Fat Cat At Large (A Fat Cat Mystery)

by Janet Cantrell

  Mike disappeared into his kitchen and emerged in a few moments with a frosty glass of iced tea that Chase grabbed. She gulped down half of it, then realized what she was doing. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Thank you, Mike.”

  He grinned and her heart gave a little lurch. “Any time, Chase. By the way, I think Quincy is losing weight. He seems lighter.”

  That made her feel lighter, too. She was doing it right! Chase looked at the tabby, who still appeared sound asleep except for his ears, which were swiveled their way. Then they twitched and swiveled toward the front door. A second later, the doorbell rang.

  When Mike opened the door, the redhead stood there, her hair standing up straight and a huge toothy smile on her face.

  “Am I early?”

  • • •

  “At least he had the good grace to look embarrassed,” said Chase.

  The shop had closed at 6:00, half an hour ago, and Vi had taken off soon after that. Shaun Everly had pulled up in front and beeped his horn. Vi had slung her tote over the shoulder and gotten ready to run out as if a movie star were waiting for her.

  Chase had stood in her way. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “What do you mean?” Vi drew herself up to her full height, which was more than Chase’s. She raised her perfect eyebrows just two hairs.

  “Shaun can’t be trusted.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not trusting him with anything. Torvald did and look where that got him.”

  “You think Shaun killed Torvald?”

  Vi frowned. “I never thought of that. Torvald was mean enough to kill someone, but I don’t think Shaun is. They just wanted your place.”

  “Shaun wanted it?”

  “I think so.”

  “He turned on me and he can turn on you.”

  “He turned on you? That’s not the way I heard it.”

  “Vi, I need to sit down with you and tell you the whole story.”

  “Yes, I’d like to hear your side. But right now I have to leave.”

  She had hurried out, jumped into Shaun’s Porsche, and they had roared away.

  “How lucky Dr. Ramos showed up to take Quincy,” said Anna, now in the kitchen, cleaning up from the day’s baking.

  “I know. But he’d just told me, before Quincy got out and I went after him, that his next appointment was there, at his office. Then, a few minutes later, he was coming home for lunch and saw the cars at Hilda’s house.” Chase sprayed down the countertops with disinfectant and wiped them.

  “Maybe it wasn’t his appointment.” Anna finished wiping the baking sheets dry and tucked them into the cabinet. “Maybe it was . . . I don’t know, the mailman? And his appointment was a no-show.”

  “I suppose.” Or maybe it was the redhead, who seemed to be everywhere lately. “I hope Hilda Bjorn will recover,” Chase went on. “If she got hit in the head, I hope she’s not brain damaged.” She moved to the sink and started giving it the nightly scour.

  “Are you going to visit her in the hospital?”

  “I don’t think I can do that. Detective Olson didn’t seem to think I should have been in her house at all. He actually thought I was there to try to change her eyewitness account.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “I was there to get Quincy!” She straightened, her scrubbing cloth dripping onto the floor.

  “Don’t get huffy, Charity. I can imagine you would have tried to talk to her about what she saw, once you were inside.” Anna took the cloth from Chase, then swiped the floor with a paper towel.

  Chase pulled out a stool. “Yes. You’re right. I did think it would be a chance to ask her exactly what she saw. She can’t have seen me, but she must have seen someone.”

  “And that someone is the killer?”

  “I’m not sure. But there’s a discrepancy between what I’m saying and what she’s saying, so that throws suspicion on me. If our stories matched, it would be much better.”

  “I thought eyewitness accounts have been shown to be unreliable.”

  “Tell that to Detective Olson.”

  “Meanwhile, you would do well, Charity, to stay away from Hilda Bjorn, I agree.” Anna gave a last wipe of the stovetop. “So I suppose I should visit her.”

  “And get her to change her story?” Chase felt a slow smile starting.

  “I didn’t say that.” But Anna was smiling, too.

  THIRTY

  Chase stopped her bicycle in the middle of the bridge, her favorite part of the early morning ride she had been doing all too seldom lately.

  “Looks like it’ll be warm again today,” said Julie, stopping beside her.

  “I’m so glad you could make it this morning. We haven’t done this in ages.”

  “Too long,” agreed Julie. “What with my trial and your troubles . . . Trial and troubles, sounds like a blues song, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you think of your chances right now?” The testimony for Julie’s big trial was in its fifth day, having started last Friday.

  “It’s hard to tell. This jury is very good at keeping a straight face and not letting on what they’re thinking. Better even than most of them are, I think.”

  “Have you been able to find out anything else about that restraining order Iversen took out?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to try, but I may be able to sneak a peek later this week. I did get a look at Hilda Bjorn’s file. They’ve opened a new case on her attack, of course.”

  “Is my name the only one down for a suspect?”

  “Well, so far, yes. But it’s very early days for that. What I want to tell you is that she’s doing well and they expect a full recovery. Did you know that she’s eighty-seven years old?”

  “I’m glad she’ll be all right. But I wish she’d realize she’s wrong about seeing me right at the time when the murder was committed. Someone needs to recover her memory.”

  “Grandma said she’s going to see Hilda in the hospital tonight.”

