He said, “I guess Cheddar remembers Ruby.” He sounded sad, as if he felt abandoned.
Trying to make my voice tiptoe, I said, “Cats love being with babies.”
He seemed to brighten at the idea that he’d been rejected in favor of the baby instead of Ruby. As for me, a job I’d expected to be neatly delineated had become frayed around the edges by a host of complex emotions emanating from Mr. Stern and his granddaughter.
I said, “I’ll be back this afternoon.”
As if he’d heard a bugle call, Mr. Stern got to his feet and stood ramrod straight. He walked to the door with me, followed me outside, and watched me get in my Bronco. I gave him my most fetching smile and waved at him like somebody on a parade float. He nodded sternly, like a general acknowledging the presence of inferiors, then scurried around to the back of the car and began whirling his good arm in come-on-back motions.
I groaned. Mr. Stern was turning out to be one of those men who believes every woman with wheels needs a man to tell her how to turn them. Which sort of explained some of the tension between him and Ruby. But, okay, what the heck. It wouldn’t cost me anything to let him think he was a big manly man helping a helpless female back her car out of his driveway.
Ordinarily, I would have used my rear-view mirror to see if anything was behind me, but with Mr. Stern back there vigorously miming me to back straight out, I sort of felt obliged to swivel my head around and pretend to watch him. But as I looked over my shoulder I saw the young woman at the next door house again. This time she was at a front window, and I could see her features. She was plump and plain, and something about her seemed indistinct and faded, like old sepia photographs of immigrants arriving in this country at the turn of the century. I kept looking at her until a palm tree blocked my view, and then I remembered Mr. Stern, who was in the street whirling his arm.
He was a nimble man, I’ll give him that. He jumped out of the way at the right moment and back-walked along the curb, circling his arm to signal me to turn the wheel. The only problem was that he was directing me to turn in the wrong direction.
So, okay, no big deal. I pulled into the street pointed the wrong way.
I gave Mr. Stern another parade-queen wave and drove off in the wrong direction past the vacant house with the foreclosed sign. In my rear-view mirror, I saw him head back toward his open front door. I also saw a long black limo pull away from the curb half a block behind me. Nothing unusual about a limo on the street. People in Siesta Key’s upscale neighborhoods take limos to the airport all the time. There wasn’t even anything alarming about the way the car stayed the same distance behind me. The street wasn’t made for passing, so we both drove along at a steady speed.
I had intended to turn on a side street and work my way back to a main thoroughfare, but residential streets are short on the Key, and this one had no side streets. It ended in a cul de sac, where I made a U-turn. The limo driver made the same turn, and I felt a moment of camaraderie with him, both of us caught by surprise by a deadend street. As I passed Mr. Stern’s house, I looked toward the windows of the house where I’d seen the young woman, but all I saw was the glare of sunlight bouncing off glass.
That’s all I could see of the windows of the limo that followed close behind me, too, because the limo’s windows were tinted dark. To tell the truth, I didn’t wonder about who was in that limo. My mind had drifted to Ruby and her unhappiness, to Opal, who was one of the cutest babies I’d ever seen, and to Mr. Stern, who presented a cold face to the world but took his cat into the courtyard at night to watch light play on his waterfall. I reminded myself that every family has its own drama, and that whatever Mr. Stern’s family’s drama was, it didn’t involve me. No matter how much I felt Ruby’s misery, no matter how cute her baby was, and no matter how much I thought Mr. Stern’s stiffness was a cover-up for a soft heart, it wasn’t any of my business. I was strictly a cat sitter, nothing more.
At the corner of Higel Avenue, I stopped for a break in a gaggle of cars tearing past in both directions. Then I spun right, gunned the Bronco south, and lost sight of the limo in my rearview mirror. Instead, a giant insect with long yellow antennae and a black and yellow striped body hovered just behind me. The insect was atop a dark green van, which made me stop thinking about Ruby and Mr. Stern and try to decide whether the bug was an advertisement for a taxidermist or an exterminator.
Later, I would wonder how I could have been so easily distracted. My only excuse was that I’d had a man in my life—again—for about six weeks, and I still wasn’t used to it.
The Dixie Hemingway Novels
(in Chronological Order)
Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter
Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund
Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues
Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof
Raining Cat Sitters and Dogs
Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons
(first chapter included in this eBook)
Acknowledgments
My greatest thanks to the “Thursday Group”—Susana Gonzalez, Kate Holmes, Greg Jorgensen, and Clark Lauren—who listened to scenes from this novel as it took shape, and who are unfailingly kind even when I write trash.
Also to Pamela Strom and Dr. Everett Shocket for law-enforcement and medical information.
To Florida licensed trauma cleaner Bill Sullivan for explaining how crime scenes are sanitized. To professional pet-sitter Virginia Wilson for insider information. To Lora Garrett, crime-scene technician with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department, for information on who does what in forensic investigation. To Dr. Reinhard Motte, Miami–Dade County associate medical examiner, who gave me some unpleasant facts involving death and pets. To Mary V. Welk, ER nurse and author, who cut to the nitty-gritty and told me how my victim should look.
And most of all, thanks to my dream team: Marcia Markland, who is such a warm and generous person that she should be in an editors’ hall of fame; Diana Szu, Marcia’s patient and efficient assistant; Annelise Robey, who was brave enough to become my agent, and Don Cleary, who handles all the legal stuff with wit and style.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT SITTER
Copyright © 2006 by Blaize Clement.
Excerpt from Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund copyright © 2007 by Blaize Clement.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.