“Sounds like you’ll be busy,” I said.
“Plenty busy. Need to write up the interviews, too. Interesting family, huh?”
“That’s for sure. I’d love to hear your take on them,” I said. “And Kara seems to have connected with Brandt. Promised to text him. She could help you.”
“I caught that connection. Maybe she can help,” she said begrudgingly. “Oh, by the way, I found out that besides the stolen kibble I told you about Saturday night, the town butcher reported a break-in last week. I have to give Gabe a call, see if he remembers anything else besides the stolen hindquarter.”
Gabe Newton ran a busy butcher shop and specialized in making smoked-deer sausage during hunting season, not to mention preparing deer for those who just liked to shoot the animals and eat them while skipping the messy stage in between.
“You’re thinking that the meat found in the professor’s kitchen was stolen from Gabe?” I asked.
“Seems possible. But we don’t have anything from the state crime lab yet on what kind of meat we found at the scene. When it’s raw, it all looks the same to me.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
I leaned against the doorframe. “So Professor VanKleet stole a cow, cat food and probably that meat? I wonder what else.”
“I thought maybe the strychnine,” she said. “I figured the professor could have stolen or bought that from Rufus, but if that were so, Rufus woulda come straight to Morris or me when he found out how the professor died. But he didn’t do that on Saturday . . . and Sunday, he’s dead.”
“Do you think someone purchased strychnine from Rufus and that’s why he freaked out when I brought it up?” And then I had an idea that made my heart speed up. “Rufus could have been the one who told Mr. Ski Mask that I was asking questions about poison.”
Candace leaned back in the chair. “Yup. I’ve been going down the same road. Rufus went straight to Mr. Ski Mask, probably the poison buyer, and next thing you know Rufus is dead and you’ve got an unwelcome visitor. Why kill Rufus, though? I don’t get that.”
“And why not kill me, too?” I asked. The thought made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Had I been that close to ending up like the professor and Rufus? And how close was I now?
“Wait a minute,” Candace said. “What if Rufus didn’t know his sale would lead to a murder? After you told him about the professor’s death, he goes to this guy—pretty dumb move, I’m sorry to say—asks the wrong questions and gets himself murdered.”
“And Mr. Ski Mask didn’t kill me because I didn’t know who he was—only Rufus did. Why didn’t Rufus tell me—or tell you? He’d be alive today if—”
“Hold on. Don’t go blaming yourself. Rufus made a bad decision. If he kept records, we’ll find out who bought that poison,” Candace said.
“Maybe it was the person driving that white van.” I paused for a second. “But there’s something else. A missing piece. I don’t know exactly what that is, though.”
Buying the new phone turned out to be a confusing experience. I came away with one that looked like Kara’s—a “smart phone” is what Tom called it. Smarter than me, probably. But I trusted Tom when he told me I would get much better videos and be happy with his choice once he showed me how to use it. And I so looked forward to that part, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him.
Kara’s car wasn’t in the driveway when we got back. When I asked Candace whether she knew where Kara was, she said she remembered Kara popping her head in to say she was leaving.
Tom had followed me into the roomy study so he could program the new tech device and then I could receive my cat-cam videos.
“Where did she go?” I handed Candace the bag containing the burger she’d asked for and the side of fries I knew she wouldn’t refuse.
Candace stood and took the bag. “She didn’t say, even though I asked.”
“Maybe she’s meeting with Brandt, which doesn’t make me all that comfortable,” I said.
“She’s a big girl, Jillian,” Tom said.
“I know, I know,” I said.
“Jillian should worry. Kara’s a little overconfident, if you ask me,” Candace said.
Tom looked quizzically at Candace. “Why don’t you like her?” he said.
Candace’s face reddened. “I like her just fine. But she busts into town and shows up at the police station like she owns the place. That’s what I don’t like.”
“Sounds like you’ve got the confidence problem—in the opposite direction,” Tom said. “Come on, Candace. You know how good you are at what you do, right?”
“He’s right. You’re a great cop, Candace. The best Mercy’s got,” I said.
“That’s the absolute truth,” Tom said. “Don’t think Kara—or any reporter, for that matter—can investigate better than you can.”
“Okay,” Candace said with a small smile. “I surrender to the superior judgment of Jillian and Tom. But, please, Tom, promise me you won’t share any case information you hear with Kara.”
“You want me to recite the Boy Scout laws?” he said. “Trustworthy is one of them.” He looked at the ceiling and smiled. “But you know what? I can’t remember honesty being on that list.”
