He said, “Do you have your phone?”
I called 911 and it took only five minutes for a squad car to come squealing around the corner of Tom’s street, siren blasting. It was followed close behind by not only the paramedics, but the fire department. In Mercy, it’s an all-out effort when there’s an emergency.
Deputy Rodriguez rushed to our side. He shook the foot, saying, “Hey. You stuck under there?”
No response.
Tom handed Dashiell to me and ran into his garage. He returned with his hedge cutters.
“Can you pull whoever it is out?” I said.
“Don’t move them,” Marcy, our paramedic friend, said as she came up and dropped to her knees by the prone figure. “I can check for a pulse on the foot. Might need help taking the boot off, though.”
“Let’s do it,” Rodriguez said, untying the dirty boot.
Once the foot was bare, looking waxy in the artificial lights, she pressed two fingers on the ankle. She moved her fingers around the top of the foot, searching for what was apparently an elusive pulse. Finally she looked up, her lips pressed tightly together, and shook her head. “His foot is cold and there’s no pulse. Unless this is a woman with very large feet, you’ve found a dead man.”
Firefighter Billy Cranor came running up, holding a gigantic battery-powered light. “Will this help?”
“Light him up, Billy,” Rodriguez said, still kneeling by the body.
Billy only illuminated what we all could see—the leg and bare foot. Nothing more. He said, “How the heck did he get under there? Unless someone was trying to hide him under one of the meanest bushes I’ve ever tangled with.”
“You’re gonna have to cut away the holly to get to him,” a voice behind me said. “Let me get my camera before you start. We’ll probably need crime scene tape, too.”
It was Candace. She wore sweats and no makeup. Even in the dim castoff from flashlights, I saw dark circles under her eyes.
“Tom, Jillian, can you go inside, please?” she said.
“Sure,” I replied.
Dashiell was purring, but I knew he was purring more from stress than from anything else.
Tom said, “I’ll step aside, but I’m not leaving until I know who died in my backyard.”
Candace uttered an exasperated sigh. “All right. Just stand back.”
I was glad to leave, but when I remembered who was inside the house, not quite as relieved.
“All this firepower for a cat?” Bob said with a laugh when I came in through the front door—the door Candace had suggested I use. “Tom is the man in town, I guess.”
The police cars, fire engine and paramedics had gotten Bob’s attention.
“Are you kidding me?” I said, feeling all my Southern upbringing abandoning me. But I regrouped and said, “There’s a dead man out there. Right under the dining room window.”
The TV still blasted, sounding about ten times louder than it probably was. I went over and stabbed the off button. When I turned around, Bob was headed for the dining room.
Holding Dashiell close, I followed.
“Wow,” he said, peering out the window. “Who is it?”
I pulled the drapes shut because I didn’t want to be like the people who stop and gape at an accident scene. I said, “We’ll find out soon enough.” I went to the kitchen to test Dashiell’s blood sugar before we had a feline emergency to deal with, too.
After I finished, with Bob hovering behind me, I read the monitor and found though Dashiell’s sugar level was a little high, he wasn’t in trouble. I picked up his water dish, walked past Bob and took Dashiell to Tom’s room, where his little cat bed sat in one corner. I wanted to find him a safe place to stay because I expected the house would soon be flooded with emergency responders all wanting to hear what Tom, Bob and I had to say. Now what? I thought. I was stuck in this small house with a narcissistic, overgrown adolescent. Heck, Finn was more mature than Bob. Finn. I needed to call him, let him know the situation.
I’d no sooner disconnected after telling Finn we’d encountered a problem and didn’t know how long I’d be, when Billy Cranor came busting through the front door with Karen in tow.
“Billy Cranor,” she was saying, “you take your hands off me or I’ll have a serious talk with your mother when we meet at church on Sunday.”
Billy gave me a pleading look. “Mrs. Hart, could you keep Tom’s mother company while we’re busy outside?” He looked past me and saw Bob. “Who’s he?”
“One of my other sons,” Karen said, shaking free of Billy’s grasp.
