The Cat Sitter’s Cradle (24 page)

Detective McKenzie pursed her lips together. I could tell she was making an effort
to choose her words carefully.

“Like a scream, for example. Could a scream have set off that kind of reaction?”

I nodded slowly. “I think any loud noise could have set it off.”

“Okay. That’s helpful.”

I looked down at my hands. “Detective McKenzie, do you think Becca is still alive?”

She looked at the water for a long time. Eventually I figured out that she wasn’t
going to answer me, which was fine. Her silence was answer enough. No matter what
had happened the night Kenny met with Mr. Harwick, the fact that Becca had been missing
ever since was not a good sign. If she had witnessed what had happened, it was possible
that she had been discovered hiding in the bathroom. Becca was tough, but she was
still just a teenager and probably not more than a hundred pounds. I don’t think she
would have been able to defend herself. Whoever killed Mr. Harwick that night might
have taken her. Or worse.

Detective McKenzie turned to me and said, “When my husband died, I felt like I was
instantly a member of a secret club, where only people who’ve lost a husband or a
wife before their time can understand me. Do you ever feel that way?”

I waited a couple of moments before I answered. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.
It’s like a club you wish you weren’t in, but you’re glad it’s there all the same.”

“Yes. That’s exactly it. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, Dixie, but I
imagine it must be that same feeling, multiplied a million times over.”

I nodded. That felt about right.

We sat for a while longer, not talking, just watching the kids play on the beach.
I think we were both thinking the same thing: For every hour that Becca was missing,
the odds that she was alive got smaller and smaller.

It was bad enough that Mrs. Harwick was now a card-carrying member of Detective McKenzie’s
secret club. I hoped with all my heart that she wasn’t about to be a member of mine.

I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

22

After Detective McKenzie left, I stayed a while longer and watched the waves crashing
in on the beach. Our meeting had left me reeling, and I just needed to sit and rest
for a while. There was something about that woman that always made me feel like I’d
just lived through a hurricane or run a ten-mile marathon. She was drab and plain
on the outside, but on the inside her mind was spinning at about a hundred miles an
hour.

I bought a hot dog from the food stand at the beach pavilion and slathered it with
hot mustard and relish. By the time I got halfway to the car I’d already downed it,
so I went right back and bought another one.

Sitting in the Bronco in the parking lot, I chewed on my second hot dog and tried
to sort everything out in my head. McKenzie had hinted that August wasn’t the only
one in the Harwick family with a drug problem. If Becca had been high on something,
I wasn’t sure I would have recognized it. I never did drugs when I was a kid, and
neither did Michael. Not that I was a goody-two-shoes or anything; it’s just that
living by the ocean was a good enough high for me. Plus, I’m sure my grandmother would
have taken a belt to my backside if she’d ever caught wind of drugs under her roof.
My grandmother was a pretty strict guardian, but she never spanked me with a belt,
and I wanted to keep it that way.

There was something else bothering me, though. When I mentioned the packet of letters
that Kenny had given his father before he left, Detective McKenzie seemed genuinely
puzzled, and I didn’t think it was some kind of trick she was trying out on me. She
had probably known right away what was just now trickling into my brain: Either Mr.
Harwick had hidden that packet somewhere in the house before he was killed, or someone
had taken it.

Of course, there was one more possibility: that Kenny had made the whole thing up
and was playing me. He knew I would report everything he said to the police.

My second hot dog wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the first, but I ate it all anyway.
Sometimes my stomach doesn’t listen to my brain. At Beach Road, I turned left and
took the long route around the Key toward the Harwick house. To be honest, I wasn’t
looking forward to being in that house alone. Up until now it had been filled with
crime-scene technicians and police every time I’d gone over, but now it would be empty.

On the way, I called the Kitty Haven. Now that the investigation at the Harwick house
was over, I wondered if Charlotte might be happier at home, even if it meant staying
there alone. Being in a strange place with so many other cats can be stressful, especially
for a cat as grumpy as Charlotte, and sometimes grumps like to be left alone. Believe
me, I know that from firsthand experience.

