Fat Cat Takes the Cake

by Janet Cantrell

“A dozen of those new ones. The pumpkin ones.”

  “The Harvest Bars?” Mallory asked.

  Chase and Anna stood silent, listening. Chase hoped a clue would drop. Anna, she was sure, was relieved Monique hadn’t seemed to hear the fact that Chase wanted her in jail.

  “And a couple of Peanut Butter Fudge Bars for your husband?”

  It occurred to Chase that a lot of husbands like those. Even Ron liked—peanuts! There might be peanuts in Monique’s trunk.

  “Definitely not.”

  Chase couldn’t stand it anymore. She grabbed some replacement boxes and pushed through the double doors, aiming for the round table nearest the kitchen. “Oh, hello, Monique. How nice to see you here.” She hoped her wide eyes looked surprised.

  Monique answered with a frown.

  “I’m sorry. Is something the matter?” Chase was putting on the best innocent, helpful face she could.

  Nothing. Only more frowning.

  “By the way,” Chase tried again, “the reunion was such a good idea. I’m sure it was you who thought of having it. It’s so terrible that tragedy had to ruin the wonderful memories of that night.”

  “It actually wasn’t my idea. It was Dickie’s.”

  “Ah. Well—”

  “I told him it was stupid. No one has a fourteen-year reunion.”

  “It’s too bad—”

  “My idea was to invite the whole class to a fund-raising dinner. That way, we would know who his supporters were.”

  And raise funds, Chase added silently.

  “And it wouldn’t be limited to our high school graduating class, either,” Monique said. “I have favors all around town I could have called in. I hated the thought of kicking off his campaign in a rinky-dink high school gym. I would have rented a hotel downtown, or the Minneapolis Club.”

  “You belong?” That was a swanky, exclusive place.

  “No, but I know someone who does. He would gladly have arranged it. But no. Mr. Know-It-All Dickie Byrd had to hold a replay of the high school prom, complete with horrid punch and basketball hoops, with bleachers folded up at the sides.”

  “I agree about the punch, but—”

  “Also complete, I might add, with the bad boys spiking it.”

  “There was one difference.”

  Monique shook her head. “Yes, we’re all too old for that nonsense now.”

  Chase had been going to mention the murder in the parking lot. Monique’s car sat at the curb in front. “Can I help you out with that?”

  Monique held up her one box of dessert bars and raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh. I thought you bought a lot more.” No, she didn’t think that, but she was desperately fishing for a way to get Monique to open her trunk. “You know, I think I have a flat tire.”

  “That’s too bad.” Monique moved toward the front door.

  “You don’t have a jack I could borrow, do you?”

  “No idea. You’re welcome to look. I have Triple-A. If I have a jack, I’ll never use it.”

  Rats. She didn’t have any objection. Or was she smart enough to figure out why Chase wanted to peek into her trunk and was trying to throw suspicion off herself?

  “Could I? I’ll be right out.”

  Chase ran into the kitchen and borrowed Anna’s jacket off the hook by the rear door. “Be right back.” She couldn’t take the time to run upstairs for her own coat.

  Monique was staring into her open trunk when Chase got out there. “What does a jack look like?” she asked.

  “I think it’s that thing over there.” Chase pointed to the jack that was strapped to the sidewall. The trunk was tidy and clean. It looked brand new.

  “Help yourself.” Monique waved at the jack and set her purchase on the floor of the trunk.

  Would she put food where she had transported a dead body? There was certainly no blood. No peanuts either, unless Monique had just removed them. Traces of peanuts wouldn’t prove anything anyway, now that she thought about it. But, as Julie had pointed out, there could be piles of DNA that were undetectable with the human eye.

  “You know”—Chase was thinking fast—“I don’t think this jack will fit my car.” That might even be true. Monique drove a Toyota and Chase a Ford Fusion. “Thanks anyway.” She put her hand on Monique’s arm, knowing how she hated to be touched.