“Don’t be a smart aleck,” Candace said. “I’ll tell you both what I just found out, and it goes no further than this room for now. Right?”
Tom said, “Right.”
“You know I don’t tell secrets to anyone besides my cats,” I said.
Candace set down the bag of food, placed both hands on the desk and leaned toward us. “Guess who got arrested and then kicked out of college for chaining himself to a campus truck shouting that the ferrets in his father’s college lab should be set free?”
“Evan VanKleet,” I said.
Candace looked deflated. “How did you know?”
“I can’t see Brandt, the law student, partaking in civil disobedience before he’s had a chance to graduate.”
“Why are you so excited about learning this?” Tom said.
“That means he’s an activist—or maybe a wannabe activist. There were others involved in that little campus temper tantrum. And this was at the school where Evan’s father used to work. Maybe his activities took a different form when he found out that his father was researching pet food at the farm,” Candace said.
“You think Evan took those cats?” I said. “Or maybe even killed his own father?”
She said, “Maybe. It’s a jump in logic, I know, but—”
“You got that right,” Tom said.
She smirked at Tom. “Thanks for the encouragement. Anyway, it’s a place to start. By the time I finish, I’m 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.
“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?” Candace’s tone was hard.
That tone worried me. I was sure that getting angry with Evan wouldn’t help. Hoping to maintain the connection between Evan and me, I said, “Brandt seems to have a lot of power in your family. That must be difficult to deal with.”
Evan took a deep breath and blew out through his lips like he was inflating a balloon. “No kidding. He kept hammering into all of us that the relatives are always suspects and that we didn’t have to tell you anything.”
“You ‘ratted out’ your father,” Candace said. “What does that have to do with his murder?”
“I’m not sure, except that’s what led to him moving to that farm. See, I went to visit Dad in his lab about a year ago. The door was locked, but he’d given me the code, so I went in to surprise him. First thing I saw were these animal carriers, about five of them . . . and there were cats inside. My father was supposed to be doing research with ferrets and their immune system. But he had all these cats.”
“So you asked him what he was doing,” Candace said.
“Right,” he said. “But what I didn’t tell you today is that my dad was bipolar. He took medicine for it most of his life. He’d go off his meds every now and then, and I could tell that day in the lab that he was definitely off. It was his eyes, you know?”
Like the look he had in his eyes the day I met him at Robin’s farm? That’s what was wrong with him, I thought. “What about those cats?” I said. “Do you think he was researching their immune systems rather than working on the ferrets?”
Evan said, “I didn’t know what was up, but I got a bad feeling because the cats looked thin. Not really sick, just thin. Since my father was a cat lover, that seemed odd. And when I asked him about them, he told me to forget what I’d seen and keep my mouth shut. Said he had a plan that was better than winning the lottery.”
&nbs
p; “Did you ask him what he meant by that?” Candace asked.
“He kept rambling on about amino acids and millions of dollars. He was obviously using the lab for something he shouldn’t, and he needed to get back on his medicine. That’s all I could think about.”
“What did you do, Evan?” Candace said.
“I told my brother. He said I had information about improper use of a research lab and that what my dad was doing was a crime. He said I had to tell the department head. God, I didn’t want to do that.”
Candace said, “Brandt tells you to ‘rat out’ your father and then tells you to not talk when the police ask about his murder. That’s messed-up thinking, Evan.”
“I know,” he said, his anger finally flaring. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Did you tell the department head about the cats?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, seemed to be trying hard to keep his emotions in check. “Brandt said I could do it anonymously. And rather than the department head, I sent a letter straight to the college president, thinking he’d know about my dad’s illness, help him get back on his meds and send him back to work.” His eyes grew moist, and his lips trembled with emotion. Syrah leaned his head back and looked up at Evan. He knew the kid was upset. “But that’s not what happened. They fired him. And all because of me.”
Syrah wasn’t the only one who could tell this was tearing Evan up inside. I saw it, too. Evan knew his father had been doing something wrong, but he still loved him.
“You felt guilty, huh?” I said.
“Oh yeah. So I decided to leave the dorm and move in with him, make sure he stayed on his meds. Mom always made sure he took them, but see, she’d left him, and Brandt had been away for years. He didn’t care if Dad took his pills or got in trouble or got fired. He hated him.”
“I’m trying to understand, but I’m not sure what this has to do with your father’s murder,” Candace said.
I made room for Merlot, who wanted to squeeze in next to me on the chair. “I think I get it. It explains why Professor VanKleet was in Mercy,” I said.
The Cat, The Professor and the Poison Page 17