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

by Leann Sweeney

“Can you tell us about her history?” I said. “When we do go in and assist her to leave, I want her to feel we understand her.”

  The pastor nodded. “You seem like a wise woman. All right. Before we get started, would you two care for tea? I was just about to ask my wife to bring a pitcher over from the pastorium. If you’d prefer hot tea, we can arrange that. It is chilly today.”

  “I am a confirmed iced tea addict,” I said.

  Pastor Mitchell smiled broadly and asked Tom, “What can I offer you?”

  “Whatever you two are having,” Tom said.

  “Iced tea it is. Meanwhile, please have a seat.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the two leather padded chairs facing his desk.

  Tom helped me take off my coat while the pastor made the call to his wife.

  As we waited for the tea, Pastor Mitch filled the time by asking more questions about my cats, about Tom’s job and about my stepdaughter, Kara. Apparently he had met her when she did a piece about rural churches for the small local paper. Kara was editor-in-chief and owner of the Mercy Messenger.

  When Mrs. Truman finally wheeled in an old-fashioned tea cart, Pastor Mitch knew far more about Tom and me than we knew about him.

  The pastor stood and smiled warmly at his wife. She was smartly dressed in gray wool. I even caught a hint of pearls beneath her coat. Her skin was a good two shades lighter than her husband’s and the mahogany-colored wig she wore beautifully accented her creamy skin tone.

  After introductions, Mrs. Truman said, “So nice to make your acquaintance.” Then she turned to her husband. “I am glad you caught me, Mitchell. I have a meeting of the Pastors’ Wives Association in Greenville, if you’ve forgotten.” She looked at me. “Pastors’ wives have a lot to talk about.”

  “These folks have come to ask questions about our Jeannie,” the pastor said.

  She looked surprised. “But she’s been gone for so long. Why would you be asking about her now?”

  “Because she’s not gone anymore,” I said. “She’s been living in the old mill.”

  A wide-eyed Mrs. Truman said, “Oh no. Who would have thought anyone could live in that place? Is she all right?”

  “Hard to say. We only met her briefly,” I said. “But I think she needs to be checked out by a doctor. If she’s been living in that dungeon-like atmosphere, I’m sure she has a few health problems.”

  “You’re probably right,” the pastor said.

  “Bless poor Jeannie’s heart. This is simply unbelievable. What are you waiting for, Mitchell? We need to get over there right now,” Mrs. Truman said.

  The pastor explained how we wanted to approach the problem and Mrs. Truman, after some argument, agreed. “She was always a very stubborn soul. But Lord knows I cared for that woman. I tried to find her and her daughter a permanent home. We couldn’t continue to let them live with us. Our mission is to uplift the downtrodden. Give them hope as well as charity. I offered to relocate Jeannie to a place in the middle of the state near Columbia.”

  “A shelter?” I said.

  “Not exactly,” Pastor Mitch answered. “So many folks were displaced as the mills closed up in South Carolina. We learned of several retraining opportunities—sent dozens of our parishioners to these programs.”

  Mrs. Truman nodded in agreement. “I found a nice, clean group home where Jeannie could be trained for a new position. Her job at the mill had been a simple one. Cutting loose threads from some kind of loom. Problem was, Kay Ellen would have had to go elsewhere.”

  “I’m guessing Jeannie didn’t go for that,” Tom said.

  “They packed up and left the pastorium the minute after I presented her with the opportunity to move,” the pastor said.

  “Kay Ellen wanted to finish up at Mercy High School,” Mrs. Truman said. “The child had friends she’d gone all through school with, so I couldn’t blame her. Plus, she adamantly refused to be separated from her mother.”

  “And yet,” I said, thinking out loud, “Kay Ellen ran away before she ever finished high school and left her mother behind? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Mrs. Truman pursed her lips and nodded in agreement. “That’s exactly what I told Morris Ebeling when he came here asking about the two of them. I was not impressed with his investigation into their disappearance.” She checked her watch. “I could cancel my trip to Greenville. I would like to help in any way I can.”