  “You always were a little different.” Monique jerked her arm back, brushed off her sleeve, got into her car, and drove away.

  Chase made a face and repeated her words aloud. “You always were a little different.” She decided to add something of her own. “And you were always nuts, Monique.” As much as she hated to admit it, Monique acted entirely innocent. And that trunk was pristine. It was true that DNA would be invisible, but surely something would be amiss if a dead body had been transported in it. That carpeting looked like nothing heavier than a box of dessert bars had ever been set on it. She argued with herself that a good vacuuming would fluff up the fibers after Ron’s slight form had crushed them. If he’d ever been there.

  When she went inside, she wasn’t needed in the salesroom, so she retreated to her office to think. Were any of the suspects on her own list ruled out completely? Were any of them even good possibilities? Were there any reasons for her not to lose hope?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Chase sat at her desk in front of her monitor. It displayed a screen saver depicting a cat watching fish swim past. She ignored the playful image and doodled on a pad of paper, considering each suspect again for about the hundredth time.

  Van Snelson. PRINCE in the blackmail book. Hated kids, even though he had been a high school principal for eons. Was getting into real estate, but not in a good way: swindling poor Hilda Bjorn and others out of their homes. He had probably slept at the high school all night and not left the building to murder anyone or stash any bodies. However, if he was being blackmailed, he might want Ron North dead.

  Langton Hail. PHOTO in the blackmail book. The partner in crime—no, more like the instigator of the real estate swindle. However, he was an alcoholic, now trying to recover by drinking vegetable-laden beverages at Eddie Heath’s Health Bar. She shuddered. That night, though, he had been too drunk to drive and had stayed either inside the school or in his car until morning, when Eddie saw him leaving. If he was faking being drunk, he could have murdered Ron and returned, acting like he hadn’t left. Not likely, but possible. Not only the blackmail, but having a newspaper article expose his dealings, was a fine motive.

  Then there were both Byrds. At first she considered Dickie Byrd because he might want to defend his wife’s honor from her stalker. When she found out they had split up, that motive had fallen apart. If Ron knew about the mistress, though, that could hurt his campaign, so that was a very good motive. He had spent the night with that mistress. She might have fallen asleep while he slipped out, murdered Ron, dumped him, and crept silently back into bed. Not likely, but also possible.

  Monique Byrd. Should she still be under consideration? She surely wanted to get rid of the annoying man. Enough to murder him? Had he been in that trunk and not left a trace?

  The scenarios were all possible, but not probable. The trouble was, none of the alibis seemed ironclad, while all of the motives were good.

  That faint J penciled in below the other blackmail victims was probably Julie. It wasn’t good that she appeared in both parts of Ron’s notebook, the blackmail part and the stalking part.

  Maybe it was time to review that night another time and go over every single thing she could remember.

  She had arrived with Julie, who immediately found Jay. Chase talked to Bart Fender at the punch bowl, then Julie and Jay came over. Jay soon left with some guys and Bart wandered off.

  Then Ron North had approached the two women. Ron started talking about Julie being part of the real estate scam. He seemed at least
half drunk, and offered to spike their drinks. Then he attacked Julie and kissed her. Jay pulled him off and he and Julie left Chase with Ron.

  However, she left and joined a group of women from her English class and they chatted for a good while. She observed Ron, still at the punch bowl, with some classmates and Mr. Snelson. Mr. Hail was with him. The two older men both left angry, possibly after Snelson paid him blackmail money, and joined Dickie Byrd.

  Then Ron accosted Monique Byrd when she got punch. She threw her punch in his face. Bart started over, probably to do harm to Ron, but Ron skedaddled out the door to the parking lot. Bart followed him.

  Julie had been in the parking lot with them, unfortunately. Chase didn’t notice her leave or return. She couldn’t testify as to how long Julie had been missing. How could the other, unnamed classmates do that?

