Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons by Blaize Clement

Author:Blaize Clement [Clement, Blaize]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Women Sleuths, Ex-police officers, Women Detectives, Florida, Hemingway; Dixie (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780312643126
Publisher: Chivers
Published: 2010-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

17

With neighbors looking on in rapt silence, the narrow white guy got out of the car and looked across its hood at Ruby, his face a cage holding in roiling emotions. The black guy heaved an impatient sigh, threw open his door, lumbered to Ruby, and enveloped her in his arms. He looked even bigger standing up. Having a brother as big as Michael has made me accustomed to wide shoulders and chests, but this guy was twice as big as Michael.

A spasm of envy crossed the white guy’s face, but he seemed more envious of the other guy’s ability to show feelings than jealous that Ruby was holding on to him as if he were a savior.

I stood up and waited, like a guard ready to leap into some possible fray.

The white guy walked around the car and stood beside me. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Up close, he looked like a young Tom Petty, with a kind of tensile strength under tender vulnerability. His eyes were so dark blue they were almost violet.

Ruby turned a wrecked face to him. “They haven’t found Opal yet.”

The white guy winced, and the black guy spun Ruby into the white guy’s arms. He did it the way someone would move a dish from the soapy water to the rinse water, as if it were the right time. And Ruby and the white guy held one another as if they accepted the black guy’s wisdom without question. Ruby began to keen, her mouth muffled against the man’s chest, while he rocked her back and forth the same way she had rocked Opal.

The black guy turned to me and gave me a dimpled smile that was the sweetest expression I’ve ever seen on anybody over the age of two.

He said, “How do, ma’am. I’m Cupcake Trillin.”

Now I understood why he kept his features arranged in a mean scowl. With a smile that sweet, he’d probably been given the name Cupcake when he was a baby, and grew up having to protect himself because of it.

“Pleased to meet you, Cupcake. I’m Dixie Hemingway. I’m here to help take care of Ruby’s grandfather’s cat.”

My hand disappeared in his, and for a second I could feel the thrum of raw power zinging into my palm. Cupcake was the kind of man you wanted on your side, not playing on the enemy’s team.

As if he wanted to make sure everybody understood what he meant, Cupcake raised his voice. “That man with Ruby where he belongs is her husband, Zack.”

Letting a beat go by for everybody to absorb the full import of both his words and the emphasis he gave to some of them, he said, “What’s the story here?”

He was asking me, not Ruby. Ruby was too lost in her husband’s arms to hear anything Cupcake said.

“The fire started in Ruby’s bedroom where the baby was taking a nap. It came up suddenly and hugely. Ruby tried to go through a wall of flames, but I stopped her.

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