The Cat Sitter's Whiskers (22 page)

Mona switched the lamp on, and the old woman opened her eyes. She was alarmingly thin, her skin almost translucent, and she was wearing what looked like a thick camel-brown winter coat with black woolen mittens on her hands and a red plaid scarf wrapped snugly around her neck.

Mona whispered, “Gran, my friend is here.”

She didn't move, but her eyes turned from Mona to me, and at the same moment I realized there was a little boy lying across the foot of the bed with his arms stretched out over the old woman's legs. He raised his head up and squinted at me, his eyes puffy and red from crying.

Mona said, “And this is Ricky.”

He immediately buried his face back down in the blankets. I stepped forward and said, “Hi, I'm Dixie.”

The old woman's thinning hair was almost entirely white save for a few strands of gray here and there, but it was surprisingly long, almost down to her lap. She nodded slowly and smiled.

Mona said, “Ricky, say hi to Dixie,” but he didn't respond.

“He's mad at me.”

I put my hands on my hips and said, “Hi, Ricky. I saw you playing on your pogo stick. You're pretty good. I think I'd break my neck if I got up on that thing.”

He looked up and smiled sheepishly. “I'm seven. I can teach you.”

Mona said, “Yeah, except you ain't allowed to play on it now, are you?”

She gave me a knowing look and then pointed at the floor. The shag carpet was a plain, off-white beige. It looked relatively new, except when I saw what Mona was pointing at I had to cover my mouth so Ricky wouldn't see me smile.

I said, “Uh-oh.”

There was a trail of brown spots, spaced about a foot or two apart. They came all the way up the hallway and around the bed, then went right back down the hall and out the front door. Each spot was perfectly round and slightly bigger than a silver dollar, like the size of, say, the business end of a pogo stick.

Mona said, “Yep. Brand-new carpet. And he knows he ain't supposed to play on that damn thing inside the house. Right?”

Ricky's face was still buried in the blankets, but I heard a muffled, “Yes, ma'am.”

“And what happens when you break Gramma's rules?”

He raised his head up, glancing at his grandmother with narrowed eyes. “No TV for a whole day.”

“That's right. For a whole day. Now go outside and play, we got adult stuff to talk about.”

He sat up. “I can go outside?”

Mona folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “Yeah, but you gotta come back in when we're done talkin'.”

He jumped off the bed and ran to the door.

“Ricky!”

He stopped on a dime and turned around.

“You know the rules. Stay in the yard. And leave that pogo stick where it is.”

His face went from utter delight to pure disgust in the blink of an eye. He glanced accusingly at his grandmother, and then stomped down the hallway, slamming the screen door as he went out.

I said, “Aw, poor thing. You know, they make a really good spray-cleaner for carpets. I use it for pet stains. I'm sure it would get these spots right up.”

Mona said, “Well, I hope for that boy's sake you're right.” Then she looked around the room and nodded, like she was wrapping up a business meeting. “Okay, then, I'll leave you to it. Gran, Dixie has something she wants to talk to you about.”

I turned to the old woman and said, “Yeah, Mrs.…”

I stopped. Mona had slipped past me quicker than I would've thought possible. I said, “Hold on,” but she was already closing the bedroom door behind her.

I turned to Mrs. Duffy, whose expression hadn't changed, and said, “Wait right here.”

I ran down the hall and found Mona throwing her big purple purse over her shoulder as she headed out the front door.

“Mona! No, ma'am. You need to come right back in here…”

She turned around and leveled a look at me with determined eyes. “Dixie, I can't.”

“Yes, you can. Trust me, everything's gonna be just fine.”

She shook her head and lowered her voice. “No, I mean, I
can't
. I got that appointment with your doctor friend. If I don't leave now I'll be late.”

My jaw dropped wide open. “Are you kidding me? It's today?”

She nodded.

I sighed. “Okay, great. Except what the heck am I supposed to say? You need to be here when I tell her.”

Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes suddenly took on that lost-kitten look she'd given me at the diner. It probably wouldn't have worked this time, except now there was a little lost-puppy mixed in as well.

