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

by Leann Sweeney

  I pulled my jacket more tightly around me. When Candace didn’t answer—she was still hunting for Mike, I assumed—I said, “Mr. Bartlett, I can’t speak for Ms. Webber, but I do have her phone number. Would you like me to give it to you so you can call her?”

  He sighed, seemingly frustrated. “Don’t you think I’ve called her a dozen times already? And who are you, anyway, to be so involved in all this? You make cat quilts, last I heard.” He sounded angry—but then I knew there was fierce competition for this mill property and venting at me was about the only option he had right now.

  “I’m simply a volunteer helping Shawn Cuddahee with the feral cats,” I said evenly.

  Candace must have spotted the chief, because she left without a word, making a beeline into the center of that cluster of onlookers.

  Bartlett rolled his eyes at the sky. “Where is she going? Why can’t I get answers?”

  In a quiet and I hoped soothing voice I said, “This must be upsetting. I guess you were told to come out here today and a circus broke out. Is that why you’re here—because Penelope or someone—”

  “There was talk.” He swigged his coffee. “Once I heard Stanley was over here, that something big was going on, my fellow investors and I had to come, too. They’ve since left, but I’ve hung around waiting for answers and gotten nothing for my trouble.”

  “They did have to get the cat shelters inside,” I said. “You know about the cat project, right?”

  “Yes, yes, but whatever’s going on isn’t about the cats. I heard there might have been a squatter—or vandalism of some kind in that building. If it’s vandalism, I can see why they won’t tell us anything. But, even so, if there’s damage inside, we need to know. We need a walk-through.”

  “It’s getting late, Mr. Bartlett. Too late for you to go inside the mill today,” I said.

  But Lucas Bartlett didn’t seem to hear a word I’d said. “Where’s Stanley?” he said, looking around. “What if they let him inside? You understand he and his motley crew had to scrape and beg for enough money to take on a project like this—and they won’t even be creating the kind of jobs I will.” He pointed at the mill with his coffee cup. “I’m willing to put up good money for that ramshackle place—and I’m betting more funds than he’s offered. What does Stanley want with it, anyway? His father had his chance—and his father before him—and they let it fall into ruin.”

  I said, “I don’t know anything about the politics of—”

  “This may be politics to Penny Webber and her best buddy, Stanley, but it is important business to me. I want answers.” He was shouting now and people around us were beginning to stare.

  I took a chance that perhaps he needed a kind touch rather than a soothing voice and rested a hand on his arm. “If it’s worth anything, with the feral shelters now in place, things are moving forward.”

  He was breathing fast and still staring at the mill. But he nodded.

  “The timeline you’re referring to hasn’t been totally interrupted by whatever has happened inside the mill,” I said. “That’s good news for you if there’s a deadline as far as funding your purchase.”

  He looked at me. “Sorry, but what’s your name again? I’ve forgotten.”

  “Jillian Hart. Call me Jillian, though.”

  He nodded and at last seemed calmer. “Listen, funding isn’t the issue.” He really looked at me for the first time since we’d started talking. “I apologize for losing my temper, but I want answers. The Mercy town council has to understand that this isn’t how to do business. We should be kept informed. For goodness’ sake, they’ve brought in lights and equipment and there were firemen and, of course, the police presence.”

  “I can’t argue with you, but I have no influence over the police or Penelope or…anyone. I’m just a volunteer,” I said.

  Neither of us seemed to notice Ward Stanley’s approach, but suddenly he was right beside us. He looked as worn out as his brown winter coat. Stressed. Tired. And probably older than he actually was.

  “What are you two cooking up?” he said.

  “None of your business,” Bartlett said.

  What was it with these guys? Apparently the competition for the mill was far more intense than I’d realized. “Gentlemen, all I can say is that I know nothing about what’s happening that I can share with you.” I couldn’t share anything I knew because Candace would want me to keep my mouth shut about the poor dead girl in the fireplace. “What about Councilwoman Webber? Have you spoken to her?” I asked Stanley.

