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

by Leann Sweeney

  Candace stepped toward her. “We here in Mercy are sorry for your loss. We’ll do everything we can to find out who did this to your husband. As you requested, you’ve seen your son, so you’re free to leave now.”

  Hilary didn’t seem to be paying attention and instead focused on me. “So you’re Jillian? The woman Chief Baca told me about? The one who cared for Finn?”

  “Um, yes.” I was almost at a loss for words. When I heard both Tom and Finn disparage this woman, I’d developed a mental picture of someone who looked like a Halloween witch, maybe even cackled, too. Not so. She was stunning. Since I couldn’t see a line or a wrinkle on her expertly made-up face, it was difficult to even guess her age.

  Candace said, “Chief Baca is finished talking with you, so as I said before—”

  “The chief was so very kind,” she said, her Carolina drawl thick as sorghum. “Is there a place in town I could stay while I wait for Nolan’s—” She pulled her lips in as if trying to gather herself. “For the postmortem to be done?”

  “All the motels are maybe ten miles north once you get on the interstate,” Candace said. “We do have a bed-and-breakfast in town, though.”

  “Do you think I could stay there on such short notice?” she asked.

  Candace turned. “B.J., would you please help Mrs. Roth call the Pink House?”

  “Sure enough,” B.J. answered.

  Candace and I stepped aside to allow her by. As she passed me, she said, “Thank you for helping my boy. He’s been so troubled lately.”

  Up close, I did see a few fine lines around her eyes. Her scent was familiar—Chanel No. 5, like Kara wore. I was still surprised by her. She seemed kind and genuine. No, not a Halloween witch at all.

  Candace put a hand on my back and told me to join Tom and Finn. “I’ve got to talk to the chief for a second.”

  I’d visited the other interrogation room, the one where a suspect could be handcuffed to the table. Pretty awful. This one was different and looked more like a barren kitchen. The maple table had to be fifty years old and the four high-back wooden chairs might have come straight from my grandparents’ estate sale.

  Finn was sitting next to Tom, and I took a seat across from them. I poured water into a paper cup from the stainless pitcher in the center of the table and took a long sip. My mouth was a little dry after meeting Hilary.

  “Water?” I asked Finn.

  “No, thanks,” he said.

  Tom slapped a pack of Trident gum in front of Finn. “How about this?”

  Finn smiled. “You remembered.” He punched out a piece of gum from the packet and popped it in his mouth.

  Tom then offered the gum to me, but I refused.

  I didn’t want to even mention Hilary, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “You mentioned you lost your phone. Are there friends in North Carolina you might want to talk to? Like from your high school?”

  “I only had one guy I hung with and he left for Duke a couple months ago,” Finn said.

  “If you want to call him, you can use my phone anytime. Friends are important.” I was thinking about how smart Finn seemed, how polite and well spoken. He should be a freshman in college like his friend, not sitting in a police interrogation room. I was puzzled as to why he wasn’t in school, but then immediately realized this kid may not have had anyone to help him get into a university. My late husband had told me how he helped Kara every step of the way when she applied to college. But what did kids like Finn do when they distrusted almost everyone in the entire world? They retreated, hid in their rooms. And then, when they got the chance, they ran. Yes, I understood why Finn was now sitting in a police station and not at Clemson or Duke or UNC.

  Candace came through the door, strands of hair flying free around her temples. She set a clipboard on the table. When she poured herself a cup of water, I noticed her hand shake.

  She sat and smiled at Finn. “Okay. We needed to talk a little more and I’m glad you came.”

  “Talk more about the gun?” Finn said. “I said I don’t know anything about it.”

  She said, “We’ve already spoken about the weapon. I’d like more information about your relationship with your mother and stepfather.”

  “Please quit using any word with father in it. He was Nolan. Just Nolan.” Finn reached for the pack of gum and took out another piece. He didn’t put it in his mouth, just turned the little white rectangle over and over between his fingers.

