Leann Sweeney - The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon

Candace stepped toward her. “We here in Mercy are sorry for your loss. We’ll do everything we can to find out who did this to your husband. As you requested, you’ve seen your son, so you’re free to leave now.”

Hilary didn’t seem to be paying attention and instead focused on me. “So you’re Jillian? The woman Chief Baca told me about? The one who cared for Finn?”

“Um, yes.” I was almost at a loss for words. When I heard both Tom and Finn disparage this woman, I’d developed a mental picture of someone who looked like a Halloween witch, maybe even cackled, too. Not so. She was stunning. Since I couldn’t see a line or a wrinkle on her expertly made-up face, it was difficult to even guess her age.

Candace said, “Chief Baca is finished talking with you, so as I said before—”

“The chief was so very kind,” she said, her Carolina drawl thick as sorghum. “Is there a place in town I could stay while I wait for Nolan’s—” She pulled her lips in as if trying to gather herself. “For the postmortem to be done?”

“All the motels are maybe ten miles north once you get on the interstate,” Candace said. “We do have a bed-and-breakfast in town, though.”

“Do you think I could stay there on such short notice?” she asked.

Candace turned. “B.J., would you please help Mrs. Roth call the Pink House?”

“Sure enough,” B.J. answered.

Candace and I stepped aside to allow her by. As she passed me, she said, “Thank you for helping my boy. He’s been so troubled lately.”

Up close, I did see a few fine lines around her eyes. Her scent was familiar—Chanel No. 5, like Kara wore. I was still surprised by her. She seemed kind and genuine. No, not a Halloween witch at all.

Candace put a hand on my back and told me to join Tom and Finn. “I’ve got to talk to the chief for a second.”

I’d visited the other interrogation room, the one where a suspect could be handcuffed to the table. Pretty awful. This one was different and looked more like a barren kitchen. The maple table had to be fifty years old and the four high-back wooden chairs might have come straight from my grandparents’ estate sale.

Finn was sitting next to Tom, and I took a seat across from them. I poured water into a paper cup from the stainless pitcher in the center of the table and took a long sip. My mouth was a little dry after meeting Hilary.

“Water?” I asked Finn.

“No, thanks,” he said.

Tom slapped a pack of Trident gum in front of Finn. “How about this?”

Finn smiled. “You remembered.” He punched out a piece of gum from the packet and popped it in his mouth.

Tom then offered the gum to me, but I refused.

I didn’t want to even mention Hilary, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “You mentioned you lost your phone. Are there friends in North Carolina you might want to talk to? Like from your high school?”

“I only had one guy I hung with and he left for Duke a couple months ago,” Finn said.

“If you want to call him, you can use my phone anytime. Friends are important.” I was thinking about how smart Finn seemed, how polite and well spoken. He should be a freshman in college like his friend, not sitting in a police interrogation room. I was puzzled as to why he wasn’t in school, but then immediately realized this kid may not have had anyone to help him get into a university. My late husband had told me how he helped Kara every step of the way when she applied to college. But what did kids like Finn do when they distrusted almost everyone in the entire world? They retreated, hid in their rooms. And then, when they got the chance, they ran. Yes, I understood why Finn was now sitting in a police station and not at Clemson or Duke or UNC.

Candace came through the door, strands of hair flying free around her temples. She set a clipboard on the table. When she poured herself a cup of water, I noticed her hand shake.

She sat and smiled at Finn. “Okay. We needed to talk a little more and I’m glad you came.”

“Talk more about the gun?” Finn said. “I said I don’t know anything about it.”

She said, “We’ve already spoken about the weapon. I’d like more information about your relationship with your mother and stepfather.”

“Please quit using any word with father in it. He was Nolan. Just Nolan .” Finn reached for the pack of gum and took out another piece. He didn’t put it in his mouth, just turned the little white rectangle over and over between his fingers.

“I get you didn’t like him,” Candace said evenly.

“Haven’t I talked enough? I don’t know anything else.” Finn remained focused on the piece of gum he was fiddling with.

“Maybe we can go back to before you left home. You remember that much, don’t you?” Candace said.

Finn kept rolling the gum between his fingers.

“If Mr. Roth hadn’t been murdered,” she went on, “it wouldn’t be any of my business. But I have to do my job. We’re working together—you, Tom, Jillian, all of us—to find the killer. But I need more facts.” She tilted her head down, probably hoping he’d make eye contact.

He didn’t. “What did my mother tell you?”

“She said there were problems between you and Nolan,” Candace said.

Tom fidgeted in his chair as the topic turned to Hilary. “I’m not about to bad-mouth Finn’s mother, but take whatever my ex-wife says with a grain of salt.”

“What Tom’s trying to say is, she lies. All the time,” Finn said.

Candace pulled the clipboard toward her and poised a pen over the blank paper. “About what?”

“She lied about Tom after they broke up,” Finn said. “She told me he never wanted to see me again. Only took one text message to him for me to find out that wasn’t true. See, she thinks I’m stupid. Thinks I can’t figure things out for myself.”

“Did she and Nolan get along?” Candace said.

“I guess. But I pretty much stayed in my room since he got out of jail,” Finn said.

“How long ago was he released?” she asked.

“A year.” Finn finally put the second piece of gum in his mouth.

“You’re saying you hardly talked to him?” Candace said. “Things must have been tense around your house.”

Finn looked Candace straight in the eye for the first time. “Oh yeah. By the way, he was a bigger liar than she is. They deserved each other.” Finn blinked a few times and then said, “Sorry. He’s dead and no matter how big of a jerk he was, I didn’t want him to die.”

Tom rested a hand on Finn’s forearm. “Tell her why you left, Finn.”

Finn hung his head. “With my friends gone off to college, I got tired of being alone except for Yoshi. They wouldn’t even let him out into the rest of the house. He had to stay in my room. So I stayed with him.”

Tears stung my eyes at the thought of Finn and Yoshi alone in a bedroom, day after day.

“What else did you argue about besides your dog?” Candace asked.

“It’s hard to argue when you don’t talk to people,” Finn said.

“You did graduate from high school?” Candace asked.

“Yes,” he answered, sounding calmer now.

“If things at home hadn’t been such a mess he could have been first in his class,” Tom said.

“I know you’re a smart kid,” Candace said. “And you probably have information you don’t even realize—and nothing to hide, right?”

“Nothing to hide.” Finn’s face clouded with uncertainty. “At least nothing I can remember.”

Candace said, “Let’s see if I can help you put yesterday back together. What’s the very last thing you remember?”

Finn’s features seemed to relax since she’d switched her focus off his family. “I got a ride with a trucker in Greenville about midday. He was headed for Atlanta. Dropped me at a gas station in—I don’t remember the name of the place. I have maps and GPS on my phone, but I lost it somewhere. Anyway, I hitched another ride with some man in a U-Haul who said he was moving to Woodcrest. I knew Woodcrest was near where Tom lived. The guy let me off on the road into Mercy. Yoshi and I started walking. That’s the last thing I remember.”