The Cat, The Professor and the Poison Read online

  But it wasn’t Shawn or even the dog catcher.

  “What in the holy hell are you doing here, you little man-eater?” Deputy Coroner Lydia Monk said when she spotted me.

  Oh brother. Here we go. “Waiting,” I said. Keep it simple, Jillian. Best not to get her any more riled than she already is at the mere sight of you.

  “For Tom Stewart? What’s he doing here?” She was looking me up and down, her disdain obvious.

  “He’s not here,” I said.

  “Guess I’ll find out how big a liar you are once I get inside. But as a reminder, you know he belongs to me, Miss Prissy. I’ve told you more than once to keep your distance from him.”

  This woman, with her teased blond hair, 38D implants and low-cut spangled T-shirt, was delusional when it came to my friend Tom Stewart. Who was just a friend and not my lover as she kept insisting.

  “As I said, Tom’s not here, Lydia. But the dead man I believe you came to see is,” I said.

  We both turned in the direction of the driveway when Candace called, “Lydia? Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” Lydia said. “Just assessing the scene out here.”

  “Hurry and come see this. The body is changing. Something’s happening,” Candace said. “And, Jillian, there are sick cats in the house. Can you come, too?”

  I ran in the direction of Candace’s voice, but since Lydia wore her usual spike heels, she was forced to take her time. I didn’t want to be within three feet of her anyway, so this worked out for the best.

  Once I reached Candace, who was waiting about halfway up the drive, she took my elbow and led me to the front door.

  When we stepped across the threshold, Candace said, “Try not to look. It’s ugly.”

  I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the body or to the raw meat—which I could smell now. Not the freshest meat from the market, if I were to guess.

  Problem is, if someone tells you not to look, of course you have to. And I did as she guided me through a shabby living area toward a hall to my right. The professor’s body lay in the entrance to the kitchen on the left. He was so contorted, he reminded me of a bow ready to release an arrow. His back was arched so badly that the crown of his head and his twisted legs touched the floor, but not his spine.

  What would do that to a person?

  I paused, transfixed, and touched trembling fingers to my lips. “Oh my God. You can’t call that a natural death, can you?”

  “Shh, we’ll talk later,” Candace whispered.

  The hall was well lit, unlike the living room, and just as we entered a bathroom, I heard Lydia say, “I never thought I’d see the day. Look at that man, would you? And all you macho police people never thought to put on a mask?”

  Panic gripped me. “Mask? We need masks?”

  “I’d be dead by now if we did,” Candace said. “That’s Lydia being Lydia. We need to worry about these two critters.” She pointed at the bathtub.

  A skinny long-haired orange cat and a small brown and gray tabby lay curled together at one end of the chipped and filthy bathtub. A disposable litter box sat at the other end of the tub. It must have been brand-new, because neither cat seemed to have used it. These two looked to be in a condition similar to that of the gray cat I’d found earlier.

  I knelt and put my hand out so the cats could sniff me. Their rheumy, sad eyes stared up, and the tabby squeaked out a meow. I rested fingers against its face, and he or she rubbed against them. Then I did the same with the orange tiger. Neither made any effort to move. What had that professor done to these poor animals? I bit my lip, fought back tears.

  “I called Shawn,” I said, my voice shaky. “Told him to bring crates. But we’ll need a vet for these two. Unless the animal control guy takes them. And where in heck is this Chester person?”

  “His wife called me. She said he tried to impound a dog before he came here, and the owner took a shotgun to the dog-catcher wagon’s tires. Chester is being treated for shock at some emergency clinic.”

  “Oh. Not a good day in Mercy for anyone,” I said.

  “You got that right. Back to these cats. They need the vet, but they didn’t get all stiffened up and die like the professor. So what’s wrong with them?”

  I said, “The one I found earlier was dehydrated, but look how skinny the bigger one is. Maybe malnutrition, too?”

  Candace stayed in the bathroom entry. “I don’t see any cat food dishes, so maybe you’re right.”

  “The meat you talked about could be spoiled or—”

  “Do not even mention meat. Can you watch them until Shawn gets here? They don’t look all that mobile, but they could mess up evidence if they decide to get out of the tub,” Candace said.

  “You didn’t want to close the door and leave them alone, did you?” I said.

  She smiled sadly. “You know me too well. That’s why I brought you inside. See, one of them—don’t know which—was meowing something pitiful. But you’ve fixed that. They feel safer already.”

  She left to do her job, and I sat cross- legged on the grimy vinyl floor next to the tub. My fear, the nerves and the panic all gave way to rage. When an animal is mistreated, that speaks to the dark side of human nature. And these two cats—not to mention the fifty or so outside—confirmed what I’d felt about the professor from the minute we’d met. Not a good man. Not good at all.