Marge said, “No, she’s doing just fine. Not nearly as jittery as she was when you
first brought her in. Jaz has been spending lots of time with her, and cats always
pick up on the energy of the people around them. You know Jaz, she’s always happy.”

That was welcome news, not just for Charlotte but for Jaz as well. When I’d first
met her, there were a lot of things you might have called Jaz, but happy was not one
of them. It seemed working with Marge at the Kitty Haven was doing her a world of
good.

I thanked Marge and told her I didn’t think it would be much longer before Charlotte
could go back home, even though I really didn’t know if that was true or not. Detective
McKenzie had made me wonder if Mrs. Harwick would ever go back home again. I figured
August might be moving back in at some point, but it was entirely possible that he’d
be staying with his mother until she was back on her feet.

When I pulled up to the Harwick house, the first thing I noticed was that all the
yellow police tape was gone. Luckily for me, the gang of reporters that had been hanging
out on the street had finally picked up shop and moved on, too. Until the coroner’s
report on Mr. Harwick was made public, there wouldn’t be anything new to report. They
were probably all camped out at Mrs. Harwick’s hotel, hoping to get a shot of the
fabulously wealthy grieving widow.

When I opened the front door, my heart did a little skip. The alarm didn’t make its
familiar beeping sound, which meant someone had turned it off. I immediately had that
same creepy feeling I’d had the morning I found Mr. Harwick—that someone was in the
house.

I rolled my eyes and said out loud, “Oh, get over it!”

I dropped my ring of keys into its pocket on my backpack and went over to the marble
staircase and called up. “August?”

There was nothing but silence.

Then I realized, of course the alarm wasn’t on. The crime-scene units had only finished
their work today. I doubted they even knew the code to set the alarm.

I let out a big sigh of relief and told myself I needed to stop being so dramatic.
But just to be on the safe side, I went back over and locked the front door. That’s
when I smelled it. Cigarette. Something moved in the corner of my eye. I walked through
the main entry where the two Roman statues were standing guard and saw the back of
someone’s head.

Mrs. Harwick was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring out at the pool.
A plume of white smoke was trailing up from a cigarette perched on the edge of the
coffee table.

I stepped lightly up to her side. “Mrs. Harwick?”

She turned her head in my direction but didn’t look directly at me. “Oh, Dixie. I
didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you. I didn’t realize anyone was home. I just stopped by
to check on the fish.”

“Oh, good.” She stared blankly ahead, her eyes fixed on the pool area. “The police
left a little while ago. I came by to get a few of my things. I was going to send
the driver in to get them for me, but at the last minute I changed my mind. I told
him to leave me here and come back in an hour.”

Her voice was small and distant, as if it were locked away inside a safe.

“Mrs. Harwick, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, thank you, Dixie. I’m sorry, too. That must have been a terrible ordeal for you.”

She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes.

I suddenly realized that I’d completely intruded on her quiet, and more than likely
she just wanted to be left alone.

I said, “Well, I’ll just check on the fish and then I’ll be out of your way.”

As I turned to leave, she stopped me.

“It’s so odd, isn’t it? You think you know people. I’ve never been very close to my
son, August. He’s always been a little distant, even when he was a baby. People say
that’s just the way boys are. Maybe it’s true. It’s always been Becca that was there
when I needed her. But not this time. Not now. Becca’s gone. To be honest with you,
I think she’s gotten herself mixed up with drugs, and now it’s August taking care
of me. All the paperwork, the police, everything. I don’t know what I would do without
him.”

My first instinct was to tell her I was sure that if Becca could be here she would,
which of course was about the dumbest thing I could possibly have ever said. Sometimes
my mouth starts running before my brain has any idea what’s going on. As my grandmother
liked to say, “The wheel is spinning but the gerbil ain’t home.”

Luckily this time I caught myself. Mrs. Harwick was in a state of deep shock. She
knew Becca was missing, but she’d somehow managed to avoid considering what everybody
else feared: that Becca might have witnessed something that night, and right now could
be in very grave danger.

