The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives (14 page)

“I was just about to give him his bath, but perhaps you’d rather do it?”

I shrieked,
“No!”

She nearly jumped out of her nursing shoes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, but—”

“Oh, I understand. This is difficult for you.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not his wife.”

Without missing a beat she nodded and took the daisies from me. “Oh, what beautiful flowers. I’ll put them in a vase and leave you two alone.” She paused at the door. “So you don’t want to give him his bath?”

I sighed. “No. I do not.”

I could tell she was full of questions, but she’d probably decided it was none of her business. She nodded politely and closed the door behind her.

I stepped up to the bed, but there were so many cords and lines everywhere I was afraid to get too close for fear I’d knock one of them loose. A white sheet was pulled up almost to Mr. Vladim’s shoulders, but I could see that underneath it his entire chest was wrapped in gauze and tape. The skin on his neck was bruised, and his face had a sallow, porcine cast to it. A bulging bandage covered his left ear, but there was nothing on the rest of his head, which surprised me considering how bloody he’d been at the accident. I figured he was lucky he wasn’t in a full body cast.

He murmured something that I’m pretty sure was my name, and then his eyelids started to flutter a bit. I was trying to think of something to say, or some way to gently wake him up, when suddenly his eyes shot open and he looked around the room.

“Hi, Mr. Vladim. How are you feeling?”

He just stared at me, his narrow eyes dilating slightly.

“I’m Dixie. Do you remember me?”

He managed a smile. His lips were dry and crusted around the edges. “Dixie.”

I said, “How are you doing? Do you remember who I am?”

He nodded slowly. “You are wife.”

“Um, no…” I said, a little hesitantly.

His eyes widened, and he turned his head toward me. “Yes. You are wife.”

Well, at least now I knew why everyone thought I was his wife. “No, I helped you after the accident. I’m one of the people that helped you out of your car.”

He shook his head. “Is good.”

I couldn’t quite place his accent, not that I’m good at that sort of thing, but it sounded Eastern European, perhaps Russian. He looked me up and down, like a high-class modeling agent appraising a prospective client. “Is good. You are hot wife.”

“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Vladim, I am definitely not your wife.”

He frowned. “You safe me. You are mistress?”

Wow. I hoped that nurse was right about the drugs, because otherwise this poor guy had suffered some very serious brain trauma.

“No, I’m not your mistress either. You don’t know me. You were in an accident on Ocean Boulevard. You crashed into a truck, and I helped you until the ambulance came. You never met me before.”

He closed his eyes. “I do good thing. I am boss now. You will see. I am good now.”

A small tear formed in the corner of his eye and made its way slowly down his cheek. I patted his hand gently and said, “Okay, Mr. Vladim, I think I should go.”

“You stay.”

“No, I’ll come back and see you again. You need your rest now.”

His eyes still closed, he said, “You have…”

It was the drugs talking. His mouth fell open slightly, and his breathing grew a little deeper. I tiptoed to the door, and just before it closed behind me, he mumbled something in his sleep.

He said, “Don’t eat.”

I stood in the hallway outside his door and sighed. There was no telling what drug-induced dreams were playing in his head. I hoped for his sake they didn’t include a hairy old man dancing around half naked with a megaphone.

Making my way back through the maze of stairwells and halls to the main lobby, I wondered if he would even remember I had been there. Next to the gift shop was a sad-sack food bar with foam bowls of crusted Jell-O and soggy sandwiches embalmed in tight plastic wrap.
Damn right, Baldy,
I thought to myself.
Don’t eat.

I was just about to go through the big glass revolving doors to the outside world when one of the hospital supervisors stopped me, a big man in a tan business suit and a wide yellow tie. He was full of questions, but I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. When I told him I wasn’t Mr. Vladim’s wife and didn’t know a thing about him, his shoulders fell in a slump. I got the distinct impression he was mostly worried about who would be paying for all that top-notch treatment Baldy was getting.

