The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon: A Cats in Trouble Mystery

by Leann Sweeney

  “Long story,” Tom said.

  “I wish you’d trust me enough to tell me. What’s this something Bob believes rightfully belongs to him?”

  Tom lowered his voice. “Finn’s in the kitchen, about ten feet away. He doesn’t need to hear this. Can we talk later?”

  “Promise?” I said, wondering if later would ever happen.

  “I swear,” he said.

  “Good. Now, I know a dog who needs a visit to the nearest tree. When you drop Finn off, maybe we can have some alone time.”

  We said good-bye and soon Yoshi was racing for his favorite white oak, dried leaves scattering in his wake. When he came running back up the lawn, he checked out the van, sniffing the air for any hint of Finn. We went inside the house and I squatted to pet him. He was such a darling dog, but even though he enjoyed my company, he obviously missed Finn.

  Merlot appeared, and he and Yoshi went nose to nose since they’re almost the same size. Yoshi dropped his front legs to the play position, but Merlot appraised him as if to say, “I’m not playing chase right now, dog.” Seemed like these two were at least getting along, in pleasant contrast to everyone at lunch at Karen’s house.

  I switched my attention to Merlot, scratching him behind his ears.

  Soon Syrah joined us and I saw the cat dishes were empty. With the dog around, I wondered exactly who had licked those bowls so clean. Syrah did figure eights between my legs as I hunted for just the right flavor of cat food. I swore they knew what was available and if I chose the wrong flavor, they’d turn and walk away after the first whiff.

  Yoshi still had kibble in his bowl and when Merlot and Syrah started eating—I’d chosen Savory Salmon—he decided to finish his food. Chablis didn’t show up, even though with her ability to hear a quilting pin drop, I was sure she’d heard the pop when I opened the cat food. I took a small bowl of tuna cat food—her favorite—and went to my bedroom.

  At least she wasn’t hiding under the bed, but rather crouched in the center of the mattress. When I set the dish on the floor, she sniffed the air and finally stood, stretched and decided she liked her meals delivered.

  I sat next to her and stroked her while she ate, wishing she’d stay out of hiding. Every cat is different, however. Chablis was not dog friendly, that’s for sure. The memory of cats is about two hundred times greater than dogs, and like people, they have both long-term and short-term memory. I believed Chablis had a memory about a dog—and not a pleasant one. Poor Dashiell did, too. If Finn ended up living with Tom, the adjustment period could be long and difficult.

  Yoshi came bounding into the bedroom a moment later and Chablis scurried under the bed. The adjustment period here wasn’t going so well, either.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in my sewing room finishing up my Christmas orders—an appliqué on one quilt for a cat in New York named Ralph and some hand quilting on two others. Yoshi, Merlot and Syrah joined me. Late afternoon was nap time for them.

  In the last few months, I’d discovered I needed reading glasses for handwork as well as a good, strong light. My eyes were telling me I was no longer young, and though I didn’t appreciate the message my body was sending, I accepted it. Anything to keep quilting for as long as my eyes and hands allowed. There is something akin to meditation about the rocking movement of the needle, the in and out, the back and forth. It took me to such a peaceful place. Worries faded while I quilted.

  When someone knocked on the back door, Yoshi jumped to attention and barked. I set my work aside—my last order—and realized it was already dark. As I went through the house flipping on lights, I saw the DVR display read seven p.m.

  I let Tom and Finn in, and Yoshi went wild with joy. He jumped into Finn’s arms and licked his face.

  Tom glanced at the reading glasses dangling from a chain around my neck. “You, too, huh?”

  I held them up. “You mean these?”

  He smiled and for the first time in days, he seemed stress free. This was the Tom I knew and had come to care about so much. He said, “I’ve got a drugstore pair for reading at night. I keep telling myself it’s those new fluorescent bulbs and not my vision.”

  “Right. And my quilt stitches are just getting smaller every day.”

  Tom laughed.

  Finn said, “I’m taking Yoshi out back to run, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “The outside lights are to your right before you go out the door.”

