The Cat, the Mill and the Murder: A Cats in Trouble Mystery (16 page)

“You know how he loves to chase anything that’s invaded his territory—even creatures we can’t see.” And I
couldn’t
see Boots right now. Odd how she seemed to appear only at certain times. But I was sure she was there, teasing Syrah. My relationship with a ghost cat, however, was a secret I still couldn’t share with Tom.

Finally I felt ready to talk about finding Penelope, especially after remembering that Tom had been at her house last night on a security job.

I said, “When Penelope called you to work on changing her phone for more security options, did she seem worried?”

“I’ve been mulling over exactly that,” he said. “She seemed…anxious, maybe? More like impatient than worried. Then she got a phone call and hurried me out of her house.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. “She showed up at the mill not long after.”

He said, “I take it the system wasn’t armed when you went inside? Because I would have gotten an alert—that is if I didn’t screw up a connection when I was adjusting her cameras. Before she went racing off, I told her I’d be back to repair that camera. But the alarm would have still gone off had the system been armed.”

“The door was open; no alarm went off. I’ve read enough crime novels to know that might mean she knew her attacker. And man, was that poor woman attacked.”

“What exactly is this heddle hook tool that could be the murder weapon?” he said.

Rather than explain, I grabbed paper and pencil and drew a picture for Tom.

“They used these in the mills?” he said, holding the envelope I’d grabbed to draw on.

“Yes,” I said. “Some weavers actually made their own. The one next to…to Penelope was maybe seven or eight inches long. The little hook on the end can grab thread on a loom and pull it through an eye or even capture loose threads.”

He stared at my crude drawing. “Looks like a thin blade. They’re sharp?”

“They’re usually made of galvanized steel. I just never considered that a tool used in a wonderful, peaceful craft like weaving could become a murder weapon.” I shook my head, feeling renewed sadness over Penelope’s death.

“Galvanized steel?” Tom said. “Wow. That’ll do the job.”

“I saw a couple reed hooks and heddle hooks on the floor in the mill yesterday,” I said. “Maybe the killer picked it up in there.”

“That could mean whoever did the murder had been inside the mill at one time or another,” Tom said.

“Or the person’s a weaver,” I replied. “And who knows if there’re tools and cones scattered on the surrounding property. Or if a former mill worker committed the murder. The mill culture and its demise left a lot of people without jobs—and a bitter taste in their mouths. Maybe Penelope’s enthusiastic campaign to transform the mill stirred up bad feelings that had been lying dormant.”

Tom nodded. “You might be onto something.”

I checked the clock on the DVR and saw that it was closing in on ten p.m. I squeezed my eyes shut and said, “Oh no. I forgot all about Jeannie. She had her surgery today and I wanted to be there when she woke up. She’s all alone, Tom. How could I have forgotten?”

“Because this has been a terrible day,” he said, taking my hand. “Besides, she’s probably full of pain medicine and wouldn’t know you from Adam.”

“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” I said.

“Get a good night’s sleep if you can,” Tom said as he rose.

I stood and he took me in his arms and kissed me good night. Then he said, “I’ll pick you up at, say, eight tomorrow morning?”

“Pick me up?” I said, confused.

“You don’t have a car, remember?” he answered.

“Oh. I
am
tired,” I said. “Yes. Eight o’clock. And thanks for everything today.”

We kissed again and he left.

If I thought Tom could simply drop me off at the Webber house and I’d pick up my van and be off to the hospital the next morning, I was sorely mistaken. First off, I woke after a fitful night feeling groggy. That feeling was replaced by guilt when all three of my cats refused to eat even one bite of food. They just sat and stared at me as I prepared a travel mug filled with strong coffee and rummaged in the pantry for a granola bar or two. I’d not given them the attention they deserved in the last few days and they were letting me know it.

When I heard Tom’s car pull into the driveway, I hurried out the back door, but I did pause to blow the cats kisses. They didn’t seem impressed. My lap and my love were needed at home and I vowed to offer both today.

We reached Penelope’s house within five minutes, but my car was still blocked in by a Mercy PD patrol car—and the dent in the front confirmed it was the car Candace and Morris usually drove.

Crime scene tape sealed the elegant front doors. I recalled peering through those same doors last night and shuddered. As Tom and I got out of his car, I caught a glimpse of someone wearing a green uniform just disappearing around the back of the house.