At Tom Hale’s, I took Billy Elliot out for his second spin of the day, and he dragged me around the parking lot as if it were the first time he’d been out in years. It felt good. Just getting my lungs pumping with oxygen helped clear the smog that had banked up in my head. When we got back, Billy went bounding down the hall and Tom called me from the back office. He’d been badgering me to sign some papers for days, but I lied and said I was in a hurry and would have to sign them later.

I was tired. It had been a long day. Maybe I was fighting off a cold. Or maybe I was thinking about Todd and Christy. I just wanted to get home.

I rushed through my afternoon calls and purposely took the long way around the village so I wouldn’t drive by the bookstore. By now they’d probably pulled out and taken down the police tape, but I still didn’t want to see it.

When I got home, I dropped my keys on the bar in the kitchen, pointedly ignoring the letter from Guidry still sitting in its little basket, and wandered into my walk-in closet. I sat at the desk for a while and went through some of the bills that were piling up, and that kept my mind busy for about half an hour. Then I put a load of laundry in the washer. As it gurgled and churned away, I sat down on the couch and stared at the wall.

I toyed with the idea of calling Michael at the fire station, but I knew he’d be busy and probably wouldn’t feel like listening to his little sister complain about her day. Then I wondered where Paco was, but there was no way to know and I certainly couldn’t call him, so I got up and dragged myself back into the office and laid my hand on the desk phone.

Ethan.

I could call Ethan. If anybody could make me feel better it was him, except I knew as soon as he found out what kind of mood I was in he’d race right over, and I think I wanted to be alone.

Just then the phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Usually when I’m in a funk, there’s no way I’ll answer the phone, but to my utter horror I realized I’d grabbed the receiver as I jumped away. It was cradled in my right hand, and a woman’s voice was saying, “Helloooo?”

I put the phone to my ear. “Yes, sorry, Dixie Hemingway, how can I help you?”

She cleared her throat. “9500 Blind Pass Road, please.”

It was an older woman, with a note to her voice that was either British or rich.

I said, “Excuse me?”

“Hello? Who is this?”

I frowned. “This is Dixie Hemingway. Who is this?”

“Are you or are you not a cat sitter?”

“Um. Yes, I’m a cat sitter. How can I help you?”

“Very good. I need you to come to 9500 Blind Pass Road immediately. And I can assure you you’ll be handsomely paid.”

I blinked. “Ma’am, I’m so sorry, but it’s a little late. Can it wait until tomorrow?”

There was a slight pause and then an exasperated sigh. “A little late, indeed. Well I suppose there’s bugger all you can do about it tonight anyway. Tomorrow morning then, seven sharp.”

I said, “Oh, no. I can’t possibly meet you that early. I have appointments all morning.”

She clucked. “Pity. Then we’ll meet for tea at two. Does that suit your complicated schedule?”

“Um, yes, that works, but … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Yes. 9500 Blind Pass Road. I’ll be waiting.”

She hung up. I stood there staring at the receiver and shaking my head. Sometimes I think if they put my life in a movie no one would believe it for a second.

I wandered back into the living room, where I resumed my position on the couch and stared at the wall a little more. Normally a call like that would get my wheels spinning and I’d spend hours concocting all kinds of fancy, complicated scenarios in my head about who it was and why she was so mysterious, but I was pooped. My brain couldn’t take any more thinking.

After a while I dragged myself into the kitchen, zapped a Party Time Deluxe frozen pizza in the microwave, and carried it out to the hammock on the deck. It tasted like warm, salty cardboard, but with the consistency of a wad of used chewing gum. I didn’t mind, though. Michael and Paco have served me so many gourmet meals. A cheap frozen pizza every once in a while just reminds me how lucky I am.

I fell asleep in the hammock, gently swaying from side to side and listening to the crickets and the droning rhythm of the waves rolling in down below. I had established only one rule for the night: No old men in bikinis.

13

The next morning after I slithered out of bed, I stood bleary-eyed in front of the mirror and told myself that my little pity party had come to an end and that it was time to get a move on. If I’d had bootstraps, I would have pulled myself up by them, but instead I splashed cold water on my face, pulled on some clothes, and was out the door before sunrise.

