The Cat, the Collector and the Killer Page 3

  “I have no idea.” He set the purring Siamese on the floor and stroked her.

  Why did I get the distinct feeling he did have an idea? That thought gave me a chill. Whatever happened deeply affected Shawn—that much was certain.

  The cat sniffed at one of the few dishes with its remnants of food, and the kitties who’d most recently been outside began to beg for refills. Shawn and I busied ourselves in silence, opening more cans and topping off the kibble bowl. Since I saw a clean stainless kitty fountain on the floor in working order, I broke the tension that seemed to have filled the kitchen by warning Shawn not to run water.

  I said, “Touch as few things as possible until we know exactly what happened to Chester. This house could be a crime scene. Candace and Tom have taught me that anything might be evidence—even a houseful of cats.”

  Four

  Thirty minutes later, at Candace’s request, I drove Shawn back to the shelter so we could pick up enough carriers to remove the cats from the house. We put equal numbers in my van and Shawn’s truck, then drove in our separate vehicles back to Minnie Schultz’s house. An ambulance sat in the driveway but what seemed more ominous was the crime scene tape Deputy Lois Jewel currently wrapped around trees and shrubs to keep folks at a distance. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as I parked my van. This was not good.

  Lois waved to me as I unloaded the pet carriers. I wondered if the county had been notified that their animal control officer was . . . gone. My thoughts were then interrupted by a neighbor standing in his yard across the street calling to us. He was maybe midthirties, with that scruffy-beard-and-messy-hair look his generation had adopted. “Would someone tell me what the heck’s going on? I live here. I should be kept informed.”

  I glanced at Lois and she gave a tiny shake of the head indicating I shouldn’t say anything—not that I would.

  The man definitely didn’t sound like he was originally from South Carolina. The other folks in the neighborhood were apparently content to let him stand in his yard and demand answers, because no one else was being disruptive, though a few folks were outside observing. I’m sure more watchers were peering out their windows, too.

  Shawn pulled to the curb behind my van. When the man yelled at him, too, Shawn shot him a look that said far more than words. The neighbor threw up his arms in disgust, turned on his heel and walked back inside his house.

  “How do you do that without saying a thing?” I asked as we loaded carriers on the flat dolly Shawn had brought along.

  “My charm is far-reaching and effective.” He offered a small grin. But his smile faded quickly. “Crime scene tape means trouble. Lots of trouble. If I were Minnie’s neighbor, I’d be worried. But what’s sticking with me is the kitty-litter thing. Strange.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Let’s just focus on the cats.” Shawn rolled the dolly up the driveway, leaving me a tad confused.

  Lois pulled a notebook from the pants pocket of her forest green uniform. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and her expression was grim. “Give me a minute to write down your names and what you got there.”

  “We have a total of twenty pet carriers,” Shawn said.

  “You’ll need that many. I’m just glad I didn’t run into any mean cats inside.” Lois stared at her notebook and scribbled away. I understood she had to keep track of who went in and out of the house. “You’re good to go around back now.”

  We walked up the driveway toward the back entrance. “How’s that new puppy?” I said over my shoulder.

  “I’m lucky I have a pair of wearable shoes left.” She was tying off the last strip of crime scene tape on the gutter spout. “One day he’ll be the best police officer on the planet.”

  Lois, who’d come to us from Detroit, had opened up her home to what would be the one-dog K-9 unit in Mercy. This change had been pushed by Tom, our best temporary police chief. Drug problems plagued Mercy—as it did so many rural towns in the South. A canine officer would be a tremendous help. The dog and the trainer came from donated funds, so it had been an easy call. Unlike most police dogs who stayed with their trainer, Lois was being instructed along with the Belgian Malinois puppy by a specialist from Atlanta who’d agreed to relocate temporarily and help our police force out. He’d then be returning to his home. The trainer must have been caring for the dog right now. The animal was never left alone.

