The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives (12 page)

Never mind.
It was just the dumb cash register at the front of the bookstore. Clearly I hadn’t inherited my great-aunt Bess’s special powers. I told myself I’d just have to try harder next time and pulled Ella a little closer. Within seconds we were both sound asleep.

I dreamed I was walking down a dark, narrow alley, lined on either side with dusty, abandoned shops. I didn’t know where I was, but it felt exotic and foreign. I wore a tight black dress under a white trench coat, and I was carrying a white sequined evening bag. My hair was pitch-black and straight, with thick bangs that stopped just above my eyebrows. I ran my fingers through it and realized with a start that I was wearing a wig.

My instincts told me I was being followed, and I knew it was important that I look like nothing was wrong, so even though it was completely dark I walked straight ahead with my chin up, as if I’d walked this narrow alley a hundred times.

I paused in front of a particularly sinister-looking shop with a big picture window in front, lit all around with rows of naked lightbulbs painted a garish red. They cast a pool of red light on the street in front of the shop, and it was only then that I realized it was paved with old cobblestones.

As I stood there I heard footsteps echoing through the alley and coming closer. As calmly as possible, I opened my evening bag and pulled out a tiny silver pistol, which I held concealed under the sleeve of my trench coat. The footsteps grew louder but then paused. Now there was a man in a bowler hat and a dark three-piece suit standing next to me. He had a name tag on his lapel with
ANTON
written on it, and he was holding a white sequined evening bag just like mine. I couldn’t quite see his face, but I noticed his fingernails were painted pitch-black. He smiled pleasantly and then nodded at the picture window.

Behind the glass was a little stage, about four feet wide. At the back of the stage was a tiny door. It swung open, and out crawled a hairy old man dressed in a frilly red two-piece bikini. He gave a little bow and then set an old cassette deck down on the floor. When he pressed the play button, a slow, scratchy jazz tune began.

I kept my face perfectly blank, as if gray-haired cross-dressing octogenarians were a dime a dozen, and Anton said, “Do you know what time the next train leaves for Budapest?”

I held up a long ivory cigarette holder, on the tip of which was a business card, rolled into a little tube to look like a cigarette. “There are no more trains today, sir. Do you have a light?”

The old man in the window started dancing seductively, or at least as seductively as an old hairy man can manage. He was swaying his hips from side to side, but as we talked he held up a giant megaphone to his ear and leaned toward us, straining to hear our conversation.

Anton held a silver cigarette lighter up to the tip of the business card and said, “I believe you’ll find everything is in order.”

He held out his evening bag, and I held out mine. We exchanged them, nodded politely, and then walked away in opposite directions. As I continued on I opened the bag up and slipped my pistol inside, thankful I hadn’t been forced to use it, and then casually took a few long drags on my calling-card cigarette, which gradually turned to ashes and fell away. When I was almost at the end of the alley, the old man in the red bikini ran out into the street and shook his fist at me.

He shouted, “Never mind the thunder!”

Just then a stupendous clap of thunder tore across the entire sky, and I woke with a start. I was shivering like a wet dog, and Ella was standing on my chest, her ears alert and her whiskers all aquiver. I told her it was only a storm, but she hopped off the bed and scampered down the hall to see for herself.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and said out loud, “Really?”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell my brain thinks it’s doing. Most people get to dream about normal things—like flying, or finding buried treasure, or realizing too late that they’ve worn their pajamas to school—but no, not me. I get to dream about hairy old men in skimpy red bikinis.

They say a dream is just your subconscious trying to tell you a story. If that’s true, I wish my subconscious would just keep its dumb stories to its subconscious self.

11

Just about every day of my life, rain or shine, hell or high water, dog fight or fur ball, I stop in at the Village Diner to have breakfast. It’s just up the street from Donkey Joe’s Pizza, which happens to have the best pizza in the world, so you might find me on this block two, three, or—I’m ashamed to admit—four times a day. The diner faces the corner, so it’s bright and airy, with big windows and a good view of the street on two sides and a row of booths covered in soft teal pleather along the wall. Opposite the booths is a long stainless steel counter and a row of bar stools with round seats that spin in place.

