Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

He swallowed and said, “My dad’s helped her with some things, but I’ve never even talked to her.”

I said, “Do you mind if I take one of your pieces of bacon? I don’t usually eat bacon, but that looks so good…”

“Oh, sure! Sure! That’s fine!” It was like taking candy from a baby.

Perfume companies ought to bottle the smell of crisp bacon. Forget pheromones. I’ll bet a woman with a little spot of bacon grease behind her ears would attract every male within a five-mile radius. Taking little bitty bites to make it last longer, I said, “What kind of things?”

It took him a minute to pick up where we’d left off. “Plumbing and stuff.”

“She calls him to do things like that?”

He chewed awhile and considered how to answer. “She doesn’t exactly call him. A few times her garage door has been open when he came home and she was out there, you know. I guess he saw her and went over to see if she needed any help.”

No matter how hard I tried, I could not imagine Marilee Doerring out in her garage getting down a plunger to unstop her toilet or searching for a washer to fix a dripping faucet.

“That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah.”

We both ate silently for a while, him taking huge forkfuls of food and me fighting down the rage I felt at the memory of Carl Winnick devoting an hour of radio time to say that Christy would not have been killed if I had been home where I was supposed to be instead of out acting like a man in a deputy’s uniform. He had even objected to the department giving me widow’s benefits, saying taxpayers shouldn’t have to reward me for being a bad wife and mother.

I studied Phillip’s face and reminded myself that the kid wasn’t his father. The kid wasn’t anything like his father. There was no reason to blame the kid because his father was an arrogant idiot.

I said, “I got the impression from your mom that she doesn’t like Ms. Doerring much.”

“My mom thinks she’s a slut,” he said. “She probably is.”

The easy way he said it took me by such surprise that I choked on a swig of coffee. While I coughed and sputtered and fanned my face with my napkin, Phillip grinned. “Bet you didn’t think I knew that.”

I was beginning to like this kid a lot. After four years of college away from his parents, he would probably be as smooth as his dad, but he wouldn’t be a phony. This kid was the real deal.

The woman across the aisle stood up and yanked her dress down over her folds of fat. “Come on,” she said, “we don’t have all day.”

I watched the little boy slide off the seat and follow his mother to the cashier’s stand.

I pulled bills from my backpack and laid them on the table. “My cats await,” I said. “I’ll probably see you around.”

Phillip’s mouth was full, and he smiled up at me with a tiny slick of syrup on his chin. I resisted the urge to spit on a napkin and wipe it off, and headed for the front door. The woman was at the cashier stand counting out change and snarling at the little boy. Outside, I stopped and put my foot up on a railing separating the parking spaces from the walk. I untied and retied my shoe while I waited for the little boy and his mother to come out.

The door opened and the woman put her hand between his little shoulder blades and shoved him forward. “Goddamn it! Go on!”

In about two nanoseconds, I spun away from the railing and pinned her to the diner’s stucco wall with my forearm across her throat. “You have a beautiful child, lady, and he deserves a lot better than you. You either start being nicer to him or I swear to God I’ll see that he’s taken away from you and given to somebody who’ll love him.”

All the rage had left her face. She was afraid, and she had every right to be. Something hit my ankle, hard, and I looked down. The little boy was glaring up at me, ready to kick me again.

“Leave my mama alone!”

I stepped away from her and she grabbed her throat with both hands as if she was afraid it had a hole in it. The diner door opened and a family came out—mother, father, three pre-adolescent kids. They flowed around us without paying us much attention, the father teasing one of the kids and the others laughing the way close families do at their private jokes. They moved down the sidewalk to their minivan and got in, still laughing and talking.

The woman was watching me with frightened eyes. The little boy had moved to hug her leg and she had a hand on top of his head.

“Okay,” I said, “that’s all.”

I walked briskly down the sidewalk and around the corner to my car. My hands were shaking so much I barely managed to get the door unlocked. I put my head on the steering wheel and waited for the adrenaline tremors to leave. I felt sick. I felt ashamed. Sergeant Owens had been right about me. I wasn’t ready to deal with people yet.

Maybe I never will be.

Eleven