Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

“So when are you coming home?”

“I’ll be late. I haven’t even started my rounds yet. I had to talk to some people first.”

“Well, be careful.”

“Yeah, I love you, too.”

I felt calmer after I hung up. I had a big brother who cared about me, and I had handled a lot of stress in one day with only a couple of minor breakdowns. I was making progress.

As I was leaving the diner, I saw Tanisha heading for the ladies’ room, so I made a U-turn and followed her. She was already in a stall when I got there. I washed my hands and dried them while I waited. When she came out, she grinned shyly at me. I watched approvingly as she lathered her hands, then handed her some paper towels.

I said, “Judy said you did some cooking for somebody in Marilee Doerring’s neighborhood—where that man was killed.”

“Not no more I don’t.”

“Oh.”

“Hunh-uh, I wouldn’t set foot on that street again, no way, hunh-uh. Bunch of stupid people live on that street, and that man’s the stupidest.”

“What man?”

“You know, that one I told to kiss my ass, that’s who.”

“I didn’t hear you say his name.”

“I guess I didn’t say it. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I did.”

“Tanisha, could you say it now?”

She laughed, but looked at me warily. “Why you want to know?”

I was stumped. I didn’t know why I wanted to know, I just did. I said, “I guess I’m just nosy. I work around there, too, and I’d just sort of like to know who to watch out for. I don’t know what the guy did to piss you off so much, but you seem pretty easy to get along with, so whatever it was must have been something I wouldn’t like, either.”

She pushed out her lips and furled her brow while she considered my reason, and then nodded. “I guess you got a right to know, if you work around there. He accused me of stealing something, like I gave a rat’s ass about the stupid thing, and it wasn’t even his.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“He seen me getting this little piece of pipe out of the trash when I was on my way to the bus stop. Somebody had put it out at the curb, and I saw it. It’s at the curb, it’s the trash, it ain’t stealing to take it, right? Somebody threw it away, it’s for anybody to take that wants it. Short little piece of brass pipe about two feet long.”

“That must have been the Graysons’ house. They hung a carousel horse on some brass pipe.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know whose house it was. It’s on the other side of the woods where that man got killed. They just put the pipe out and I saw it and picked it up. I thought maybe I could make a towel rack or something out of it.”

“And somebody accused you of stealing it?”

“Yeah, this little runt drove in the driveway and yelled at me like I was some kind of criminal. He said, ‘What you doing with that, girl?’ Called me girl, the old fool. I said I wasn’t doing nothing with it and he come over and yanked it out of my hand. Took it away from me! Then he said, ‘You go on home now, girl. You got no business here.’”

Tanisha’s eyes were snapping with humiliation and anger. “I guess he thinks he lives on some kind of plantation and I’m one of his slaves. But them days are over, honey! Ain’t nobody gonna talk to me like that. That’s when I told him to kiss my big fat black ass, and I waggled it at him when I said it, too. I left and I ain’t never going on that street again.”

She threw her wadded paper towel in the bin and headed for the door. “I gotta get back to the kitchen or they’re gonna send somebody looking for me.”

“Who was he?”

She paused with one hand holding the door open. “I don’t know who he was. Never saw him before, and hope I don’t never see him again, neither.”

“Was he bald?”

“Bald? I don’t think so. I didn’t notice him bald.”

“His car, was it a black Miata?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know cars. It was black, one of them little low cars.”

“When did that happen, Tanisha?”

She frowned. “Thursday night. Why’re you so excited about it?”

“Because whoever killed the man in Marilee Doerring’s house cracked his head with a blunt instrument. Like a piece of brass pipe. Somebody saw a black Miata around there that night, and later there was a bald-headed man acting suspicious.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You think that little pig that hollered at me killed that man?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Oh yeah, I won’t never forget him.”

We gave each other solemn stares just thinking of all the implications, then she moved on and let the door swing shut behind her enormous backside. After a few moments while I let it sink in, I followed her. Hot damn, maybe Tanisha and I had solved the murders.

Twenty-Three