“Jeffrey’s sitting up. Not in a chair, but they’ve got his bed cranked up and he’s talking. Mazie is lying next to him, and he’s got a grip on her like he’s afraid she’ll leave him. The doctor says he’ll send him some real food pretty soon. All he’s had so far is clear soup and Jell-O. They always give you Jell-O. The Jell-O company must make a mint off hospitals.”
I laughed. Pete laughed. We would have laughed at the Jell-O itself if we’d seen it. We were high on sheer happiness. We didn’t look ahead. All that mattered was that Jeffrey was alive and alert and that he was going to eat real food. Life is really very simple when you narrow it down to the things that really matter. I was so elated that I forgot to be nervous when we went over the Skyway Bridge.
After we’d passed the tollbooths, Pete turned in his seat and faced me.
“I’m not going to work for you anymore, Dixie. I can’t take another case like this one.”
I couldn’t blame him. He’d expected a calm week or two, and he’d had emotional chaos.
I said, “I’m sorry it’s been so trying.” “I’ve been thinking about that cat. What’s going to happen to him?”
“Celeste has given me authority to find a home for him. She’s going back to Dallas and she doesn’t want him.”
“Could I take him? I think we’d get along just fine.”
I smiled to myself. Pete would probably play saxophone for him.
In the interest of full disclosure, I said, “He has a long tail that he leaves in doorways. You’d have to be careful that he didn’t trip you.”
“Honey, I’ve worked with circus monkeys that had tails so long they could wrap them around your waist. They were always leaving their tails looped around too, that’s just their sense of humor. That’s not a problem for me.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a Havana Brown named Leo. As soon as you’re ready for him, I’ll bring him to you.”
“Do you think it would be okay if I changed his name? I worked with a guy named Leo one time, and he was a bad apple.”
I laughed. “A lot of cats start out with one name and end up with another. Leo’s first name was Cohiba.”
“Well, that’s dumb. I was thinking more of Percy. Like P-U-R-R-C. I always kind of wanted a cat named Purr-C, spell it like that.”
We didn’t talk much after that, both of us caught in our own thoughts.
Back on Siesta Key, I drove to Mazie’s house to drop Pete off so he could clean the house, wash his sheets, and generally erase all signs that he’d been there. Home owners are glad to have somebody watching things when they’re gone, but they don’t want reminders of you when they return.
I was tired and sticky and unshowered, and my eyes felt like boiled tomatoes. I was also hungry. Nevertheless, it was time for my afternoon rounds.
Before Pete got out of the Bronco, he said, “Do you think you could get that cat today?”
I stared at him. “Today?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking, that cat hates being cooped up, that’s why he runs away so much. So he must really hate being in a cat hotel, all squeezed in a tiny little room. If I were him, I’d want to get out of that hotel and move to a new house.”
Pete lives in an old Florida cracker house tucked away on one of Siesta Key’s tree-lined streets. It has a front porch where a tranquil cat could sit and watch the world go by, and a quiet garden where a contented cat could have fun chasing butterflies and birds. Leo had been neither tranquil nor contented at Laura’s house, but now that I knew more about the fireworks that had been going off inside her mind, I had a feeling he might have a personality change when he was with Pete.
I said, “When I’ve finished with my last call, I’ll go to the Kitty Haven and get Leo and bring him here.”
“Purr-C, not Leo.”
He looked toward Laura’s driveway and frowned. “Who’s that next door?”
I looked too and did a silent groan. The locksmith’s truck was at the curb, and Celeste’s rented Camry was in the driveway.
I said, “That’s the car Celeste drove.”
We both stared at the Camry.
Pete said, “Maybe now’s the time to ask her about me taking the cat.”
“We don’t need her permission for you to take Leo. She’s given me authority to find a home for him. It’s none of her business who gives him that home.”
Pete lifted one of his woolly eyebrows at my snarkiness. “Whatever you think.”
I sighed. “I just don’t want to talk to the woman.”
“Don’t blame you, but maybe she’s not such a pain in the patootie when things are going okay. It must have been a terrible thing for her to have to identify her sister’s body.”
I knew he was right. Of all people, I should have been more sympathetic to Celeste Autrey. I had been the one who had gone apeshit in front of a bank of cameras at Todd and Christy’s funeral, and I had been the one who had been fueled by consuming rage for a long time after their deaths. I hadn’t been such a sweet person either, and I didn’t have any business being so judgmental about Celeste’s attitude.
I said, “I’ll talk to her, but I’m not going to mention who’s taking Leo.”
Pete patted my shoulder. “You’re a good girl, Dixie.”
As he walked to the house he gave me a backward jaunty wave, and for a minute I wasn’t seeing his tall elegant frame but Laura’s body, flipping Martin a backward finger as she left him. Martin had said he’d been furious at Laura, but that he wouldn’t have hurt her. But from what I’d seen of Martin Freuland, he would say anything that served his purposes and do anything he thought he could get away with.
29
Ieased out of the driveway, drove the short distance to Laura’s house, and pulled behind the locksmith’s truck at the curb. As I walked up the driveway, I saw Celeste and the locksmith in front of Laura’s front door, and from the way they were glaring at each other, it didn’t seem like a friendly meeting. When Celeste saw me, color rose in her face and her eyebrows drew together in a furious frown.
“Oh, this is perfect! The pet sitter has come to join the party! I suppose the Sheriff’s Department sent out a special invitation to you. Did they give you a key to the house too? They won’t give me one, but they’ll give one to anybody who lives in this godforsaken dump! I couldn’t even go through my sister’s house by myself, had to have a deputy watch while I got her jewelry and some of her clothes. She was my sister, you know, and we were close—even with all I had to put up with, we were close. I didn’t take anything she wouldn’t want me to have. Not that I don’t have nice things of my own, because I do, but there’s no point in leaving these things here. In any civilized town, the neighbors would have helped me carry things, but not here. Here the cops keep the keys to my sister’s house from me.”
The locksmith heaved a huge sigh. “Ma’am, as I’ve told you probably a hundred times now, the cops aren’t keeping the keys from you, I am. You can have the keys as soon as you pay me for changing the locks. You’re the one who ordered the change, you’re the one who has to pay for it. As soon as you pay me, I’ll give you the new keys.”
“I’m not paying you for something I have the right to have. It’s my sister’s house. I had the right to have her locks changed.”
“Yes, ma’am, but I have the right to be paid for changing them. You’ve made three appointments to get the keys, and you missed all of them. Now you want the keys for free. Sorry, not gonna happen.”
Whirling to me, Celeste said, “And exactly what is your purpose here?”