  “Yes. I hope Anna can jog her recall. This will get Anna’s mind off the trial, too.”

  “I think it would be better if something could get Bill Shandy’s mind off it. He’s so concerned for his rotten stepson.”

  “What’s going on with his own son?”

  “Rick? He’s almost worse than Marvin!” Julie picked up a stone from the bridge and heaved it over the railing. They both watched it plummet and sink into the depths of the Mississippi. “The guy has just lost another job. He only keeps them a few months, according to Grandma. He’s hitting his father up for money again. She says Bill feels so guilty because he has the money, but doesn’t think he should keep handing it out to him. He knows he should make his son grow up and take responsibility.”

  “I agree. I might put it differently, though. He should let him grow up. Maybe the problem with all three of his kids is that he’s given them too much.”

  “You could be right. Rick is the youngest and he’s forty-two.”

  “And still asking his father for money?”

  Julie nodded, staring at the swirling Mississippi below them. “At least every month.”

  A pair of mallards floated by. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  “Still, a guy can’t be responsible for what his grown children do,” Chase said. “Poor Bill.”

  “Marvin’s mother might be more to blame than Bill. Grandma says she was always urging Bill to never let her children be poor. Now that she’s dead, he feels he should honor her wishes.”

  “But he can’t stand behind a son, or a stepson, who’s doing illegal things! Stealing from a charity organization that was formed to help children—that’s pretty low.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’m on the prosecution’s side.”

  “Do you have the proof to convict him?”
>
  “Oh yes. But don’t tell Grandma. I’m trying to keep as much of this from her as I can.”

  “It’s a deal,” Chase said.

  “And I’m still nervous about getting you that info after your questioning. You haven’t mentioned that to anyone, have you?”

  “Of course not! I’ll never do that.”

  “I know. It just gives me the willies. I hope you’re completely out of this mess soon.”

  “You and me both.”

  When Chase returned to her apartment to change clothes for work, Quincy was acting strange. He didn’t rise from his bed to greet her, but sat licking one of his forepaws. She went to the bedroom to change, but he didn’t follow her like he usually did.

  “Hey, big guy,” she said, coming into the kitchen, her shorts changed for slacks, but still wearing her T-shirt. “How about your morning din din?” She scooped out the dry diet food and topped it with her concoction. When she set it on the floor, Quincy stared for a minute, then got up and limped across the floor to his dish much more slowly than usual. Chase wondered if she should worry. When he finally got there, Chase saw that he had left tracks on the gray tile kitchen floor. Wondering what on earth he’d stepped in, she grabbed a paper towel to wipe the floor. The towel, however, showed bright red. She almost dropped it. Yes, she should worry! Quincy was bleeding!

  It seemed to be his right front paw, so she grasped his leg to try to see if the bottom of his foot was cut. He snatched it away and hissed! Oh dear. Something must be very sore, his paw or his leg or something.

  She heard Anna come in the back door and rushed downstairs to tell her that poor Quincy was bleeding.

  “Poor baby!” Anna cried. “Can I try to look at him?”

  “Sure, you can try. He won’t let me touch his leg.”

  Anna trotted up the stairs. Chase was a little miffed. Why did Anna think Quincy would let her handle him when he wouldn’t let his owner, his favorite person, do it?

  She followed Anna up the stairs and came into her living room to find Quincy sitting in Anna’s lap. He was on a dishtowel she had put over her jeans. Chase bit her words back when she realized that it was one of her good dishtowels, one of a set that she’d gotten on a trip to Amish country to see her friend Charlotte Bessette, who owned a wonderful cheese shop in the town of Providence, Ohio.

  Not only had her cat abandoned her, he was managing to get bloodstains all over her nice linen dish towel.

  “Look, Charity.” Anna lifted his front leg from the paw. “His dewclaw is bleeding.”

  Chase realized she had grabbed his leg exactly on his dewclaw. No wonder he’d been irritated. “Why is it bleeding? Should I call Mike?”

  “Dr. Ramos? Yes, I think so. Something’s wrong. Maybe it’s infected.”

  “The vet sees him all the time. How could it get infected that fast?”

  Anna gave her a stern look. “I’m not a veterinarian. How should I know?”

  Quincy curled up in Anna’s lap with his tail over his nose. “It doesn’t seem to be hurting him,” Chase said. “I’ll go later. Right now we need to get the shop opened.”

  It was obvious Anna thought Chase was doing the wrong thing by waiting, but she didn’t say a word, just gently set Quincy in his bed and swept past her on the way to the kitchen.

  Chase finished dressing, ran a brush through her hair, and went to work. Once she and Anna got to working, and established their habitual rhythm, the day seemed brighter.

  “Have you decided what you’re going to say to Hilda Bjorn when you see her tonight? Julie said you were visiting her in the hospital.”

  “I am going to. I haven’t decided exactly. But I do want to see how definite she is about who she saw and when she saw them. I won’t single you out, but I’ll ask her about everyone she saw. Maybe that will jar something loose.”

  “We should keep in mind that she was viciously attacked. I suppose you’ll be safe enough in the hospital, but if someone thinks you’re getting information from her, do you think you’ll be in danger?”