  “I get you didn’t like him,” Candace said evenly.

  “Haven’t I talked enough? I don’t know anything else.” Finn remained focused on the piece of gum he was fiddling with.

  “Maybe we can go back to before you left home. You remember that much, don’t you?” Candace said.

  Finn kept rolling the gum between his fingers.

  “If Mr. Roth hadn’t been murdered,” she went on, “it wouldn’t be any of my business. But I have to do my job. We’re working together—you, Tom, Jillian, all of us—to find the killer. But I need more facts.” She tilted her head down, probably hoping he’d make eye contact.

  He didn’t. “What did my mother tell you?”

  “She said there were problems between you and Nolan,” Candace said.

  Tom fidgeted in his chair as the topic turned to Hilary. “I’m not about to bad-mouth Finn’s mother, but take whatever my ex-wife says with a grain of salt.”

  “What Tom’s trying to say is, she lies. All the time,” Finn said.

  Candace pulled the clipboard toward her and poised a pen over the blank paper. “About what?”

  “She lied about Tom after they broke up,” Finn said. “She told me he never wanted to see me again. Only took one text message to him for me to find out that wasn’t true. See, she thinks I’m stupid. Thinks I can’t figure things out for myself.”

  “Did she and Nolan get along?” Candace said.

  “I guess. But I pretty much stayed in my room since he got out of jail,” Finn said.

  “How long ago was he released?” she asked.

  “A year.” Finn finally put the second piece of gum in his mouth.

  “You’re saying you hardly talked to him?” Candace said. “Things must have been tense around your house.”

  Finn looked Candace straight in the eye for the first time. “Oh yeah. By the way, he was a bigger liar than she is. They deserved each other.” Finn blinked a few times and then said, “Sorry. He’s dead and no matter how big of a jerk he was, I didn’t want him to die.”

  Tom rested a hand on Finn’s forearm. “Tell her why you left, Finn.”

  Finn hung his head. “With my friends gone off to college, I got tired of being alone except for Yoshi. They wouldn’t even let him out into the rest of the house. He had to stay in my room. So I stayed with him.”

  Tears stung my eyes at the thought of Finn and Yoshi alone in a bedroom, day after day.

  “What else did you argue about besides your dog?” Candace asked.

  “It’s hard to argue when you don’t talk to people,” Finn said.

  “You did graduate from high school?” Candace asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, sounding calmer now.

  “If things at home hadn’t been such a mess he could have been first in his class,” Tom said.

  “I know you’re a smart kid,” Candace said. “And you probably have information you don’t even realize—and nothing to hide, right?”

  “Nothing to hide.” Finn’s face clouded with uncertainty. “At least nothing I can remember.”

  Candace said, “Let’s see if I can help you put yesterday back together. What’s the very last thing you remember?”

  Finn’s features seemed to relax since she’d switched her focus off his family. “I got a ride with a trucker in Greenville about midday. He was headed for Atlanta. Dropped me at a gas station in—I don’t remember the name of the place. I have maps and GPS on my phone, but I lost it somewhere. Anyway, I hitched another ride with some man in a U-Haul who sa
id he was moving to Woodcrest. I knew Woodcrest was near where Tom lived. The guy let me off on the road into Mercy. Yoshi and I started walking. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “Somewhere between here and Woodcrest.” She scribbled notes on her clipboard. “Should be able to check the timing if we find the guy in the U-Haul. Must be you hit your head bad enough to get a concussion along the highway. You’re sure you don’t have a clue how it happened?”

  Tom sighed heavily. “Candace, he’s told you what he knows. Give the kid a break.”

  “I have one more request,” she said. “Fingerprints. Then y’all can leave.”

  Tom nodded. “Knew that was coming. Let’s get it over with, then.”

  “Be right back.” Candace left the room.

  “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” I said.

  “She didn’t keep on about my mother and Nolan, so I guess not,” he answered.

