat home.”

He gave me a blank look for a moment and then remembered. “Oh, the cat. Well, the forensics people are finished at the house, but the crime-scene tape will have to stay up until I get the ME’s report.”

“When do you think that’ll be?”

He looked at his watch. “I’m on my way to the morgue now. It’ll just take a few minutes. Wanta come with me?”

I stared at him. Was he nuts?

“The time comes when you have to get back on the horse,” he said. “Maybe this is your time.”

“Maybe you’re way out of line, Lieutenant.”

“Could be. Or I could be right.”

“This conversation is over.”

I spun away from him and jerked Billy Elliot out of the esplanade. I pulled him short and opened the front door.

“You can’t hide out indefinitely,” yelled Guidry.

I pulled Billy Elliot into the elevator and leaned against the wall while it climbed to Tom Hale’s floor. My heart was pounding hard and a surge of adrenaline had made me start trembling. Guidry had no right to tell me what to do with my life. He had no right to tell me anything.

By the time I got Billy Elliot settled in his apartment, I was trembling not only with anger but also with embarrassment for letting Guidry get to me like that. I was the tough one, the one who kept her cool in an emergency. At least that’s who I used to be. Now I was quivering like a wuss because a detective had suggested that it was time for me to stop hiding from the world. My shaking continued all the way down in the elevator, so hard that my teeth were clamped hard together. The worst thing in the world is knowing that somebody else is right and you’re wrong. It was time for me to stop hiding. I just wasn’t sure I was strong enough.

When I went out the front door, I made a little involuntary groan. Guidry was still sitting there with the car idling.

He said, “You ready to go?”

I clomped down the steps and went around the back of the car to the passenger side and got in. Guidry looked straight ahead as I opened the door.

“We have to make this fast,” I said. “I have other pets to take care of.”

“Half an hour, tops,” he said, and put the car in gear.

Sarasota County doesn’t have its own morgue, they use Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s facilities. We were ten
minutes away, and neither of us spoke a word the entire trip. I sat with my arms crossed across my chest and hoped Guidry believed I was trembling from the air-conditioning vents blowing on me. He kept his attention on the traffic, and if he noticed my shaking, he didn’t mention it. We parked in the back parking lot at the hospital and took the rear entrance into the maze of hallways that make big hospitals seem like cities. If I ever commit a major crime, I’m going to head straight for the nearest big hospital. You could spend an entire day in a waiting area pretending to be a relative keeping vigil on a loved one, every day moving to a different area. You’d have plenty of bathrooms, you could sleep on the couches, and if you had money to put in food-vending machines, you could hide out indefinitely.

Guidry and I still hadn’t spoken. It was as if we had a tacit agreement that we would do this thing without conversation. He led the way to the autopsy room and opened the door for me to go in first. There was a small square waiting room with scuffed beige linoleum floor and a few plastic molded chairs. A battered wooden coffee table heaped with dog-eared magazines with torn-off rectangles where addresses used to be, and a TV monitor mounted on the wall like in a hospital room. A half wall separated an attendant in green surgical scrubs from the waiting room. He stood on his side with his fists pushed against the counter and stared suspiciously at us. On the wall behind him, a filing cabinet held a coffeepot and some mugs and a jar of Cremora, but he didn’t seem inclined to offer refreshments.

Guidry gave his name, and the young man picked up a phone and spoke briefly. In a few seconds, the inner door opened and a tall Cuban-American woman came out carrying a manila envelope. She had warm almond eyes and white hair cropped tight against her skull.

She and Guidry shook hands, and Guidry said, “Dr. Corazon, this is Dixie Hemingway.”

We shook hands, and if she thought it strange that Guidry had brought along somebody in rumpled shorts and a T, she didn’t show it.

Dr. Corazon pushed a pair of reading glasses to the top of her head. “Your man had a subdural hematoma that would have resulted in his death, but he probably died of a laryngeal spasm. Officially, he drowned.”

Guidry frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“If a person dies within forty-eight hours of being immersed in water, it’s officially called drowning. Fifteen percent of drowning victims don’t have water in their lungs, but die of hypoxia caused by a laryngeal spasm. In other words, they choke to death. Mr. Frazier had enough water in his lungs to kill him, but he also had a laryngeal spasm. It’s impossible to say which killed him, but the hematoma would have caused his death if he hadn’t had a laryngeal spasm or taken water into his lungs.”

Guidry said, “I guess it doesn’t matter. Whether it was the blow to the head or drowning or choking to death, it was still homicide.”

“Well, that’s the problem, Lieutenant. It does matter. The blow to his head was inflicted by a blunt object moving in a right-to-left trajectory. The tape applied to his head to keep his nose and mouth underwater was done left to right.”

Guidry and I both stared openmouthed at her. I found my voice first. “You mean he was killed by two people?”

“I mean he was first struck in the back of the head by a right-handed person, and then taped to the cat’s water
bowl with his nose and mouth underwater by a left-handed person.”

Guidry said, “Maybe it was one ambidextrous person.”

“That’s possible too.”

“Any idea what hit him?”

“Blunt instrument, Lieutenant. You know what that means.”

We all knew. A blunt instrument can be just about anything.

“Here’s another thing,” said Dr. Corozon. “He was nude when he was struck, and there was a time lag before somebody dressed him and tried to drown him. I know that because there was dried blood on his body, under his clothes.”

I said, “If they let him lie around long enough for blood to dry on his body, maybe he was already dead when they stuck his nose in the cat bowl.”

She shook her head. “No, he had some water in his lungs. He was still breathing when somebody taped him down in the water, but he wasn’t fully conscious. I know that because there are no petechiae, little broken blood vessels from struggling to breathe.”

Guidry said, “Can you give me a time of death?”

“This isn’t TV, Lieutenant. He died between the time he was last seen alive and the time he was found dead.”

He grinned. “Can’t you narrow it down a bit more?”

“From the lividity, best estimate is around two
A.M
.”

“Any idea how much time elapsed between the time he was hit and when he died?”

“Several hours, probably.”

Guidry thanked the ME and took the manila envelope from her. She said, “Good luck, Lieutenant. Nice meeting you, Ms. Hemingway.”

We smiled at each other and she bustled off to her grisly inner sanctum. Guidry held the door open for me, and I went through like an obedient puppy. We retraced
our way through that peculiar combined odor of chemicals and putrefaction and body wastes that permeates every hospital, both of us with our heads down to keep from breathing deeply, both of us thinking hard. I suppose Guidry was thinking about his case, but I was thinking how strange it was that I had stopped trembling the minute the medical examiner had come out to talk to us, when it was the ME I had been dreading so much. The last time I’d spoken to an ME, it had been to get the details of the autopsies on Todd and Christy, but somehow that memory hadn’t surfaced while Dr. Corozon had spoken. Instead, I had snapped into cool, objective detachment.

We went through the exit and stepped into the heat of the parking lot. I said, “I looked through the house before I found the body. I didn’t see any blood spatters.”

Guidry said, “He was probably taking a shower when he got hit. Forensics found blood traces in the bathtub drain.”

“Somebody had cleaned the tub?”

“Yeah.”

We trudged across the hot pavement to Guidry’s car, and he beeped it unlocked. We slid into its stifling heat and he started the engine and turned the air conditioning up high. I looked at my watch. We had been inside the hospital only fifteen minutes.

I said, “When I stopped by to pick up her house key, Marilee said she was just about to take a shower.”

He turned his head and gave me a look. “You think that’s significant?”

“Not unless she was about to take a shower with Harrison Frazier.”

“Do you have any reason to think she was?”

“Come on, Lieutenant, they were bound to know each other. Harrison Frazier wasn’t the kind of man to go around breaking in a woman’s house.”

“Not unless he was accustomed to using a key and she’d had the locks changed.”

Right then and there, I should have confessed that I had read Marilee’s letter to her daughter. I should have told him that Shuga Reasnor knew things she hadn’t told. But Marilee was a kind woman who gave her grandmother bread makers and expensive apartments, and she deserved a chance to have a relationship with a daughter she’d given up when she was fifteen without it becoming public knowledge. Besides, Shuga Reasnor was right. If Marilee was okay, she would be pissed sixteen ways from Thursday if she came home and found her most intimate secrets blabbed to the world.

For all those irrational reasons, I kept quiet.

Guidry said, “Do you happen to know whether she’s right-handed?”

I shut my eyes and replayed her arm stretching toward me with the door key dangling from her fingers. “She handed me the new key with her left hand.”

He nodded and didn’t say anything else. I didn’t, either.

At the entrance to the parking lot at the Sea Breeze, Guidry stopped to let a woman on a yellow three-wheeler cross in front of us. Red-faced under hair dyed an improbable shade of magenta, she was leaning over the handlebars and pedaling with grim therapeutic exertion. A pole jutted at an angle from the rear of the trike, with a triangular orange alert flag attached to its end like a waving tail. We watched her move down the sidewalk the way jungle animals might watch a lioness chasing prey.

We pulled into the parking lot, and I pointed silently to the spot where my Bronco was parked. When Guidry stopped behind it, I said, “So when can I bring Ghost home?”

He gave me an “Oh for God’s sake” look.

I said, “Come on, the cat didn’t do anything wrong. Let him come home.”

“Maybe late tomorrow.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“Yeah.”

I shut the door and walked to my own car, beeping it unlocked as I went. Guidry drove off without saying goodbye, which suited me just fine. I was glad I’d gone with him, but I didn’t want any conversation about it.

By the time I finished with the last cat and drove home, it was after 8:00
P.M
. Before I went upstairs, I stood a few minutes looking out at sailboats silhouetted against a sky so clear and blue, it caused my heart to swell with inchoate longing. Sailboats always seem carefree to me, even though I know a lot of them are manned or womanned by people who are anything but carefree. I went upstairs and unlocked the French doors, tossing my shoulder bag on the desk in the closet–office as I walked to the bathroom. In the kitchen, I opened a bottle of cold Tecate and poured it in a wineglass. I added a wedge of lime and took it out to the porch to drink while I watched a brilliant orange sun sink toward the horizon.

When it touched the rim of the earth, pulsating for an instant on the water, a shimmering gold ribbon moved over the sea to the shore beneath me. When I was little, I believed that golden path was stretching out especially to me. I thought that if I were brave enough, I could step out on it and walk to the edge of the sea where I would find an enchanted world. I was never brave enough, so every sunset was an occasion of both wonder and chagrin.

When the sun had slid under the horizon and left only a faint reflection of itself behind, I went inside and took inventory of the refrigerator. With both Michael and Paco away, I would have to fend for myself. Except for mayonnaise and mustard and pickles, about all I had was some
sliced cheese and beer and a package of corn tortillas. The freezer section held a box of Boca Burgers, some ancient hamburger buns swathed in a thick layer of ice crystals, and some Ziploc bags holding mystery leftovers.

I thought about having a bowl of Cheerios, but except for breakfast twelve hours ago, all I’d had to eat all day was an apple, and I was famished. Also, the shrink I saw after I lost Todd and Christy said it was important to eat a real meal when I was alone—if you don’t take good care of yourself when you’re alone, you’ll end up thinking you’re only important when you’re with another person.

There was a little Greek place in the village where I could get great lamb shish kebab if I could get there before they stopped serving. I jumped in the shower, and then ran still damp into my office–closet to pull on a short denim skirt and a white stretchy T. I dug my feet into a pair of white canvas mules, grabbed my shoulder bag from my desk, and was on my way out when I noticed the blinking red light on my answering machine. The strap on my bag must have been covering it before. I hesitated a moment, then punched the playback button.