  I took several deep breaths, working hard to quell the anger. Transferring my negative emotions to these helpless cats wouldn’t help them. They needed loving care right now. I leaned over the edge of the tub and stroked the tabby and then the orange guy—probably a male, since most orange cats are boys. He was big enough to be a Maine coon like my Merlot but so thin I couldn’t tell. Maine coons usually weigh in at about twenty pounds, but this one was nowhere near that heavy. I alternated the petting, and soon they were both purring.

  Meanwhile, I kept hearing snatches of what Lydia was saying. She does tend to yell. She was saying something about coroner school and a textbook death. But the words that came next made my own spine straighten, made me recall the dead rodents I’d nearly walked on in the field when I was returning to Ruth Schultz’s farm earlier in the day. Her words?

  Rat poison.

  Seven

  When I heard “rat poison,” my focus immediately returned to the cats in the bathtub. I swallowed hard. Had they been poisoned, too? Was it only a matter of time before their muscles starting going rigid? And what about the cats outside?

  But from what I knew of rat poison, which wasn’t much, it was a blood thinner, not something that would turn a person into a grotesque human sculpture. Bile rose in my throat as the image of the professor with his arched back and stiffened limbs flashed through my mind. Stop. Think about these cats right now. They’re alive. They need help.

  Where was that vet? Where was Shawn?

  But I couldn’t quit thinking about poison. Maybe there was more than one kind of rat poison and these cats had been harmed with a different substance. They were limp and lethargic. Is that what the kind of blood-thinner rat poison found in the grocery store did to animals before they died?

  I bent and looked more closely at them—sure, like that would tell me something—and noticed they both wore thin collars. I lifted the tabby’s chin and saw a white paper tag attached to the buckle. Written in ballpoint ink was TRIXIE.

  The orange cat had a similar tag. His said VLAD.

  “Hey, Vlad. Hey, Trixie,” I said. “I promise you’ll get help soon.”

  When I heard Candace say, “My friend the cat whisperer,” I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  I’d been so focused, I hadn’t heard her come back. “You scared me,” I said.

  “This is a scary place. Shawn’s here with volunteers, and Dr. Jensen’s not far behind. An officer will bring the vet in here when he arrives.”

  I sighed with relief. “Good. I’m even afraid to offer them water. Maybe they’d start—”

  “I don’t want to know what
might happen. Anyway, there’s no light out back beyond that shed, but the sheriff’s department has arrived with portable halogens. It’ll probably freak out those cats when we turn the lights on, huh?”

  “You bet it will. As if they’re not freaked-out enough,” I said.

  “Can you help outside? Like I said, the vet will be here any second.”

  I stood, my worried stare on my two new friends. “Of course.”

  As I followed her back out into the hall, she said, “Please stay on my heels and don’t touch anything.”

  “Can’t we go around the shed?” I said. “Maybe there’s a gate or—”

  “No gate. To get inside the cat runs, you gotta go through that shed.”

  Cat runs. Thoughts of what I’d seen earlier made my anger resurface. The man who did this to them had died a horrible death, and though I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, I was still mad at what he’d done.

  When I heard Lydia’s loud voice, I said, “Is she okay with me . . . um . . . participating?”

  “Oh, perfectly happy now that she’s checked every nook and cranny to make sure Tom Stewart isn’t here and won’t be called upon to help out,” Candace said. “Why does the county designate someone like her to be in charge of suspicious deaths, anyway? It makes no sense.”

  “You think the government is supposed to have common sense?” I said.

  “I’d say ‘how true’ except I am part of the government,” she reminded me.

  I smiled and said, “But back to Tom. Why would you call in a security expert for something like this?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t. But you know Lydia. She believes if Jillian Hart’s around, well, Tom must be lurking, too, ready to jump your bones right in front of her,” Candace said.

  A blush warmed both my cheeks. “She is so frickin’ crazy, it’s ridiculous.”

  “For now, she’s in charge. Try to ignore her, okay? In her defense, she does seem to have some knowledge about the cause of death.” Candace stopped at the end of the hall, where it made a hard right turn. “We’ll pass quickly through the kitchen and out the back door. Stay right behind me.”

  “I’d love to ignore her, but she’s the one—”

  “Forget about her, Jillian,” Candace whispered harshly. “Frightened cats need you right now.”

  Lydia Monk and Morris Ebeling were in the kitchen, a room that could have traveled through time from the set of Father Knows Best with fifty years of dirt added. The meat that had so upset Candace was spread out on a dirty countertop, and an old-fashioned grinder was clamped to the counter’s edge. Professor VanKleet had obviously been making food for the cats, but in a place the FDA would have shut down in a nanosecond.

  A gloved Lydia knelt by the body in the other entrance to the kitchen, the one that led to the living area. She said, “The contractions caused by the strychnine are wearing off, Morris. That’s why the body is relaxing. I told you this was no rigor mortis you were seeing when—” She stopped talking and smiled up at me as if nothing had happened between us earlier. “Glad you’re here to help with the animals, Jillian. Mercy has such concerned citizens. Truly heartwarming.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, as Candace practically dragged me past the meat-covered counter to the back door.