She said, “Dixie … please?”

 

26

I watched through the screen door as Mona got in her car, and after she drove away I folded my arms over my chest and looked around me. There I was, standing in the middle of a veritable stranger's mobile home, in what looked like one of those pop-up Christmas stores that magically appear overnight just after Halloween, and I thought to myself,
How the hell did this happen?

When I agreed to help Mona, I had pictured myself standing quietly in the corner with a beatific smile on my face while she broke the news about Levi, and then, while they hugged and held hands and dabbed their eyes with the tissues I'd given them, I'd be in the kitchen preparing a nice tray with two cups of chamomile tea and maybe some ginger snaps. I didn't think for one second I'd end up doing all the talking myself.

Part of me was a little relieved, though. I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I still had my afternoon rounds to get to, not to mention my appointment with Mr. Paxton at the gallery downtown, and I knew Mona would only have made things more complicated.

When I came back into the bedroom, Mrs. Duffy had rearranged her pillows and was sitting up a little straighter now. She'd taken off her mittens, but her eyes were closed and her hands were folded one on top of the other, as if they were trying to keep each other warm. As I lowered myself down on the edge of the bed, I wondered if hypothermia was a side effect of all the medications she was taking.

I had assumed Mrs. Duffy's room would've been packed to the ceiling with more glass ornaments and Santas and snow globes, but it wasn't. In fact, it was quite spare. Apart from the bed and the side table, there was only one other piece of furniture—a white four-drawer dresser opposite the bed, with nothing on it but a round, hand-embroidered doily and a couple of near-empty perfume bottles.

To the right of the bed was a louvered door, probably a closet, and next to that was the only thing hanging on the wall in the entire room—an antique black-and-white photograph set in a gilded oval frame. It was a portrait of an elderly woman in a high-necked blouse and pointed stock collar. She had deep-set black eyes behind tiny wire-rimmed spectacles, with white hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her expression was somber and grim, but also a tad anxious, which, as I turned to Mrs. Duffy, was exactly the way I was feeling that very moment.

Without even opening her eyes, Mrs. Duffy said, “What is it you want, child?”

I realized until now I hadn't yet heard her speak. I should probably have expected it, but there was a deep sadness in her voice that crushed me. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to live in constant pain the way she had her entire life, and now to have to deal with all this on top of it.

I said, “So, Mona asked me to talk to you about something.”

Her eyebrows raised slightly. “It's about the boy, ain't it?”

I blinked. “You mean Levi?”

“I wasn't sure, but I guessed as much.”

I nodded. “Mrs. Duffy, I'm sure you know this already, but Mona loves you with all her heart…”

“Ain't no need to sugarcoat it.”

“Huh?”

She turned to me and opened her eyes. They were the palest gray, almost like dust on a pane of glass. “I know why you're here, Detective. I may be old, but I ain't dumb. Just tell me straight. Do they think she killed him?”

I said, “No, Mrs. Duffy, it's nothing like that.”

For a moment she just stared, perfectly still, and then when she finally looked away I could see tears seeping into the wrinkles around her eyes.

“And I'm not a detective, I'm just a … a friend, sort of. Mona asked me to talk to you because she was scared to do it herself.”

She dabbed the edge of her sleeve at the corners of her eyes. “I know she's scared. I can see it. And what with her past and all, I just thought…”

I said, “No, I promise you it's nothing as bad as that.”

“Then what is it?”

“Mrs. Duffy, Mona told me about your … situation, and your illness. And she knows you're worried about her, about what will happen to her when you can't take care of her anymore. She didn't want you to think she'd be all alone, so she lied to you … about Levi.”

She turned to me. “That they ain't engaged? Is that what you come here to tell me?”

“You knew…?”

She nodded. “I known it right away. It ain't the first time she lied, and I'm sure it ain't the last, either. And besides, what would a boy like that want with a girl like Mona?”

I sat back. I couldn't deny I'd had similar thoughts myself, but I wasn't sure how to respond. It sounded horribly cold coming from Mona's own grandmother.