  The next thing Chase remembered was being approached by Eddie Heath. People were beginning to leave.

  Who else had been in the parking lot at about that time? Probably lots of people. How could someone have killed Ron North and not been seen?

  Bart had followed him out immediately. If he worked quickly, he could have done it. He was strong enough to strangle skinny Ron North. Chase had detected flashes of rage from him and wondered if he had Roid Rage from the steroids he was most probably taking. But why would he kill Ron? For bothering Monique Byrd? For blackmailing two men, one of whom was his boss? For mashing Julie, with whom he had almost no interaction? It didn’t seem that any of the letters in the notebook could mean Bart Fender. There were no Fs and the only B had to be Dickie Byrd.

  Rats. Here was a good suspect with opportunity and means—and no motive.

  The butterscotch tabby grew bored with nothing going on. She was sitting there, not even typing. When she worked on the keyboard, he often jumped into her lap, never mind that it made it doubly hard to type that way. It got him attention. Sometimes he even jumped onto the keyboard. That could be counted on to cause a lot of commotion. This writing on paper business, however, was extremely boring.

  He decided to check on his stash. He snaked a claw under the desk and pulled the material out a bit. Yes, it was still there.

  “My gloves!” Chase plopped down onto the floor. “There they are! You pushed my gloves under the desk, didn’t you, you pesky cat.” She fished one out, pushing Quincy away. He wanted to play with it, but she needed her good gloves. The weather was turning colder and colder and she didn’t see any sense in buying a new pair when she already owned these.

  “The other one is under here, too, isn’t it?” she asked him. She knelt down, putting her head on the floor to see better. Something was under there, for sure. Reaching up to her desk drawer, she withdrew a wooden ruler and used it to get at the other glove.

  “There! I’m so glad I found these.” She picked them up. A piece of paper dropped to the floor. She retrieved it. Why did it look so familiar? It had been torn from a spiral notebook, judging from the shredding on one side. The paper was small and lined. She squinted to make out the faint pencil writing. It held some words in capital letters and amounts next to them. It was another page from Ron North’s notebook!

  TWENTY-NINE

  Chase set the page on her desk, carefully, and called Julie. The cell phone rang over to voice mail.

  “Call me,” she barked. She glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. Julie was, no doubt, in the middle of something at work.

  She got up and started pacing. The paper was yellow and brittle. It must have fallen out of the notebook when they first started examining it. Maybe it was a page from an older notebook that Ron had stuck into the newer one. The louse had been blackmailing people for a long time. It was a wonder he wasn’t rich. Or hadn’t been killed years ago.

  Stopping long enough to peer at the paper, she bent close over the desk. Squint as she might, she couldn’t quite make out the smudged writing. Was the first letter H? If she could find a way to connect this with another blackmail victim, even if it was an older one, there would be another suspect.

  “Charity? Tanner is here,” Anna said as she rapped on the office door.

  Chase opened the office door, careful to keep Quincy contained. “Hi, Tanner. How’s it going?”

  “Hangin’ in there. Do you have a check for me?”

  “I was going to mail it tomorrow, but you can have it today.” Since he’d come by, he must need the money. She wrote him a check, wishing she could pay him more. Maybe she would be able to some day. He deserved it, having done such a great job on the webpage. “I’ve heard people say they found our shop on the Internet, so the page is working.”

  “Great.” His smile lit up his skinny face as he took his money. His nose and eyebrow rings glinted in the glow of the moving screen saver.

  “What’s this?” He reached for the page.

  “No, don’t touch it.” Chase caught his hand. “It’s old and pretty delicate. I just found it under my desk. I think the cat put it there.”

  “Why is it so special?”

  “I think it’s an old page from the notebook of the man who was murdered.”

  “That one I hacked into? That rnorth83 guy?”

  “You remember his e-mail name?”

  “Sure. He was emailing bigbyrd about some pictures he had.”

  “Do you want to look at this paper and tell me if you can decipher what it says?”

