The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize Clement

Granda.”
    In a daze, I got behind the wheel and backed up slowly until the nose of the Bronco was pointed out, then I headed toward the stretch of grass along the shoulder of the dirt road. I was wondering if I’d be able to make it through without making everyone move their cars when I looked up in the rearview mirror to find Detective McKenzie trotting along behind me and waving a finger in the air. I slowed to a stop as she came around to the window.
    â€œDixie, sorry.” She put her hands on her hips and paused to catch her breath. “I just remembered one more thing. About this morning, are you absolutely certain it was Levi parked outside your driveway?”
    I said, “I just assumed it was him because that’s usually about the time the paper arrives, and it definitely looked like his car…”
    â€œBut you’re not sure.”
    I shook my head. “It was so dark and foggy.”
    â€œIt might help pinpoint the time of death…”
    I don’t think the reality of what had happened had actually sunk in yet, because the idea that there was a “time of death” sent a tremor down my spine.
    I said, “I wish I could say for sure, but he’s the only person on the island I can think of that would’ve had a good reason for being there, right?”
    She turned and looked in the direction of the trailer. For a second I imagined all those cogs and wheels in her head spinning in slow, deliberate circles, then she turned and for the first time looked me directly in the eye.
    â€œDefine good. ”

 
    12
    The whole way home, I left the windows in the Bronco rolled down, and eventually—I’m not sure when—my little fly friend escaped back into the wild. The warm breeze felt good blowing through my hair, and the sound the wind made as it rushed through the car helped dampen the melee of thoughts that were spinning around inside my head. I could barely hold on to one before another would swoop in and knock it out of the way.
    I kept seeing Levi’s face, the way I remembered him from high school, the way he always smiled and gave me a wave whenever our paths crossed, but then the image of his body lying on the floor of the trailer would rush in, and then Sasquatch’s angry maw would appear, telling me to get the hell off her property, and then Dick Cheney’s scary eyes and gnashing teeth bearing down, and then Levi’s car outside my driveway and candles and curtains and red-toed Buddhas, all bouncing around in my brain like ping-pong balls in a front-load washing machine.
    I shook my head and tried to clear it all away. It had probably been a bit of an understatement when I told Detective McKenzie I was in shock, because as soon as I turned out of Grand Pelican Commons and headed up Tamiami Trail, my whole body started shivering slightly, despite the fact that the sun was straight overhead and it was easily ninety degrees in the shade.
    The copper pod trees along Midnight Pass Road were all blanketed with their yellow orchidlike blossoms, filling the air with the scent of crushed grapes, and following along in the clouds over the treetops to the west was a lone osprey, its wings spread wide, coasting on the breeze. For a while I pretended he was my own personal escort, assigned to make sure I got home safe and sound. It felt good to think I wasn’t alone.
    Poor Levi.
    I couldn’t get the image of his lifeless body out of my mind. In spite of our brief encounter outside Mrs. White’s ninth-grade history class (or maybe because of it) we hadn’t really talked that much in the years following. Every once in a while we’d wind up in the same class or study period, and one of his buddies on the baseball team was the brother of one of my best girlfriends, so we often found ourselves at the same parties or sitting together at football games, but that was about the extent of it. He was tall, blond, good-looking, and he