  I said, “Oh, don’t do that. There’s time. See, we have a meeting scheduled with Deputy Carson to discuss the options concerning Jeannie. Plus, I have put in some calls to friends who know of charitable organizations that might help. I’m waiting on them to call me back.”

  Elizabeth Truman smiled. “I do believe Jeannie’s fate is in good hands. But please know we will be right beside you. Call us for any help you need. Truth be told, I am so relieved Jeannie is alive and it gives us hope for Kay Ellen. Perhaps she is in that mill somewhere, too.” She turned to her husband. “Please text me if I’m needed and I’ll hurry back from Greenville. At any rate, I’ll be home by seven.” She said her good-byes and left.

  Candace had also wondered if Kay Ellen was somewhere in that mill, too. She certainly could be. The place was huge and we’d only seen a tiny portion of the building.

  The pastor told us to help ourselves to glasses of tea—and to wonderful-looking cookies shaped like flowers.

  Once we were settled with our drinks and the melt-in-your-mouth lemony cookies, I said, “There is one thing Jeannie said about the mill. She said it was a holy place and she wasn’t leaving. Maybe if we know what she means, it’ll be easier to convince her to leave. Can you help us understand?”

  The pastor tilted his bald head, considering the question. Finally he said, “People like Jeannie—folks without many skills, without an average IQ—how can I put this?” His brow furrowed. “They have a connection to the earth and to God and to their own instincts about what is right and wrong for them. Jeannie may not be the most brilliant person by modern standards, but she is brilliant in other ways. She understands where she needs to be, what her life is about. She probably believes she is in her own special and holy church. Am I making sense?”

  “Yup. Makes sense,” Tom said. “She’s so strongly connected to the mill, she won’t leave willingly.”

  “Or,” I said, “she believes she has to stay because that’s where her purpose lies?”

  The pastor smiled. “I believe you’re both right. But I’m not sure how much these insights will help you solve the problem. Bottom line, I don’t believe she’ll leave without a fight.”

  “If we can’t convince her, you’ll be available to help?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” he said. “But you need to know that when Jeannie left our care, she was angry. She thought we were casting her off on others because we didn’t care. As my wife mentioned, she is a stubborn soul and might dig her heels in even more if she sees my face.”

  My disappointment must have been evident, because the pastor went on, saying, “Let me tell you one thing that might work. Jeannie is like a child in many ways. She believes in magic and fairy tales. If you bring her options as if you’re telling a story about someone else, about this poor person who lives alone in an old house, and how you need Jeannie’s help to save this person, she might leave with you.”

  Tom said, “In other words, lie to her?” He stood and I got the sense Pastor Mitch had just taken Tom right out of his comfort zone with the storytelling idea. “We have that meeting with Deputy Carson, but thanks so much for taking time to talk to us.”

  The pastor smiled. “I would not consider such a story to be a lie. You asked for my help, so allow me to give you a bit more. You’ve involved the police and that might make your efforts more difficult.”

  “Is Jeannie afraid of the police?” I asked.

  “Not afraid. She was more upset with Mercy PD than she was with my wife and me,” he said. “She haunted that police station after her daughter disappeared. Bothered Morris Ebe
ling to death. I heard she even sat outside his house at times. In Jeannie’s defense, she didn’t know how to get things done in, shall we call it, a socially acceptable way.”

  “Her girl was missing,” I said. “Sounds like she was beside herself.”

  “Oh, we all understood. We knew Jeannie well. We sympathized. But in the eyes of the law, a teenager ran off. Happens all the time. I believe Morris did what he thought he could.”

  Now Tom was the one checking the time—on his phone. But I had another question.

  “How about when Jeannie herself disappeared? Did anyone search for her?” I asked.

  The pastor looked about as comfortable as Tom seemed to feel. “I say this as a man of God who is compelled to be honest. Jeannie’s absence went unnoticed for weeks. I feel guilty about that. Morris did make inquiries after I mentioned to him that I hadn’t seen Jeannie in quite some time. But when all was said and done, I believe there was a certain…relief that she was gone. To many in Mercy, she had become nothing more than a nuisance. We here in the church gathered people and searched for her, just as we had done when Kay Ellen disappeared months before—but I feared we’d acted too late. I am so very relieved she is alive.” He smiled—a smile filled with regret.

