The Cat, the Quilt and the Corpse

I led them into the living room, and Candace immediately went to the carriers, knelt and murmured to Merlot and Chablis in a comforting voice. They quieted at once. She was an animal person, thank goodness.

“What exactly happened here, ma’am?” Morris’s accent made me think he could have been dispatcher Barbara Lynne’s daddy.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I was on an overnight business trip and came home to find a broken window. And my other cat is missing. He’s an Abyssinian. Sort of amber with—”

“Is he an expensive cat?” Morris asked. “I mean, could someone have broken in to steal him because he’s worth buckets of money?”

“No way,” I said with a laugh. “He was a rescue. After Katrina. So were Merlot and Chablis. They’re all purebreds, but without papers.”

“What kinda papers?” he said.

“A pedigree. The papers that show who their parents were and that they are truly purebreds. He doesn’t have those, so no one would consider him worth a lot of money.”

“Anything else gone missin’?” Morris said.

“Nothing that I could tell from the quick run-through I made. But who cares?”

“Um . . . sure,” Morris said. “Who cares?”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on me, but even with his attitude, if he could help get my cat back, I’d be grateful.

Candace rose after one last “It’ll be okay, sweetheart” to Chablis. “May I search the premises, Ms. Hart?”

Shiny blond hair was coiled at the nape of Candace’s neck, and her eyes were as blue and intense as Chablis’s, which I found comforting in a way.

“You might want to start there.” I pointed out the broken glass on the window seat cushion.

“I’d like to search from the basement up, if you don’t mind. The stairs?”

“I’ve already looked everywhere,” I said. “If Syrah were here, I would have found him.”

Candace, even though she was young, reminded me of the principal at my elementary school who’d admonished me for chewing gum when I was about eight years old. Maybe the pine green uniform made her look like an authority figure to me.

“That means we’ve got a contaminated crime scene,” she said. “But I can work around that.”

Morris raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Not this crime scene rigmarole again. A damn cat is missing, Candy. Did you hear the lady say anything about missing valuables? Did you notice how her fancy TV and stereo are right here?”

“My name is Candace,” she answered through clenched teeth. “And—”

“Bet this event was some kid workin’ on a dare.” Morris took a tin of Skoal from his pocket.

Candace said, “You ever consider that this lady is so distressed about her missing cat she might not realize valuables are gone? Some folks don’t care about money and diamond rings above everything else.”

“Oh, for criminy sake. Then puh-leese, go find every piece of lint you can, Candy.” Morris pinched some tobacco and mashed it between his lower teeth and lip.

Candace’s cheeks colored. She took a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. “That’s exactly what I intend to do. The basement, Ms. Hart?” she said.

I pointed to the kitchen. “Through there. You’ll see the door to the stairs.”

Morris was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Seemed to me like he wanted back in his police cruiser as quickly as he could manage it. “I need to start the paperwork, Ms. Hart. Excuse me for a moment.”

He went out the front door and took his time before coming back with a clipboard. In the interim, I’d filled a dropper with Benadryl, unzipped the top of Chablis’s carrier and given her a dose. Poor baby’s nose was running like a faucet now. I checked out Morris’s shoulders for any dandruff when he returned, wondering if he’d made her allergy attack worse. I mean, it was obvious that this reaction was caused by an intruder with dandruff.

Morris, whose graying hair seemed dandruff free, sat on the reclining wing chair across from the sofa, a simple, normal action that jolted me. That leather recliner had belonged to John and no one had touched it since his death.

It’s okay. It’s only a chair.

But anxiety mixed with grief made my stomach knot. I would have preferred to pace off this unwelcome emotion, but instead I sat on the edge of the sofa, hands clasped in my lap. Merlot and Chablis were already worried about their friend Syrah. They needed me to at least act like I was in a stable emotional state.

“You live alone, ma’am?” Morris said.

“No, sir. I live with my three cats—Chablis, Syrah and Merlot.” Maybe I could make him understand through some sarcasm of my own that cats are as important as people.

But he didn’t bother to write their names down. He just stared at me with tired brown eyes. “No gentleman residing here with you? Because I heard tell you was married.”

“You heard tell?” I said.

“No secrets in Mercy, Ms. Hart.”

“Apparently there are,” I said softly. “My husband died unexpectedly not long after we moved here. Heart attack.”

His forehead wrinkled in confusion, as if to say, “Why didn’t I know this?” Then he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. Sorry indeed,” and at least he sounded like he actually meant it.

Candace returned to the living room and, without saying a word, focused first on the window and then on the glass still lying undisturbed on the cushions. At least I’d done something right by leaving it there.

She took out her phone and snapped off a few pictures before removing a folded brown paper bag from her uniform pocket.

“Candy, what the hell do you think you’re doing now?” Morris said.

“Candace is collecting evidence,” she said, carefully picking up the pieces of glass and putting them in her bag.

“’Cause a cat ran off? I know you take your job real serious, and I try my best to respect that, but I’m thinking the county crime lab won’t be happy about this particular evidence.”

Candace said, “Someone invaded this kind lady’s private property, so I disagree. And can we assume the cat ran off? Maybe the bad guy took him.”

Morris sighed heavily. “Took the cat? Why in heck would someone break in to steal a cat? You can go the SPCA or—Forget it.” He refocused on me. “For my report, exactly when did this happen, Ms. Hart?”

“I got in at one o’clock. Did I mention that this . . . this person turned off my TV?”

“Huh?” Morris said. “Don’t you mean turned on your TV?”

“No. I leave it on. I like people to think I’m home when the cats are alone.” For some reason I felt a little embarrassed about this, so I added, “Obviously that tactic didn’t work.”

“Can I offer a piece of advice, Ms. Hart?” Morris said. “Get yourself a dog. A real dog, like a German shepherd. A dog with a big bark and a bigger bite.”

“Sorry. I love dogs, but my cats don’t.”

“Okay, then get yourself a nice state-of-the-art alarm system. We got a guy in town who does that stuff. Name’s Tom. Tom Stewart. Nice fella and—”

“Did you touch the television when you came in, Ms. Hart?” Candace interrupted. She was on her knees by the window seat, staring intently at the cushions, her tweezers poised and ready to collect more evidence.

“I used the remote,” I said. “I thought maybe the TV wasn’t working.”

“Gosh darn,” Candace muttered, getting to her feet. “Okay, we might still get prints off the TV if the perp shut off the television without touching the remote.”

“The perp?” Both of Morris’s bushy gray eyebrows were working. “We don’t have perps in Mercy. We got dumb drunks and outta-control kids who should eat dinner with their mama and daddy more often. This is about a broken window, Candy.”

“And you have no idea when this break-in occurred?” Candace continued, seemingly unflustered by her partner’s lack of interest in what had gone on in my house.