Leann Sweeney - The Cat, The Professor and the Poison

“More like us, you mean,” Jane said as she stood. She had her crate put together. “I was at a cat show once when a protestor made a scene. She’d drawn whiskers on her face with a Sharpie. How does that kind of behavior help anyone?”

“I sell quilts at cat shows, and I’ve seen the same sort of thing a couple times,” I said. “But I like what you said. Animal welfare versus animal activism? I’ll take welfare every time.”

I’d finished my crate, and so had Doc Howard. A few minutes later we were allowed to walk down the path to the last three little jail cells: two black cats in the first we came to, two white cats in the second and my calico angel and her kittens in the last. Only the calico remained calm. The other four cats had their backs up and were hissing and spitting at the invasion, first by the police and now by us. I didn’t blame them for being upset.

Shawn said, “Doc, can you take the whites?”

“I’ll do a cursory check for deafness back in my van,” Howard said, pulling on long leather gloves.

“Do they have blue eyes?” I asked.

Howard looked surprised. “Can’t tell until I get up close. But how did you know that blue eyes might indicate deafness in whites?”

I tapped my temple. “Crazy lover of cat trivia.”

He smiled and dragged a crate toward their cage.

“Jane, black cats for you,” Shawn said.

“I adore black cats,” she said with a smile. “Works for me.”

Shawn took a cream-colored instrument off the dolly. It looked like the scanner they used to price giant bags of kibble. But then I realized what it was. I’d recently had microchips implanted near the shoulder blades of all my cats. Dr. Jensen had used a tool exactly like that to show me how the system worked. He’d held it over the shoulder area after each cat had had its chip put in, and the chip number came up on the device’s screen. Their unique embedded chip numbers are now in a database in case any of them ever get lost again.

“You think these cats have chips?” I said.

“That would be too good to be true, but South Carolina law says any rescued cat must be scanned for microchips. And I’ll look for tattoos,” Shawn said. “Some folks used tattoos to identify their pets before the microchip age.”

“Scanning is the law? I had no idea. Might be a challenge to scan them the way they’re acting right now.” I took my crate to the last enclosure. “I assume you’re taking me up on my offer to foster the calico and her kittens?”

“Do you mind? That litter I’ve already got is a handful,” he said. “Mom’s getting healthier, but we’re still tube feeding.”

“Don’t mind taking them, but Syrah, Chablis and Merlot might,” I said.

Doc Howard said, “I brought vaccines and will examine all the cats before we take off. But until their feline AIDS and parasite tests come back, these cats must be kept away from your pets.”

“I have plenty of room, so no problem. Do you do this often? Help out like this?” I said.

He knelt and offered a hand to the white cats cowering in the corner. “All over the state. Terrible cat and dog stray problems, especially in rural areas like this.”

His attention was fully focused on the cats now, and I had a job to do, too.

The calico almost looked like she was smiling up at me as I pulled the crate into her prison. Her kittens were feeding-two mackerel tabbies, a bicolor orange and white, and a calico baby that had less white than mama cat. I squatted near them and talked soothingly for a few minutes, noting that she and the kittens lay on straw. That professor hadn’t even given them a blanket. I’d just finished about a hundred cat quilts for a future craft festival in Atlanta, and one of those little quilts would soon be put to good use.

I opened the crate door, thinking that would help Miss Calico get used to it, but she amazed me once again. She stood, washed her babies’ faces and licked all their bellies. Then she proceeded to lift each by the scruff and carry them one by one into the crate. Once she’d carried the last one in, she stayed in there with them.

Meanwhile, Shawn was having an awful time scanning the other cats, but he finally finished.

He walked over to my jail cell, wiping sweat off his brow with a forearm. “Cats never like to be told what to do.” At least he was smiling. “Seems you had no problems.”

“She put her litter in the crate all by herself,” I said.

“No way.” He came around and bent down to look at them. “Pretty bunch. But she’s not in a position where I can get a good scan. We’ll take care of that later. Let’s get out of here. This is a bad, bad place.”

Shawn carried my crate, and when we passed Candace on the way out, I said, “You look deep in thought.”

She blinked and met my gaze. “I am.”

“About evidence you found?” I said.

“No, I’m thinking about the why of what we found here. Seems like someone came and rescued most of the cats and may have killed the professor. That conjures up plenty of suspects of the animal-activist kind-people who thought these cats weren’t being treated as they should.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?” She brushed a stray blond hair off her furrowed brow.

“They left cats behind,” I said. “No true animal lover would leave even one behind. Not in a million years.”

After Shawn, Doc Howard and Jane took the cats out to what Howard called his “portable vet clinic” for examination, Lydia instructed me to wait in the living room so she could question me. If I hadn’t been such a mess from my encounter with barbed wire and fields of jasmine and goldenrod, I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on one of Professor VanKleet’s grubby armchairs. The original color was long lost in a layer of filth. But I was probably dirtier than the chair. I sat, my scratched-up hands clenched on my knees

Our Mercy vet, Dr. Jensen, arrived carrying a crate less than a minute after I sat down. I said hello and started to rise, ready to lead him to the cats in the bathroom. But Candace came in right behind him and gestured for me to stay put. Minutes later, he passed back through the living room carrying the orange and the tabby in the crate. I’d known him long enough to detect both his urgency and his concern when he departed. Please, oh please, let them be okay, I thought.

Lydia, to her credit, kept me waiting for only ten minutes and brought along Morris Ebeling as her designated note taker. He sat in the equally dirty chair opposite me. After Lydia considered her option-a torn-up, stained Victorianesque sofa-she remained standing, her manicured hands on her hips.

“Tell me about this adventure of yours this afternoon. Candy filled me in for the most part, but I’d like to hear your version,” she said.

I didn’t trust her gentle and reasonable tone for one instant. I wanted to say, “You are one crazy quilt, Lydia,” but instead I kept my voice even when I said, “Are you worried I may have somehow managed to pour this poison-what was it, strychnine?-down Professor VanKleet’s throat?”

“Well, I never thought of that, Jillian. You have opened my eyes to a whole new realm of possibilities. I know how much you love cats. Is that motive enough to kill a man you thought was mistreating them?” Her syrupy smile made me want to vomit.

Morris cleared his throat. “Um, Lydia. Do you really think-”

“Morris, you’re here to take notes,” she said.

“But I am the acting chief, and-”

“Which you’ve told me a hundred times. Sorry, but Jillian has brought a crime theory to our attention, and I hope you’ve written her words down for our report.” She focused on me again. “Now. Tell me what happened today.”