  “Nope,” he said. “Doesn’t want to answer questions, is my guess.”

  “Maybe I can find Chief Baca for you, then.” All I cared about was that dead girl and the cats—cats who were probably totally freaked out by all the action inside the mill. Besides, I wasn’t the competitive type and these two men definitely were. Escape from these guys now, Jillian, was all I could think.

  I walked away, leaving the two men in a stare down. There had to be fifty people milling around, craning their necks to see what couldn’t be seen through old red bricks. I caught a glimpse of Kara, talking to a cluster of people, notebook in hand, and then I spotted Candace’s forest green uniform. I slipped between onlookers, hoping Bartlett and Stanley would continue their preoccupation with each other and not follow me.

  When I reached Candace, she was with Mike, who said, “Good to see you, Jillian.” He wasn’t in uniform and that was probably the reason those two money men I’d just run from hadn’t located the chief to hammer him with questions. Good thing his fatigued and drawn features had probably prevented them from recognizing him. Mike didn’t need to be in the middle of their conflict over the mill right now.

  “Ah, there you are,” Candace said—as if I were the one who’d disappeared. “The chief thinks you had a good suggestion about getting an ID on the ring. Let’s go.”

  “Best idea you’ve had all day,” I said.

  We weaved through the crowd with Candace ignoring the questions thrown at her from every direction. Me? I would have stopped and tried to answer every one of them if I had been in her shoes. Obviously I wasn’t meant to be a cop.

  We could have walked to the church, but Candace feared people might follow her—and she was probably right. I led the way in my van even though Candace no doubt knew exactly where we were headed.

  We found the church itself deserted, so we walked over to the pastorium. Elizabeth Truman, not the pastor, answered the door. She invited us in and when I introduced her to Candace she said, “And it’s Elizabeth, ladies. No need to be so formal. Follow me. Pastor Mitch is in his study.”

  “And I’m just Candace, not Deputy Carson,” Candace called after her.

  Elizabeth turned and smiled. “Oh, I know, dear girl. Your reputation precedes you.”

  Out of the side of her mouth, Candace whispered, “What does that mean?”

  I shrugged in response and put a finger to my lips. I didn’t want Elizabeth to think we were talking behind her back, no matter how innocuous the conversation.

  The pastor’s study was far warmer than the hallways we’d traveled through to get to this room. A fire glowed and the atmosphere alone was calming after my encounter with Lucas Bartlett and Ward Stanley. After Elizabeth introduced Candace to the pastor, she started to leave the room.

  I said, “Perhaps you could stay?” In my experience, women tended to pay attention to jewelry more than men did.

  “We need anyone and everyone’s help,” Candace said. “See, Jeannie is having surgery, and—”

  “Oh my. What happened?” the pastor said. He’d stood up when he’d greeted us and now gripped his desk chair.

  “She broke her hip,” I said.

  “That is most unfortunate,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll put her on the prayer list—and if you’ll give me the information, I will take a comforting gift to her when she’s well enough to receive visitors. We have a woman in our congregation who makes the most beautiful afghans for the sick. Our
parishioners will want to add their thoughts and prayers as well.”

  “There is another way you might help,” Candace said. “See, we didn’t want to upset Jeannie today—she’s got enough on her plate—but I’m sure you’ve noticed the mob over at the mill.”

  “Indeed we have. Does it have to do with the new plans for renovation?” Pastor Mitch asked.

  “In a roundabout way,” I said. “But somehow word got out that the police were called here for a different issue and that’s why there’s a crowd hanging around.”

  Candace pulled the bag holding the ring from her pocket. “Do you recognize this?”

  Elizabeth’s sharp intake of air said it all.

  I said, “Did it belong to—”

  Candace quickly interrupted me. “Do you recognize this?” She glanced back and forth between the pastor and his wife.

  “That ring belonged to Kay Ellen,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at her husband, her eyes filled with tears. “She didn’t run off then, did she?”

  “No, ma’am,” Candace said. “She didn’t.”

  “Where did you find it?” the pastor said, walking to his wife’s side and putting a comforting arm around her shoulder.

