The Cat Sitter's Whiskers (3 page)

In the kitchen, I cleaned out his water bowl and filled it with fresh water, and as soon as he heard the silverware drawer open and the clunk of the can opener on the countertop, he came running in with a couple of chirps, as innocent as can be, and greeted me with an excited,
“Thrrrrrip!”

I said, “Oh, Mr. Feldman! What a coweenky-dink. I was just about to serve your breakfast.”

He trotted over and rubbed his cheek against my ankles, pointing his tail straight up like an exclamation point and wriggling it in anticipation. He's long and muscular, with thick chocolate fur soft as velvet and ticked with undulating bands of cream and gold. All four of his paws are dipped in pure black, and his wise old-soul eyes sparkle like point-cut aquamarines.

“We've got a special treat on the menu today, just so you know.”

I mixed a couple of spoonfuls of tuna in the bowl with his allotted breakfast portion of kibble—about half a cup—and then laid it down on his plastic-coated place mat at the foot of the dishwasher. The place mat is there because Barney Feldman is not a tidy eater. He likes to pull pieces of food out and line them up on the floor around his dish like trophies from a hunting expedition. Then he pounces on them one by one, making a complete mess of everything in the process.

I figured while he ate I'd take a spin around the house just to make sure nothing was out of order. I always do an inspection of all my clients' houses, even if I'm just taking care of a bowl of goldfish. You never know what you might find: a leak in the roof or a houseplant that needs a little TLC. Plus, with cats there's always the very real possibility that they might have woken up in the middle of the night with the best idea
ever
, like applying a fringed edge to the arms of your favorite love seat, or maybe peeing in the middle of your pillow so you'll always have a memento of your time away. Barney Feldman is usually on his best behavior, though, so I wasn't expecting any surprises.

When I got back to the kitchen, he was nowhere in sight, but he'd eaten every bit of his breakfast. I took his bowl and place mat over to the sink and scrubbed them both with a soapy sponge, then I went back over to the antique cupboard and pulled open one of its heavy wooden drawers. Inside was a bundle of plastic grocery bags wrapped in a rubber band. As I loosened one of the bags, there were some lightning-fast paw swipes at the space where my feet should have been.

I said, “Nice try.”

I pictured him wearing a horned Viking helmet and swinging his paws back and forth like two battleaxes, but I was standing a good three feet away and stretching my arms out to reach the drawer, so my ankles were safe.

I dropped the tuna lid down in the bag and wrapped it up. The Kellers wouldn't be home for a week, so I didn't want to leave anything smelly in the garbage under the sink. The laundry room is just off the kitchen, and beyond that is a short hallway leading out to the carport where the garbage cans are kept. The side door locks automatically with a spring that pulls it shut, so I always prop it open with an old tin flower bucket that the Kellers keep nearby for umbrellas.

It's not the best system in the world, mainly because given half a chance Barney will sprint out any open door as if his life depends on it, but also because the flower bucket is pretty top-heavy. It can easily tip over from the weight of the door, and then,
click
 … you're locked out. I found that out the hard way, so I always leave the front door unlocked when I come in, just in case.

I propped the door open and padded over to the garbage cans, which are enclosed in a cedar-paneled bin to fend off marauding raccoons. Keeping an eye on the door just in case Barney tried to escape, I lifted up the door on top of the bin, dropped the bag down in the garbage, and then hustled back inside, sliding the flower bucket back in place with my foot as the door pulled itself closed.

When I turned around to head back into the kitchen, I came face-to-face with none other than Dick Cheney.

The first thing I thought was,
Hey, you're not supposed to be here
. But then I noticed something different. He seemed to have arms and legs. He wore a long-sleeved black sweatshirt and dark track pants. My lips formed into a
W
with the intention of saying,
What the f…?
But I never got that far. It was like watching a movie projected onto a screen right in front of me.