“I think I saw Candace. She’s out back,” I said, hurrying up the driveway.

Tom called, “Wait. You might disturb footprints. All this crime scene tape is here for a reason.”

I stopped and turned back to face him. “Sorry. I just want to get my van and leave. This place gives me the creeps.”

“I understand.” He yelled Candace’s name through cupped hands and then smiled at me. “That ought to get her attention.”

But it was Morris, not Candace, who appeared from behind the house. He marched toward us, his eyes trained on the ground.

“Hey, Morris,” Tom said. “Long night?”

“Yup, and I’m betting it will be an even longer day.” He stopped about four feet away, his gaze on me. “Suppose you came for your van?”

“I did. Sorry I left it here. I—I had to get away.” I stared at the asphalt, the vapor from my rapid breathing like little clouds of doubt and fear visible to both these men.

“I get it,” Morris said. “Didn’t cause a problem.”

The softness in his tone surprised me and I looked up, meeting his eyes. He seemed not just tired from what had probably been an all-night job here at this crime scene, but weary. Weary to his bones.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Been better,” he said. “These haven’t been my finest days. Chief’s pissed at me, Candace is pissed and we got an old body and a fresh one. I’m thinkin’ I’m gettin’ too old for this.”

“Mistakes were made, man,” Tom said. “Cops make them sometimes.”

“Our quota of mistakes should be lower than civilians’ and you know it,” Morris said. “At any rate, I’m
gonna make this right before I retire. I let Jeannie Sloan and her daughter down with bad police work ten years ago. That ain’t happenin’ again. And havin’ said that, I’ll back my car out and let you go, Jillian.”

He moved slowly, as if his joints hurt, and I wanted to tell him that I believed in him, grouchy old guy or not. But he was already behind the wheel of the patrol car. I gave Tom a quick kiss and went to my van. A few minutes later I was on my way to the county hospital.

I stopped and bought a vase of white roses in the gift shop before I made my way up to Jeannie’s room. No sign of Boots this morning, so perhaps she’d decided her work was done.
I kind of miss her,
I thought as I entered Jeannie’s room.

A woman in dark blue scrubs was checking Jeannie’s blood pressure while another woman in turquoise scrubs stood beside her, stabbing the screen of a computer tablet.

Jeannie’s eyes were closed.

“Is she all right?” I whispered.

The woman in turquoise turned to me. I read
L. REED, RN
on the picture ID hanging from a lanyard around her neck. “She’s fine. She had her first time sitting up and it was tiring,” she said. “Are you the Kay Ellen she keeps asking for?”

I walked across the room and set the roses down on the windowsill, saying, “No. I’m a friend.”

The lady in dark blue—who had
JODY
and
MEDICAL TECHNICIAN
on her picture ID—smiled at me. “She’ll be glad to see a friendly face. What’s your name?”

“Jillian Hart. But I can come another time. She needs her rest and—”

“Please don’t leave,” the nurse said. “She’ll heal faster with the support of friends.” She then touched Jeannie’s shoulder and said, “Miss Sloan, your friend Jillian has come to visit.”

Slowly Jeannie’s eyes opened. I saw her wince and glance down at her left side, but then she looked around and settled on me with a surprisingly bright look. “Ah. Where’s Boots, then?”

The aide placed the call button close to Jeannie’s hand. “Remember, Miss Sloan. You press this and one of us will come help you, okay?”

Jeannie nodded and the two women left.

“Did she come with you?” Jeannie asked, twisting to raise herself so she could see past me.

“Let me help you,” I said. I showed her the controls on the bed rail and how she could raise her head up.

“This is some fancy bed, huh?” she said. “Clean sheets, too.”

The idea that this woman’s spirit would be buoyed by a hospital bed and clean sheets made my heart ache. “I brought you flowers. I hope you like roses.” I pointed toward the window.

Jeannie smiled broadly at what she saw. “I do. And so does Boots. She might eat those petals if we let her stay on that windowsill. Thanks for bringing her.”

Strange, but now I can’t see the cat and Jeannie can.
If Boots decided to stay here, I was sure it would help Jeannie recover more quickly.
Listen to yourself, Jillian. This ghost cat has you convinced she’s real.

“I heard you sat up,” I said, dragging over a chair and placing it at her bedside.