  Tom said, “I hate to tell you this, but you’re gonna have to be more specific about why you left home sooner or later. Your mother was in with Chief Baca when Candace and I came back here with the gun. Hilary probably said plenty, not much of it true.”

  “Do you know how long she’d been here?” I said.

  “When Candace and I arrived with the gun, B.J. told me she’d been waiting around for almost an hour before she went in to talk to Chief Baca.” He turned to Finn. “Mike only has her version of why you ran, even though he was here last night and knows exactly what I think of my ex and her dead husband. My advice is to set Candace straight in as much detail as possible. But not yet. First I want to find out what cards Hilary’s already played. Mike will tell Candace and she can fill us in.”

  Finn nodded solemnly.

  Candace reentered the room holding what looked like a smartphone. Turned out it was a portable fingerprint scanner—a new evidence tool. No wonder she seemed happy. Candace loved anything to do with evidence. She was just finishing up with Finn’s prints when we heard a female voice, one I recognized immediately.

  “Oh no.” Tom rubbed between his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

  But Finn’s expression brightened. “Is that Nana Karen?”

  Twelve

  Finn rushed from the interrogation room and the rest of us followed. He flew through the gate dividing the hall from the front office and into the arms of Karen Stewart—Tom’s mother.

  From their tight embrace, I could tell Karen clearly adored this kid and he seemed to love her, too.

  Tom, who was standing next to me, said, “I should have fought for custody even though I wasn’t his real dad. He deserved more moments like this.”

  “Is there any other family—like his biological father?” I asked

  “Good question,” Candace said as she scrolled through the fingerprints she’d just scanned in. “Has he ever been in the picture?”

  Karen placed her hands on either side of Finn’s face and started asking him questions. They were in their own world. I’d never seen her smile so big.

  Tom said, “The father’s name is Rory Gannon. Hilary once told me he’s mentally ill. When he was institutionalized, she divorced him, took Finn and got as far from him as her money would take her.”

  “You ever meet him?” I said.

  “Nope. He never paid child support. Never showed his face. A phantom. As far as I knew, she was a single mom, with a fantastic kid, who deserved better than an uninvolved ex-husband.”

  Candace said, “I have to send these prints to the crime lab, but I have more questions for you, Tom.”

  He sighed heavily. “About what? I want to help, but I’m tired and I know you are, too.”

  “I need to know more about what went on between you and Nolan Roth.” She started to walk down the hall away from us. Over her shoulder she said, “See, I just talked to the chief. He said Mrs. Roth claimed to know nothing about Nolan making you drive to North Carolina and the dustup between you and Roth.”

  “You don’t believe her, right?” Tom said.

  Candace stopped and turned back. “I’d say those bruises on your face are enough evidence for me. But to satisfy the chief, who seems quite charmed by your ex-wife, by the way, I need more details with a time line, Tom. Right now, I’ve got evidence to examine. So go on, all of you. Get some rest. I know where to find you.”

  She walked to the end of the hall and disappeared into the office across from Chief Baca’s.

  Tom’s face had gone red with anger. “Hilary knows exactly what happened in North Carolina. I’m sure she planned the whole thing.”

  I rested a hand on his arm. “Listen, you’re exhausted. Come to my house and just… relax for an hour or two.” Even as I said the words I knew he couldn’t. The man I thought I’d known so well—a man always in control, strong, kind, generous—was showing a side I’d never seen. The past had come back to throttle him and he was angry, worried and confused.

  “Thanks, Jillian, but right now—”

  “I understand. Please know I’m with you all the way. Anything you need, well… anything. I’ll do what I can.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Right now, I need to talk to my mother. Any help you can give me with her would be much appreciated. She likes you.”

  We walked hand in hand through the squeaky wooden gate and joined Finn and the woman he called Nana.

  Karen Stewart, in her late sixties, wore a gray coat and her familiar black cloche hat. She was no longer coloring her dark hair. Silver and black strands escaped the hat and curled on her forehead and temples.