I said, “I know Becca’s been going through a lot of things in her life. When you’re
a teenager, sometimes you think the world revolves around you. You shouldn’t take
it personally.”

She was sitting perfectly still, her back ramrod straight, staring numbly out at the
swimming pool.

She said, “Becca and I were riding bikes one morning. She couldn’t have been more
than five or six, because I remember her bike still had training wheels. We were coming
around a curve, and I rolled over a stick that had fallen in the path. It popped up
and got stuck in the bicycle chain. The next thing I knew I was flying over the handlebars.
I landed flat on my face. It nearly knocked me out. Becca saw me fall, but she just
kept on riding. I remember her little legs just pumping away on the pedals.”

She looked down and spread her palms open.

“I broke the fall with my hands. I’m convinced that’s where my arthritis came from.
Dixie, do you have someone?”

That caught me off guard. I said, “What do you mean, someone?”

“Someone special in your life.”

“Umm. I do. Sort of. I mean it’s complicated.”

She stared at me, unblinking, with a desperate look in her eyes. I knew she wanted
an honest answer.

I said, “I’ve been alone for a while, so it’s hard. I mean, it’s such a compromise…”

“A compromise?”

“Well, I mean I like my life the way it is. It’s just hard to compromise no matter
how much in love you think you are.”

She thought for a moment and then looked out at the pool. “I think you should stay
away from Kenny Newman. I’m afraid of him.”

“Mrs. Harwick, I’m not involved with Kenny Newman, and I never have been. I really
only know him through work.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I jumped to that conclusion. To be
honest, I think I was a little jealous. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always had
a little crush on Kenny, which I’m sure you can understand.” She smiled sadly. “Well,
I’m glad you have someone you can share your life with.”

She looked down at the cigarette, still lying with its lit end over the edge of the
coffee table, only now there was a half-inch-long tail of ashes. She flicked the ashes
into the palm of her hand and dumped them along with the cigarette into a bowl on
the table next to the couch. She shook her head. “Disgusting habit. I haven’t smoked
in twenty years.”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s the driver.”

She stood up slowly, and we walked to the front door.

“Dixie, I hope you don’t mind feeding the fish a while longer. I realize it’s not
at all what we planned, but until they find out who did this, I can’t stay in this
house.”

“It’s not a problem at all. I can feed them as long as you want, and I’ve already
talked to the Kitty Haven. Charlotte can stay there as long as necessary.”

Her eyes glassed over, and she nodded mutely. I watched from the porch as the driver
helped her into the backseat of the car. She had been so vital and strong that first
day we met. Now, just a few days later, she seemed old and frail.

The driver closed the door, and as he walked around the front of the car and got in
the driver’s seat, Mrs. Harwick sat perfectly still, her eyes wide open and gazing
forward. I was waiting to give her a smile or a wave, but as the car moved forward
she didn’t look back.

I trudged up the stairs with heavy legs. Mrs. Harwick seemed to have lost not only
her husband, but her soul mate. I had been wrong about them. They had been together
so long their bickering had become just another mode of communication. What I had
thought was bitterness and sarcasm was really just harmless play, like two old dogs
rolling around in the grass and chewing on each other’s ears.

In the master bathroom, I slid open one of the pocket doors on the side of the aquarium
and opened the cabinet where all the food and chemicals were kept. I pulled out a
water-testing strip and dipped it into the aquarium for a few seconds, then watched
the little squares on the strip change color. I compared them with the examples printed
on the side of the bottle. Everything matched perfectly, which was a relief. I didn’t
have to add any chemicals to the tank. I remembered Mrs. Harwick saying that just
the slightest imbalance in the chemistry could be fatal to the fish.

After I sprinkled some food in, I slid the lid of the tank closed, flicked off the
light, and closed the pocket door behind me. The bathroom was the same, except the
towel that had been lying on the counter was gone, along with all the little yellow
evidence markers, and the harp-toting angels flying around on the ceiling looked a
little more heavenly and glowing in the late-afternoon light.