Billy’s mouth agape, he seemed to be processing this information. All he said in response, however, was, “Okay. Whatever.” He left.
“What in heaven’s name is going on?” Karen said. “I heard sirens and saw the lights. Where’s my Tom?” She looked back and forth between Bob and me and I saw panic in her eyes.
“He’s fine,” I said. “He’s outside helping the police.”
Her shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes. “For a minute there, I thought something terrible had happened.”
“Don’t worry. Tom’s okay. But something terrible has happened,” I said. “There’s a body in Tom’s backyard.”
“Oh my sweet good Lord. Who is it?” she said.
“We don’t know yet,” I answered.
Her fear resurfaced. “Where’s Finn? Where’s my grandson?”
“He’s at my house,” I said. “I just finished talking to him. He’s safe.”
Karen rushed to me and gave me a giant hug. “Bless you, Jillian.”
I glanced at Bob, who’d gone unacknowledged by his mother. I could see the hurt in his expression. Old hurt. The kind of disappointment he’d probably experienced most of his life.
“This is all very heartwarming,” Bob said. “But since it looks like we’re stuck here for the duration, anyone want a drink?” He eyed his mother. “Wine, Mom? Oh, I forgot. You prefer vodka.”
Any sympathy I might have felt for Bob a second ago disappeared.
Karen paled and pulled her fleece robe around her. I looked down and could see she was wearing emerald green silk pajamas with cream piping around the hems.
She said, “I will forget you said those words, Robert. This is a difficult situation. I could use a glass of water about now. My mouth is so very dry.”
Not wanting to leave her alone with Bob, I took her hand and we went to the kitchen together. I hadn’t noticed what a mess the kitchen was while attending to Dashiell. Knowing Tom as well as I did, I decided the overflowing garbage, the dishes in the sink and the beer cans lined up on the counter were all Bob’s doing. Tom may have been stubborn enough not to pick up after him, but I wasn’t.
But before I could tackle the kitchen mess, I heard Candace’s voice in my head: Evidence can be anywhere. I always preserve the crime scene as thoroughly as I can.
If the man outside had been the victim of foul play, Tom’s home would become part of her crime scene. As difficult as it was to do nothing about garbage, cans and dirty dishes, I poured both Karen and myself glasses of water. With my hand on her back to guide her, we went out to the living room. Karen sat in a padded dining room chair in the corner by the TV. Tom’s dining room was too small to accommodate all the chairs around his table, so he used two of them for living room seating.
Karen still seemed stunned but finally looked around and realized Bob was present. “Oh. You’re staying here. I forgot. What do you know about this horrible turn of events?”
“About as much as you do. Dumb cat gets out again and then all hell breaks loose in the neighborhood.” Bob chewed on his thumb, glancing anxiously back to the dining room.
“Dashiell’s smarter than a tree full of owls. Some cats are even smarter than certain humans,” I said. I didn’t add aloud that Dashiell was probably smarter than Bob, but from his expression, he got the message.
I heard the muted jumble of voices outside and those sounds, combined with the whirling p
olice lights flashing blue and red through the front curtains, made me feel as uneasy as Bob appeared to be. I wondered then if he knew who was lying dead under a holly bush outside. I even went so far as to consider the possibility he had something to do with the man’s death. I blinked away these thoughts. The thought of Karen and me sharing space with her son, possibly her murderer of a son, was too unsettling.
We didn’t have to wait long for Deputy Rodriguez to join us. He looked at me, probably because I was the only friendly face in the room. “We need you and Mr. Cochran down at the station so we can take your statements.”
Karen rose abruptly, spilling her water all over the floor in front of her—and she didn’t even seem to notice. “What about me?”
“Were you here within the last several hours?” Rodriguez said.
“No, sir,” she said. “But I live right around the corner.”
“We’ll just need Mr. Stewart, his brother and Mrs. Hart for now,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said.
“Go on home. I can drop you off, if you’d like.” He glanced at her slippered feet. “Not safe walking home in the dark without shoes, Mrs. Stewart.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, seeming confused as she stared down at her feet.