He raised one of his arms up over his crown of tiny bird skulls, and I saw he was holding something about the size of a softball in his black-gloved fist. It was a white stone figurine, like a Buddha, except naked, with voluminous breasts and a bald head as smooth as a river stone. It hovered in the air for a moment, and then, as if in slow motion, came down right on top of my head.

Just before it hit me, I noticed its little naked feet. The toes were painted bright crimson red.

After that, the movie screen went completely dark.

 

3

I could hear a faint ringing in the distance, sort of like a church bell, and the first thing I saw was Barney Feldman's big fluffy face looming over me. I was lying flat on my stomach with my head turned to the side and my cheek smashed into the floor, and Barney was gazing at me with a slightly worried expression. He seemed to be saying,
It's a good thing you woke up because I have no idea how to use the phone.

My whole head was throbbing, and when I tried to roll over to my side a blistering pain went bouncing through my skull and right down my spine, all the way to the soles of my feet. I let out a low moan, which apparently Barney took to mean everything was fine now, because he licked one black paw and drew it daintily across his long whiskers.

I did a quick inventory up and down my body. My clothes were on, which is always a good thing, and I didn't see blood anywhere, which is also a good thing, and except for the throbbing pain in my head and a vague ringing in my ears everything seemed okay.

I rolled over on my back and then slowly sat up on my elbows, trying as hard as I could to ignore the pain as I waited for my blurry eyes to focus. There was a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the window illuminating tiny specks of dust floating in the air, and I tried to decipher by the sun's angle what time it was … until I remembered my cell phone in my back pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

It was 6:30, which meant I must have been out cold for at least a half hour. I was about to close the phone and lay it on the floor next to me when I noticed something else on the screen. There was one missed call and a new voice mail: It was from Mrs. Keller.

I almost laughed out loud at the irony of it. While I was lying there knocked out cold on the floor of her laundry room, she had left a message. I wondered if she'd called to ask me to mail that box in the foyer, or maybe to warn me about statue-wielding, mask-wearing degenerates sneaking around inside her house looking for unsuspecting cat sitters.

I had a view through the laundry room into the kitchen, which opened up into the living room beyond, and at first everything seemed perfectly normal, but then the gauzy curtains behind the couch billowed out slightly and I realized with a jolt that the folding glass doors leading to the back garden were standing wide open. In front of the couch was a marble-topped coffee table, and when I saw what was sitting on top of it, I froze.

There were two tapered candles. One red, the other black, and they were both lit. Their yellow-white flames were flickering gently in the breeze from the open doors.

I flipped my phone open and punched in the numbers as fast as I could.

“911. What is your emergency?”

I whispered, “This is Dixie Hemingway, I have a code 11-99. Somebody just hit me over the head with a statue and I think it's possible they're still in the house.”

The operator's voice was thin and nasal. He said, “They hit you with a statue?”

“Yeah, a little statue made of stone or marble or something.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No, but it knocked me out and I just woke up.”

“What's your location, ma'am?”

“I'm … in the laundry room.”

“Okay … I'm showing an address of 22 Island Circle, is that correct?”

Close enough, I thought. “Yes, that's it.”

“Are you able to get out of the house safely?”

I looked around for Barney but he had disappeared. “Um, I don't know.”

“I'm sending help now. Stay where you are.”

I slid my hand down my hip and felt for my holster. “Okay. I'll search the house.”

His voice rose. “Excuse me? No, you need to stay right where you are. You need to—”

I interrupted as I felt my fingers close around the handle of my pistol. “It's okay, I'm a sheriff's dep—”

But before I could finish I looked down at my hand. I was holding my little flashlight out in front of me, absentmindedly fluttering my thumb around its base looking for the safety release.

The operator's voice cut through. “Ma'am? You need to stay put, do you hear me?”

Just then the room started spinning.

“Yeah,” I whispered as I let my head touch the floor with a gentle thud. “I hear you.”