As soon as I walked through the door, Judy snatched a mug from under the bar and filled it to the top with piping-hot coffee. Then she slid it in front of me as I sat down in my regular booth in the back, and we gave each other a little nod. Judy is long-limbed and angular, with pale skin that burns easily and a sprinkling of mocha freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her hazel eyes look out on the world with quiet resolve, like someone who’s still holding on to her dreams in spite of the odds.

Tanisha winked at me from her little window in the kitchen, which meant she’d already started on my breakfast. Tanisha is what they call big-boned, practically as wide as she is tall, with a bigger-than-life personality to match. She’s one of my favorite people in the world, not just because the down-home southern food that comes out of her kitchen is delicious enough to make a grown woman weep (it has happened) but also because she’s taught me so much over the years. No matter how bad things get—and Tanisha has had her share of rough times—she always has a happy face for the world.

You might not know it from watching us, but with the exception of Michael and Paco, Judy and Tanisha are my closest friends, which is kind of funny when you consider we hardly ever see each other outside the four walls of this diner. We tell each other everything there is to tell. I know the whole story of all the men Judy’s ever been with, as well as the whole story of all the men who ever broke her heart—because it’s the same story—and I know all about Tanisha’s kids and why she refuses to speak to her mother, and they both know all about Ethan and Guidry and everything else that’s ever happened to me.

I took a sip of coffee as Judy slid into my booth to rest her legs for a second.

She winked and said, “What’s shakin’, pretty mama?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

“Oh, honey, I’m a waitress in a diner in a beach town. I’m all-knowing.”

I smiled. “So I guess you heard about the head-on collision.”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“And you know it was me that pulled the guy—”

She waved her fingers like she was shooing away a fly. “Oh please. You’re a hero. Yesterday’s news. Yawn.”

“And you know about the old man at the bookstore?”

“Yeah.” Her face fell and she shook her head. “And I’m just sick about it. I stop in there every morning for a paper, and he’s just the sweetest old man. He always wears that red beret, with those yellow suspenders and that red shirt with gold buttons, kind of makes me think of Santa Claus. When I saw all those cops outside his shop I nearly had a heart attack.”

I said, “Judy, you haven’t see his cat, have you?”

“That old tabby? Don’t tell me it’s gone missing too?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They can’t find it.”

“Oh no.” She leaned back and laid her head on the back of the booth. “Well, maybe that old man took him wherever he wandered off to.”

I realized she didn’t know anything about the bloody paw prints on the counter, or the fact that they’d called in a homicide unit to investigate the scene. Detective McKenzie was probably keeping that under wraps. Sometimes, the less the general public knows about the details of a case, the easier it is to pin down the true culprits.

Just then Tanisha put a plate up in her window and rang the bell to signal my order was ready. Judy eyed me suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Where’d you hear that old man’s cat was missing?”

I shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just around.”

She folded her arms over her chest and studied me. “Just around, my ass. What are you not telling me?”

I pointed at the kitchen window. “I’m telling you my breakfast is getting cold.”

She said, “Huh,” and rushed off to pick it up. She’s fast, though. In the blink of an eye she was back, holding my plate aloft with one hand.

“Tell me now, or the breakfast goes in the trash.”

“Oh please, you don’t scare me. Tanisha would beat you to a pulp.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take my chances.”

I sighed. “Okay, but I don’t want you blabbing it all over town.”

She sat down and slid my plate in front of me. It was the same exact breakfast I have every day: two eggs over easy with extra-crispy potatoes and one hot biscuit and, sadly, no bacon. For a second I considered wolfing it all down and keeping my secrets to myself, but I knew Judy would never let me get away with it.

“I do not blab,” she sniffed. “I
share.
But I promise I won’t say a word to anybody.”

Lowering my voice a little, I said, “Well, I’m probably the last person that saw Mr. Hoskins in the bookstore. I was there the night he went missing.”

She put one elbow on the table and dropped her forehead down in the palm of her hand. “Oh, Dixie, not again.”

