Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof: A Dixie Hemingway Mystery Read online

  Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof

  ALSO BY BLAIZE CLEMENT

  Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

  Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund

  Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

  Cat Sitter on a

  Hot Tin Roof

  A Dixie Hemingway Mystery

  B L A I Z E C L E M E N T

  Minotaur Books New York

  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.

  A Thomas Dunne Book for Minotaur Books.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

  CAT SITTER ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Copyright © 2008 by Blaize Clement. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clement, Blaize.

  Cat sitter on a hot tin roof : a Dixie Hemingway mystery / Blaize Clement.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36955-2

  ISBN-10: 0-312-36955-7

  1. Hemingway, Dixie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Florida—Sarasota—Fiction. 3. Sarasota (Fla.)—Fiction. 4. Pet sitting—Fiction. 5. Cats—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.L463C38 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2008030121

  First Edition: January 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to:

  Kay Adams, Edith and John Rozendaal, Suzanne Beecher, Nancy Thomas, Jane Phelan, Kate Holmes, Greg Jorgensen, and Madeline Mora-Summonte for their support and friendship.

  Roland Rio for keeping my computer running smoothly.

  Tara Bolesta for taking care of boring stuff like filing so I could concentrate on writing.

  Linda and Tom Witter for keeping my house clean when I was too distracted by plot and characters to notice dust.

  Doris and Todd Finney for keeping my roots touched up so I didn’t get depressed.

  Bill Sullivan, true Sarasota crime-scene cleaner, for letting me use his name.

  Phyllis Ullrich of Southeastern Guide Dogs for information about service dogs.

  Kathy Alexander of Therapy Dogs Sarasota for information and introduction to her therapy puppies.

  D. P. Lyle, M.D., of the Writers Medical and Forensics Lab, for information about post-op stages following brain surgery.

  Marcia Markland, Diana Szu, Hector DeJean, Jessica Rotondi, and the rest of the super team at St. Martin’s.

  Annelise Robey and her cohorts at the Jane Rotrosen Agency.

  And most of all, Don, Kit, John, David, Amy, Jesse, Kim, Travis, Sarah, and Sierra for being the greatest family in the universe.

  If I were who I would be

  Then I’d be who I am not

  Here am I where I must be

  Where I would be I cannot

  —Adapted from “Katie Cruel”

  Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof

  1

  It was early April, about nine o’clock in the morning, when I first met Laura Halston. Well, I didn’t exactly meet her. It was more that I almost ran her down.

  I was easing my Bronco around a curve on the single narrow lane in Fish Hawk Lagoon, a heavily wooded area on the north end of Siesta Key. Driving there is like going through a tunnel cut in a mountain. Towering oaks meet overhead to block out the sky, and one side of the meandering street is edged with wildly growing bougainvillea, sea grape, potato vine, and practically every known variety of palm and pine. On the other side, a manicured hibiscus hedge screens a jogging path so nobody can see rich runners sweat.

  As I rounded a curve, a woman in running gear leaped into the street from the wooded side and raced toward the hibiscus hedge. If I’d been going a nanosecond faster I would have hit her. I came to a jolting stop as she turned her head, and for a second I saw stark terror in her eyes. At the curb, she swooped in a graceful arc and picked up a dark brown cat with a long lashing tail. Holding the cat firmly in her arms, she pulled iPod wires from her ears and turned toward me in fury.

  “Idiot! Bitch! You nearly hit me!”

  I don’t take kindly to being called an idiot or a bitch, especially by a woman who looked like she had an IQ smaller than her size zero waist. She was about my age, which is thirty-three, and I pegged her as either a runway model or a rich man’s trifle. Like the cat, she was an exquisite creature, but her beauty seemed accidental, an unplanned coming together of parts that shouldn’t have fit but did. Almost albino pale, she was fine-boned and slim, with tousled white-blond hair cut high at the back of her neck and flopping over eyebrows too thick, too dark, too crude. Her eyes were like jade stones set too far apart, her nose was a fraction too long and thin, her chin too pointed. She should not have been beautiful, but she was. She also had the snottiness of a woman accustomed to getting anything she wanted because she was beautiful.

  With what I thought was remarkable restraint, I said, “Here’s a hot tip. The best way to avoid being hit by a car is to avoid jumping in front of one.”

  Twin patches of pink outrage gave her pale face some color. “How could I know you were there? I couldn’t hear you! You’re sneaking around in a . . . in a stealth car! What are you doing here anyway? These are private streets!”

  I could hear faint music from her dangling iPod earbuds. I was pretty sure it was Pink, so my estimation of her went up a few notches.

  I said, “Maybe if you weren’t listening to music, you could hear better. That’s Pink’s latest cut, isn’t it?”

  She looked surprised. Her mouth got ready to say something mean and then changed its mind.

  I said, “Look, I’m sorry I startled you. I’m Dixie Hemingway. I’m a pet sitter. I have a client in the neighborhood.”

