“Do you mind? That litter I’ve already got is a handful,” he said. “Mom’s getting healthier, but we’re still tube feeding.”

“Don’t mind taking them, but Syrah, Chablis and Merlot might,” I said.

Doc Howard said, “I brought vaccines and will examine all the cats before we take off. But until their feline AIDS and parasite tests come back, these cats must be kept away from your pets.”

“I have plenty of room, so no problem. Do you do this often? Help out like this?” I said.

He knelt and offered a hand to the white cats cowering in the corner. “All over the state. Terrible cat and dog stray problems, especially in rural areas like this.”

His attention was fully focused on the cats now, and I had a job to do, too.

The calico almost looked like she was smiling up at me as I pulled the crate into her prison. Her kittens were feeding-two mackerel tabbies, a bicolor orange and white, and a calico baby that had less white than mama cat. I squatted near them and talked soothingly for a few minutes, noting that she and the kittens lay on straw. That professor hadn’t even given them a blanket. I’d just finished about a hundred cat quilts for a future craft festival in Atlanta, and one of those little quilts would soon be put to good use.

I opened the crate door, thinking that would help Miss Calico get used to it, but she amazed me once again. She stood, washed her babies’ faces and licked all their bellies. Then she proceeded to lift each by the scruff and carry them one by one into the crate. Once she’d carried the last one in, she stayed in there with them.

Meanwhile, Shawn was having an awful time scanning the other cats, but he finally finished.

He walked over to my jail cell, wiping sweat off his brow with a forearm. “Cats never like to be told what to do.” At least he was smiling. “Seems you had no problems.”

“She put her litter in the crate all by herself,” I said.

“No way.” He came around and bent down to look at them. “Pretty bunch. But she’s not in a position where I can get a good scan. We’ll take care of that later. Let’s get out of here. This is a bad, bad place.”

Shawn carried my crate, and when we passed Candace on the way out, I said, “You look deep in thought.”

She blinked and met my gaze. “I am.”

“About evidence you found?” I said.

“No, I’m thinking about the why of what we found here. Seems like someone came and rescued most of the cats and may have killed the professor. That conjures up plenty of suspects of the animal-activist kind-people who thought these cats weren’t being treated as they should.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?” She brushed a stray blond hair off her furrowed brow.

“They left cats behind,” I said. “No true animal lover would leave even one behind. Not in a million years.”

After Shawn, Doc Howard and Jane took the cats out to what Howard called his “portable vet clinic” for examination, Lydia instructed me to wait in the living room so she could question me. If I hadn’t been such a mess from my encounter with barbed wire and fields of jasmine and goldenrod, I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on one of Professor VanKleet’s grubby armchairs. The original color was long lost in a layer of filth. But I was probably dirtier than the chair. I sat, my scratched-up hands clenched on my knees

Our Mercy vet, Dr. Jensen, arrived carrying a crate less than a minute after I sat down. I said hello and started to rise, ready to lead him to the cats in the bathroom. But Candace came in right behind him and gestured for me to stay put. Minutes later, he passed back through the living room carrying the orange and the tabby in the crate. I’d known him long enough to detect both his urgency and his concern when he departed. Please, oh please, let them be okay, I thought.

Lydia, to her credit, kept me waiting for only ten minutes and brought along Morris Ebeling as her designated note taker. He sat in the equally dirty chair opposite me. After Lydia considered her option-a torn-up, stained Victorianesque sofa-she remained standing, her manicured hands on her hips.

“Tell me about this adventure of yours this afternoon. Candy filled me in for the most part, but I’d like to hear your version,” she said.

I didn’t trust her gentle and reasonable tone for one instant. I wanted to say, “You are one crazy quilt, Lydia,” but instead I kept my voice even when I said, “Are you worried I may have somehow managed to pour this poison-what was it, strychnine?-down Professor VanKleet’s throat?”

“Well, I never thought of that, Jillian. You have opened my eyes to a whole new realm of possibilities. I know how much you love cats. Is that motive enough to kill a man you thought was mistreating them?” Her syrupy smile made me want to vomit.

Morris cleared his throat. “Um, Lydia. Do you really think-”

“Morris, you’re here to take notes,” she said.

“But I am the acting chief, and-”

“Which you’ve told me a hundred times. Sorry, but Jillian has brought a crime theory to our attention, and I hope you’ve written her words down for our report.” She focused on me again. “Now. Tell me what happened today.”

I did. If I wanted Lydia to leave me alone, I needed to relate everything as dispassionately as possible-just the facts, ma’am-and so I recited what had gone on since Wednesday night, including the premature kittens and the missing cow.

“Good. That matches what Candy told me. You can go,” Lydia said abruptly. She waved in the direction of the door. “If you were trespassing here, I figure that’s Candy’s business.”

“My business, too,” Morris said. “And from what you’ve told me about this poison and when the rigidity wears off, Ms. Hart was probably with Shawn Cuddahee at the time the man died.”

“And you’re discussing this in front of her?” Lydia whispered to him out of the side of her mouth.

Morris reddened. “She’s no suspect in my book, but as for the cats-”

“Who cares about the cats? You can leave, Jillian,” Lydia said. “There’s no compelling evidence that you had anything to do with this death.” So she believed me just like Morris did? Thanks to what I guessed was a recent Botox treatment on her forehead, it was hard to read her.

I said, “I’d love to go, but I don’t have a ride.”

“That’s right. You’ve been playing policewoman with your pal Candy again. Don’t go calling up Tom and pleading for him to come and pick you up. Morris will find you a ride.” She returned to the kitchen, and all I could do was give the palms-up “I don’t get it” gesture to Morris.

But once he walked me outside in search of a ride from fireman Billy Cranor or a paramedic who might still be hanging around, we found Shawn pacing at the end of the driveway.

He said, “Been waiting for you. Need a lift back to the sanctuary?”

How could I have forgotten that I’d agreed to take the calico and her litter home? Stress, I decided.

I believed Morris was more grateful than I was for Shawn’s presence. He thanked Shawn and headed back toward the house.

The crated litter and their mom-her white tag read DAME WIGGINS-were in the backseat of Shawn’s extended-cab truck, and they made no sound. Sleeping, no doubt. What a long, awful day for everyone. On the way back to the sanctuary, Shawn told me that Dr. Jensen believed the most pressing issue with the cats from the bathroom was dehydration. Dame Wiggins was in amazingly good shape, but then she’d found a way out of her cell in search of food, probably more than once.

I shook my head, feeling terrible about what the cats had endured. “What was wrong with that professor?”

“Whatever it was, he paid in spades. Man, the way his body was all twisted up was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen. The other cats seem a little malnourished, but not nearly as bad as those two Dr. J. took to his hospital.”