“Yep,” I said, as I took a bite of Tanisha’s world-class biscuit. As soon as it touched my lips, a warm, fuzzy feeling flooded over me. It didn’t quite make up for all the crap I’d been through in the last day or so, but it came damn near close to it.

Judy said, “What were you doing in a bookstore? You don’t read.”

I chose to ignore that statement for now. “After the collision the sheriff’s department had the whole street blocked off while they were moving the cars. I couldn’t get out until they were done, so while I was waiting I went in to look for a book to buy.”

“Did you tell the cops?”

“Believe me, I didn’t have to. I had paid for my book with a check, and it was still sitting there on the counter, so they already knew I’d been there.”

She shook her head. “Dixie, I just don’t know how you do it. I swear to God you can sniff out trouble better than a hound dog in heat.”

I slathered my biscuit with more butter and took a bite. “I know.”

“Did you notice anything weird? I mean, did he seem okay?”

“Yeah, he seemed totally fine.” I was slightly dizzy from how scrumptious the biscuit was, but I forged ahead. “He was a little flustered, I guess, but it was after closing, so I’m sure he was ready to go home. Other than that I didn’t notice a thing.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll find him. He probably took that cat and went off on a senior citizens cruise and forgot to tell anybody.”

I dropped my fork and slapped my mouth with both hands. “Oh, no.”

Judy’s eyes grew two times bigger. “What?”

I said, “Oh, Judy, I’m a complete idiot.”

“Again, yesterday’s news. What’s the matter?”

“You just reminded me of something Mr. Hoskins said. It was right when I was leaving. He had this bowl of chocolates, and he offered me one and said he was going on a trip. I totally forgot until now.”

“Ha! Well, there you go. I was right. He took that cat and went on a trip. Case closed.”

“I better call and tell her.”

“Who?”

“McKenzie.”

“Who’s McKenzie?”

“Uh, the detective on the case.”

She frowned. “Where have I heard that name before?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

I finished up my breakfast as quickly as possible, which when you think about it is a sin of the first order, because Tanisha’s breakfasts are like gifts sent down from heaven and should be savored for the small works of wonder that they are, but I wanted to let McKenzie know what I’d remembered as soon as possible, and there was no way I could tell her in front of Judy. Even though she’s my best girlfriend in the world, Judy can spread news like grease on a griddle, and I didn’t want to do anything that might compromise the investigation.

I snuck out to the car and dialed McKenzie’s number and tried to steel myself for whatever mind games she had in store for me. I didn’t get much of a chance. She answered on the first ring.

“McKenzie here.”

I said, “Detective, it’s Dixie Hemingway.”

“Oh, good, I was just about to call you. I’m wondering if you might come down to the station tomorrow. There’s something I want to show you.”

I paused. I hadn’t quite prepared for that. The last time I’d walked into the sheriff’s department was for a hastily arranged meeting with Sergeant Woodrow Owens, who’d been my commanding officer when I was a deputy. I’d gone in with my department-issued 9 mm
SIG SAUER
handgun secured in its holster, and when I left, it was on Owens’s desk along with my gold, five-pointed deputy’s badge. I wasn’t sure I could deal with going back in there now.

I said, “Sure. When?”

“How’s tomorrow at noon?”

That seemed like a horrible time. I said, “That works.”

She said, “Good, see you then,” and hung up.

I stared at my phone for a couple of seconds and then pressed the redial button.

“McKenzie here.”

I said, “Yeah, you know, I actually had a reason for calling you.”

“Oh, Dixie, I apologize. Things are a little crazy these days, and I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

I said, “That’s alright. I know exactly how you feel.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I just remembered something Mr. Hoskins said to me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, and maybe it’s nothing, but just when I was leaving he mentioned he was going on a trip.”

There was a pause. “That’s definitely something I’d want to know. Tell me exactly what he said.”

“He had taken my book to the back of the store to wrap it up, and when he came back he caught me ogling that bowl of chocolates next to the register, so he offered me one and then he said, ‘I’m taking a trip soon.’”