  “Who’s going to know I’m there?”

  “I don’t know. But someone knew she was giving evidence to the police.”

  “Unless her attack has nothing to do with the murders. That’s another thing I’ll try to find out, what goes on in her life and if she’s in danger from elsewhere.”

  “That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.” Her mind had held one track lately: the murders and the whys and wherefores connected with them. Hilda probably had a family somewhere, possibly relatives with feuds and factions. Maybe someone was in her will and wanted to inherit soon.

  Chase’s mind turned to the dead men, Gabe and Torvald. Their connection was that they were working together to obtain her shop. In other words, she was the link between them. But how did Hilda Bjorn fit in? Could Anna find out?

  THIRTY-ONE

  When Vi set her big tote bag on the counter and got a sandwich out of an insulated carrier for her lunch, Chase took the stool next to her.

  “Are you still getting rides from Shaun Everly?”

  Vi, who had just bitten off a mouthful of ham and swiss on rye bread, nodded. She finished her bite and said, “Not much longer, though. I found someone who will fix my Hyundai in exchange for some of my old clothes.”

  “That sounds lucky! So you found a female auto mechanic?”

  “I did.” Vi sounded proud. “She lives in Shaun’s apartment building.”

  Which, Chase knew, was also where Laci lived.

  “Are you doing all right with your finances now?”

  Vi shrugged. “I guess so. I’m not out of money.”

  Chase studied the young woman for a moment. The more she got to know her, the more enigmatic she seemed. Vi was the last person Chase would expect to do business by bartering. She did know that Vi had very little money smarts. After all, she’d gotten herself into enough trouble with her overdue bills that she had felt compelled to dip into the Bar None till. “You be sure and let me or Anna know if you get into any more trouble with your finances.” Chase certainly didn’t want that to happen again!

  “Sure.” Vi seemed unconcerned.

  “Which clothes are you giving up?” Chase had never seen Vi wear anything that looked as if it should be given away. That mechanic might be getting a heck of a good deal.

  “Oh, they’re some that I’m not wearing.” She waved her hand to indicate how inconsequential those clothes were.

  “Say, I’ll bet you might know the answer to a question I have.”

  Vi crumpled her sandwich bag and stuffed it into the insulated lunch carrier, then stuffed that inside her tote. “Okay.”

  “How did Shaun and Torvald know each other?”

  “Did they?”

  Chase remembered, at that moment, that Vi had denied knowing Torvald Iversen herself, after Chase had seen them arguing in the parking lot. “Yes. And you knew Torvald, too. I saw you talking to him one day outside.” Could Torvald have been the potential source of her money that had fallen through? He’d been a financer, but who would finance Vi? And why?

  “Who?” Vi asked, her smooth face the picture of innocence.

  “Tall, thin guy, usually wore a blazer.”

  Vi raised her impeccable eyebrows and blinked. “Oh, is that who that was? The creep was trying to pick me up.”

  To Chase’s ear, her statement rang false.

  • • •

  Chase crated Quincy, without too much difficulty, right after she closed the shop, and drove him to Mike’s veterinary office in Minnetonka Mills. She’d called and described Quincy’s distress and Mike had said he’d work her in at the end of his day. She got there at 6:30 on the dot. Since it was after regular hours, his outside door was locked, but he opened it as soon as she knocked. His receptionist had gone for the day, so Mike led the way into t
he first examining room himself.

  “I appreciate you doing this,” Chase said.

  “No problem.”

  They were being so formal. It was as if the redhead were standing in the corner of the room, listening to them. At least, that’s how Chase felt.

  Mike lifted Quincy’s paw, gingerly, not touching the dewclaw, which was still seeping a bit.

  “Ouch. You have an ingrown toenail, buddy.” He turned to Chase, his lips pursed ruefully. “Sorry I didn’t notice this before.”

  “I guess you were concentrating on the size of his tummy.” Even to herself, Chase sounded cold and distant.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Mm–hmm.”

  Mike turned to face her directly. “Are you mad at me?”

  Chase couldn’t look him in the eye. “Why should I be?”

  “Beats me. Are you free for dinner this weekend?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How about lunch, then?”

  “You don’t have plans?”

  “Nope. I have the whole weekend free. All day Saturday and Sunday. But you’re open on Saturday and—”

  “Dr. Ramos?” A short, round woman in her late forties, or possibly early fifties, poked her head into the room. “Is there anything else? You want me to wait and do this room?”

  Mike gave her a friendly smile. “No, Karla, I’ll wipe it down myself. You’d better get home. Thanks.”

  That was Karla? Cute Karla? She was cute. She wore her graying hair in a thick braid that wound around the top of her head and her elbows were as dimpled as her cheeks.

  “Nighty night, then.” Karla closed the door. Chase felt some of the stiffness go out of the room, and out of herself. That nice, older woman was no romantic threat.

  “I could do dinner on Saturday,” she said.

  “Good. We need to talk.”

  Did that sound ominous? Promising? Both?

  • • •

  Anna called Chase a little before 8:00 that night. “I got in to see Hilda. I had to say I was her cousin.”

  “How did it go?” Chase asked.