Leann Sweeney - The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon

Any sympathy I might have felt for Bob a second ago disappeared.

Karen paled and pulled her fleece robe around her. I looked down and could see she was wearing emerald green silk pajamas with cream piping around the hems.

She said, “I will forget you said those words, Robert. This is a difficult situation. I could use a glass of water about now. My mouth is so very dry.”

Not wanting to leave her alone with Bob, I took her hand and we went to the kitchen together. I hadn’t noticed what a mess the kitchen was while attending to Dashiell. Knowing Tom as well as I did, I decided the overflowing garbage, the dishes in the sink and the beer cans lined up on the counter were all Bob’s doing. Tom may have been stubborn enough not to pick up after him, but I wasn’t.

But before I could tackle the kitchen mess, I heard Candace’s voice in my head: Evidence can be anywhere. I always preserve the crime scene as thoroughly as I can.

If the man outside had been the victim of foul play, Tom’s home would become part of her crime scene. As difficult as it was to do nothing about garbage, cans and dirty dishes, I poured both Karen and myself glasses of water. With my hand on her back to guide her, we went out to the living room. Karen sat in a padded dining room chair in the corner by the TV. Tom’s dining room was too small to accommodate all the chairs around his table, so he used two of them for living room seating.

Karen still seemed stunned but finally looked around and realized Bob was present. “Oh. You’re staying here. I forgot. What do you know about this horrible turn of events?”

“About as much as you do. Dumb cat gets out again and then all hell breaks loose in the neighborhood.” Bob chewed on his thumb, glancing anxiously back to the dining room.

“Dashiell’s smarter than a tree full of owls. Some cats are even smarter than certain humans,” I said. I didn’t add aloud that Dashiell was probably smarter than Bob, but from his expression, he got the message.

I heard the muted jumble of voices outside and those sounds, combined with the whirling police lights flashing blue and red through the front curtains, made me feel as uneasy as Bob appeared to be. I wondered then if he knew who was lying dead under a holly bush outside. I even went so far as to consider the possibility he had something to do with the man’s death. I blinked away these thoughts. The thought of Karen and me sharing space with her son, possibly her murderer of a son, was too unsettling.

We didn’t have to wait long for Deputy Rodriguez to join us. He looked at me, probably because I was the only friendly face in the room. “We need you and Mr. Cochran down at the station so we can take your statements.”

Karen rose abruptly, spilling her water all over the floor in front of her—and she didn’t even seem to notice. “What about me?”

“Were you here within the last several hours?” Rodriguez said.

“No, sir,” she said. “But I live right around the corner.”

“We’ll just need Mr. Stewart, his brother and Mrs. Hart for now,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do?” she said.

“Go on home. I can drop you off, if you’d like.” He glanced at her slippered feet. “Not safe walking home in the dark without shoes, Mrs. Stewart.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, seeming confused as she stared down at her feet.

I swallowed, finally ready to ask the big question. “Do you know who the dead man is?”

“The stranger who’s been causing problems in town. Guess he crossed the wrong person,” Rodriguez said.

“Rory Gannon?” I said.

“Yup,” Rodriguez answered.

For some reason, I wasn’t surprised.

Tom, Bob and I were escorted to separate rooms at the police station—Tom to one interrogation room, Bob to the other while Rodriguez put me in Chief Baca’s office.

I sat in the chair across from Mike’s desk and noticed how completely silent it was in here, as if he’d had his office soundproofed. I took a few deep breaths, wondering how long I would have to wait. My thoughts turned to Finn alone at my house. I took out my cell phone and checked my cat cam.

He must have taken Yoshi to bed because, though there were several Dr Pepper cans on the coffee table, he wasn’t in the living room. I did see all three cats asleep in different spots.

Then I thought about poor Dashiell, who had been dropped off at Karen’s house. Tom had told me once she had no clue what to do for a diabetic cat should there be an emergency, even though he’d tried his best to show her how to test the kitty’s sugar. But until we were free to go, Dashiell had to stay with someone. When Tom phoned her with the request, she agreed to take him. Tom made sure to give her Doc Jensen’s number in case of an emergency.

I glanced around Mike’s office, which was devoid of personal photos. But the walls were filled with police academy certificates, sharp-shooting awards, a commendation from the mayor and town council. For some reason, I’d never noticed these items before. Maybe because I’d never been in his office all by myself. Mike was a good guy, but of late, with all the budget cuts, he’d become much more of a political animal. After all, chief of police was a position appointed by the town council.

As the moments ticked away, I finally allowed myself to wonder about Rory Gannon. Somehow he’d found his way to Tom’s house. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since he’d been showing up anywhere Finn might be in Mercy. There, he’d met his death. Why? And how had he ended up beneath the holly? Like Billy Cranor said, those bushes weren’t exactly people friendly. Maybe he’d started to crawl under them so he could peer into the dining room and had suffered a heart attack. But I had the sick feeling something far more sinister had happened.

I realized I was squeezing my left hand with my right, afraid of learning the truth and yet wanting to know at the same time. I hated this anxious feeling and was almost ready to get up and see if Candace had arrived so I could get answers. Before I moved, the door opened.

Lydia Monk flew into the office like she was riding a witch’s broom. Her blond hair looked like a lion’s mane surrounding her face.

“You again,” she said with contempt. “When I heard you were the one who found the body, well, let’s say I volunteered to come in here and be the one to interview you. See, I’m getting darn tired of you interfering in Tom’s life.”

She walked around to the other side of Mike’s desk and sat in his black leather chair opposite me. She wore a low-cut purple sweater and a leather vest, along with plenty of makeup. Giant silver hoop earrings dangled near both cheeks. She put a small tape recorder down on the desk.

“Hello, Lydia,” I said, mustering every ounce of composure I could.

“Okay,” she said, glancing around Mike’s tidy desk. “I’m not sure what in the heck you thought you were doing at Tom’s house. You don’t belong there.” She started opening drawers and finally said, “Ah,” and pulled out a legal pad. Lydia took a pen from a container on the desk and turned on the tape recorder. “This is Assistant County Coroner Lydia Monk interviewing Jillian Hart at the request of the Mercy Police Department.” She gave the date and time, then said, “What do you know about this dead man?”

“Not much, really,” I said.

She sighed in exasperation, turned off the tape recorder and echoed, “Not much, really,” in a mocking tone. “Listen to me, Miss Prissy. This is the second man in a week dead by another’s hand and somehow connected to you. You better tell me everything, starting now.”