I swallowed, finally ready to ask the big question. “Do you know who the dead man is?”
“The stranger who’s been causing problems in town. Guess he crossed the wrong person,” Rodriguez said.
“Rory Gannon?” I said.
“Yup,” Rodriguez answered.
For some reason, I wasn’t surprised.
Twenty-one
Tom, Bob and I were escorted to separate rooms at the police station—Tom to one interrogation room, Bob to the other while Rodriguez put me in Chief Baca’s office.
I sat in the chair across from Mike’s desk and noticed how completely silent it was in here, as if he’d had his office soundproofed. I took a few deep breaths, wondering how long I would have to wait. My thoughts turned to Finn alone at my house. I took out my cell phone and checked my cat cam.
He must have taken Yoshi to bed because, though there were several Dr Pepper cans on the coffee table, he wasn’t in the living room. I did see all three cats asleep in different spots.
Then I thought about poor Dashiell, who had been dropped off at Karen’s house. Tom had told me once she had no clue what to do for a diabetic cat should there be an emergency, even though he’d tried his best to show her how to test the kitty’s sugar. But until we were free to go, Dashiell had to stay with someone. When Tom phoned her with the request, she agreed to take him. Tom made sure to give her Doc Jensen’s number in case of an emergency.
I glanced around Mike’s office, which was devoid of personal photos. But the walls were filled with police academy certificates, sharp-shooting awards, a commendation from the mayor and town council. For some reason, I’d never noticed these items before. Maybe because I’d never been in his office all by myself. Mike was a good guy, but of late, with all the budget cuts, he’d become much more of a political animal. After all, chief of police was a position appointed by the town council.
As the moments ticked away, I finally allowed myself to wonder about Rory Gannon. Somehow he’d found his way to Tom’s house. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since he’d been showing up anywhere Finn might be in Mercy. There, he’d met his death. Why? And how had he ended up beneath the holly? Like Billy Cranor said, those bushes weren’t exactly people friendly. Maybe he’d started to crawl under them so he could peer into the dining room and had suffered a heart attack. But I had the sick feeling something far more sinister had happened.
I realized I was squeezing my left hand with my right, afraid of learning the truth and yet wanting to know at the same time. I hated this anxious feeling and was almost ready to get up and see if Candace had arrived so I could get answers. Before I moved, the door opened.
Lydia Monk flew into the office like she was riding a witch’s broom. Her blond hair looked like a lion’s mane surrounding her face.
“You again,” she said with contempt. “When I heard you were the one who found the body, well, let’s say I volunteered to come in here and be the one to interview you. See, I’m getting darn tired of you interfering in Tom’s life.”
She walked around to the other side of Mike’s desk and sat in his black leather chair opposite me. She wore a low-cut purple sweater and a leather vest, along with plenty of makeup. Giant silver hoop earrings dangled near both cheeks. She put a small tape recorder down on the desk.
“Hello, Lydia,” I said, mustering every ounce of composure I could.
“Okay,” she said, glancing around Mike’s tidy desk. “I’m not sure what in the heck you thought you were doing at Tom’s house. You don’t belong there.” She started opening drawers and finally said, “Ah,” and pulled out a legal pad. Lydia took a pen from a container on the desk and turned on the tape recorder. “This is Assistant County Coroner Lydia Monk interviewing Jillian Hart at the request of the Mercy Police Department.” She gave the date and time, then said, “What do you know about this dead man?”
“Not much, really,” I said.
She sighed in exasperation, turned off the tape recorder and echoed, “Not much, really,” in a mocking tone. “Listen to me, Miss Prissy. This is the second man in a week dead by another’s hand and somehow connected to you. You better tell me everything, starting now.”
Dead by another’s hand. Murder, in other words. “Why did you turn off the tape recorder?”
“Bothers me. Can’t do a decent interview. They can rely on my notes,” she said.
“W-where’s Candace?” I said.