  Her face relaxed a bit, but she didn’t seem the type to apologize for being rude.

  I said, “That’s a gorgeous cat. Havana Brown?”

  It was the magic phrase. Pet owners melt like bubble gum on a hot sidewalk when you compliment their babies.

  She said, “His name is Leo. An old boyfriend gave him to me, only he called him Cohiba, for the cigars. Dumb, huh? What cat’s gonna come when you say Here, Cohiba? I changed it right away. He hates being cooped up in the house. Well, so do I, to tell the truth. Anyway, when I opened the door to go running, he ran out with me. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to catch him, so I guess I should thank you for scaring him so he stopped.�
�

  The transformation from fury to friendly had happened so fast it was like watching a cartoon. When she wasn’t angry, her eyes sparkled with energy and she spoke in a breathless rush, as if she had so much to say that she was afraid she’d never get it all said.

  Now that I had complimented her cat and apologized for almost running her down, and she had introduced the cat and sort of exonerated me because I’d made him stop so she could catch him, there wasn’t much else to talk about.

  I said, “I’m glad you caught him,” and edged on past her.

  She raised her hand in a hesitant half wave, and in the rearview mirror I could see her watching when I turned into my client’s driveway.

  Like I said, I’m Dixie Hemingway, no relation to you-know-who. I’m a pet sitter on Siesta Key, which, like Casey Key, Bird Key, Lido Key, and Longboat Key, forms a narrow barrier between the Gulf of Mexico and Sarasota, Florida. Officially, Siesta Key is part of the city of Sarasota, but when you get right down to it, we’re not part of anything but ourselves. Our function is to absorb the fury of storms so they weaken a little bit before they hit the mainland. In exchange, we get sea breezes, a direct view of spectacular sunsets, and annual hikes in storm insurance rates that keep our blood circulating nicely.

  Before I became a pet sitter, I was a deputy with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department, but I left with the department’s blessing a little over three years ago. I don’t like to talk about it, so I’ll just say my world exploded in a way that broke my heart and almost destroyed my mind. When I was able to function again, I became a professional pet sitter. It was a good move. The pay is good, the animals I take care of are mostly sweet and lovable, and I don’t have to spend a lot of time interacting with destructive people.

  I get up every morning at four o’clock, brush my teeth, rubber-band my hair into a ponytail, pull on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a sleeveless T, lace up my Keds, and begin my rounds. I mostly take care of cats, but I also have a few canine clients and an occasional rabbit or ferret or bird. No snakes. While I firmly believe that every snake has the right to live well and prosper, I get swimmy-headed around creatures whose diet consists of things swallowed still kicking and squealing.

  On the key, you either live on the Gulf side or the Sarasota Bay side. Fish Hawk Lagoon is on the bay side at the north end. My clients there were Hal and Gillis Richards, their three-year-old son Jeffrey, and Jeffrey’s seizure-assistance dog, Mazie. Jeffrey had a severe seizure disorder, and Hal and Gillis were leaving that morning to take him to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg for brain surgery. Mazie would have to stay at home. For the last couple of days, I had come there every morning to walk Mazie so she would be accustomed to me, and Pete Madeira, an octogenarian who sometimes did twenty-four-hour sitting for me, was going to move into the house with Mazie to keep her company. None of the adults looked forward to the moment when child and dog realized they were going to be separated.

  Their house was like most houses on Siesta Key—pseudo-Mediterranean/Mexican stucco with barrel-tile roof, lots of curves and arches. In this case the stucco was the color of terra-cotta, and the barrel-tile roof was dark blue. It was surrounded with the same lush green foliage and flowering shrubs that most yards on the key have, the kind of extravagant natural beauty that those of us living here year-round take for granted.

  When I rang the doorbell, Hal Richards opened the door. Hal probably wasn’t much older than I, but strain and worry had put lines in his face, and thinning hair and a layer of fat softening a former athletic build made him seem older than he was.

  He gestured me into the house. “Gillis is giving Jeffrey breakfast, so come on in the kitchen.”

  I followed him into a large sunny room with a glass wall offering a view of a dock behind the house where a small pleasure boat rocked. Siesta Key has over fifty miles of waterways, so boats are common. From Hal Richards’s pallor, though, I doubted that he went out in his very often. Gillis, a softly pretty dark-haired woman in a scoop-neck T-shirt and an ankle-length linen skirt, stood at the sink stirring something in a cereal bowl. Like Hal, Gillis wore the stunned look of people whose world has shrunk to the small arc of here and now.

  Jeffrey sat in a child’s booster chair at a round table. He had a fading yellow bruise on his cheek, from falling, and a new purple bruise on his upper arm. Dark shadows lay like soot under his drug-dulled eyes. Mazie, a golden retriever, sat close beside the boy’s chair. The dog’s eyes were bright and healthy, watching the boy with close attention.

