gonna know what Evan eats for breakfast and when he goes to bed. The chief said he wasn’t cooperative and seemed to care less about his father. And he claims he was alone the night VanKleet died. No one in that family has an alibi.”
“One thing’s for sure. Evan didn’t come here, tie me up and scare my cats to death,” I said. “Not the right build; not the right eyes. And even though the bad guy was whispering, I’d still recognize his voice. Nope. Not Evan.”
“You told me activists usually don’t work alone, Jillian,” Candace said. “Evan could have had a partner. He never could have taken all the cats by himself.”
“Ah, the partner angle makes sense,” Tom said. “I worked on a case once where a group of young people decided to bomb a mosque right after 9/11. All bright, articulate kids. And after I’d interviewed each one, I was positive not one of them would have planned that bombing alone. I like to call it collective terrorism.” He’d moved behind my desk so he could use the computer.
Candace picked up her food and laptop and moved aside. “You need to work here. Will the Wi- Fi be down?”
“Yup. Give me twenty minutes,” Tom said. But when he turned on my computer’s monitor, his eyes widened. Then his jaw tightened. “This is him. This is that gutless asshole who-”
“I meant to shut that down. Sorry,” Candace said.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I want to see this, want to study every move, every nuance. Because if I ever see this guy-”
“Can you call me when you’re done, then?” My mouth had gone dry. That attack was the last thing I wanted to see.
Tom looked at me, and whatever he saw on my face made him hurry around the desk. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
“And I’m outta here,” Candace said with a smile. She carried her laptop out of the room, shutting the office door behind her.
Tom held me close for a few seconds, and then he took my face in his hands and kissed me tenderly.
Nineteen
By Monday evening, I’d absorbed about all the informa tion I could handle concerning my new smart phone. I practiced over and over how to make and receive calls and could bring up my cat cam videos with ease. Tom wanted me to learn the texting thing, too, but my brain was tired. By then it was dinnertime and Kara still wasn’t home. She hadn’t called, either. Maybe she didn’t realize I’d replaced my phone and still had my old number.
Tom asked for a rain check on the pizza I’d ordered. Since news of the murders had spread, he’d had at least a dozen calls to set up security systems and was meeting with a potential customer.
Candace, Merlot and I were finished with the pizza-Merlot adores pizza-and she was ready to get back to work, when the doorbell rang.
Candace and I both got up.
“Hang on. Don’t answer that yet,” she said. She went to the hall closet, where her uniform hung. And her gun belt. She tucked her very large weapon into the waistband at the back of her jeans as I watched from the edge of the foyer.
Of course she had her gun. She always had her gun. But it hadn’t registered until now that she might need it.
The doorbell rang again, and Candace nodded in the direction of the door and whispered, “Go ahead. I’m right beside you.”
I checked the peephole and saw Evan VanKleet standing on the porch. “It’s okay,” I whispered before I opened the door.
The evening air, rich with the promise of more rain, washed over me when I greeted Evan and invited him in.
The sarcastic attitude he’d worn like a flak jacket earlier today seemed to be gone. He looked troubled and then surprised when he saw that Candace was with me.
“Um, I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said to Candace.
“You never know where I might show up,” she answered.
“Come on in.” I started walking toward the living room, and Candace made sure to fall in behind Evan. “Can I get you something to drink? A Coke? Tea?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he said. He looked around the room for a few seconds. His jeans weren’t the baggy kind he’d worn earlier, and his pale green shirt brought out the color in his eyes. But I noticed that those eyes were wide and that he seemed almost scared.
I took John’s chair, and Evan finally sat down on the couch. Candace chose the overstuffed chair right across from him.
“I-I didn’t come here to talk to the cops-I mean police,” Evan said. He looked at me. “I thought that since you volunteer at the station and you seemed so… I don’t know… nice… that I could explain some things to you.”
“Things you didn’t want to tell us directly?” Candace said.
“Yeah. I guess I thought Jillian could pass it along,” he said.
“I would have told you to tell Candace yourself, so now you get two for one.” I tried to sound light and reassuring. I could tell this was definitely difficult for the kid.
“Okay. I get that. Anyway, Brandt’s the law student. He kept saying over and over before we got to the police station that none of us should say anything, that the family members are always suspects. But I’ve got to talk about this. It’s the right thing to do. My father was murdered, and I want to help you catch whoever did it.” Evan ran his hands through his mop of hair. “I haven’t always done the right thing, but… but-”
“Go for it,” Candace said.
Before he could say another word, Syrah jumped on the back of the sofa right behind Evan.
“Whoa,” he said as he turned. “He’s not a regular tiger cat, is he?” He reached out his hand to let Syrah have a sniff, and my boy rubbed his head against Evan’s fingers.
“He’s an Abyssinian,” I said. “His name is Syrah.”
“Abyssinian. That means he’s descended from ancient Egypt, huh?” Evan said. “His big ears look like those cats in the Egyptian drawings in my old world history book.”
“That’s exactly right,” I said with a smile.
Syrah does like to be admired, and he climbed in Evan’s lap.
Merlot, who had been in the corner of the foyer when Evan arrived, had followed us into the living room and now came from behind Candace’s chair to claim his share of appreciation.
Evan looked so much younger tonight. Maybe he was only eighteen or nineteen rather than in his twenties.
He said, “How much does that one weigh?”
“Merlot weighs twenty pounds,” I said. “But getting back to why you came. You want the police to know certain things, right?”
“I was being a punk earlier. I came to apologize to you, Jillian. To explain. I’m not like Brandt or my mother or Doug. My family is a freak show. The biggest freak is dead, or at least that’s what people will say. But though it didn’t come across that way today, I loved my dad. He was just screwed up.”
“Chief Baca said you acted pretty belligerent. That you didn’t seem to care that your father’s been murdered,” Candace said.
“I was pretending not to care. But I do,” Evan said. “I want the police to find out who killed him. I didn’t do right by him while he was alive, so I can at least be on his side now.”
“How did you ‘not do right’ by your dad?” I said gently.
Evan stroked Syrah and didn’t answer for several seconds. “I ratted him out.” He looked at Candace. “No one but Brandt knows what I did.”
“And Brandt, not quite a lawyer, by the way, decided information should be withheld from the police?”
