Read The Cat Sitter’s Cradle for Free Online

they’ll need to put something down for the records, and you can
     always change it later. What’s the baby’s name?”
    Just then the baby started crying softly in the other room. Corina stood up and looked
     at me with big, unblinking eyes.
    “Dixie. Joyce. Flores.”

 
    5
     
    Some of the bathrooms in my clients’ houses are so big and luxurious, you sort of
     want to run down to the local gas station and clean up before you step foot in them.
     Roy and Tina Harwick’s master bathroom was like that. It was hands down the most flamboyant
     bathroom I’ve ever been in. You might even say it was a little crazy, but in their
     own way, so were the Harwicks. They lived in a huge, ornate mansion off Jungle Plum
     Road at the north end of the Key. They were driving to Tampa later in the afternoon,
     and I had gone to their house to meet their cat and to finalize our pet-sitting agreement.
    The bathroom was just what you’d expect from people that have more money than they
     know what to do with: a gleaming marble floor, gold-laced wallpaper, a crystal chandelier
     dripping with thousands of twinkling diamonds, a gold-plated toilet with matching
     faucets, and a vaulted ceiling painted with harp-toting cherubs flying around in fluffy
     pink clouds. At one end of the bathroom were two multicolored stained-glass windows
     that glittered like a kaleidoscope, and between them was a cozy little nook and a
     peach-colored velvet bench where a person could sit and contemplate her navel, inspect
     her tan lines, or make a call from the gold-plated antique telephone sitting in its
     own little alcove in the wall.
    But the focal point of the bathroom was a fish tank. And I don’t mean a nice little
     tank on a stand with some goldfish and a couple of snails. I mean a humongous aquarium
     that took up an entire wall from floor to ceiling, with fish of every size, shape,
     and color swimming around in wide, slow circles, opening and closing their mouths
     in that eerie way fish do.
    Artfully arranged around the inside of the tank were pieces of coral almost as tall
     as me, and holding court at center stage was a life-sized, brightly painted, porcelain
     mermaid. She had violet eyes, light pink skin, and flowing red hair, with a turquoise
     bikini top over melon-sized breasts, and a long blue-and-green tail that spread out
     across the floor of the tank. She was sitting on a gold-and-black treasure chest looking
     over her shoulder with a coy purse to her lips, like a pin-up movie star.
    “These are goldflake angels,” Mrs. Harwick said, pointing out a group of slender,
     butter-colored fish congregated at the base of the mermaid’s tail. “And that sinister-looking
     creature hovering around the treasure chest is a dragon eel—very rare species, my
     son had it brought over from Japan. Priceless! And there’s a dozen butterfly fish,
     seahorses, rabbit fish, damsels, a porcupine fish, ten albino tangs…”
    She turned and gave me a meaningful look. “ Anybody can get yellow tangs. These are albino tangs. I’d say there’s at least three or four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of
     fish in this tank. Roy thinks I’m out of my mind to spend so much money on them, but
     they make me happy, and that’s what it’s really all about it, isn’t it?”
    I must have still been staring openmouthed at the life-sized mermaid, because Mrs.
     Harwick laughed and said, “Isn’t she fabulous? We found her in the islands. Roy, what
     island was it again?”
    Mr. Harwick was standing in the bathroom doorway staring blankly at the tank. He wore
     a black, three-piece, pin-striped suit and a wide maroon tie. He must have been at
     least a foot shorter than Mrs. Harwick. He had thin hands and a balding pate, which
     he had skillfully camouflaged with jet black hair combed over from the back of his
     head, but I could tell that in his younger days he had probably been quite handsome.
     He wasn’t a big man, but he had the air of