months.
We’d laid them out on my dining room table, to the joy of all four cats. At one point Merlot even stretched out on the paper-covered space between Candace and me. Cats always have to be in your business.
The tedium was interrupted when I came to a particular cat picture. I tapped the faded photo, the one a person named Dale Bartlett had added to his or her plea for help finding the lost cat Beatrice. “That’s the Tonkinese we found at Wilkerson’s house.”
Candace was looking a little blurry-eyed anyway, and now confusion clouded her features even more. “Tonka-what? I thought we were talking about cats, not little trucks.”
“Tonkinese is a cat breed,” I said.
“Oh. Gotcha.”
“I think that cat is with Shawn. Now that we have the owner’s phone number, we can reunite them. I wonder if we’ll find a flyer for the tuxedo, too,” I said.
“Trucks and tuxedos? One of us has had too much wine. What in heck are you talking about?”
“Sorry. Tuxedo cats are black and white—marked, sort of like penguins. Remember, I told you about the cat that escaped the day before the murder?”
“The cat that ran off into the woods?” she said.
“Yes. The one Shawn picked up by the side of the road after we left.”
“Save that for sure, because every cat is a possible lead.”
“I’m not sure I even told Baca about Shawn picking up the tuxedo. Guess I’ll do that tomorrow,” I said.
“I never got the chance to tell him, but it is in my report,” she said. “Maybe he’ll begin to understand the importance of the cats if you mention it. I got the feeling he couldn’t care less. Make sure you tell him you forgot and that’s why you failed to mention that penguin cat.”
“Tuxedo.”
“Whatever. And now that I’m considering this full-disclosure idea, I definitely have to give the chief our lost- cat list tomorrow, even though he’ll probably laugh me out of his office and order me back to answering phones.”
“Can I copy it first?” I still had to find out about these missing cats, with or without Baca’s help.
“It’s your list, not mine, so of course.” She paused and her expression grew worried. “But maybe there will be no laughing, Jillian. Maybe I’ll be suspended for not following orders. Maybe you should keep the list to yourself.”
“No. Tell him what we’ve done. Honesty is on our side. Let’s keep it that way.”
She offered a small smile. “That’s exactly what my mom would say. And my mom is always right.”
Fifteen
The next day I decided to tell Baca about the tuxedo cat right away. So I headed over to the police station bright and early. The visit to the chief started out pretty well. I didn’t see Candace answering phones, thank God, and I waited less than a minute for Baca to wave me into his office.
I took a seat in the same chair as yesterday, his big, shiny desk between us. To my chagrin, my hands trembled. I clutched them in my lap to hide my nerves. I hadn’t left here the last time in a very pleasant manner, and for some reason that made me nervous.
Before he could even ask me why I was here, I blurted, “I forgot to tell you something yesterday. I’m sorry.”
His expression didn’t change. He just calmly said, “And what would that be, Ms. Hart?”
“Could you call me Jillian? I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you did.”
“Sure, Jillian. Now, what exactly is bothering you this morning?”
I explained about the tuxedo cat, and Baca simply smiled politely. For some reason I found this maddening.
“Say something,” I said, my frustration fairly obvious.
He laughed. “How’s this? I appreciate you returning after how things went down yesterday, but we already know about the black-and-white cat and have found the owner.”
“Oh, did—”
Baca went on, “Shawn Cuddahee gave us all the details of your visit to Mr. Wilkerson the day before the murder. That black-and-white cat had an implanted microchip. When Shawn figured that out, he felt obliged to tell us so we could ask the local vet for help. The doc scanned the chip, and the cat is already back home.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s great. Did he check all the cats Mr. Wilkerson had for those microchips?”
Baca said, “Yup. That was the only one. Candy provided us with the list you two compiled from those flyers. Nice work, I’ll admit. Lydia wanted Candy off the case, but I see that’s not stopping her. As for you, what you’ve been doing is a little far afield from making quilts—that is what you do?”
His Southern charm was really cloying to me now. “Yes. For charity
“Like the ones we found in Flake Wilkerson’s house? Come up with any leads on how he got ahold of those?” he asked.
He was keeping up the “I’m so sweet I’d rot your teeth” act, but I got the distinct feeling the man still suspected me of something nefarious. Aside from Candace, the whole police force probably did.
“I didn’t find anything in my files,” I said. “But I put a business card on the vet’s bulletin board months ago, and Mr. Wilkerson could have gotten my address on a visit there. Maybe he drove by and saw my cats in the window, then chose my house for a break-in.”
“And stole the quilts along with the cat?” he said.
“No. He must have had them for some time. I’m certain of this because of the fabric and the patterns. I sold out of those particular quilts months ago.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“When I buy fabric, I tend to use it in several quilts until all the yardage is gone. And I also choose a certain pattern—say a rail fence or an Irish chain—for a batch of cat quilts. I recognized the quilts I saw at the house as some that I made maybe seven or eight months ago.”
“You didn’t decide to go to the Pink House because you remembered selling those quilts to Mr. Wilkerson and for some reason wanted them back?”
“Of course not. I didn’t even know he had them until the day of the murder—when I went upstairs and saw them. I went there the morning of the murder to get Syrah, not to recover quilts I didn’t know Mr. Wilkerson had.”
“Had to ask,” he said. “Moving on, your coming here and your working with Candy on that list tells me this investigation has grabbed your interest. It would grab mine, too, if I walked into a house—even if uninvited—and found a corpse.”
“I’m interested solely because of the cats. There has to be a connection to them and Mr. Wilkerson’s death, right?”
“Only if his activities concerning the animals angered Shawn Cuddahee enough to make him murder the man.”
“Shawn wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t. It must have been someone else,” I said. “Maybe someone whose cat Mr. Wilkerson took.”
“Big maybe. Doesn’t feel right to me—killing someone over a cat. I’m considering other motives,” he said. “And now I’m hoping you’ve thought about the danger you put yourself in as much as you’ve thought about the rest of this case.”
“Wait a minute. You don’t believe the cats had anything to do with the murder?”
“There could be a connection, but it’s not exactly a motive I’d put at the top of my list,” he said.
“Aren’t you even going to question the person who owns the tuxedo cat, just to see how angry he was that Flake took his baby? And what about the business card idea and the list of people who put up flyers about lost cats?