“You think your friend will come in and rescue you from the hard questions?” she said. “She’s busy with the real suspects. Yeah, you’re no suspect in her eyes, but I might prove her wrong.”
“You believe I killed a man I hardly knew?” I said.
Her eyes shifted, as if she was trying to pull some theory out of the air to confirm her crazy suspicions. “Let me give you a heads-up. Tom has a brother. He has a stepson. He has an ex-wife. How much did you know about these strangers?”
“As much as anyone. They’re people from Tom’s past.” I avoided eye contact with her. Anything not to get her more agitated than she already was.
“I know they’ve all caused trouble, so what’s your part in his problems?” she said.
I would never understand how Lydia’s mind worked. I decided my job right now was to be as cooperative as possible and maybe she’d leave me alone. “What exactly do you want to know, Lydia?” I said.
She stared at me for several seconds, eyes narrowed; then, thank goodness, she looked down at the legal pad. “Why were you at Tom’s house tonight?”
Feeling less nervous, I explained how Tom, Finn, Bob and I had all been at Karen’s place earlier in the day. I told her how Finn and Tom left for his house when Hilary arrived and that I’d gone home. When I came to the part about Finn and Tom coming to my house later on, I saw her press the pen into the paper a little harder, but she didn’t look at me. When I told her how Bob allowed the cat to sneak out again and that I’d accompanied Tom back to his house to help look for Dashiell, her almost-rational behavior disappeared again.
She slammed down her pen and leaned toward me. “Why would he trust you? Why can’t Tom see you for the Mata Hari you are?”
I shook my head in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
The door opened behind me and Liam entered the office. He smiled down at me and then addressed Lydia. “Did you get the time line I asked for?”
Lydia stood. “Yes, Mr. Brennan, I did. This woman here had plenty of time to kill the man. She says she was alone all afternoon. No alibi. Now, I may not be a doctor but, like I told you over at Tom’s house, Mr. Rory Gannon was dead for several hours before his body was found.” She glanced at me pointedly. “Found by her with a knife wound in his
back.”
The shock I felt must have been written all over my face. She was accusing me of murder in front of the Assistant DA.
I was relieved to see the corners of Liam’s mouth twitch upward. “Your theory is Mrs. Hart murdered Rory Gannon? What evidence have you collected to support this conclusion?”
“She hasn’t implicated herself,” Lydia said, sounding less convinced. “But she had the time.”
“I see. I’m sure you have paperwork to complete for the coroner. Thanks for stepping in when the police needed extra help.” Liam stood away from the open office door to allow her to leave.
“Sure.” She tore off the notes she’d taken, but before she could leave with them, Liam glanced at the tape recorder and said, “You have her statement on tape?”
She pulled off a few pills on the arm of her sweater. “No. I couldn’t work the thing. I don’t use tape recorders.”
He held out his hand. “Then I’ll need your notes.”
She looked at Liam, her mouth tight, and then turned them over before she left.
I let out an audible sigh once she was gone. “I am so glad you’re here.”
He closed the door. “Two murders in less than a week. You bet I’m here. Kara was worried about you, by the way. Her new assistant told her about the 911 call at Tom’s house. She was on the scene sooner than I was. Once I learned they’d taken you here, I told her as much. She was relieved you’re safe.” He perused the yellow piece of paper as he walked around and took a seat in Mike’s chair.
“Lydia said Mr. Gannon was stabbed?” I said.
“Yes,” he said absently, still reading what Lydia had written.
“No one has confessed, I assume,” I said.
He looked at me. “Wouldn’t a confession tie this up nicely?” He held up the paper. “This, despite Lydia Monk’s propensity to want to find you guilty of anything, is lucid. Thanks to this, I see there’s another person we need to bring in. Do you know where Finn is?”
I swallowed. “H-he’s at my house. But he didn’t even know his father.”
“I’m not saying he’s guilty of anything, Jillian,” Liam said. “He was at Tom’s house, probably around the time Gannon was killed. He could know something.”
The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon: A Cats in Trouble Mystery Page 17