  Shawn slipped in through the screened porch door to make sure no cats escaped. He herded the few who’d somehow gotten out to the porch back into the house. That was another small mystery to be solved. The door to the house had been closed when we left.

  It took us several minutes to place all the carriers inside the porch. The next step would be far trickier. Getting cats inside carriers was never fun. They were not fans of unwilling containment.

  A window over the kitchen sink proved to be the kitty escape route. Using a paper towel to prevent leaving my fingerprints, I closed it carefully—and then berated myself immediately afterward. Candace would have taken a picture first, though I doubted any human had gained access to this house through a window only cats and creatures smaller than they were could have breached. I’d have to confess when I saw her. As for now, we remained sequestered in the kitchen.

  The more cats we captured and put into crates, the more meowing filled the porch and kitchen. I wondered if the irritated neighbor could hear this cacophony. With all the noise, Tom made it into the kitchen without me hearing him. Shawn was already carrying cats out to his truck. I was kneeling, hoping to coax a scaredy-cat from under the table rather than crawl under there and grab the poor baby.

  I felt a hand on my back and nearly hit my head on the table, I was so startled.

  “You scared the bejesus out of me.” I cocked my head and stared up at him. His eyes seemed troubled. I said, “You okay?”

  “Someone was pretty angry at Chester.” He offered his hand and helped me up.

  “It’s bad?”

  “Yup. I need your help with a couple of things.”

  What was wrong with Tom? He seemed more ill at ease than I’d ever seen him. “You know I’ll do anything. Well, almost anything, as long as I don’t have to go in that room with Chester.”

  “Nothing like that. I got a call and apparently Minnie Schultz had an unexpected something in her tote bag. A kitten. Can you head out to the hospital and pick it up?”

  I smiled. Kittens I could handle. “Sure. You want me to take it to Shawn’s place?”

  “Um, no. I want you to stay away from there and wait for my call. See, I’ll be following Shawn back to the sanctuary so he can drop off the cats and then I need to question him. If he won’t cooperate, I’ll need to take him to the station. If that’s the case, someone needs to phone Allison—someone who happens to be the kindest person I know and who I happen to live with. Do you know precisely where Allison is in North Carolina?”

  I blinked several times trying to process what he’d just said. There was a kitten. And . . . he suspected Shawn might have done something to Chester? Really? Yet his suspicion was strong enough that he wanted me to call Shawn’s wife. “Tom, surely you know Shawn would never hurt Chester, much less kill him.”

  He grasped both my upper arms and stared down at me, his expression grave. “Anyone is capable of murder given the right circumstances. Shawn had a restraining order against him—taken out by Chester. If you were in my shoes, who would be a person of interest right off the bat?”

  I looked away, shook my head. “No. No, Tom.”

  He put a finger under my chin and gently guided my face so he could look into my eyes. “I need your help. Do you know where Allison is? Can you reach her?”

  “Y-yes, but—”

  “Thank you. It might not be necessary, so wait for me to give the okay on that, but if Shawn ends up in jail, she’ll want to be here. I unders
tand how hard this is, how much you care about Shawn, but I have to do my job and this is the right place to start.”

  Tears welled and Tom pulled me to him. “I am so sorry. The last thing I want to do is upset you. I need to rule Shawn out, and if he hates my guts forever, so be it.”

  “Um, what the heck is going on here?” came a familiar voice from the direction of the porch.

  Tom and I pulled away from each other when we heard Lydia Monk’s voice. The bad news just kept coming, this time in human form.

  “Glad you got here so quickly, Lydia.” Tom gestured for her to follow him as he headed for the back door. “Watch out for cats. Don’t know if we found them all.”

  Lydia did not budge. She stood there in her denim leggings, fuchsia tunic and wedge sandals, glaring at me. “First I want to know what she’s doing here. Is it bring-your-wife-to-work day?”

  Tom, who had made it to the back porch, returned to the kitchen. Meanwhile I was hoping this irrational person hadn’t seen my tears. I wanted to speak, but I’d just had my second serious shock of the day and I had no words.

