Leann Sweeney - The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon

It was Candace.

I let her in, hugged her tightly and said, “I am so glad you came.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be in bed,” she said. “I take it you haven’t heard from Finn?”

“No. But I nodded off. How can I sleep with Finn missing?” As we went into the kitchen I checked the microwave for the time. One a.m. I’d been out for several hours.

“You needed the sleep. And I need tea.” She opened the fridge and took out the pitcher.

“I have wine, if you’d rather—”

“Nothing stronger than tea or coffee until I solve this double homicide,” she said. “But I’d love a big bag of chips about now.”

“Since I had a teenager in the house, I can fulfill your wish,” I said.

“By the way, did you check your security footage? I wonder if something important was caught on video. Maybe Hilary lied and Finn did talk to her,” she said, taking the bag of chips I offered.

“Can’t hurt to check,” I said. “We can also get the exact time the security system was disarmed, though I’m not sure how the information will help.”

“Any information might be useful,” Candace said. “Let’s go look.”

In my office I booted up the computer and we watched the various feeds from the past evening. Most of the time, Finn seemed to be watching television in the living room. Then we saw him stab the remote and stand up, as if listening to something. Could this be when his mother showed up? He disappeared and must have gone to his room, but without a camera in that part of the house, we could only assume. Then we watched Finn and Yoshi walk through the living room and kitchen, Finn carrying his backpack slung over one shoulder. The time stamp showed Finn disarmed the system around ten p.m. On his way out, he stopped to write the note he’d left me and I noticed he kept glancing back toward the foyer.

I murmured, “He heard Hilary. He left because she was at the front door.”

Candace had been leaning over, looking at the screen. “You’re right. She was the trigger. He didn’t want to see her.”

I powered off the computer and we returned to the living room. Candace sat down with her tea and the extra-large bag of Wavy Lays. I felt sad Finn never even had a chance to open them.

“I take it you haven’t heard from Tom?” I asked.

“Not a word. He didn’t go home. See, Bob didn’t have a ride since Rodriguez drove him to the station. But Morris wasn’t about to drop Bob off at Tom’s house until we can search the yard in the morning light. There could be evidence we missed. He did drive by the place, though. Rodriguez was on watch, parked out front. He said he hadn’t seen Tom.”

“Where did Morris take Bob?” I asked. “He said he didn’t have any money.”

Candace finished her mouthful of chips before answering. “Morris dropped him at his mother’s house. We made sure not to tell Bob that Finn is missing. We figured he can’t tell Karen anything he doesn’t know.”

“Karen said it was okay for Bob to come to her house to stay?” I said. “You’re aware those two have issues.”

“I know. But Bob called her from the station, and she apparently didn’t put up too much of a stink. You know something? She’s been living in Mercy for ten years—since I was a teenager—and I never saw her as hysterical as she was tonight. For that matter, I’ve never seen Tom as screwed up as he is right now, either.”

“I’m worried about him. You think he’s still driving all over the place looking for Finn?” I said.

“Not a doubt in my mind. You don’t think Tom changed his mind about Finn, do you? Maybe he thinks Finn found Gannon spying through Tom’s window and ended up harming his father. Because if that’s the case, I wouldn’t put it past Tom to help Finn get as far away from Mercy as possible.”

“No way, Candace. He knows Finn could never kill anyone,” I said. “If he finds him, he’ll convince him to come back. I had a thought earlier that perhaps Finn didn’t leave here on his own. Maybe someone compelled him to leave. Now we know it was probably Hilary’s arrival that made him run.”

She used a paper towel she’d grabbed earlier and wiped salt and grease off her hands. After taking a long drink of tea, she said, “Could be, or maybe he compelled himself to leave, Jillian. From talking to him, I get the sense he’d blame himself, think he’d caused everyone too much trouble. Distress like that can make people turn to what they know best to solve a problem. In his case, it’s running away.”

“He’ll come back. He has to. Now that he’s seen how much Tom cares about him, he won’t be able to stay away.” I welcomed Chablis onto my lap. Syrah was already asleep above my head on the recliner’s back. Merlot, who likes salty fingers, was parked close to Candace.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “I want to tell Finn myself how we found a couple important pieces of evidence on Gannon’s body.”

“What evidence?” I asked.

“Finn’s wallet. We also found a prepaid cell in Gannon’s pocket. It belonged to Finn, too.”

“His wallet? And a phone?” I said. “How did Gannon get these things? Because Finn never mentioned meeting up with his father. Unless… Oh my goodness. Could Gannon have been at the scene of the accident?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” she said.

I nodded slowly, deciding it all made sense. “He took those things from Finn’s pocket or backpack while he was unconscious.”

“I can’t think of any other explanation,” Candace said.

“That’s huge,” I said. “But it makes me wonder—and not for the first time—how Rory Gannon ended up in Mercy. And now, how he ended up at the accident scene—or should I say Roth’s murder scene?”

“Don’t know for sure yet,” she said. “But here’s another little gem of a connection. The crime lab sent over the phone logs from Tom’s cell and we now know a call was placed from Tom’s phone to Gannon’s halfway house. Once Finn’s phone is thoroughly examined by our techies at the county crime lab, maybe we’ll learn more about who was talking to whom.”

“You didn’t look at Finn’s call and text record on his phone already?” I said.

“Not completely,” she said, avoiding my gaze. “On TV they fiddle around with cell phones, scrolling through the call log and sent messages of phones at crime scenes, but I don’t do that. We have techies who know how to access information, relay it to us and preserve the evidence—not to mention preserve the chain of custody for court.”

“I can tell you saw something, though. What?” I said.

She stared at me for a long moment. “Oh all right—but I’m telling you only because I trust you more than my own mother. I saw a text that came from Tom’s phone to Finn the day Nolan Roth was murdered. The message said something like, ‘Hey, I’m driving around looking for you, Finn. Where are you?’”

“But Nolan Roth had Tom’s phone,” I said. “ He sent the message and lured Finn to him. How in the world did he make him get into the car?”

“Good question,” she said. “I’m hoping when we find Finn—and I’m sure we will—some of his memory will return and he can help fill in the blanks.”

“Remember that the doctor who treated him for the concussion said he doubted what was lost would ever be recovered,” I said.

“Call me an optimist. First we have to find him, though. Meanwhile, I’m seriously considering Gannon for Roth’s murder.”

“What motive did he have?” I said.

“He wanted his son back?” Candace sounded less than sure.

“Then why smash Finn’s head into the dashboard? No, wait. Maybe Roth was the one who did that after the crash.”