“I did.” She glanced up at her IV tubing. “The medicine they put in this here tube makes it not hurt. Okay, not hurt much.”

“I’m amazed. You’ll be walking before you know it,” I said.

“Today, they said,” she replied. “And I’ll be needin’ to walk if I want to get back home. That’s a holy place, you know. It’s my job to protect it.”

“Protect what?” I asked.

“They was my Kay Ellen’s bones, right?” Jeannie said. “I was sure she was there, been knowin’ she went to a better place all these years. When they prove my spit matches her bones, I’ll need to go back and watch over her spirit.”

She’d recalled the visit from Candace and me—but she had no clue the bones would be moved. She would find out soon enough, and I wasn’t about to upset her while she was fresh out of surgery, so I said, “We can figure that all out later. I was wondering about the night you fell. Do you remember what happened?”

“Them creepers again,” she said. “Always sneakin’ around. I used to shove the desk up against the door so they wouldn’t come in where I stayed. They mean to do harm, them creepers.”

“But you weren’t in…the place you lived when we found you. You were out in the mill,” I said.

She glanced at the window and smiled. “I was look-in’ for silly Boots. Wasn’t sure if one of the stray cats got hold of her or what. And then I heard them. The creepers. So I started to run back to my place and I fell.”

“Have you ever seen the creepers?” I asked.

“Nope. Just hear ’em. They’s always pulling up boards, tearing at plaster. At least that’s what it sounds like they’s doin’. Hard to see much of anything in that old place once they bricked up the windows.”

“You remember them bricking the windows?” I said.

“I was just a kid. Mama and Daddy brought me to work with ’em and I ran errands and stuff for the workers. One day Mr. Ward Stanley himself comes and says they was gonna make the place better with nice cool air. But they took away the sunshine to do it.” She shook her head. “I thought it was a sad day that we couldn’t look out and see the sun and the trees.”

“You worked in the mill from the time you were a
child, then?” I said, thinking she was speaking not about the Ward Stanley I’d met, but probably his father.

She nodded. “Stayed on, too. Worked there until they closed the place up. But I didn’t want my Kay Ellen to be without the sunshine her whole life. She was gonna go to the kinda school they let you go after high school. She had dreams, my Kay Ellen. Big dreams.”

A lump formed in my throat and I slid my fingers between the bed rails and took Jeannie’s hand. “But you said you understand she’s gone, right?”

“Like I said, I was knowin’ that way back when, not that anyone would listen. So I had to protect her restin’ place.” She said this so matter-of-factly, it struck me then that this was a woman who followed a path she’d felt destined to follow, who had a child she needed to protect even in death.

No, I most certainly couldn’t mention they had to move Kay Ellen’s remains. Telling Jeannie about what was happening would have to wait. So I decided to get back to her life inside the mill.

“How long have you been living in that old office?” I said.

“Don’t know. Long time. Once I figured out where Kay Ellen was goin’ the night she disappeared, I went there. And then I knew I’d found her. Felt it—here.” She tapped her chest with her free hand.

“How did you figure out where she went?” I asked.

“I found the boy. The one Kay Ellen fancied. He told me.” Her lips tightened into a line and she nodded curtly. “Yup. Soon as I walked into Mr. Stanley’s old office, I knew I’d found my girl.”

“This boy? You didn’t say anything about him to Deputy Ebeling, did you?” I asked.

“The policeman kept sayin’ she ran off and I wasn’t thinkin’ about this boy. Besides, they wasn’t about to do nothin’. I was from the village, see?”

“So you knew who this kid was?” I said, wondering why she’d never told anyone.

“When I remembered the name, I went to see him. He felt shame, that boy,” Jeannie said. “Told me his mama and daddy would throw him out if they heard he liked my Kay Ellen. And he was afraid, too.”

“Afraid of what?” I said.

“That Morris Ebeling would come after him. Blame it all on him,” she said.

“Blame him for Kay Ellen’s disappearance?” I said.

“I guess. I could see Morris Ebeling doin’ that, too. He always wanted the easy answer.” I heard bitterness in her voice for the first time.

“But maybe this boy
did
hurt her,” I said gently.

She shook her head vehemently. “Nope. I could tell he never done nothin’ to my girl. He was tore up. Brokenhearted. Just like me. I knew where my girl was. I went to the mill and was with her again. That was all I wanted.”