  “Lydia, please follow me and do your job. Now.” Tom’s edgy tone was not lost on her.

  “Oh, or you’ll tell my boss? How about I tell the town council about you making out with your wife at the scene of a suspicious death?” She hadn’t taken her eyes off me as she spoke.

  I’d never done anything to her except fall in love with someone she was obsessed with. I often laughed off her delusional shenanigans, but this time I only felt hurt and confused.

  Tom must have recognized this. He walked in and stood between her and me. “You are wasting time, Lydia. Move it. Please.”

  How I wished the last of the cats hadn’t been crated. I needed one in my arms about now.

  “Ah. Finally some manners. Where’s the body?”

  They left then and I let out the breath I’d been holding. I blinked away the remnants of my tears and went outside to help Shawn finish up and tell him where I was headed. I spoke quickly, told him I was rushed and had to get to that kitten as soon as possible. We had to transfer all the crates to his truck and it was a tight squeeze, but he had an extended cab and fit all the smaller carriers in the backseat.

  Once we were finished and half the cats were pleading loudly to be released, Shawn broke the tense silence that we’d maintained while working. “I’m a suspect, right?”

  Again, I had no words and found myself blinking back tears. He’d be cleared after questioning. So why did all this bother me so much? “It will be fine, Shawn. I need to get going.”

  “You don’t think I killed that man, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. This situation is simply overwhelming. Where will all these cats end up?” But the real question haunting me now was Where will you end up, Shawn?

  “I’ll keep them with me for as long as possible,” he said.

  I hugged him good-bye. I had to leave, had to get into my van and think this through without the plaintive symphony of cats without homes as accompaniment.

  Five

  I stopped for a berry smoothie at a drive-thru restaurant before heading to the county hospital. Though I felt recharged after finishing half the drink, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I reached my destination. Where would you store a kitten in this place? After a conversation with a stern-looking older man wearing a suit, I claimed a padded chair I’d been told to sit in. I was at the spot where you wait while the hospital powers that be decide whether you have the right ticket to get in. I didn’t like hospitals much, but then, who did?

  Swinging double doors led into the emergency room not too far from where I sat. The smell of disinfectant hit me each time those doors opened. Chemicals like that were necessary, I knew, but certainly weren’t conducive to making humans or cats comfortable. The poor kitty was probably as freaked-out as Minnie Schultz. I didn’t know the woman, but from what I had seen of her home, she cared about felines. A lot.

  Turned out, picking up this kitten was more of an issue than Tom had let on. The little one wasn’t being contained in a box or in the arms of a caring hospital worker. It was, I had learned from the suited gentleman, being clutched tightly by Minnie Schultz in the emergency room. From what I understood, she wasn’t letting go.

  About fifteen minutes later my name was called and soon I took a seat in a cubicle. A desk separated me from the young woman who had summoned me. This was a spot where a patient or family member usually answered questions about health insurance or discovered if you were even in the right place.

  “Do you know this woman, Minnie Schultz?” the receptionist asked. She’d apparently been given the task of dealing with an unusual situation and seemed less than thrilled.

  “Not exactly,” I answered. Perhaps I’d made this trip for nothing, from the look on the freckled face of the obviously stressed-out lady. She was maybe midforties, like me, with hazel eyes similar in color to Shawn’s. The thought of him suddenly distracted me. Was he in jail this very minute?

  “But you are Jillian Hart, correct? Sent here by the Mercy police chief?” She referred to what looked like a fax printout in front of her.

  I blinked and refocused on the task at hand. “Yes.”

  “Could I see some ID, please?”

  After she was satisfied I was who I claimed to be, she leaned back and her face relaxed. “Sorry, but it’s been a rather strange day. We’re told you can help, that our patient will give you this kitten.”

  I felt a wave of doubt wash over me. I handled cats just fine, but a human being who was clinging to a cat? Probably for comfort? I wasn’t sure I was the right person for the job. But I found myself nodding and saying, “I can help. I’ll do my best.”

