Praise for Blaize Clement and
Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter
“A first-rate debut.”
—Booklist
“An entertaining debut. Dixie is a complex, well-conceived character and the plot fast-moving and believable.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“At once a cozy mystery for animal lovers and a jarringly earthy hard-boiled whodunit about human corruption. Clement’s sleuth, Florida pet-sitter Dixie Hemingway, is an engaging combination of vulnerability and toughness, but the real heroine of the story is a gritty Abyssinian cat. A good read!”
—Susan Conant, author of Bride and Groom and the Holly Winter Dog Lover’s Mysteries
“Kick off your flip-flops, find a hammock, and settle in for a fun read. Clement’s Floridian heroine, Dixie Hemingway, spouts laugh-out-loud one-liners and words of wisdom in this intriguing whodunit filled with twists, turns, and some pretty captivating critters!”
—Cynthia Baxter, author of Lead a Horse to Murder
“Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter has it alclass="underline" a feisty heroine, lovable animals, and a solid whodunit. What more could you ask for?”
—Barbara Seranella, creator of the Munch Mancini crime novels
“A fantastic who-done-it…Fans of fast-paced clever mysteries will appreciate Dixie’s efforts to uncover the culprit before she either goes to jail or dies.”
—Harriet Klausner Reviews
“A new star in the ‘mysteries with animals’ firmament…this book stands out in the genre for its plotting, pacing, and well-formed characters, in addition to an enticing tropical locale.”
—The Kingston Observer (Kingston, MA)
“A keeper, with its plucky protagonist, cats galore, and a nice sense of place.”
—Library Journal
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Excerpt: Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund
Excerpt: Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons
Acknowledgments
One
It was about 3:30 Thursday afternoon when I stopped by Marilee Doerring’s house to pick up a new key. I have keys to all my clients’ houses. I carry them on a big round ring like a French chatelaine. If a robber broke into my apartment, it wouldn’t be to rip off my Patsy Cline CDs, it would be for my key ring.
I’m Dixie Hemingway, no relation to you know who. I’m a pet-sitter. I live on Siesta Key in Sarasota, Florida, and so do all my clients. Until three years ago, when the world crashed around me, I was a deputy with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. Now I take care of animals. I go to their homes while their owners are away and feed them and groom them and play with them. They don’t ask a lot of questions or expect much from me, and I don’t have to interact with people any more than I choose to. At least most of the time. On this particular afternoon, I was about to become a lot more involved with a lot more people than I wanted to be.
Siesta Key is an eight-mile barrier island connected to the mainland by two bridges. The Gulf of Mexico laps at the west side, and Sarasota Bay and the Intracoastal Waterway are on the east. Inside the key itself, there are fifty miles of canals, so we have almost as many boats and boat docks as we have seabirds, which is a bunch. You name it, we’ve got it. Terns, plovers, gulls, egrets, herons, cranes, spoonbills, storks, ibis, and pelicans all happily scoop up their favorite entrées on our beaches and in our backyards. Offshore, manatees and dolphins play in the warm water.
Counting part-time residents, the key is home to about 24,000 suntanned people. Except for “the season,” when snowbirds come down and inflict their money on us, and spring break, when college students get drunk and pee on the hibiscus, Siesta Key is a quiet, laid-back place. On the map, it looks like an alligator’s head with an extremely long and skinny nose. Siesta Village and Roberts Bay form the head, with Crescent Beach where eyes would be. The nose is just wide enough for one street—Midnight Pass Road—with private lanes and tourist lodgings on each side, along with occasional undeveloped wooded areas.
Marilee’s cat was a silver-blue Abyssinian named Ghost. Awful name, sweet cat. I had taken care of him several times before, and the only thing different about this time was that Marilee had called the night before to tell me she’d had her locks changed, so I would have to pick up a new key before she left town. She lived on the bay side of Midnight Pass Road, about midway between Turtle Beach and the south bridge. Her street was curvy, lushly tree-lined and short, the house a low-slung stucco with a red barrel-tile roof and deep recessed arches over doors and windows, the kind of Mexican-Mediterranean hybrid that Floridians love. Dwarf scheffleras and pittisporum and hollies made swirling patterns of ground cover in the front yard, interspersed with clumps of red geraniums and bird of paradise plants. The front door undoubtedly had once hung on a cathedral in some South American country, and the doorbell was a deep-bonging thing that sounded like it might have come from the same cathedral. As I waited, I could hear the faint sound of classical piano music from next door.