Leann Sweeney

“And you’re sure the gorgeous Marian Mae Temple has nothing to do with this competition between you two guys?” I said.

“No way,” he said emphatically.

Perhaps a little too emphatically, I decided.

He brought me home not long after, and we spent another couple hours getting to know each other better. Merlot stretched out between Tom and me on the couch. He’d never done that when John and I sat side by side, and I wondered if my big Maine coon was making sure I stayed a respectable distance from this man. But when Merlot turned over for Tom to rub his belly, I figured it was more about getting some affection.

The conversation finally came back to the murder, and I decided to show Tom what I’d done with the shredded paper from the Wilkerson house. Three cats knew what was up and followed us, hoping to get into that darn closed-up sewing room. But they were shut out again.

I flipped on the lights and Tom stared at the pinned-up pieces on the design wall. Finally he said, “All the talking in the world couldn’t tell me this much about you.”

“What does that mean?” I said.

He waved at the wall. “You are a persistent, precise woman. Actually, you should work in a crime lab. They have to do stuff like this all the time. Put pieces of paper back together, look at bugs and dirt and all sorts of crap people never think is important. You’ve gone above and beyond here, Jillian.”

“Funny. Ed said how we throw stuff away before we even know how important it might be,” I replied. “I guess this is an example of how what Flake Wilkerson saved might be important.”

“Good old Ed. He is one cool dude and the best thing that ever happened to my mom—even though he looks like the Unabomber.”

“I’m fond of Ed myself. But back to this.” I waved at my work. “You’ve been inside plenty of Mercy houses these last few years. Do you recognize this gray cat?” I said.

He tilted his head one way and another, looking at the half-constructed pictures. “Doesn’t look like any of the cats Wilkerson had. But why are you even doing this?”

“Because . . . This may sound silly, but I know this is important to finding out what happened last Sunday. And I may not be a policeperson, but I do know how to piece things together. Here, check this out.” I pointed at the photo I’d printed of Sophie that was pinned next to the piecing project.

He stepped closer to the board, and since they were stuck up there at my eye level, he had to bend to compare them. “Similar,” he said. He rotated a finger around where I’d pieced the cat’s front left leg together. “This looks different than the printed-out picture, though. Or is there some trivia about cats changing their spots that I’m unaware of?”

I laughed. “You’re just confirming what I thought. Two different cats.” I pointed at Sophie. “This is the cat Mr. Wilkerson stole from his own daughter. Does it look like any cat you’ve seen, say, in the last year?”

“Cats hide when I work in someone’s house, so I’m not a source of useful information, I’m sorry to say. I might have seen this cat, but that’s like asking me to pick out a specific banana I saw in a bowl on someone’s counter two weeks ago. No can do.”

“Okay,” I said. “It was worth a shot.” I glanced at my watch. It was past midnight.

“Time for me to go?” he said.

“Yeah. But thanks for being so open with me. And for understanding about, well—”

“You hoping to get information from me?” he said. “Anytime.”

His smile was so infectious, so honest, I grinned back. But the major blush burning my cheeks? I had no control over that.

I’d been energized by our evening together, and after he left I returned to finish the gray-cat puzzle. This may not be Sophie, but my gut told me it was important.

Obviously Wilkerson was using every available resource—newspapers, the Internet, postings of lost animals, shelter visits. And no doubt he bought cats at shows if someone had sent him a picture looking for a cat to replace one they’d lost or that had died. This gray cat could belong to someone way under anyone’s radar. Finding a name or phone number connected to this particular cat, or one I hadn’t pieced together yet, could provide an important lead.

Returning to the project at hand, I clicked my gooseneck quilting lamp on so I’d have plenty of light and began the search for the right puzzle pieces to finish this picture.

Two hours later I’d put together enough to know it was definitely not Sophie—even though there were even more similarities than I had seen initially.

Not about to let a little fatigue keep me from smiling, I stood back and admired my work. This was indeed a flyer for a lost cat. And I’d put together every shred. I had the name and phone number I’d been hoping to find.

This lovely, long-haired gray cat was a Mercy-ite—a cat that had once, or perhaps still, belonged to one of the few people in town I knew.

Twenty-six