  As soon as Finn and Yoshi were gone, Tom took me in his arms and kissed me. Then, with me wrapped in his arms, he swayed us and said, “Thank you for everything. Thank you for just being who you are—the most normal, caring person I’ve ever met.”

  I pulled back so I could look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Finn before? About your marriage, your brothers, all of it?”

  “Because I failed,” he said quietly. “I failed Finn, I failed at being married and I couldn’t solve my mother’s alcoholism or my brother’s problems. Another man rescued my mother from her addiction, a man who loved her for who she was. As for Bob? He’s a thief. I was a cop. Those two don’t mix well.”

  “I can see how you might feel like calling yourself a failure, but I’m not so sure it’s justified,” I said. “How does it feel getting all of the old business off your chest?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s kind of like hunting through an attic you haven’t visited in years. There’s dust and cobwebs and surprises—and I’m not talking about birthday surprises, either.”

  “I want to hear more. How about something to drink?”

  “Finn tells me you stocked up on Dr Pepper.” He grinned and opened the fridge. Indeed, the door held can after can of Dr Pepper.

  I stuck to sweet tea, but Tom popped the top on the soft drink and made a face after he took a swig. “Never did like this stuff. But if the kid likes it, I can pretend.”

  We sat next to each other on the couch and immediately Chablis was in my lap. Did she have doggie radar or something? How did she know Yoshi was outside?

  “You think Finn should be outside while his father could still be roaming around Mercy?” I said.

  “I’ll give him a few more minutes,” Tom said. “He has the energy of an eighteen-year-old and can’t stay cooped up all the time. Besides, Yoshi will let us all know if there’s a problem.”

  “He certainly will,” I said. “While we have a little privacy, why don’t you talk? Clean your attic.”

  “My family is complicated,” he said.

  “Millions of people know the feeling,” I answered.

  He seemed to be staring into the past. “Where do I start?”

  “How about chronologically? You’re older than Bob, right?”

  He nodded. “My mother married my father in South Carolina back in the ’sixties. He died when I was four. She remarried right away—and Bob and Charlie came along a year later.”

  “How soon did she remarry?” I asked.

  “Within months,” he said. “Looking back, it was probably too soon. From how she talks about my father, she loved him, but jumped into another relationship right off the bat. Trying to escape the grief, maybe? She’s about as good at sharing her feelings as I am, so I can’t be sure.”

  I thought about the grief I felt after losing John. It had paralyzed me, but it sounded as if Karen had taken the opposite approach. “How long did her second marriage last?”

  “Couple years. Long enough for her to start drinking. See, my stepfather, Bob and Charlie’s father, Henry Cochran, was a successful businessman. He also drank like a sailor. So my mother joined him for all those cocktails at five. She, unfortunately, couldn’t hold her liquor. Her liquor held her.”

  “Things got bad?” I said.

  “Brandy in her morning coffee? I’ll say. She’s not a happy drunk, and she and Henry began to argue. Finally she left him when I was in the first grade. People think kids that young don’t understand, but I knew she had big problems.” His jaw muscles clenched, but he w
ent on. “I remember her giving us this speech about new beginnings, but she had three boys to raise. The only thing she knew how to do was party, drink and marry men she didn’t love. I don’t even remember the next two guys we lived with. They paid the bills, though. I graduated high school in, like, the seventh school district I’d been in. Hard to make friends when you’re on the move all the time.”

  “You survived, though,” I said. “No, you did more than survive. You found your way.”

  “I always knew what I wanted to do. Help people. Fix problems. I was long gone when she met her final husband, Gordon. Went to the police academy in Virginia and stayed out of her life. Stayed away from Bob and Charlie, too.”

  “Y’all didn’t get along?”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” he said, adding a derisive laugh. “We beat each other up regularly. I stayed pretty angry with Bob. He was a shoplifter, plus he charmed every rich girl he could find. Charlie didn’t piss me off quite as much, but he was a do-nothing. Wouldn’t communicate with anyone, was flunking out of school and finally ran away to New York as soon as he could drive. If Mom had only been sober enough to see how much we were all hurting, maybe things would have been different.”