  Adults with seizure disorders frequently have seizure-alert dogs who sense when a seizure is coming and signal the person, then do whatever is necessary to protect them from harming themselves during the attack. Children as young as Jeffrey can’t be made responsible for that kind of warning. Instead, they have seizure-assistance dogs, who may or may not sense impending seizures, but stay close by the child’s side at all times.

  Gillis smiled at me and put a bowl of something white and lumpy in front of Jeffrey.

  Gillis said, “Jeffrey, say hello to Miss Hemingway.”

  The kid spooned up a blob of whatever his mother had given him and grinned shyly.

  I said, “Is that oatmeal you’re eating?”

  Gillis said, “It’s groats, actually, with some banana mixed in.”

  I managed to keep my upper lip from lifting, but the word groats sounded too much like gross to me. Besides, what the heck are groats, anyway?

  Gillis smiled. “It’s whole oats, healthier than oatmeal. Jeffrey likes it. Don’t you, Jeffrey?”

  The kid nodded, but he didn’t seem excited about it. Actually, he didn’t look as if much of anything excited him. I didn’t know a lot about seizure disorders, but I knew the erased look that people get when they’re on heavy medication, and Jeffrey had it.

  Knowing that Mazie was a service dog currently on duty, I didn’t speak to her or touch her. But I sat down at the table so she could smell me and feel my energy. She gave me a quick glance, but her job was to be exquisitely alert to Jeffrey and to any change in him, even something as slight as a change in his body odor that would signal an impending seizure. Hal and Gillis went silent, knowing what I was doing and not wanting to interfere.

  After a few minutes, I stood up. “Hal, maybe you and I should talk in the living room for a minute.”

  Hal said, “Good idea.”

  In the living room, I took an easy chair and Hal sat on the sofa. I got out my client notebook and prepared to take any last-minute instructions or information.

  Sometimes people are surprised to learn that pet sitting is a profession like any other. I approach it the same way I approached being a deputy. I was always aware that lives could depend on my being alert, on remembering my training, on handling my job in a professional manner. I feel the same way about pet sitting. Pet owners entrust me with animals they love, and I take that trust very seriously. I’m licensed, bonded and insured, and I never commit to a pet-sitting job without first meeting both the pet and its owners. I go to their house and get the pet’s medical history, along with details of its diet and daily habits. I let the pet look me over and get to know my scent. By the time I’ve finished interviewing new clients, I know everything I need to know about their pet, and the pet feels comfortable with me. I insist on a key to their house, a number where I can reach them, and the name and number of the person they want called in case of an emergency. Just as I was when I was a deputy, I’m always aware that bad things can happen when you least expect them.

  Hal said, “I know I explained this before, but the only reason we’re doing this is that Jeffrey has temporal lobe seizures—two or three a week—and they’re severe. Of all seizure disorders, temporal lobe seizures are most responsive to surgery and least responsive to medication. He’s been on several meds, but none of them have done much good, and they cause so much dizziness that he has problems with balance.” As if he felt guilty saying it, he added, “They also cause be
havior problems. Temper tantrums, that kind of thing. That’s why we have Mazie. She calms him down, and she walks close beside him so he can lean on her.”

  He had already told me about the medication and why they had decided on surgery, but he obviously needed to tell it again.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “As you might imagine, Gillis and I live with the fear of a terrible fall—into fire, water, whatever—or of his cognitive development being . . . well, you know. Do you have children?”

  I didn’t want to answer him, because a parent numbed by fear over a child’s illness doesn’t want to hear how another child died. But I also didn’t want to disrespect my own child by denying her.

  I said, “I had a little girl. She was killed in an accident when she was three. I understand how you feel about Jeffrey.”

  He looked stricken. “I’m sorry.”

  For both our sakes, I needed to get the conversation back to why I was there.

  I said, “Please don’t worry about Mazie while you’re gone. Pete Madeira will be here twenty-four/seven, and I’ll come twice a day and walk her.”

  Pete’s a former professional clown I’d met through some circus people I know—Sarasota has a long circus history—and he sometimes helped me out when a client needed a full-time pet sitter.

  Hal leaned forward and clasped his hands with desperate urgency. “There’s a risk to surgery, but there may be a larger risk if we do nothing.”

  The doorbell interrupted Hal’s compulsive explanation. As he opened the door, Gillis and Jeffrey came into the living room, Jeffrey with his arm over Mazie’s back and leaning against her as he walked.

  Pete Madeira stood at the door, suitcase in hand and a clown nose stuck on his face. He also had a case with him that looked as if it might hold some kind of musical instrument. Pete had visited several times before, so he was as familiar to the family as I was. Hal and Gillis looked relieved to see him, and Mazie wagged her tail as if she were giving Pete her approval. Jeffrey gave him a tired smile, but I doubted that he understood Pete’s presence meant he was soon going to be separated from his best friend.