  “We found this ring inside a mill office.” Candace explained about the bones in the fireplace as the pastor and his wife stared at Candace in horror.

  “Oh my. This is truly the most terrible news. As for that ring, Kay Ellen had a boyfriend. Her first. He gave it to her,” Elizabeth said.

  “What was his name?” Candace asked. I could hear the excitement in her voice in anticipation of this first real clue in a decade-old cold case.

  “I have no idea,” Elizabeth said. “He wasn’t a villager. That was all she would say about him.”

  “So, that was why you didn’t tell Deputy Ebeling much about this boyfriend when Kay Ellen first disappeared?” Candace said.

  “He was so certain she ran away, though he mentioned he’d asked a few young people at the high school about her,” the pastor said.

  “Would Jeannie have known who this kid was?” Candace asked.

  “She never mentioned anything about him to me,” Elizabeth said. “You understand Jeannie lives in her own world. She never shared much about herself except to talk about her old job in the mill or how pretty her daughter was.”

  I said, “Is it possible Jeannie didn’t even know about this boyfriend?”

  After I asked the question, I had to keep my eyes from going wide with surprise, because Boots had suddenly made an appearance. She sat by the pastor’s side, but she was looking up at me, blinking slowly. She might have even nodded.

  “It’s very possible Jeannie knew nothing about Kay Ellen’s friends,” Elizabeth said.

  Candace sighed. “I have a few names from Deputy Ebeling’s report that I still have to follow up on. If you think of anything, remember even a tiny detail, please call me at Mercy PD. They’ll get in touch with me immediately.” She looked at me. “Let’s go.”

  But the pastor said, “Wait. We need information about Jeannie. Where she is. And who will care for her after this operation.”

  I smiled sadly. “That’s kind of a problem.” I told him about the Upstate Homeless Partnership and how they could assist Jeannie only after she recovered from surgery. “I suppose there’s a social worker at the hospital who might have resources.”

  “We have resources,” Elizabeth said firmly. “If Jeannie agrees, we will bring her here.”

  “Indeed we will,” the pastor said with a solemn nod.

  I swore that invisible-to-everyone-but-me cat smiled.

  Seventeen

  Once we left the pastorium, Candace thanked me and said she’d call me later. But before either of us got to our cars, my phone rang.

  “Jillian, this is Shawn,” he said when I answered. “I need your help at the mill.”

  “Hang on,” I said, then called to Candace to wait up. If I needed to get inside that mill, I’d require her help to let me inside the gate. She and Mike Baca now had keys to the place.

  “Sorry, Shawn,” I said into the phone. “What’s up?”

  “I’m at Doc Jensen’s with one of the ferals. Found him lying outside the mill with a broken leg. Once I got here to the vet clinic, I realized I’d forgotten to bring the cat kibble to the mill. Can you pick it up at my shelter and take it over there? Allison has to stay at our place. Can’t leave the rescues unattended, you know.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Are there dishes to fill inside those feral shelters? And what about water?”

  He told me Allison would explain exactly what to do and in true Shawn style, he abruptly disconnected.

  I looked at my phone. “Okay, then.”

  Candace had been tapping her foot impatiently while Shawn and I talked, so I quickly explained that I would need her help getting back inside the mill in a while.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “I’ll be over there having a little chat with my partner about the disappearance of Kay Ellen Sloan and whether he knows anything about a certain boyfriend.” She took a deep breath. “And I’ll be nicer to Morris than he’d ever be to me if I were in his shoes.”

  When she drove off, the patrol car’s tires squealed as if Candace were in her own car. Maybe she’d blow off enough steam in her one-minute drive to follow through on being kind to Morris.

  I climbed into my minivan and took a deep breath. The last two days had been unnerving to say the least. Before I pulled away from the curb, I hit the icon on my phone for the cat cam.

  Merlot, stretched out on the sofa, practically took up two cushions. Syrah crouched on the sofa’s back and Chablis was curled on top of a stack of quilting magazines on the floor. They all looked so peaceful and I could feel my shoulder and neck muscles ease immediately as I smiled at the images.