  “This is the worst suspicious death I have ever worked,” Candace said once we were outside. “And before you say anything, I’m not calling it murder until we know for sure. Maybe the guy overdosed. Sometimes dealers use tiny amounts of strychnine to cut cocaine. Could be the professor’s supplier slipped him bad stuff.”

  “You’re thinking he was on drugs?” I said.

  “If his thinking was impaired, it could explain his doing crazy stuff like stealing cows and grinding meat,” she answered. “But that’s just a wild guess. And I shouldn’t be guessing.”

  “Is strychnine what they sell in the feed store to kill rats? Because I thought they used something else,” I said.

  “Lydia told us it used to be a standard rat killer. Not so much anymore,” Candace said. “Dangerous, and as I explained, used to cut illegal drugs.”

  I inhaled the fresh night air and felt my shoulders relax. “But if the poison is off the market, then—”

  “I can’t say any more about the evidence, okay?” she said.

  “Got it. Sorry,” I said.

  The shed stood maybe ten feet ahead, and we walked toward it down a stone path. Before Candace opened the flimsy screen door, she said, “This is where you have to be especially careful. We haven’t searched this building thoroughly yet.”

  As Candace led the way, I didn’t even bother to glance around. We were through the shed and out to the cat runs in seconds. Two county sheriffs were setting up their halogens, though I couldn’t see much more than their silhouettes. And still, no cat cries. God, please don’t let them be dead like the professor.

  To our right, Shawn and a man and woman I’d never met stood waiting for the lights to come on. Meager reinforcements for fifty cats . . . but of course if the cats were—no. The cats were alive when I’d seen them earlier.

  “Hi, Shawn. Hi, Shawn’s friends.” I offered a small wave, noting the stack of crates that had been broken down and brought outside on a flatbed dolly. Bet that trip through the possibly evidence-laden shed had given Candace nightmares.

  Their smiles were grim when they nodded my way. They had no idea what they were about to see, and the fact that it was so darned quiet out here made goose bumps rise on my arms.

  The bright blast when the lights came on made me shut my eyes reflexively, and when I opened them, I was not prepared for what I saw.

  Shawn said, “What in hell happened here?”

  We did not see fifty cats. Instead, we saw that the chain-link fence had been cut open at the bottom of each small jail cell.

  And the cats were gone.

  “Where did they go?” I said. “They were here. I saw them.”

  “You saw them?” It was Lydia, who, unfortunately, had decided to join us.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s why I called Candace. That’s how she found the body . . . because I told her that cats were possibly being mistreated here, and—”

  “You can explain all that later,” Candace cut in. “I think I see a few cats in those end runs.”

  “Oh my gosh. You’re right.” I started in that direction.

  Candace grabbed my arm. “You, Shawn and the others need to wait. I have to photograph this place, look for evidence. Then we’ll see about the cats.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Jillian. The cats will be okay for a few minutes.”

  “She’s right.” Lydia looked at Candace. “You’ve got this covered, though I believe Jillian and I need to talk later about what she saw and when she saw it.” She smiled, turned and went back through the shed.

  We stood there for more than thirty minutes, not the few that had been promised, as Candace did her job. Meanwhile, Shawn introduced me to the volunteers. Sam Howard was a retired veterinarian with snowy hair and a warm smile. Jane Haden, a soft-spoken black woman, had intelligent dark eyes and beautiful posture that exuded an air of authority. Since she was a school principal, that authority was probably put to good use.

  I explained my presence, and the three of us ended up sharing photographs of our beloved pets. Sam Howard laughed at the cat cam, but Jane was intrigued and asked lots of questions. I was afraid to tell her that Tom Stewart had set it up for me for fear that if I mentioned his name Lydia would come running out in psychotic mode again.

  A county deputy was showing Candace how to lift a footprint off the walkway with what looked like giant Scotch tape. From the adoring look she gave the guy, I knew he’d just made her day. She had evidence. Then both county officers helped reposition the lights so Candace could photograph each enclosure. She used her flashlight to closely examine the fence areas that had been cut away. I’m no police person, but it sure didn’t look like fingerprint territory to me. Then Candace began
photographing each enclosure and the cement path that allowed access to them.

  As we waited, we decided to put together three large crates to take away the remaining cats when Candace was finished.

  Doc Howard, who was kneeling next to me as we worked, said, “I’ve dealt with some pretty radical animal rights groups, but killing someone has never been in their bag of dirty tricks.”

  “As Candace would say, there’s no evidence yet that whoever removed these cats killed the man,” I said. “We don’t even know if he was murdered.”

  “You got me there. I am jumping to conclusions,” he said. “I’ve just seen way too many people go off the deep end and act foolishly when it comes to domesticated animals. Let’s hope whoever took the cats was on the animal welfare side.”

  “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.