The Cat, the Mill and the Murder: A Cats in Trouble Mystery

by Leann Sweeney

  Once Candace came in, she made a beeline for the fridge. I’d made tea this morning, so there was a fresh pitcher in there. She sighed contentedly as she poured us both a glass and then sat at my counter bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room table.

  “Pretty gift,” she said, nodding back at the box.

  I slid onto the stool beside her. “I made a quilt for Jeannie. Did I tell you she’ll be staying with Pastor Mitch and his wife when she’s released from the hospital tomorrow?”

  “If you did, I’ve forgotten,” she said. “Too wrapped up in the new case. But I did remember this.” She took a picture out of her uniform shirt pocket and slid it to me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I know Jeannie wants her stuff back—the items we took from that mill office. I mean, she obviously had made the place her home. We haven’t had time to go through everything yet and have to hang on to most of it, but when I saw what was written on the back of this photo, I decided she needed to have this now.”

  The black-and-white photo had turned sepia with age and was wrinkled and worn. Three men ranging in ages from maybe thirty to fifty mugged for the camera, their arms draped over one another’s shoulders. They were standing at the mill entrance and, from their clothing, I’d guess the picture was taken in the 1960s. They looked as if they worked in the mill. I turned the picture over. Written in a shaky, childish print was the word “Daddy.”

  “Don’t know which one is Jeannie’s dad, but I’m assuming one of these guys,” Candace said. “The picture looks like it’s been handled a lot. She might be missing this.”

  “You’re right,” I said, staring again at the men’s faces. For some reason two of them looked familiar. One had Jeannie’s eyes, so I was betting the man on the far right was her father, but the other familiar one…the guy in the middle. There was something about him.

  Candace said, “Might need that in her hand when we tell her that the skeleton definitely belongs to her daughter. We just got the results. Lab did a rush on the DNA, thanks to the professor’s influence.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “She’ll need this close, I think.”

  “You visiting her today?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I thought I’d be there at the pastorium tomorrow when Pastor Mitch arrives with her. He texted me from the hospital earlier that she’ll be back in the mill village late morning, but that today was filled with rehab and instructions and learning how to use the walker she’ll have for a few weeks.”

  “A minister texted you?” Candace said, smiling. “Seems weird, but I guess if you’re in the people business like he is, you’ve got to keep up with the new toys.”

  “I use technology and I’m not that much younger than Pastor Mitch,” I said.

  Candace’s fair skin went pink. “I know. I know. It’s just that my mother thinks her cell phone is the most frustrating object ever thrust upon her. Guess everyone in her generation isn’t technologically challenged.”

  “Glad you get we old people still know how to learn new tricks,” I said with a laugh. But then I grew serious. “Listen, do you think Penelope’s death is connected to the mill?”

  “The timing would sure indicate that,” Candace said. “Especially since Penelope Webber seems to have been one lonely woman. Her phone contact list included town council members, the investors, Dustin with the puppy dog eyes, her hairdresser and a few take-out restaurants.”

  “Must be hard to get to know a victim with so little to work with,” I said.

  “You’re telling me?” Candace said. “We’re checking the GPS in her car to see where she might have been aside from the mill and city hall in the last few days. She did have an address book, but all the people in there are out-of-towners. We tracked down her sister and I talked to her this morning after the chief relayed the news. They were estranged, hadn’t spoken in years. We don’t know if she’s even going to show up and claim the body once the autopsy is complete.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to get to know Penelope as the person she was before she was a victim,” I said.

  “Have to, because all I saw was a pushy lady who seemed to have a lot of money—which she didn’t by the way,” Candace said once she’d drained her tea glass. “She was living on credit. She’d had several jobs in the past, her last being that small boutique that went belly-up last year. I’m still hoping to learn more about her, but it’s hard finding anyone who knew much about the woman.”

  I smiled inwardly. Maybe Tom had more to learn about how good a cop Candace really was. I said, “I kind of wish I’d tried harder to get past Penelope’s tough façade. She always seemed so in control, and so…cold.”

  “People like that are in protection mode,” Candace said. “Something bad happened to that lady long before we ever knew her. You don’t push people away like she did unless you feel as if you have to.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Controlling people are defensive. Who knows what Penelope Webber’s story was? But I have every confidence that you’ll find out.”

  I fixed Candace a sandwich when I heard her stomach grumble. Apparently she’d been so wrapped up in trying to solve two murders, she’d failed to eat. I’m no cook, but I can slap turkey, lettuce and mayo between two slices of bread. She took off, sandwich in hand.

  I put the photo in a small envelope to protect it and then began cleaning up the quilt room. I was just about finished when the doorbell rang. Lydia was the only person I knew who usually called at the front door, so my stomach tightened as I went to answer. Three cats and a ghost followed on my heels.

  I was surprised to see Dustin Gray standing on my front stoop. I welcomed him in, hung his jacket in the hall closet and offered him coffee or sweet tea.

  “I would love a hot drink. It’s cold out there today—almost New York cold, which I didn’t expect in South Carolina.” He had his computer tablet with him and clung to it with both hands. “Hope I’m not bothering you, but I’m in limbo, waiting to be allowed back in the mill.”

