The Cat Sitter's Whiskers (16 page)

He tilted his head to one side. “Um, no.”

“Oh. Well, this one did. And her toes were painted red and she was totally naked and big and curvy.”

He put his glasses back on. “Ha—that doesn't much sound like the Buddha I know. I think the word you're looking for is
zaftig.
Except for the red toes, it sounds more like an ancient earth goddess, like Gaia or Shala.”

“Who?”

“Almost every ancient culture has one. Usually they represent the bounty of nature or fertility, like Venus, the Roman goddess of love.”

“You mean Venus on a half shell?”

He chuckled. “You're thinking of how Botticelli envisioned her, but the idea was around long before he came along. Some of them date all the way back to the Paleolithic age … Here, I'll show you.”

He turned his wheelchair back to the computer and tapped a few keys. The screen filled with pictures of all kinds of small sculptures and figurines. They were mostly made from stone or clay, some crude and jagged, but others carved with exquisite care.

“Are they expensive?”

He smiled. “Some are modern knockoffs, but some, especially an older one, could be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions.”

I said, “Huh.”

Something had clicked in my head. It might very well have been my poor skull shifting back in place, but I think it was something more. Unless I was remembering something from my past life as a cavewoman, there was absolutely no way I'd fainted that morning, because those figurines on Tom's computer … I'd never seen anything like them before … so how could the whole thing have been a dream?

I looked closer at one that had caught my attention. She was made of white stone. Her oval eyes were blank, but her lips were set at a slightly mischievous angle, and her head was as smooth and bald as an egg.

I pointed. “Hey, Tom? Do you think you could print that out for me?”

 

19

The parking lot at the Sea Breeze is shaped like a racetrack, with a big oval of lush green grass in the middle, and sometimes I wonder if Tom didn't move here for that reason alone. It's the perfect place for Billy Elliot.

In his heyday, Billy was a champion racer, and he had a longer career than most. A lot of greyhounds his age, especially the ones with an illustrious record, have to contend with all kinds of health problems stemming from the abuse their bodies took from racing, but so far Billy is in pretty good shape. Tom gives him daily supplements to help keep his joints limber, and he needs a mild pain reliever now and then, but otherwise he's fit as a fiddle, which is more than I can say for myself.

The order of events is basically the same every day. After Billy does his business and marks a couple of bushes for future reference, we start out at a relatively slow pace around the lot. Then, once we're both warmed up, we increase the speed a bit. Billy's usually the one to make that call, and I know he waits a little longer than he'd prefer for my sake.

I do my best to keep up with him, but I never last much longer than twenty minutes. If he looks like he's still got a little gas in his tank, I'll let him off the leash and he'll shift into greyhound gear and race around the lot a few more laps at breakneck speed. That gives me the opportunity to stand doubled over with my hands on my hips and wheeze like a donkey.

While I did that, I thought about the picture Tom had printed out for me. It was folded up and tucked away in my back pocket, and I'd already told myself what I needed to do next: it was time to call Mr. and Mrs. Keller. All I needed was one look at those little statues on Tom's computer screen to know what had happened to me in the Kellers' house wasn't a dream, nor was it the product of my overactive imagination or low blood sugar. Paco was right. Somebody had attacked me.

I still didn't know where that statue had come from or how it wound up in the hands of my attacker, but I had a feeling Mrs. Keller might be able to shed some light on the subject.

I'd wait until I was back in her house, and since Italy is six hours ahead, it would be around midday there and a perfect time to call. I wasn't looking forward to worrying her about it, and I really didn't feel like getting caught up in whatever web of deceit she'd woven to appease her husband, but I knew I didn't have a choice.

After that I'd call Detective McKenzie. I wanted to tell her the whole story—everything I'd figured out about that morning, including Paco's theory that my bump wasn't consistent with a fall, and I also wanted to show her the picture Tom had printed for me. Given how much that figurine might be worth, it seemed perfectly reasonable that somebody could have broken into the Kellers' house to steal it. Seeing as how it was so early in the morning, they probably thought they could escape without any of the neighbors noticing. Deputy Beane had mentioned she'd canvassed the neighborhood and no one had reported anything suspicious, so all in all it was a perfect plan … except for one thing: Levi.

I think it was possible that, in an indirect way, it was Levi's fault I got conked on the head in the first place. After my attacker found what they were looking for, they must have planned on slipping out before I even knew they were there. But something had stopped them, and I'd be willing to wager ten bucks it was the sight of Levi driving by, delivering papers.

They probably figured the risk of a witness was much worse than contending with a 135-pound cat sitter, so they donned one of Mrs. Keller's masks and took me out of the picture with whatever they happened to have handy … like a stone earth goddess. I cringed at the idea of me lying there in the laundry room, unconscious, while they waited for the right time to make their escape. Of course, the big question was: If Levi had been there when they finally came out, had he confronted them?

Or worse, had they followed him home?

*   *   *

Once Billy and I were back upstairs, both of us panting like crazy, I hung his leash on the hook by the door and then followed him back into the dining room to say a quick good-bye to Tom. He had laid out a few documents with pink Post-its running down the right-hand side.

Turning to me with a somber look on his face, he said, “Before you go, we need to talk.”

I knew by the sound of his voice it had something to do with money. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and whined, “Can it wait till tomorrow?”

“Dixie, sooner or later we have to come up with a plan.”

I said, “How about later?”

“Can you at least sign a couple of things?”

“Ugh. Do I have to read them first?”

He slid his glasses down his nose and gave me a disapproving frown. “Of course you do. Does that mean you will?”

“No.”

He handed me a pen. “I didn't think so.”

There were three separate documents. As I signed one he'd slide it away and replace it with another. “Dixie, you really can't avoid this much longer.”

