Leann Sweeney

The next morning, still in my pajamas, I snapped off several photos of my design wall creation while Merlot, Chablis and Syrah sat in a row staring at my work like patrons at an art gallery show.

“It’s fantastic, isn’t it?” I turned to smile at them and saw that Syrah had disappeared. I get no props around here, I thought. But I saw one of the garbage bags filled with paper move, and then a brown nose appeared at the very opening of the bag. Syrah was probably thinking, Just let those other two try and share my new playground.

I ran down the hall with the camera, ready to print pictures. Chablis thought this was great fun. She raced after me, and when I bent to dock the camera, she jumped on my back.

Even with claws digging into me, I managed to press the right buttons. While the pictures printed, I carefully removed my cat from my skin. Then I lifted Chablis so we were face-to-face and said, “Someone else had a missing cat last year. I need to see about this.”

She began to resist our conversation, so I put her down. She sat by the computer table, watched the pictures appear in the tray and lifted a tentative paw. But I snatched them up before she could further explore the magic of the amazing paper so I could examine my work.

I nodded. “Good job, Jillian.”

An hour later I was in the minivan and off to Marian Mae Temple’s house. I got her name and phone number off the flyer and found her address in the telephone book, but she hadn’t answered her phone. Maybe she was in the shower; maybe she wasn’t even awake yet. Strange, because it was well past nine a.m. and everyone in this town seemed to be early risers, judging by the line to get inside Belle’s Beans when I drove past.

The pictures of the pieced-together shredded flyer lying on the seat next to me told me that Marian Mae had lost a gray long-haired cat last year, if the date at the top of the computer-generated flyer was correct. Since I’d mentioned my plight to her and she probably knew about this whole Wilkerson investigation via her boyfriend, Mike Baca, why hadn’t she said anything?

I had a guess. She’d done business with Flake Wilkerson, maybe paid a pretty penny for Sophie as a replacement for her lost cat, a cat named Diamond, as I’d learned from the once-shredded flyer.

And then, before I made it to Marian Mae’s house, the commonsense button clicked on. Hadn’t I speculated that whoever had Sophie didn’t want to give her up and might have killed Wilkerson? Duh, yeah.

But Marian Mae? She didn’t fit my image of a knife-wielding killer. She struck me as someone who would be annoyed if she got dirt on her shoes. All that blood? Nope. Couldn’t be her. There had to be a different explanation.

Maybe she and her boyfriend were getting coffee together this morning? Her boyfriend. That was who I needed to talk to, not her. But did Baca even work on Saturday? Candace could tell me. Besides, she would want to know what I’d found out.

She sounded tired when she answered her phone. “Carson here.”

“Is Baca at the office today?” I said.

“Huh? Only a few of us work on the Saturday day shift. And one of the ‘us’ would be me. What do you need?”

“I need to show him something. Can you give me his number or tell me where he lives?” I said.

“You can’t go to his house.” She sounded mortified that I would even consider this.

“Maybe you wouldn’t go there, but I’m one of those tax-paying citizens who provides his salary. Tell me where he lives. I can find out myself, but—”

“What’s going on? Maybe I can help,” she said.

“Know who lost a long-haired gray cat last year?” I said.

“What is this about? And talk fast before Morris gets back here with our coffee.”

I explained what I’d learned from Tom and about Marian Mae’s lost cat.

Candace said nothing for several seconds. When she finally spoke, she sounded none too happy. “Wait on this, okay? She and Baca are probably going to get married, and if she needs investigating, then—”

“I only want to call him. What’s wrong with that?” I said.

“This may be nothing. Marian Mae lost a gray cat just like Sophie. Can you spell coincidence? How many gray cats do you think passed through Wilkerson’s slimy hands?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is not how to go about this. What if Marian Mae no longer has a cat? What if it’s permanently lost? What if she’s a victim of Wilkerson just like you and Mr. Green and Daphne and who knows how many more? What if she got so upset about losing—Diamond, is that right?”

“That’s right,” I said morosely.

“What if she was so devastated by losing her cat that she decided to never talk about Diamond again. Hurtful chapter closed. We know Sophie’s female, but what do you know about Diamond? If someone like Marian Mae used Wilkerson’s Match-a-Cat service or whatever he called it, she was paying big bucks. She’d want a close match. And you told me there were plenty of differences.”