The air was cool and still, and as I crunched across the driveway, a giant brown pelican sitting on the hood of the Bronco opened one eye and watched me sullenly. He held his ground even when I started the engine, but as soon as I put the car in reverse, he unfolded his giant wings and lumbered off into the darkness.

I was the only car on the road all the way to the village, and Ocean Boulevard was completely deserted except for a few snowy egrets dozing atop the lampposts outside Amber Jack’s, their long tail feathers gently flapping in the cool breeze off the Gulf. I pulled into a spot in front of the butcher shop and cut the headlights.

Now,
I thought to myself,
where would I be if I was a cat?

I’d been telling myself that Judy was probably right, that Mr. Hoskins was probably fine. He’d probably just decided to take a short vacation, maybe a little road trip, and he had probably taken Cosmo with him. He’d just forgotten to tell his daughter, and his doorman … but I knew it wasn’t true. None of that explained those bloody splotches on the countertop.

Something had happened in that store after I left, and I felt a need to find out what it was, to help in some way. I admit it seems crazy, but I think somewhere, deep down inside, I knew what I was doing. I was taking all those feelings I’d had as a little girl for Mr. Beezy and transferring them right over to Mr. Hoskins. Somehow, when I went back inside that store, something inside me changed. It was as if a hidden part of me had opened up and long-forgotten images and feelings had come spilling out—feelings I hadn’t had in a very long time.

The only problem was that, although Mr. Hoskins was a very sweet old man, I’d only just met him, and except for the fact that we shared a love for chocolate, I didn’t know a damn thing about him. All I knew was that he’d taken over the store when Mr. Beezy was gone, he was an artist, and he was a little bit eccentric, so it was completely foolish to think I had some deep bond with him, or that I could help find him, especially with Detective McKenzie and her entire team working on it. They didn’t need my help.

But Cosmo? Well, that was another story.

I like to think that I treat my pet-sitting business with the same professionalism that I brought to being a sheriff’s deputy. I keep myself on a strict schedule, I’m never late, and for every animal that’s ever been in my care, I have notes on their favorite toys, their favorite treats, and their favorite hiding places, as well as phone numbers to call if there’s an emergency. I treat all my clients, both animal and human, with respect and dignity, and I expect them to treat me the same.

I’m proud of my job. I help people just as much now as I ever did working for the sheriff’s department, and unlike most officers of the law, not to mention most criminals, I have my adrenaline addiction completely under control. Sort of.

I had decided that Mr. Hoskins had hired me to find his cat.

Okay. I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most professional decision, but I’d thought about it overnight and finally worked it all out. First, under normal circumstances, I would have met with Mr. Hoskins beforehand, which I kind of did. Then he would have introduced me to his cat, which he kind of did. Then he would have explained that he was going on a trip, which he kind of did, and then finally, after he was gone, I’d be responsible for the well-being and safety of his cat.

Now here I was.

The shops were all dark. I looked up and down the street for any sign of movement, but I knew the best place to inspect first was the trash behind the butcher’s. I slipped down a narrow passageway between two buildings and emerged into an alley behind the shops.

There were two giant blue Dumpsters parked side by side next to the back door of the butcher shop, with both their lids held slightly agape, one with bulging white garbage bags and the other with bundles of flattened cardboard boxes wrapped in twine. The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, so it was still too dark to see clearly, but I’d already thought of that. I clicked on my penlight and peered over the edge of the Dumpster into the pile of white bags.

“Cosmo?”

I had to cover my nose. One of the bags had been clawed open, and some bloodied shreds of wax paper were pulled through the hole. There were bits of offal and cartilage strewn about, as well as a few other unidentifiable pieces of raw flesh. I found a stick on the ground and poked around the bags, watching carefully for even the slightest movement.

“Here, kitty…”

I crouched down on my hands and knees and directed the penlight under the Dumpsters, moving it slowly from one end to the other. All I could see was a couple of crushed plastic soda bottles and a half-decayed apple core lying under a glistening canopy of cobwebs clinging to the bottom of the Dumpster. I shut off the penlight and sat up on my haunches. If Cosmo had been here, he at least had supped on some tasty butcher’s leavings, but I knew he’d be on the lookout for fresh water, too.