  “At least you and your congregation were kind enough to make an effort,” I said softly.

  “When she leaves the mill, I do want to see her—if she agrees, of course.”

  “I will tell her myself,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

  After I put on my coat, Tom and I walked out through a side door the pastor pointed out in the hallway.

  He let out a sigh of relief the minute we were outside. “Didn’t all that stuff about magic and fairies and stories bother you?”

  “Nope,” I said with a grin. “But then, I’m not a guy.”

  “And I am so glad you’re not.” He grabbed my hand and we started for his car.

  But before we’d gotten ten feet, it happened again.

  I felt as if a cat had sideswiped my leg.

  Seven

  Tom and I stopped at Belle’s Beans and picked up coffee for Candace. We got some for us as well since I needed more caffeine than the iced tea had provided. This busy day had started a little too early for me.

  We headed for Mercy PD, located in the back of the courthouse. I saw only two of the six squad cars in the lot. Candace’s RAV4 was there as well. With the police offices in the back of the building and the jail in the basement, it sure streamlined the trip through the justice system for anyone caught drunk and disorderly or defacing property. Most crime in Mercy consisted of those two offenses.

  Candace hugged me when she saw we’d brought coffee from Belle’s. As she led us through the squeaky gate separating the waiting area from the offices and interrogation rooms, I waved a hello at B.J., the gawky college student and part-time dispatcher. Since he was talking on the phone, he simply waved back.

  We entered the break room with its scuffed-up table, small fridge and vending machine. The drafty room sent a chill through me and I was glad we’d stopped for hot drinks.

  Candace hungrily eyed the coffee Tom carried in a cardboard tray. “Which one is mine?”

  Tom nodded at the cup on the left. “Just how you like it.”

  Candace gripped the coffee with two hands and stared up at the ceiling. “Praise the Lord for decent coffee. And thank you both for bringing it.” She looked at me and said, “My mind needs a kick start after trying to piece together Kay Ellen Sloan’s disappearance and then her mother’s a few months later. Morris would never win any cursive awards. These reports are not typed. Even now he makes me do all the computer work since he hates ‘the machines.’ And at times a machine can even be a cell phone to him.”

  “That sounds like Morris,” I said.

  Tom put the tray on the table and when he offered to help me with my coat, I told him I’d leave it on.

  We took seats around the table and Candace filled us in on what she’d learned from Morris’s case notes. He’d spent about a week questioning people in Kay Ellen’s old neighborhood as well as her high school classmates. The girl left without any of her belongings—and that raised a red flag. Plus Kay Ellen adored their cat, but she left it behind with her mother.

  However, when Jeannie went missing a few months later, Morris conducted only two interviews in the woman’s neighborhood. These people speculated Jeannie heard from her daughter and joined her in another town. Morris seemed to accept this because he never investigated further.

  Candace finished her coffee and tossed the cup in the wastebasket behind her. “Thousands of people disappear every week in this country. Unless it’s a small child or we find a puddle of blood where the person was last seen, not much happens. Adults are free to come and go. Every cop knows that making the assumption a person has gone missing because they wanted to might cause problems down the line. But the sheer volume of disappearances makes following up on every single case impossible.”

  Tom said, “And when there’s no pressure from family to look for the missing person, those cases are shelved pretty quickly. Unfortunately, both Jeannie’s and Kay Ellen’s investigations went cold almost at once.”

  Candace nodded her head in agreement. “No one looked too hard for either of them.”

  “We talked to a minister today who took Jeannie and her daughter in when they lost their home,” I said. “He told us the church did a search for both of them. Gathered folks from the congregation and tried their best.”

  “Really?” Candace said. “Morris didn’t mention any searches other than the ones he and his partner back then did. They checked along the creeks that feed into the lake. Made a few searches along Mercy Lake. What church are you talking about, by the way?”