She shrugged her bony shoulders and looked down at her frail hands. “Sounds mean, don't it? But you know I'm right. That poor child fell in love with Levi the moment he moved in. A handsome boy like that, who could blame her? From the minute she told me they was gettin' married, I went along with it, because I knew Mona thought it would give me some peace. And she told me Levi's daddy was rich and they was gonna live in a mansion and all.” She shook her head and sighed. “That boy was just using her. Believe me, her life ain't been easy. I wish it was true just as bad as she does.”

I shook my head. “She told me all about the sacrifices you've made, how you took her in after her parents ran off.”

“That's what she told you, huh?”

I decided to ignore the tone in her voice. I couldn't exactly blame her for being so fatalistic about Mona's lot in life—especially considering the lousy hand she'd been dealt herself—but I wasn't sure I wanted to know more. Instead, I nodded matter-of-factly and tried to figure out a way to politely say my good-byes. I'd fulfilled my promise to Mona, and now I just wanted to get on with my day.

Mrs. Duffy was quiet for a moment. She was staring at the portrait of the old woman on the wall. Finally she turned to me, her eyes narrowed. “I don't know who you are. You say you ain't a cop, but if you really is Mona's friend, you oughta know. Her folks didn't run off. They was taken.”

“Taken?”

She nodded. “See that bedside table? I keep a gun in that drawer there. Saturday Night Special. Loaded. That's for the day they come back.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Now I was one hundred percent certain I didn't want to know more, but I was beginning to think it was too late.

“Her folks is both down at Florida State Prison in Bradford. They was supposed to get locked up for life, but I ain't takin' any chances. They're bad.”

I felt my heart begin to quicken. I said, “What do you mean, bad?”

“It was Christmas morning. Fifteen years ago now. My daughter, Mona's mother … she never liked me much. And that boyfriend of hers, he hated me. It was goin' on three years they wouldn't let me see Mona—my own granddaughter. That ain't right. This is America. I got a right to see my own grandchild. So I got the neighbor boy to drive me over there. They only lived twenty minutes away, down Tamiami Trail the other side of Nokomis. I had a little Mickey Mouse toy all wrapped up nice with a bow and all. I just wanted to see her with my own eyes, but they said no. They said Mona was at a birthday party … a birthday party, mind you, on Christmas. They wouldn't let me in.”

The sun had dipped lower in the sky. It was streaming through the lace curtains in the window and sending little shimmering flecks of gold all over the room. I could almost see them moving in slow motion across the dark blue bedspread.

“I made the boy drive me around the block. I got out and called from the pay phone at the Shop Mart. Then we went back and watched.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “It was a lot of cops that come, and it took a while, but they finally found Mona.”

I shook my head. I didn't want to know, but I knew I had to ask. I said, “Where was she?”

She closed her eyes and her mouth fell slightly open, almost as if she could see it all in front of her now.

“She was down in the crawl space under the kitchen … in a cage.”

*   *   *

While I'd been inside Mona's trailer, three towering clouds had appeared in the distance over the Gulf, a trio of lumbering giants as wide and tall as a range of mountains, pitch-black against the brilliant blue sky. Where they floated just above the horizon were vertical bands of undulating color—violet, silver, cerise, charcoal—and even though the sun was still sending long yellow streaks of light across the sky, the air smelled of rain.

It felt like a dream.

What Mrs. Duffy had told me … I couldn't even begin to fathom what kind of world Mona had grown up in. My own childhood, at least on paper, was a tragedy. My father died in the line of duty fighting a fire when I was nine years old, my alcoholic mother abandoned Michael and me barely two years later, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen her since. As I started up the Bronco and headed for Tamiami Trail, I realized that, surprisingly, Mona and I had a lot in common. No wonder I'd felt such a strange and sudden sympathy for her.

Except … in reality, my childhood had been very different. For one, I always had Michael by my side watching over me, and our grandparents gave us everything we could ever have wanted and more. Never, not for one second, did I ever doubt I was loved.