  Tanner left it on the desk, but adjusted the desk lamp to shine more brightly on it. “H something, right? HU? Should I go into his account again and see if he e-mailed anybody with HU in their name?”

  “Can you do that? Do you have time?”

  “No problem.”

  That was a good idea. “Have a seat,” she said, waving him into her desk chair.

  The cat and the fish disappeared and Tanner started working. His long, thin fingers flew over the keys, clicking so loudly that Quincy stared. Chase stared, too, hoping to see the name of the murderer displayed on the screen, along with a picture and personal statistics. That always happened for the sleuths on TV.

  “You can go do something else while I work,” he said.

  She was probably making him nervous, hanging over his shoulder. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Anna had a batch of her favorites, Lemon Bars, coming out of the oven, so Chase grabbed a hot pad and slid the dessert bars onto a cooling rack. She picked one up with a paper towel and blew on it to cool it.

  Mallory poked her head into the kitchen. “Did I hear Tanner come in?”

  “He’s in my office,” Chase said. “He’ll be out in a few minutes.” Maybe.

  Mallory’s face split into a huge grin. “Okay. Tell him I’m here.”

  Chase assured her she would. She loved seeing this young love blossom before her eyes. Mallory was working hard at smiling at the customers, and she was doing a much better job than when she’d started working at the Bar None. But no customer had ever gotten the grin she had given at the thought of Tanner being near.

  She popped the Lemon Bar into her mouth, closing her eyes as the sweet-tart flavor melted on her tongue.

  In less than half an hour, Tanner emerged. “I got it. Wanna see?”

  Chase hurried into the office. Tanner pointed to the screen. He had gotten into Ron North’s e-mail account again.

  “How long before someone shuts this down?” she asked.

  “It might stay out there for years, unless the cops want to close it.”

  This time the messages were between rnorth83 and someone called hunkyb.

  hunkyb: not tellin u agin

  rnorth83: wotz ur problem man

  hunkyb: its all yr fault stay away from her its all yr fault

  rnorth83: or?

  hunkyb: ill smash in ur ugly face

  rnorth83: like u did last time

  hunkyb: this time ill do it
/>   “So,” Chase said, trying to figure out what was going on in this exchange. “Hunkyb warns Ron to stay away from . . . someone, a female.”

  “Probably his girlfriend. Or wife. And looks like North was stalking her, like he did all those others. Is she in the notebook?”

  “How would I tell?”

  “Let’s look at it again.”

  “Better yet,” Chase said, “let’s figure out who hunkyb is. This older page references someone beginning with H.”

  “Can I touch it? I’ll be careful.” Tanner pointed to the brittle paper.

  Chase bit her lip, but nodded.

  Tanner grasped the paper at the corner and held it up to Chase’s desk lamp. The letters leapt into clarity, seen with the backlighting.

  “HULK,” they both said together.

  “Great,” Chase said. “Now we have to figure out who both HULK and hunkyb are.”

  “Probably the same person. North gave people nicknames. He wouldn’t call the guy the same thing the guy called himself. This sounds like a big person, either name you use.”

  “Someone who thinks he’s good looking, since he calls himself a hunk.”

  Her cell phone rang. It was Eddie Heath. A shiver ran up her spine. Eddie wasn’t tall, but he was muscular. And his last name started with H.

  THIRTY

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Tanner asked.

  “I’d better. It’s . . .” She couldn’t explain in two seconds that Eddie Heath thought a lot of himself, had a lot of muscles, and had a name beginning with H.

  “Eddie, it’s good to hear from you.”

  Tanner raised his eyebrows. He had seen her reluctant, maybe scared face along with her hesitation and doubted her words, she was sure.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” Eddie asked. Why did he do that? He hadn’t seen her face.

  “Just, you know. To thank you for the vinegar stuff.” Yeah, right. She would never drink that in a million years.

  “Hey, did my cure work? You sound a lot better.”