“What’s the matter with you? Just be quiet and drive.”
They had crossed Interstate 494 on Interstate 394, which had devolved into Wayzata Boulevard, pronounced “Y-zetta” by the locals. “We’re already on Wayzata Boulevard. I think that, since you admitted to us that you killed those men, and attacked Hilda Bjorn, you think you might have to get rid of us. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Why are you talking so loud?”
“If Hilda had died, everything would have been okay, wouldn’t it?”
“Everything is going to be okay.”
“Not for me and Anna! You’re going to kill us with that knife.”
Vi reached one thin arm to the front and snatched Anna’s purse off the passenger seat.
Chase’s heart sank. In the rearview mirror she saw Vi hold up Anna’s phone, which she had just fished out of the purse.
“You called someone! Anna’s phone was on!”
Which meant that, now, it wasn’t on. When Chase had gotten the keys from Anna’s purse, she had redialed Detective Olson’s number and left the connection open. Had he answered the call? Had he heard anything? Had the connection been good enough for him to understand what she was saying?
The turn onto Bushaway Road came way too soon. There wasn’t another soul on the dark road, which was lined with tangled undergrowth and thick trees at that point. Chase slowed the car to a roll, but Vi noticed and told her to speed up.
The trees thinned out, then were missing entirely when they reached the dam, but the people were missing, too, and there was no lighting.
“Keep going, keep going. Slow now.”
Chase eyed the frail wire fencing on either side of the paving. The fences stood a few feet from the two-lane road, leaving virtually no shoulder. They couldn’t stop on the dam.
“Go past the fence. There, turn there.”
Chase turned left onto the turnout to a small fishing area. Her mind, which should have been working a million miles an hour, was stuck on idle. As she got out of the car, her gears started to turn. What was Vi going to do with them?
“How did you get messed up with Gabe and Torvald anyway?” Chase said. “I heard you talking to someone named Felix. Torvald’s nephew? Have you known him long?”
Vi backed out of the car, dragging Anna with her, the knife never more than an inch from Anna’s precious neck.
If Vi forced them into the water, they could swim to shore. Especially if she did it from here, a small parking lot that led to a gentle slope with access to the water for fishing.
The black water made ominous sucking sounds against the shore. A gust of cold air blew Chase’s straight hair off her neck. She realized the nape of her neck was sweaty, even in the frigid evening air.
“Stand against the car.” Vi gave Anna a rough shove, pinning her to the car with the knife.
Then Chase saw Vi shrug her oversize handbag off her shoulder and extract Anna’s second-favorite rolling pin, a green marble one two inches longer than the short blue one.
She was going to bash them over the head with it! The same way she’d tried to kill Hilda.
Please, please, Niles. Please have heard what I said on the way out here. Please be on the way.
A car went by on the road above, slowing slightly, but not stopping. Stray rays from the headlights filtered down to glint off Vi’s knife.
Chase concentrated on not looking at the car. Vi didn’t give it a glance either. Had it been a police car? Or Detective Olson in a plain car?
Please, please, please.
“Which one first?” Vi seemed to be mumbling to herself.
“Me,” Chase said. “Me first.” She couldn’t bear it if Vi hit Anna on the head with that heavy piece of rock.
At last, Chase felt her mind speed up. A plan formed. Would it work? If it didn’t, nothing would matter, so it had to.
First, some distraction.
“Vi, if Anna and I are both gone, would you mind taking care of Quincy?”
“Have you lost your mind? You’re thinking about your cat right now?”
“I don’t want him to suffer.”
“And you think I’d be a good person to look after him? I’m not crazy about animals. Touching those rats was horrible.”
“You put the rats in the kitchen?”
“Yes. Torvald and Gabe hired me to do it. I had help from that kid.”
“Felix? Torvald’s nephew?” Chase knew now that he was the young man she’d seen arguing in the parking lot with Vi that one time.
“Yes!” Vi shouted. “I know Felix! His mother is a friend of my mother. We played together as kids. He’s the one who thought his uncle and Gabe could help me out with the money. So I cut him in for a share if he’d handle those rats.”
“Elinda said you never paid him.”
“How could I? No one paid me. I asked them over and over. Gabe had loaned me rent money and said he’d cancel my debt if I did that for him.”
“Gabe loaned you money?” How could he? “I didn’t think Gabe had any money.”
“He had enough for three months’ worth of my rent. But then he said there was interest or something and he needed me to pay him more. I was losing everything! My dad would have a cow if I got evicted.”
Vi seemed to be reliving her ordeal, the prospect of being penniless. Her agitation was increasing. Maybe Chase should try to calm her down.
“I can see how you would feel,” Chase said.
“I went to Gabe’s a million times, then I asked Torvald a million more times. I got so mad at Gabe, I just grabbed that knife and stabbed him. You just don’t realize how easy it is to kill someone with a sharp knife. I didn’t exactly mean to kill Gabe. I was sorry right away. He might have been easier to get money from than Torvald. That guy was impossible. He’s the one who insisted I carry through with the rat plan after Gabe died on me. Then he wouldn’t pay me either.”
“Why?” This squeak came from Anna, in spite of the blade at her neck. “How could they want to put the rats in the shop?”
“How do you think?” In the darkness, