The Cat Sitter’s Cradle (5 page)

“
La niña?
What’s her name?”

Corina folded her hands in her lap and smiled.

“Dixie,” she said. “Dixie Joyce Flores.”

Joyce laughed, and I rolled my eyes in disbelief.

“Seriously, Corina, they’ll need to put something down for the records, and you can
always change it later. What’s the baby’s name?”

Just then the baby started crying softly in the other room. Corina stood up and looked
at me with big, unblinking eyes.

“Dixie. Joyce. Flores.”

5

Some of the bathrooms in my clients’ houses are so big and luxurious, you sort of
want to run down to the local gas station and clean up before you step foot in them.
Roy and Tina Harwick’s master bathroom was like that. It was hands down the most flamboyant
bathroom I’ve ever been in. You might even say it was a little crazy, but in their
own way, so were the Harwicks. They lived in a huge, ornate mansion off Jungle Plum
Road at the north end of the Key. They were driving to Tampa later in the afternoon,
and I had gone to their house to meet their cat and to finalize our pet-sitting agreement.

The bathroom was just what you’d expect from people that have more money than they
know what to do with: a gleaming marble floor, gold-laced wallpaper, a crystal chandelier
dripping with thousands of twinkling diamonds, a gold-plated toilet with matching
faucets, and a vaulted ceiling painted with harp-toting cherubs flying around in fluffy
pink clouds. At one end of the bathroom were two multicolored stained-glass windows
that glittered like a kaleidoscope, and between them was a cozy little nook and a
peach-colored velvet bench where a person could sit and contemplate her navel, inspect
her tan lines, or make a call from the gold-plated antique telephone sitting in its
own little alcove in the wall.

But the focal point of the bathroom was a fish tank. And I don’t mean a nice little
tank on a stand with some goldfish and a couple of snails. I mean a humongous aquarium
that took up an entire wall from floor to ceiling, with fish of every size, shape,
and color swimming around in wide, slow circles, opening and closing their mouths
in that eerie way fish do.

Artfully arranged around the inside of the tank were pieces of coral almost as tall
as me, and holding court at center stage was a life-sized, brightly painted, porcelain
mermaid. She had violet eyes, light pink skin, and flowing red hair, with a turquoise
bikini top over melon-sized breasts, and a long blue-and-green tail that spread out
across the floor of the tank. She was sitting on a gold-and-black treasure chest looking
over her shoulder with a coy purse to her lips, like a pin-up movie star.

“These are goldflake angels,” Mrs. Harwick said, pointing out a group of slender,
butter-colored fish congregated at the base of the mermaid’s tail. “And that sinister-looking
creature hovering around the treasure chest is a dragon eel—very rare species, my
son had it brought over from Japan. Priceless! And there’s a dozen butterfly fish,
seahorses, rabbit fish, damsels, a porcupine fish, ten albino tangs…”

She turned and gave me a meaningful look. “
Anybody
can get yellow tangs. These are
albino
tangs. I’d say there’s at least three or four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of
fish in this tank. Roy thinks I’m out of my mind to spend so much money on them, but
they make me happy, and that’s what it’s really all about it, isn’t it?”

I must have still been staring openmouthed at the life-sized mermaid, because Mrs.
Harwick laughed and said, “Isn’t she fabulous? We found her in the islands. Roy, what
island was it again?”

Mr. Harwick was standing in the bathroom doorway staring blankly at the tank. He wore
a black, three-piece, pin-striped suit and a wide maroon tie. He must have been at
least a foot shorter than Mrs. Harwick. He had thin hands and a balding pate, which
he had skillfully camouflaged with jet black hair combed over from the back of his
head, but I could tell that in his younger days he had probably been quite handsome.
He wasn’t a big man, but he had the air of someone who is accustomed to getting his
way, a man with power and money.

“Barbuda,” he said without blinking.

“Oh, Dixie, Barbuda is fabulous. Have you ever been?”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud, not just because the idea
of traveling to some far-off exotic island was not exactly in my budget, but also
because I had absolutely no idea where Barbuda was. “No,” I mumbled, “but I’d love
to go sometime.”

“Honey,” Mr. Harwick growled, “why don’t you show her how you feed the fish?”

The aquarium was flanked on either side by two large pocket doors that slid open to
reveal a hidden walkway around the back of the tank. There was a built-in cabinet
with an impressive assortment of aquarium supplies: fish food, water testers, medications,
and dozens of different-colored bottles filled with all sorts of chemicals and water
conditioners. On the wall directly behind the tank was a collection of nets of various
sizes, as well as a couple of long poles with hooks on one end to move shells and
things around inside the tank. Mrs. Harwick led me up several narrow steps to a platform
at the back of the tank and slid open a panel on the top.

“Sprinkle it,” she said, gracefully waving her heavily bejeweled fingers over the
surface of the water, “from one end to the other. You don’t just take a handful of
food and plop it down in one place like a fool. It has to be spread across the surface
to mimic the way it is in nature.”

I was pretty sure there wasn’t a single creature in this tank that thought it was
living free in the open ocean with a golden toilet, a crystal chandelier, and a tarted-up
mermaid nearby, but I didn’t say a word. From our vantage point, I could see down
the mermaid’s cleavage. There was a tiny hermit crab nestled there, snug as a bug
in a boob.

“I’ve written out the feeding instructions for you,” Mrs. Harwick said, stepping down
off the platform. “It’s really quite simple, so I’m sure you’ll do fine. I probably
don’t need to tell you this but, if you do have to put your hands in the water for
any reason, I’d recommend taking any rings or bracelets off first, the water is probably
not the best thing for…”

She trailed off as she glanced down at my hands, which of course had no rings or bracelets
of any kind. She blushed a little, and I got the feeling that in her world a woman
whose hands aren’t decked out in gold and jewels is a woman to be pitied.

As if she were trying to make up for some indecorous offense, she extended her left
hand out to me. There was a sparkling wrist cuff about an inch wide around her wrist.

“This one’s got about two hundred diamonds on it, and I promise you that Japanese
eel will swallow just about anything!”

She laughed, and I nodded enthusiastically.
How true!
I thought. The last thing a girl needs is a Japanese eel eating her diamonds.

Mrs. Harwick closed the pocket door, and I followed her out of the bathroom and down
a short hallway lined with mahogany dressers that led to the master bedroom. There
was a king-sized canopy bed, draped in folds of yellow and red silk, with white tassels
at each corner the size of overfed guinea pigs and an arrangement of pillows leaning
against the headboard that can only be described as epic. The second-floor hallway
was wide enough to drive through in a Cadillac, and everywhere I looked the walls
were covered with big, expensive-looking paintings, the type I’d only ever seen in
school trips to the museum. There was a wide curving staircase of white marble that
led down to the main entry, where two life-sized statues of Roman gods guarded the
arched entrance to the sprawling living room. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there
were even a couple of Picassos hanging over the sofa.

Mr. Harwick was standing at the bar, pouring himself a drink. There was a cat circling
his feet and rubbing itself against his ankles.

“And this,” Mrs. Harwick said, waving her arm at the cat dismissively, “is Charlotte.”

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Siamese cats. They’re smart as a whip
and intensely loyal, and their origin is steeped in mystery. Some historians believe
they were a favorite of the kings and queens of ancient Siam, where their name meant
“moon diamond.” All it took was one look in Charlotte’s sparkling azure eyes to know
why. She was long and sleek, with a dark, silver-tipped chocolate coat.

“We call her Queen B,” said Mrs. Harwick.

I knelt down and held out the back of my hand for Charlotte to sniff—my standard cat
greeting. She took one step back and hissed.

“The
B
does
not
stand for beautiful.”

I grinned. “Are you saying Charlotte has a bit of an attitude?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Mr. Harwick said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s that way with everyone.”

He scooped Charlotte up in his arms and cooed to her, “And the
B
stands for baby, because that’s what she is, my baby.”

I had to chuckle at the sight of a grown man in a business suit babbling like a little
girl at a fluffy Siamese cat. Animals have an uncanny way of bringing out the sweet
side of even the most hard-edged customer.

Mrs. Harwick shuddered like a minister finding a roach clip in the collection plate.
“That cat is not your baby.”

Charlotte chose that moment to hiss again. She squirmed out of Mr. Harwick’s arms
and ran into the kitchen without so much as a “nice to meet you.” I feel that way
myself sometimes, so I didn’t take offense.

“Bit of an attitude problem,” Mr. Harwick said. “I’ll show you where we keep her food.”

The first thing I noticed about the kitchen was that it was twice the size of my entire
apartment. There was a center island as big as the king-sized bed upstairs, made out
of what looked like one solid piece of snow white marble. Dangling over it was a pair
of crystal chandeliers, these twice the size of the one in the bathroom, and there
were two ovens set side by side in the wall. I barely know what to do with one oven,
but apparently the Harwicks needed two.

As I looked around the kitchen, making small sounds of delight like I was at a fireworks
display, I realized there were actually two of everything: two refrigerators, two
ovens, even two dishwashers. It was the Noah’s Ark of kitchens. At one end of the
island were two stainless-steel sinks, and dozens of gleaming copper pots of all shapes
and sizes were hanging everywhere.

“My brother is a cook,” I gushed. “He’d love your kitchen.”

“Well, Tina here is the chef in the family,” Mr. Harwick said as he pulled up a stool
and spread several official-looking files across the island. “Although these days
she only uses the kitchen for special occasions.”

I said, “Special occasions, you mean like holidays?” I wondered if there wasn’t another
kitchen somewhere that Mrs. Harwick used for nonspecial occasions.

“No,” Mr. Harwick said, “I mean like when the pool boy is hungry.”

He pushed one of the files toward me. “This is the emergency file. It has numbers
for my office and my secretary’s home number, along with the telephone number and
address of the hotel where we’ll be staying and my personal cell phone number. You’ll
find contact numbers for the alarm company, the housekeepers, the plumber, the electrician,
and so forth. Of course, if there’s anything wrong, you’ll call me directly first.”

I wondered why, if I was supposed to call him first, he wanted to give me all this
information, but I could tell Mr. Harwick was the kind of man that liked to cover
all his bases. I could appreciate that kind of thoroughness. In my police training,
I’d been taught to anticipate danger before it happens, and that comes in handy every
once in a while. In fact, it’s not a bad way to operate in any situation. In Mr. Harwick’s
case, though, it did seem a little over the top.

“This is Charlotte’s file. It has a copy of her medical history and all her records,
as well as the numbers of her veterinarian, her backup veterinarian, and the emergency
animal hospital. Her eating schedule is there, too, just in case you forget, along
with a list of all her vitamins and supplements.”

He stood up and crossed over to a wall of cabinets, opening one to reveal row upon
row of cans and boxes of cat food.

He said, “It’s her choice. She eats both wet and dry. She’ll let you know what she
wants. And there’s yogurt in the refrigerator. She gets one teaspoon diluted in warm
water mixed in with every meal. Please don’t forget that, otherwise her irritable
bowel syndrome kicks in. Everything you need to know is in the file, except for the
alarm code. You should write that down.”

I reached for my backpack. Mrs. Harwick had moved out to the living room just off
the kitchen, and I could see her through the arched doorway, looking at the pool just
outside a pair of large sliding glass doors. I opened my pack and took out the notebook
I keep with information on all my pet clients and any medications they take or special
dietary requirements. I even make a note of their favorite toys and where they like
to hide.

Mr. Harwick was pleased. “Ah, a fellow note taker, I see.”

I said, “Mr. Harwick, I run my pet-sitting business with the same professional attention
to detail that I devoted to being a police officer. I always take notes and keep records
of everything I do. That comes in handy sometimes.”

“I bet it does.”

“I can assure you that Charlotte and Mrs. Harwick’s aquarium will be in good hands
while you’re away.”

He snorted. “Oh, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the fish. But you should write down
the alarm code. It’s my wife’s birthday: ten nineteen.”

“Ten nineteen,” I repeated as I wrote in my notebook.

“Nineteen is the day, by the way, not the year.”

“Very funny,” Mrs. Harwick said.