  While I made a fresh pot, he petted each cat—except the one he couldn’t see, of course—and I watched how tender he was with them. He was a gentle young man. Why couldn’t Candace fall for someone like him? I mean, Billy Cranor, the volunteer fireman she pined after, was still dating girls fresh out of high school. Didn’t she want a more mature guy like this one?

  We sat in the living room with our coffee—he liked lots of sugar—and he commented again on the beautiful lake view and how he’d like to live in a place like Mercy one day.

  “Bet you wouldn’t find much work here, though,” I said.

  “Greenville is booming, so I’m in the right spot,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be such a horrible commute if I lived here.”

  “Especially if a certain young woman were waiting for you to come home,” I said.

  His cheeks went fire red. “Do you think I have a chance?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “You need to know Candace is extremely dedicated to her job. She works long hours and once she has a case—and right now she has two—she hardly sleeps.”

  “I like that about her. She’s so focused, but she also…has those eyes. So blue. And she’s smart.”

  I smiled. “You stick with it, Dustin. You know where she lives and works.” I looked at the small silver tablet on the sofa next to him and nodded at it. “Did you want to show me something?”

  “I’ve been holed up here—they don’t have another job for me at the firm since I’m new—so I decided to take what I’d learned about the mill and create images of the two proposals.” He cleared his throat. “I’d love to have your input since you know so much about old mills. I didn’t want to lose the flavor, you know. The history shouldn’t be lost.”

  I moved close to his side. “Show me.”

  The renderings he’d done were amazing. I didn’t own a tablet like this myself—I had enough trouble with my smartphone—but as I looked at the images he’d created, I
immediately wondered if I could design quilts on one of these.

  “These first plans are examples of what condos would look like. I call it the ‘Lofts at the Mill’ project.” He started sweeping his finger on the screen.

  I saw page after page of loft-style apartments with exposed brick, beamed ceilings contrasted by furniture he’d put into the apartments that was sleek and modern. The pictures he’d created were so detailed I could see myself standing in one of the condos, knowing I was still in the mill but in the new mill.

  Astonished by his talent, I said, “Is this part of your job?”

  He said, “Not really—but I hope it will be one day. Combining my knowledge of structure with design. My boss knows what I want to do and that’s why he chose me for this project.”

  “This is exciting stuff, Dustin,” I said. “You are so talented.”

  “Um, thanks.” He refocused on the screen. “The other proposal I call the ‘Heritage Project.’”

  This creation took my breath away. I could imagine the bare bones of that first floor of the mill, but Dustin had transformed it into a museum with glass cases down the center and shops with eclectic facades to the right and left.

  I said, “You’d have displays of pictures and tools in these cases, right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “There’s room in the offices for more ways to show off some of the old machinery, perhaps give a timeline of the creation of the mills and then their demise—so people will know what happened across the South. How these behemoth buildings grew and then decayed into giant rubble piles.”

  “Wow,” I said, sweeping my finger along the tablet surface to look at all the images and pictures he’d used. “Being inside that mill seems to have inspired you. It kind of did that for me, too. I made a quilt for Jeannie in the last few days—just got so busy after realizing how creating with our hands is what we were meant to do. Even if we tear down what we’ve built, we need to honor what was there. Your designs do that.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” He looked at me for the first time since he’d shown me what he’d created. “You think this will make a good presentation?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Trouble is, you may have made a tough decision even tougher for the town council. How will they choose?”

  “I have some ideas about that,” he answered. “But I think I’ll work on my presentation more before I say anything. I know Ms. Webber was leaning toward the condo project, but—”

  “She was?” I said, surprised. “How do you know?”

  “Well, maybe I shouldn’t say,” he said haltingly. “I mean, she is dead and someone else will take her place. I’m not sure it matters.”

  “It might matter to Candace,” I said. “She’s scrambling right now to figure out why someone wanted Penelope dead.”

  “Oh. I never thought about that,” he said. “Here’s the deal.”

  He went on to tell me and the minute he finished, I said, “You need to talk to Candace. Come on. I’ll take you to the police station.”

  Twenty-four

  I called Candace to make sure she was at the station before we left my house. Dustin followed me into the center of town.

  As we walked up the steps of the courthouse, he said, “This is a cool old building. I’ve wanted to see inside this place.”

  The courthouse lobby was indeed beautiful and Dustin stopped to take in the mosaic tile floor, the beautiful oak-paneled walls and the domed ceiling.

  “This is so amazing,” he said. “The structure will last forever. Very sound. There were some great architects back then.”

  I could tell Dustin might stand here in the lobby for hours, so I tugged his elbow. “Come on.”

  The police offices were situated at the back of the courthouse. Dustin’s expression changed from awe to surprise when we made the turn down the corridor and headed to where Candace worked.

  “Um, this corridor could use a renovation,” he said. “I mean, the lobby is beautiful, that one courtroom I peeked into had all the oak and walnut well preserved, but this? This is awful. And it smells bad.”

