Leann Sweeney

“Not that many, but I get what you’re saying.” I felt completely deflated. Here I thought I might have found Sophie right here in town.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said. But her tone more than implied that I was. “I’m only saying that you can’t bring my boss’s girlfriend into the picture based on theory and coincidence.”

Candace was putting me down and I felt awful. No one likes to be wrong, much less have someone hammer home just how wrong she might be. I couldn’t think of anything to say that might convince her this was important.

After a strained silence she said, “Jillian, I’m sorry, but—”

“I’ll talk to you later.” I closed the phone and tossed it on the seat next to me. Was I really as stupid as she made me sound? Maybe. But here was a lead, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I’d spent two nights piecing together what I thought was an important clue, only to be shot down by one of the few friends I had in this town.

I’m overtired, I thought. Not thinking straight. But no matter what Candace said, no matter how many hours of sleep I’d lost, I had to tell Baca about this. He would know about Diamond and if the cat had ever been found. Of course, he might not be happy to have me asking questions about Marian Mae, but a lead is a lead. Now all I had to do was find out where he lived. No phone book to offer an address this time.

I stopped at the grocery store, hoping that David the bagger could help me. I was completely surprised when he blurted out, “Michael Baca, phone number unlisted,” followed by his address. It was as if he’d memorized every name and address in Mercy.

Baca’s house wasn’t far from downtown, in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. He answered the door so quickly after I knocked that my heart skipped. It was like he was waiting for me to show up or something.

Oh boy. Had Candace called him?

If so, he wasn’t giving anything away. He said, “What are you doing here?”

He was wearing blue jeans and a Carolina Panthers T-shirt. Seemed fitting he’d be wearing a shirt bearing a cat—albeit a very big, snarling cat—this morning. His sandy hair wasn’t combed and he hadn’t shaved yet. This casual look made me hope he’d be less uptight—like the Mike Baca who’d talked to me at the Finest Catch.

“Can I come in?” I said. “I have a few things to run by you.”

He glanced back over his shoulder and showed no sign he was ready to invite me in. “Can’t this wait until I’m at the station on Monday?” he said.

“I don’t think so. Candace says police officers are never off duty. Is that true?”

He opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Did she send you here? Because if she did, this better be important.”

“She didn’t. I promise,” I said.

“Let’s go into my office.” He led me through a small foyer, past the living room and down a hall.

As he opened his office door, Marian Mae appeared at the end of the hall wearing a terry-cloth robe and with a towel wrapped around her head.

She said, “Honey, who are you talking—Oh. Hello, Jillian.”

“Work, Mae. Sorry,” he said.

“No problem,” she said cheerfully.

Baca practically pushed me into an office that revealed a new side of the man. What a mess. Books piled waist high, folders covering a love seat against one wall and a computer desk buried under a mass of papers with Post-it notes stuck everywhere. And here I’d taken him for a neat freak, the way his office at the police station looked.

He removed a stack of files from a padded chair so I could sit and took his desk chair, swiveling to look at me. “What’s so important?”

“Did Candace show you the photos of my cat and the poor deceased cat that belonged to Mr. Green—that man I went to see?”

“She dropped them off here last night. As I said yesterday, I’m willing to concede that the cat business the victim was running is more important than I previously believed and could have played a part in Mr. Wilkerson’s murder. I’ve received confirmation of this through a second independent source.”

He was talking about Tom’s forensic work on that hard drive, but I wasn’t about to let him know I was aware of that. I’d gotten Candace in trouble with this guy, and I didn’t want to add Tom to the list.

“I’m glad to hear that straight from you. I know you’ve been thinking I was a pain in the butt, and now I hope you realize I’ve been trying to help. I also wanted to make sure you got those pictures of my cat and Mr. Green’s. Those two Abyssinians could have been twins.”

“You came here for that? I’m not buying it, Jillian. What’s really going on?”

I felt nervous. And dumb again. He and Candace were right. This could have waited. But I was here and I might as well say what I came to tell him.

I pulled the computer-generated photos of the gray cats from my pocket. “Were you aware your friend lost a cat last year?” I handed over the picture of Marian Mae’s lost-cat flyer.