*   *   *

I'm not completely sure how long I lay there before they arrived, but it felt like an eternity. I spent the entire time straining to hear any sounds from inside the house, which wasn't easy since the ringing in my ears wouldn't stop and I felt like I'd been injected with a dose of morphine big enough to take down the Jolly Green Giant. There were literally waves of sleepiness washing over me.

I tried not to think about the fact that I'd just mistaken my flashlight for a pistol, or that I even thought I was carrying a pistol in the first place. Instead, I concentrated on what I'd learned in law enforcement training about concussions and ran down the symptoms: Trauma to the head? Yep. Extreme Lethargy? Yep. Mental confusion? Well, I'd come back to that one, but it wasn't looking good.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

It was bad enough some low-life punk had snuck up on me, and worse still that he'd hammered me to the ground with a big-bosomed Buddha, or that he'd taken the time to light a couple of candles, which was super creepy, but the worst part was the possibility that he might still be lurking around inside the house somewhere. You'd think the thought of that would have sent me into a total panic, but it didn't. I just kept telling myself everything would be fine as long as I stayed calm and alert.

Barney Feldman had taken up his post again, purring loudly and watching over me with a serene expression on his face. That made me feel better, too. I figured if there actually was somebody in the house Barney wouldn't have been so relaxed. Just as I was congratulating myself for staying awake in spite of the overwhelming urge to sleep, I felt something press my hand gently. I opened my eyes to find, not Barney Feldman looking down at me, but Deputy Jesse Morgan. He was kneeling at my side.

“Dixie? You okay?”

I thought for a moment. I've known Morgan for years. He's one of the Key's few sworn deputies, which basically means he's licensed to carry a gun. He's about as fun as a barrel of monkeys, minus the monkeys, but he's tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones, broad shoulders, and a buzzed, military-style haircut—exactly the type of guy you want around if there's any trouble.

I said, “I'm fine … sort of.”

“You've got a pretty good bump there.”

I reached up and ran my fingers through my hair. There was a tender bulge the size of a small plum on the very top of my head.

I said, “Yeah, I was here taking care of the Kellers' cat, and somebody snuck up and hit me.”

He frowned. “Somebody hit you?”

“Yeah, with a statue. It was a fat bald woman, and her toes were painted red.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A fat, bald woman with red toes hit you?”

Morgan's not the brightest bulb in the box. I shook my head. “No, the statue. Dick Cheney hit me.”

He squinted his eyes and nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“He was about my height, more or less, and dressed head to toe in black.”

“Dick Cheney.”

“Yeah, one of the masks … he had one of the masks on. And I left the front door unlocked, so I don't know if he was already here or if he snuck in after me.”

He nodded. “Okay, I think we better get you to a hospital.”

“No!”

I pushed over to my side and tried to stand up, but Morgan held me there. “Whoa, slow down now, little lady, let's call an ambulance first.”

I decided to ignore the “little lady” comment and suppressed the desire to sock him in his little man parts. I said, “No. No way. I am
not
going to the hospital. And we need to make sure he's not still hiding in the house somewhere!”

Morgan put his hands on both my shoulders and looked me squarely in the eye. “Dixie. You've got a concussion. Believe it or not, the first thing we did was search the house. There's nobody here.”

I squeezed my eyes shut a couple of times and then nodded. “Okay, good. But I don't have a concussion, so no hospital.”

“I'm pretty sure you do, and anyway that's my call, not yours.”

“Believe me, I'd know if I had a concussion, and I don't.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You told the 911 operator you're a sheriff's deputy.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yeah. You did.”

I didn't remember doing that, but then again, I didn't remember
not
doing it, either. I shook my head slowly. “No. She must have heard me wrong.”

“You mean
he
?”

“Yeah. He. Whatever.”

Morgan's sharp features seemed to soften and he tilted his head to one side, the way you might do if you were trying to soothe a small child. “Dixie … you reported an 11-99.”