“Um, Miz Hemingway? This is Phillip Winnick? Uh, would it be okay if…I’d like to talk to you about…you know, the club and all. It’s very important. Ah, you can’t call me, so I guess I’ll try to call you later? And would you mind not mentioning this to anybody? Please? Thank you. Ah, it’s Phillip Winnick.” Then in an anxious rush, he said, “I’ll talk to you later. It’s Phillip Winnick.” Somebody must have told him it was important to give his name more than once when he left a message.

I threw my bag over my shoulder and went downstairs to the Bronco and headed for the Crab House instead of the Greek place. Phillip wasn’t there when I arrived, but the waiter who led me to a table on the back porch said he was due at 11:00.

The waiter said, “Would you like a drink?”

“A margarita, please, but I’m starving, so I’ll go ahead and order.”

“Stone crab?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fries?”

“Extra-crispy.”

“Salad?”

“Please, with blue cheese dressing.”

“Caesar or house?”

“House.”

“What kind of dressing?”

“Blue cheese.” There must be a law that says waitpersons must ignore you if you tell them what salad dressing you want before they specifically ask you.

He flashed a wide grin and buzzed off. Without Phillip’s music, the Crab House was quiet. Two guys at a table next to me were being so careful and polite that it was clear they were on a first date. On the other side of me, a man and woman were leaning forward with their elbows on the table and their hands interlaced. They had drinks on the table, but from the way they were gazing into each other’s eyes, they were already intoxicated by romance. A motorboat chuffed up to the dock and a man in cutoffs jumped out to tie it up while two women and a man stood up and made tugging and fluffing motions to clothes and hair before they climbed over the side and stepped onto the dock. They all trailed onto the porch and took a table at the side, laughing and talking amongst themselves with the kind of easy camaraderie that old friends have.

The waiter brought my margarita and a board holding a mini-loaf of hot bread that had a big lethal-looking knife stabbed into it. He said, “A guy at the bar paid for your drink.”

I looked through the glass wall and saw a large ruddy
man at the bar grinning at me. He had a bullet-shaped bald head and eyes like black ball bearings. He raised his glass to me and began to slide off his bar stool with the clear intent of coming out to the porch.

“Take it back,” I said.

“It’s paid for. You might as well drink it.”

“Take it back, and tell the bartender to make me another one.”

He set the glass on his tray and hightailed it away to the bar. My admirer turned to him and asked a question, and then looked out at me with a dark scowl when the waiter answered. The bartender looked out at me, too, and his lips firmed into a tight-mouthed smile as he dumped the margarita and whipped up another one.

I cut a thick slab of bread with the giant knife, and was using the knife to smear butter on the bread when the waiter brought a new drink. He carried it out on a tray held shoulder-high and set it down with a flourish.

“He says you’ve got an attitude.”

“Tell him I’ve also got a sharp knife.”

“Whoa, hon, just take it as a compliment. Men are gonna hit on you. That’s just life.”

He left and I looked toward the two men on my right. They had forgotten their first-date anxiety and were grinning at me. When they caught my eye, they raised their wineglasses in a toast. I smiled back and sipped my margarita. Inside, the bullet-headed man put money on the bar and stomped out, his pants creasing around a thick wad in his crotch.

By the time I got the stone crab, I had eaten enough bread and salad to be in a better mood. Stone crab is probably what God eats every night of the year, but in Florida we mortals only have it from mid-October to mid-May. Florida law prohibits fishermen from killing the crabs, but stone crabs can regenerate lost claws, so fishermen
break one off and throw the crab back into the sea. That only leaves them one claw to defend themselves with, but they’re not boiling to death like they would be if they were lobsters.

The claws are steamed right there on the boat, and then they’re chilled and delivered to restaurants like the Crab House, where people like me eat them without giving a thought to the crab’s trauma. Mine came with mustard sauce and a wooden mallet for cracking the claw, and I happily cracked and slurped away.