“I know, I know. It's just hard.”

“That may be, but the longer you put it off, the harder it's going to get.”

I handed his pen back. “Okay, I promise we'll talk next week.”

He stared at me as I hurried down the hall.

“I promise!”

*   *   *

One of my very first jobs as a pet sitter was for a cat named Ghost. Awful name, sweet cat. He was a silver-blue Abyssinian, as stunningly beautiful as his owner, Marilee Doerring. Unfortunately, that beauty had drawn a very bad man to her, and she ended up getting killed.

We weren't exactly close friends, but Marilee and I had a kind of unspoken bond, and her grandmother, Cora Mathers, is still a big part of my life. I go over at least once a week to visit her. These days, she's the closest thing I have to a mother.

Marilee was rich, and when she died, her will stipulated that a sizable amount of her estate go to Cora, enough that she'd never have to worry about who would take care of her in her old age. The rest, to everyone's surprise, went to Ghost. And even more surprising, at least for me, yours truly was named as Ghost's guardian and sole manager of his inheritance, which, to put it mildly, was a boatload of money.

I knew I was the last person on earth to be trusted with that kind of responsibility. For example, I have no idea how much money I have in my bank account, and the last time I balanced my checkbook Ronald Reagan was president. Math is not my strong suit. It's not even my weak suit, plus it just made me sad to think about Marilee, so I asked Tom for help managing everything. He's taken care of all the financial details ever since, and I try to have as little to do with it as possible.

Ghost, on the other hand, I knew exactly how to handle. I found him a good home with a family that runs an orchard just north of Sarasota. They have tons of land, with rows and rows of orange trees teeming with birds and butterflies, and all it took was one visit to know it would be the perfect home for a cat like Ghost. The Griswolds love him and take excellent care of him, and they send me letters and photos every once in a while to keep me up to date on his adventures. In return, they're given a monthly stipend from Marilee's estate to help keep Ghost living in the luxurious style he was accustomed to when she was still alive.

Unfortunately, time goes by and Ghost is only getting older, and now there's the question of what happens to Marilee's estate going forward. You'd think eventually all that money would just dwindle away and I'd never have to think about it again, but the problem is … well, the real problem is Tom Hale: He's a financial wizard. Early on, he took a portion of the estate and invested it, and now it's grown into a small fortune. All of it, every last penny, becomes mine when Ghost passes away.

It's a secret. Nobody knows but you, me, and Tom, so please—try not to blab it all over town.

 

20

I read an article in the paper recently about all the unrest in the Middle East, and how one of the lesser-known consequences is that museums have become increasingly vulnerable to looting. Thieves break in and take whatever they can get their hands on, like ancient tools, pottery, jewelry, and, most notably, small statues and figurines. Priceless treasures have disappeared across the entire region, from Sudan and Egypt all the way to the northernmost cities in Afghanistan.

I was thinking about that as I made my way across the parking lot at the Sea Breeze. You'd think it would be impossible to get away with selling a hot artifact pilfered right out of a public museum, but when riches are at stake there's always a buyer willing to hazard the risk, plus it can always be passed off to a less knowledgeable (or less virtuous) dealer, then along comes an unsuspecting customer, completely innocent of its questionable provenance. The black market for art and antiquities is a multibillion-dollar business. It extends its long, greedy fingers into every corner of the world … even as far as, say, a charming little gallery on the outskirts of Tampa.

As soon as I got back in the Bronco, I reached for my phone and navigated to my saved voice mails. I wanted to hear Mrs. Keller's message again. There was one thing she'd said that had stuck in my mind: “
I promised Buster I wouldn't buy any more masks—but this was different, and I just couldn't stop myself.
”

I played that part a few more times. There was definitely something about the way she paused slightly when she said “different,” like there was something else … something unspoken. Of course, they always say it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, and I couldn't agree more (I think), but I was beginning to wonder if maybe Mrs. Keller had actually kept her word, at least technically. Just because she'd promised her husband she wouldn't buy any more masks didn't mean she couldn't have turned her attention to some other collectible item … say, ancient figurines?

The entire way to the Kellers' house, my head was buzzing with everything I'd figured out so far, but somewhere in the back of my mind was the lurking suspicion that my whole theory—that there was a connection between what had taken place at the Kellers' and what had happened to Levi—was as flimsy as a house of cards, as if the slightest breeze or tiny tremor in the earth's surface could bring it all crashing down.

But I didn't care. My day hadn't started out so great, and even if there was no connection between the two, just the action of trying to solve the riddle of it made me feel better. There was one more thing, though …

Ethan.

It was what he'd said the day before, after I'd told him everything and he was about to leave. I couldn't even remember it exactly, just that it had started with two simple words:
“Our kids.”

At the time I hadn't noticed, at least I don't think I had, but now I realized it was still moving through me—slowly, deliberately—like a virus spreading to every cell in my body.

It's hard to explain without sounding overly theatrical. Trust me, I'm the kind of girl who likes things as drama-free as possible, but there's just no way around it … the moment I lost Todd and Christy, a funny thing happened.

I say “funny” because it's hard to come up with a better word. It was as if I broke apart, like Humpty Dumpty, except there were only three pieces. One piece of me collapsed in a heap, like a bird that's hit a plate-glass window—completely gone, still, hopeless. Another piece of me split away and flailed like a cat caught in a trap. It hissed and cried and fought.

I know now that all of it, the tears and the darkness and the histrionics, it was all for show. I think I knew it even then. It was just a smokescreen, a clever way of diverting the world's attention from the third piece, the piece of me that survived, the piece that looked into the eyes of the emergency room surgeon on duty the night Todd and Christy were brought in. The piece that
knew
. The piece that immediately set about building a wall.