  “Okay. Off to Mercy Animal Sanctuary,” I said, setting down the phone on the seat next to me. Boots hadn’t appeared on the seat and I wondered if she’d decided to ride with Candace for once. But I knew better. She was riding with me—somewhere.

  Thirty minutes later, the back of my van loaded with bags of kibble, I was headed back to the mill when my phone rang again. It was Candace.

  “Hey there,” I said. “I’m on my way to the mill right now. You will let me drive this stuff in, right? Because carrying—”

  “Do you have any idea where Penelope Webber is?” Candace interrupted.

  “No. But she wouldn’t keep me informed of her itinerary,” I said.

  “We need her here,” Candace said, sounding more than a little frustrated. “These self-important investor types who all skipped their fancy lunches and dinners are cranky. They want answers and the chief isn’t giving any press conferences about what we’ve found. He’s afraid he’ll scare off the businessmen. He wants to tell Penelope enough information so she can act as a liaison. But she’s not answering her phone.”

  “I talked to Lucas Bartlett earlier,” I said, “and he couldn’t reach her, either. If you’re wondering whether I have some secret phone number for her that no one else has access to—”

  “I need a favor. And then I promise I’ll be waiting at the gate to let you in with the cat food. I’ll even help you carry the stuff inside. See, we have to wait here on the professor’s assistant. Apparently he has the correct container to carry out bones with as little disturbance to them as possible.”

  I sighed, feeling weary and hungry, but still committed to helping my best friend, not to mention Jeannie and her lost daughter. “You know I’ll do anything I can,” I said.

  “Could you stop at Penelope’s house?” Candace asked. “Maybe she wants to duck these big problems, but as the lead councilwoman, she should be here. I figure you’d know how to ask the woman to come and do her job in a polite way. I’m really running short on polite talk after my chat with Morris—who told me the high school kids he’d interviewed said Kay Ellen probably wanted to get away from her mother and claimed they hardly knew the girl, anyway.
He confirmed his theory she was a runaway, which is not good police work, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I don’t know Penelope all that well, Candace, and I’m not sure about how to ask her what she’s been doing all day. I mean, what’s the nice version of, ‘Where have you been while all heck has been breaking out over at the mill’?”

  “You’ll think of something. She lives at 116 Grace Street. On the hill. Big house with gables. You can’t miss it.” She disconnected.

  She was the second person to hang up on me in the last hour. I took a nice deep breath. Candace had a lot on her plate and she was my best friend. I would cut her all the slack she needed—because she would do the same for me.

  You can do this, I told myself as I made a U-turn on the deserted highway leading to the mill. Back to town I went, practicing what I would say to Penelope Webber all the way. I finally settled on, Ms. Webber, we’re wondering if your phone isn’t charged, because Chief Baca and Deputy Carson have been trying to reach you and the calls go straight to voice mail. No need to mention Lucas Bartlett or Ward Stanley or the crowd of people still waiting outside that mill, I’d decided as I pulled into her driveway.

  I opened my car door and hesitated. The two-story white house with its black shutters stood in unwelcoming silence in the gloom of this late-winter evening. The birds were all settled in for the night, so there were no happy chirps—and no lights on inside the house.

  No sign anyone’s home, I thought as I slid from behind the wheel. I wondered then about family. Did she have any? But perhaps she lived alone in this giant house. This inner dialogue only confirmed that I knew next to nothing about this person I was about to confront.

  More questions ran through my mind as I walked toward the front door, but when I realized Boots was prancing ahead of me, her white-tipped tail curled in the air, I had to shake my head, bewildered at why this was happening to me. Was I destined to have a ghost cat follow me everywhere from now on? I climbed four steps up to etched glass double doors. Beside each door was a Greek-style urn with green leafy plants that seemed to be thriving even in this chilly winter. I didn’t recognize the leaves, but then, I’m no gardener. The doors were beautiful, surely custom made, but why would anyone have doors where you could practically see straight into the house?