  “Mill Village Baptist Church. The preacher is Pastor Mitchell Truman,” I said.

  “Ah. The mill village. Figures. Why is it that whenever I have to go down to the mill neighborhood to find out who stole someone’s bicycle or to respond to a domestic disturbance call, no one will talk to me? Same holds true for Mercy residents outside the village. Town folk always tell me they don’t know anything about what happens in the village. There’s some kind of divide, but I don’t know what it’s all about.”

  I said, “That’s because no one talks about prejudice—and there’s a long history of it when it comes to mill villagers all over the South.” I went on to explain a little of the history, how most textile workers were considered poor white trash, called names like linthead and worse, and had been discriminated against for generations. But, like blacks who’d suffered even worse discrimination, mill villagers remained a proud bunch. They’d learned to walk tall but say little.

  Candace, who’d been sitting back and sipping her coffee, leaned forward, realization evident in her expression. She said, “Now I get it. Nobody comes right out and says stuff like what you just told me, so I had no idea. See, I was about fourteen when they put the padlocks on those mill fences. My parents never spoke about the mill villagers, but now I understand. Jeez. Wounds inflicted by prejudice heal slowly, if at all. But as a cop, if I can go into a situation with a certain understanding…well, it can make all the difference in an investigation.”

  “Sad to say we don’t have a complete understanding about our history because we stay silent,” I said.

  Tom cleared his throat. “This is good conversation, but back to the matter at hand. Did you happen to tell Morris about Jeannie’s reappearance?” Tom said.

  “I promised to look into the case files first, before we did anything about the Jeannie situation. That said, are you kidding me?” Her eyes had gone wide. “The man gets riled if his coffee isn’t the right temperature. Hearing about the woman squatting in an abandoned building would probably have him driving over to that mill faster than you can say Jeannie Sloan. He’d want to deliver her a lecture about how she wasted his time ten years ago.” Candace smiled at me. “Think I’ll let you tell him. He likes you.”
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  “Um, no. Not gonna happen,” I said. “Let Chief Baca tell him.”

  Candace nodded. “Since Morris couldn’t locate Jeannie way back when, and since the town council won’t be thrilled about this state of affairs, Morris becomes the perfect scapegoat. Yup, I do believe this is a job for Chief Baca. Meanwhile, did you get in touch with anyone to help us convince Jeannie to leave the mill willingly?”

  “I’m waiting on a call from the Upstate Homeless Partnership,” I said. “I’ve heard it’s a wonderful organization and I’m hoping they’ll step in.”

  Candace glanced up at the clock above the fridge. “Sorry. It’s been hours since you told me about Jeannie. We can’t wait. She’s trespassing and if I know about it and don’t do anything before I call it quits for today, I’m in trouble. Phone your friend Dustin and tell him to meet us at the mill with the keys. We’ve got to talk that woman out of there.”

  I sighed heavily. She was right, of course. “But where will you take her? Not to jail, I hope.”

  Tom stood. “I say she needs to be checked out at a hospital. By then, maybe your contact at UHP will call with a solution. Or Pastor Mitch might take her in. Wish I could go to the mill with you, but I have to meet with Penelope Webber about her security system. At least I can keep one council member busy while y’all work on the problem.”

  Candace stood, apparently ready to roll.

  “Wait,” I said, looking up at both of them. “Pastor Mitch said Jeannie dislikes the police—a lot. Maybe you need to change out of your uniform before we try to convince her of anything.”

  “I will happily do that,” she said. “After you phone Dustin, would you mind calling the Main Street Diner and ordering a bunch of burgers and chili dogs? I’m starving. Then we can meet up at the mill, fill our bellies and bring in a bag of food for Jeannie. She’s more likely to cooperate if she’s not hungry.”

  “Good idea.” I took out my phone and as we all walked out to the waiting area, I asked B.J. to give me the number for the Pink House. I then punched the numbers B.J. gave me into my contact list and couldn’t help but sneak a peek at my cat cam. My three amigos were all sleeping, but they would soon awaken. Dusk and dawn are the most active times of day for felines.