Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

I smacked her nose again, harder. “Mame, no! Let go!”

Along with knowing this was one of the most bizarre things I’d ever done, fighting with a dog over a corpse’s finger, was the uneasy knowledge that we were at the scene of a crime. Mame had already disturbed the covering by digging in the loose mulch, and I was trampling on it and possibly obliterating valuable evidence. There was also the possibility that whoever had covered the body was watching behind a tree.

I squatted over Mame, took her determined jaws in both hands, and forced them open. Mame snarled and tried to snap at me, but the dead finger slid out and the hand flopped on the ground. Rigor mortis sets in quickly in a dead body, especially in hot weather, but this one was still limp. Which meant it hadn’t been dead long. Which meant the killer might still be lurking nearby.

In the murky light, I could see it was a man’s hand, large, with long fingers and manicured fingernails. Through the dark dry matter around the wrist, I caught a glimpse of gold. Mame thrashed and growled low in her throat, so angry I knew that if I let her jaws go she would nip at me. Quickly, I moved one hand to grab her collar. Keeping that arm stiff to hold her away, I felt for a pulse on the man’s blue wrist with my other hand. No doubt about it, he was dead, and the color of his skin said he’d died of asphyxiation. I jerked my hand away and duck-walked backward, still stiff-arming Mame’s collar while I scrambled in my pocket for my cell phone to dial 911.

When the dispatcher answered, I gave her my name and location.

“I’m out walking a dog, and she just dug up a dead body.”

“Your dog dug up a body?”

“Not the whole body, just a hand.”

Mame snarled over her shoulder and barked for good measure, sounding like a dog five times her real size.

It must have impressed the dispatcher, because she said, “Somebody will be right there, ma’am, but stay on the phone with me, okay?”

I knew she wanted to keep me talking until a deputy arrived in case I was reporting a crime I’d committed myself. Also, the investigating officer would want to know how I’d come upon the body, and the dispatcher didn’t want me to leave the scene.

I said, “I won’t disconnect, but I’m going to put the phone down because I need to calm the dog.”

Before she could tell me what she thought about that, I laid the phone on the ground so I could use both hands on Mame. I not only wanted to calm her, I wanted to get us both back to the street. Keeping her collar in one hand, I stroked her head with the other and talked softly to her.

“Good girl, Mame, good girl. You’re a very good girl, and everything’s okay.”

That’s what we all want to hear, that we’re good and that everything’s okay.

I kept repeating it, and she gradually stopped snarling and decided not to bite me. But when I turned her around to pick her up, her eyes were full of reproach. I had hurt her feelings and she wasn’t going to forgive me easily. I didn’t blame her. I never hit an animal, any more than I would hit a child, and I despise people who do. No matter how people may try to justify it, any time a large person uses physical punishment on a small vulnerable body, it’s despicable abuse.

But here the first time I’d caught Mame with a corpse’s finger in her mouth, I’d smacked her nose. Both of us were going to have to readjust our opinions of me.

I picked up the phone and carried Mame to the street, stepping out of the thicket just as a green-and-white patrol car cruised toward us. I told the dispatcher the deputy had arrived and turned off the phone. The patrol car pulled to a stop and the driver got out. When I saw who it was, I took a deep breath. Deputy Jesse Morgan recognized me at about the same time. I imagine he had to suck up a bit of air too. The last time we’d met had been over another dead body, in circumstances no less peculiar than this one.

He was crisp and neat in his dark green shorts and shirt, his waist bulging with all the paraphernalia of a law-enforcement officer, his muscular legs covering the ground in a confident stride. Only the diamond stud in one earlobe indicated that he had a life apart from keeping Siesta Key safe.

He nodded to me with that impassive face that all law-enforcement officers cultivate.

“Miz Hemingway.”

I nodded back. “Deputy Morgan.”

“You called about a body?”

“The dog smelled it and ran over and started digging. She had a hand pulled out before I knew what it was.” I pointed toward the thick trees and underbrush. “The body is under that big oak.”