  Soon I found myself being led through the double doors by a nurse’s aide wearing purple scrubs. I must have gotten used to the antiseptic odor because it didn’t seem as strong as before.

  Still, an emergency room is a frightening place. The sounds that came from behind the many curtains on either side of me, sounds of pain and groans of protest, filled me with dismay. But rather than taking me behind one of those curtains, the nurse’s assistant led me to a closed door. A locked door.

  I swallowed the wad of fear threatening to close off my throat. Was the poor woman violent? Disruptive? I had no idea what to expect. Once I was inside, it seemed like any other hospital room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I noted a bed with railings, a blood pressure cuff on the wall, gloves and hand sanitizer nearby. A muscular woman, her broad shoulders straining the fabric of her scrubs, sat beside the bed. I latched my gaze onto hers, not wanting to look at the thin figure in the bed.

  The woman beside the bed stood, unsmiling, and I saw her name tag read NANCY, and below that, ORDERLY.

  The nurse’s assistant introduced me to Nancy and then to Minnie before leaving us. The door had a lock on this side, too, but Nancy told the aide she could leave it unlocked. I forced myself to look at Minnie and was shocked. This frail fiftysomething’s gunmetal gray hair was braided and hung over one shoulder, and she bore a haunted expression. She wore a pale blue nightgown and filthy slippers. The fabric on both items of clothing bore printed-on paw prints. Then there was the tote bag—also bearing evidence of the woman’s love of felines. It was had a large black cat on the side facing me.

  Nancy was twice her size and hadn’t managed to get that bag from Minnie’s grip. Why not?

  As if she’d read my mind, Nancy spoke. “We can’t force her to do anything until we get the, um . . . paperwork completed. It’s complicated. We can’t even force her to give up the cat.”

  Minnie’s high-pitched, tremulous voice matched her fragile appearance. “He’s a kitten, Nancy. We’ve had this conversation already. Big difference.”

  I believed the “paperwork” Nancy referred to was probably commitment papers.

  “I know we have, Minnie
. I’d sure wish you’d let me hold him.” Nancy’s appearance didn’t match how gentle and kind she sounded.

  “Nope. Not happening.” Minnie shook her head vehemently and glared at me. “You can’t hold him, either. I don’t trust you.”

  How was I supposed to change her mind?

  Nancy stepped aside and offered me her chair, the one very close to where Minnie sat in bed. The patient’s mouth was now a stubborn, tight line.

  I decided conversing about felines might be the best approach. “I am a cat lover, and I know you are, too. I have four cats at my house and one of them is diabetic.”

  Minnie didn’t look at me, but she did respond. “I’ve had several diabetic cats in the past. Do you keep Karo syrup in case your baby’s blood sugar drops?”

  “We do. But Dashiell is pretty stable and we haven’t had to use it in a while.”

  Minnie addressed Nancy. “Diabetic cats pass out when their blood sugar drops too low. You rub Karo syrup on their gums after you check their blood sugar to be sure that’s the problem.”

  “Ah. Good idea,” Nancy replied.

  “See, you don’t know a thing about cats, Nancy. Apparently this lady does.” Minnie looked at me for the first time. “What’s your name again?”

  “Jillian. And what’s that kitty’s name?” I nodded at the tote bag in her lap. The kitten had probably been asleep, but the conversation must have woken it, because the bag began to move.

  “This is Otto. That’s my husband’s name, too. He thinks it’s funny to name a cat after him.” She stroked the bag, smiling as if remembering.

  “Where is the human Otto?” I’d been told Minnie was a widow.

  “Why, he’s at work, I suppose. He’ll be by around six to pick me up.”

  I glanced at Nancy and she gave a frowning, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  I took my smartphone from my pocket. “Can I show you my fur babies? We can see what they’re up to right this minute.” I activated the app for my cat cam. I scrolled on the screen until I found all four cats in the living room.