  We’d reached the benches where people waited to talk to an officer or folks arrived to make bail for a friend or loved one spending time in the basement jail. A few of Mercy’s less-than-finest citizens slouched on the seats along the wall.

  “Not quite Mayberry in this part of the building,” I said.

  “Huh?” he replied.

  The reference to the Andy Griffith Show was lost on him. Too young. I pushed open the scarred door with frosted glass and MERCY POLICE DEPARTMENT stenciled on in green paint.

  B.J. sat at his desk to our left. “Hey, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “She’s waiting for you in the break room.”

  After I introduced Dustin and B.J., I pushed open the gate separating the waiting area from the corridor that led to the interview rooms and police offices. Dustin followed me to the end of the hallway and we found Candace sitting at the round table in the center of the room. Candace scrambled to her feet when we came in and she wiped cheese cracker crumbs from her mouth with a paper towel. She tossed the cracker cellophane and paper towel into the trash, saying, “Hey, Jillian. Dustin. Chief Baca’s not here, so we can use his office. I need a comfortable chair about now. Besides, my cubbyhole around the corner isn’t big enough for three people.”

  She was right. When I visited Candace here, we either talked in the break room or in the chief’s office.

  After we went across the hall, Candace eased into Mike’s leather desk chair with a sigh. We took the two armchairs across from her, Mike’s big shiny desk separating us.

  “What’s all this about Penelope Webber?” she said, staring at Dustin.

  His return gaze was accompanied by a rather slack-jawed, awestruck look. “It’s nothing really. Just some things she said.”

  “For context,” I said, “I think you should see what Dustin has done on his tablet for his presentation to the town council. What he thinks can be done with the mill.”

  “Okay,” Candace said, sounding skeptical.

  But after she looked at what I had seen in the last hour, I saw a new respect for Dustin Gray in her eyes. “This is really something. I mean, you think this could happen in our town?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “I mean, the investors will have their own architects and designers, but I took the existing space, saw what I thought it could structurally support and came up with these ideas.”

  Candace was staring at the pictures, swiping through them for a third time. “They’re great ideas.” She looked at him. “I’m impressed.”

  “Tell her about Penelope—about some of the things she said when you shared your ideas with her,” I said.

  Dustin leaned back, eyes narrowed in thought. “I want to be as accurate as I can. See, I met with her in Greenville when I was first assigned the project last month.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You didn’t mention that part.”

  “I remembered on the drive over here. I guess it’s an accumulation of what she said that I was thinking about when I talked to you, Jillian.” He looked at Candace. “But in your job, I’ll bet you want everything to be very specific. Which is sort of like my job, too.” He smiled.

  “You met with her in Greenville last month,” Candace said. “What happened?”

  “She had drawings, the old blueprints of the mill, pages and pages compiled by the investors for their very different proposals,” he said. “She kept saying this had to be all very above board. I thought at the time, well, yeah, it does. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “That was a strange thing for her to say. Go on,” Candace said.

  “That was the first time she mentioned she was a Realtor,” he said.

  “What?” Candace said. “No, she’s not. Or rather, she wasn’t.”

  Dustin blushed. “Maybe she wasn’t, then. Maybe she wasn’t telling me the truth.”

  Candace shook her head and said, “Sorry. I didn’t
mean to cut you off. It’s just that I haven’t finished looking into her background. But as far as I know, she was never a Realtor in Mercy.”

  “Oh,” Dustin said. “She seemed pretty proud of it, so I thought she was a Realtor currently. Anyway, when I came here to Mercy and we talked, she started telling me how much the economy needed a boost through residential real estate. This was a conversation we had when I thought we were just making small talk. Not about the mill. Then she said it again later. I still didn’t put it together. Not until I told Jillian.”

  Candace leaned back hard, her eyes on the ceiling, “Oh my goodness. I missed something somewhere. Seriously missed something.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “You can’t just decide to become a Realtor one day. Either it’s in your past or you’re working on it. If she was involved in real estate investment of any kind—even if she wasn’t a certified Realtor—that would be a serious conflict of interest. She was the head councilwoman. She could influence others to vote the way she wanted them to. For the condo project, if residential real estate was her interest.” Candace looked at us, her gaze steely.

  I said, “That’s what I thought. Choosing the condos would put money in her pocket down the road. But she could have been lying to Dustin.”

  “What do you mean?” Dustin said, sounding upset by the suggestion.

  “What if she wasn’t ever involved in real estate before?” I said. “What if she got big ideas when the proposals came in and how they could benefit her? Luxury apartments could mean big commissions, whereas a museum and urban village wouldn’t exactly help someone trying to cash in right away. From what I understand, the commercial shops of the museum project would only come down the road—well after the museum was set up.”

  “You’re right,” Candace said, pointing at me. “As far as Ms. Webber becoming a simple real estate agent, rather than, say, a Realtor, you can learn that stuff online—how to buy and sell property. Eventually maybe learn enough to actually do it or find out what classes to take and where. If she was looking into a new career, I need the forensics report on her computer yesterday.” She grabbed the phone on the chief’s desk but then set it down. “Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself.” She reached behind her and grabbed paper from Mike Baca’s computer printer, then took a pencil from the penholder to her right.