  She addressed me, not Tom. “Look where I find my boys. In the police station, of all places. What should I do with these troublemakers, Jillian?”

  “Tough question,” I said. “I’d say a meal might be in order. Can we discuss this over lunch at the diner?”

  Finn’s eyes lit up.

  I added, “An eighteen-year-old needs more than toast and milk—which is about all Finn’s eaten today.”

  “Let’s fix that,” Tom said.

  The Main Street Diner turned out to be exactly what Finn needed. He looked happy for the first time since I’d met him. The three of us watched him put away fries, three of the diner’s famous Texas chili dogs and a root beer float. Karen seemed as cheerful as he was as she nibbled on a salad and drank hot tea.

  I still didn’t understand why neither she nor Tom had ever mentioned a kid they both obviously loved, but each family has their own way of dealing with problems. After I’d finished my hamburger, I decided to quit wondering and bring up the subject.

  “I was so surprised to meet Finn,” I said. “You all care a lot about each other.”

  “We do, but Finnian’s home situation has not always allowed us to visit with each other,” Karen said. “Especially after Mr. Roth was released from prison last year. I suspect Thomas said nothing to you previously, Jillian. He certainly wouldn’t engage me in conversation about what to do concerning Finn’s home situation.”

  “This has been a little surprising,” I said.

  Tom cleared his throat. “I—I felt frozen by the system, what with Finn still being a minor and all. I’d chat with him online and then put away my thoughts. See, I know what Hilary’s capable of. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I believed even mentioning him to anyone I knew might somehow get back to her and she’d find a way to completely shut me out of his life. But now that Finn is eighteen, things will be different.”

  Finn said, “Nolan was just as bad as Mom. He wouldn’t let me talk to Nana Karen or Tom. I did anyway, though. He just didn’t know.”

  Didn’t know until you disappeared and Nolan checked your computer, I thought. “Was Mr. Roth so upset with Tom for sending him to jail he decided to punish all of you this way?”

  Finn swiped his last three French fries through a puddle of ketchup. “That’s about right.”

  Tom said, “We decided it was best not to let anyone know we were still in touch. Keep the peace, in other words.”

  “You see, Mr.
Roth was extremely controlling,” Karen said. “He wouldn’t allow Hilary to talk to me either, though she called me without his knowledge on more than one occasion. I have no issue with Hilary, even though Thomas is less, shall we say, open-minded when it comes to her.” She stared over at Tom, seated next to me in the wooden booth. “Thomas, can you explain why I had to find out via a phone call from Hilary that Finnian was in town? Oh, and I also heard you spent much of last night being interviewed by the police. Did you get all those cuts and bruises from fighting with one of the police officers for some reason?”

  “No, Mom.” Tom squeezed my knee and I rested my hand over his. “I planned on calling you to explain the minute things settled down.”

  “The newspaper said the man who died was driving your car. Did he steal it?” she asked.

  “You could say that,” Tom said.

  “How intentionally vague,” she replied. “You always think I’ll fall off the wagon if you involve me in less-than-happy aspects of your life. I won’t, Thomas. I’m stronger than you think.”

  “Maybe you are, Mom. But I don’t like upsetting you. Anything involving Finn might make you, well… overreact.”

  She looked at Finn, her eyes showing her affection for him. “Perhaps you’re right, Thomas. Did you have anything to do with the accident? Is that why the police kept you so long?”

  “There was plenty to discuss,” Tom said.

  I could tell he wasn’t about to elaborate because he might not want Karen hearing about Finn’s head injury right now. Maybe she’d be upset because Tom called on me to help Finn rather than her.

  Finn’s gaze went back and forth between Tom and Karen. “He kept the police busy to help me, Nana. When Tom saw it was Nolan who crashed the car, Tom figured he came to town looking for me. See, I left Mom and Nolan to come here.”

  Tom said, “Can we talk about something else?”