  “But Gordon came along. Someone who finally helped your mother get sober, right?” I said.

  “Yup. Don’t know how, but he did. Bob and Charlie and I had all left Mom on her own by then. She cared for Gordon, though I’m not sure she ever loved anyone as much as she loved my father. I’m not sure she even loves her own sons.”

  “I don’t buy it, Tom,” I said. “I see how loving she can be—to you and to Finn. I guess that’s the reason I don’t understand her problems with Bob and Charlie.”

  “Finn brought Mom and me back together. Like I said, Mom favored him. Loved him from the minute she met him. She finally had the grandchild she always wanted. Bob suddenly reappeared—like he realized he might be shut out, so he had to insert himself back into my mother’s life. Of course, what did he do? He stole the diamond earrings Gordon had given her.”

  “Diamond earrings, huh? Are those what he referred to as rightfully his?” I said.

  “He’s so full of it. For some reason he believed Gordon didn’t buy them. He thought Mom bought the earrings herself, with money she got from his father. See, Bob even lies to himself. True enough, his father had money.” Tom shook his head sadly. “Great guy who eventually died of cirrhosis because he had a worse drinking problem than my mother. She did find out he was sick, tried to help him like Gordon helped her, but it was too late. He left Mom money in his will. More money than he left Bob and Charlie, from what I understand. She never said how much, and I never asked.”

  “Bet the reading of the will didn’t go over too well. No wonder Bob’s resentful,” I said.

  “The earring theft happened around the time Hilary and I split up. Mom came racing to town—I was in North Carolina by then— and got involved. She thought she’d lose Finn. Bob was living with her at the time—guy’s never had a job for longer than a month. She’d just bought her little house in Mercy. Anyway, he took the earrings while she was gone.”

  “He admitted it?” I said.

  “I was a cop at the time. I know how to make a suspect talk—and I did. Can’t say I’m proud of how I’ve handled the problems with Hilary or with Bob. I was proud of my mother, however, for throwing Bob out when she discovered her earrings were gone. They were a sobriety anniversary gift. We couldn’t get them back, either. The pawnbroker sold them for cash. No way to find the buyer.”

  I said, “You didn’t have your brother arrested, I take it? Because Morris, who’s been around probably since Mercy was founded, never mentioned he even knew about Bob or any legal problems.”

  “Bob spent very little time here, never got to know anyone. My mother didn’t want me to turn him in. I reluctantly went along with her.” Tom took a long hit off his soda and made a face like he’d just drank lemon juice. “This stuff is not for me. Anyway, notice she has my father’s name now? She changed it back about the same time she and Bob became estranged. It’s her time machine mentality I was talking about before. When my dad was alive, everything seemed perfect in her mind. She still talks about him like he was a saint. Maybe he was, but I don’t remember him. Obviously his death wounded her enough she went down a dark path for years afterward.”

  I stroked the purring Chablis and noticed Syrah had taken his spot above my left shoulder on top of the couch. “When I lost John, I felt the same kind of grief. Wounded is the right word. But you talked earlier about how you failed. I don’t see what you could have done to make anyone in your family act differently.”

  Tom stared down at the can he held with two hands. “I just wish I could have made things right.”

  “Who wants to play with a time machine now?” I asked.

  He looked at me and smiled slowly, as if something was shifting in his mind. “You’re right. Regrets are a wish for time travel, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. You are a good man,” I said, matching his smile. “Time to let go of the should haves, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t answer because the back door opened and Yoshi came racing in. Chablis took off like her tail was on fire, leaving a bleeding claw mark on my arm. The dog greeted me and then Tom by putting a paw on each of our legs, his stubby tail wagging ferociously.

  I called, “There’s Dr Pepper in the fridge, Finn.”

  He joined us, holding a can. When he saw what Tom was drinking, he said, “Isn’t this the best?”

  Tom said, “Mmm. So good.”

