The basement search came next, followed by the rest of the house. When Candace was done peeking in every corner and opening every drawer to look for those infamous bloody clothes, another hour had passed. Then we sat in the living room and she took my formal statement.
After I’d told her every detail again, aside from Shawn’s helping me, she said, “I’m glad you didn’t bump into the murderer when you went up those stairs or you might be gone now, too.” I saw her swallow hard. “That would have saddened me to no end.”
“Guess I wasn’t thinking straight.” But the truth was, I probably wouldn’t have done anything any differently. I could never ignore the cries of a helpless animal.
Candace placed her hands on the clipboarded statement and stared up at the high ceiling.
“I don’t have a secret hiding place up there,” I said.
“Oh, I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was wondering who coulda done that to Mr. Wilkerson. He may have been a mean son of a gun, but a knife in the gut isn’t exactly the best solution to a problem.”
Though I didn’t want to involve Shawn, I had to tell the whole truth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then said, “I have something to tell you, Candace. It could mean nothing, but you—and I mean you as a
“Go ahead,” she said.
But before I could say another word, all three cats joined us. I said, “They’ve been so busy playing, they’ve missed out on our conversation. Merlot especially likes human talk.And I have to admit I speak to the three of them all the time.”
Candace said, “Then tell your friend Chablis to be careful.”
The Benadryl was finally doing its job—she had a slight problem putting one paw in front of the other. She kept running into sofas and ottomans.
I swooped her up before she hurt herself, and she was happy to curl up in my lap.
Candace said, “Okay. What else do you need to tell me?”
“Shawn went with me yesterday—to see Mr. Wilkerson,” I said.
“Jeez. Why didn’t you say so before?”
“I didn’t want to get him in trouble. He seems like a great guy, and he cares so much about his rescues,” I said.
Candace leaned back against the sofa, looking depressed. “This is bad. Real bad. Shawn is the nicest guy you’d want to meet, but he has had his share of problems when it comes to his furry friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one thing, we got this county dogcatcher who comes around once a week or so. Shawn gets a little, well,
“Passionate how?” I said.
“Let’s just say the guy’s got a restraining order against Shawn.”
“I had no idea. Any other, um,
Candace said, “I shouldn’t be talking about any of this. It’s police business and I have to tell the chief right away. But before I leave, let’s take a look at this video you have of Wilkerson inside your house.”
“You don’t really need that for establishing a timeline.” I reminded her that I’d looked at the video on my phone in the coffee shop and checked again when I got to the quilt store. That was a pretty tight window—no more than ten minutes—and Martha at the Cotton Company could verify the time I left the store.
But of course Candace wanted to see the video anyway, and so I took her to the office and she burned a DVD of Wilkerson chasing my cats.
When she stood up from my computer desk, disk in hand, she said, “Perfect. Time-stamped and everything.”
“Guess I’m done here,” Candace said. “I’ll phone the chief and find out when I can hitch a ride back to my car.”
“I’d be glad to take you anywhere you need to go,” I said.
“Nah. You look like you could use a day at one of them spas to relax. Someone will come and get me.”
“You’re looking pretty frazzled yourself.” I tucked a wayward strand of blond hair behind her ear. We had become friends, and I now felt guilty for my self-absorption. She was stressed out, too. “Thanks for being so patient with me. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier about Shawn. I wanted him to get those cats out of that place, and the chief might have stopped that process to question him.”
She smiled. “Darn right he would have. I’ll help the chief understand your reasoning—which he won’t consider reasonable, by the way.” She took out her phone and called Baca. Turned out he was already on his way to pick her up.
After she hung up, she said, “I know Baca upset you today. But he’s a nice guy. He just needs to loosen up. Always so uptight. Even more so since he’s been seeing that divorced woman from the rich side of town. My guess is she has him on a short leash.”