  I almost laughed. He was a terrible liar, but Finn didn’t seem to notice.

  Finn said, “Did you know they make this in Texas? Every now and then, you can get it in little bottles made with the original recipe. With cane sugar. But this is dope even with the high-fructose whatever.” He held up the can and admired it.

  “Dope? You’re using slang like that with an ex-cop in the room?” Tom said with a laugh.

  “Okay,” Finn said. “It’s sick. How’s that?”

  We all laughed.

  My phone rang and I pulled it from my pocket.

  The male voice said, “Tom’s got you on speed dial. You know what that means.” It was Bob—being Bob.

  “You want to talk to Tom?” I said.

  “Nope. Just tell him to come home pronto. His dumb cat got out again.”

  Twenty

  Fearing Tom might deck Bob given half a chance, I decided to ride along and help find Dashiell. Maybe I could keep Tom focused on what was important. Too bad his poor kitty got outside again, not only because a cat shouldn’t be wandering around in the dark but because Tom had just been mellowing out, getting a lot of old business off his chest.

  We left Finn with the security system armed and instructions not to open the door for anyone. I expected to see Bob outside with a flashlight looking for Dashiell, but he was sitting in Tom’s living room watching TV. I’d tried to understand Bob, had realized after Tom’s story he was probably a bitter man, but any morsel of compassion disappeared when I realized he felt no compunction to find Dashiell. Guess we should be grateful he’d made a phone call.

  Tom, to his credit, only offered his brother a dirty look, not fighting words. I followed him into the kitchen and he found a couple flashlights. We went out the back door, which, I noted, was still ajar. Did Bob think Dashiell would come back if he left the door open?

  “Be careful out here, Jillian. The drop-off to the creek is pretty steep.” He swept his flashlight left and right, revealing the sparkling, dewy lawn.

  I pointed straight ahead. “Last time, I found him by a tree over there near the slope.”

  We both hurried toward the creek. Tom’s neighbor to the left had a fence, and I went that way while Tom jogged in the opposite direction calling Dashiell’s name. Slowly we shined our lights over the grass and up into the trees.

  I passed the spot where I’d found him last time. Not there. If
he’d slipped into the creek, we’d need more than flashlights to find him. I pushed such a horrible thought to the back of mind. He wouldn’t go far, I wanted to believe. But if his blood sugar crashed, he could be lying unconscious anywhere.

  When I reached the fence and ran my beam along the bottom, I took a deep breath and thought about cat behavior. Sick cats hide. This was their instinctive reaction, seeing as how a vulnerable cat could become prey to a larger animal. While Tom eased his way down toward the creek, I called out to him. “I’ll search the shrubs around your house.”

  I continued to focus my flashlight on the ground, looking right and left as I walked back toward the house. Tom had thick holly bushes lining his house in the back and as I turned the flashlight on them, bright red berries glowed like tiny Christmas ornaments. A great hiding place, I thought.

  “Dashiell,” I called. “Come here, baby.”

  A tiny meow in response. Plaintive. Afraid.

  My heart sped, but not wanting to scare Dashiell, I kept a quiet, even tone as I knelt and extended my hand in the direction of the sound and said his name again.

  I moved the light along the ground, but at first I didn’t see Dashiell—though I heard him again.

  I did find something, though. Something my brain couldn’t make sense of at first.

  A hiking boot.

  But as the flashlight captured the shape completely, I realized to my horror the boot was filled by a foot and the foot was attached to a bent leg. The rest of the person was hidden beneath the prickly holly.

  “T-Tom,” I said. But I spoke too softly for anyone but Dashiell to hear. I backed up and then ran in Tom’s direction. When I reached him, I said, “Come with me. Now. Something’s very wrong.”

  “Did you find him? Is he hurt?” Tom said, following me as I ran back toward the house.

  I shined the light on the blue-jeaned leg.

  Tom knelt and tried to push aside the thick shrubs, but the holly wouldn’t budge much. Tom’s presence did have a positive effect because Dashiell made his way out. Tom swooped him up.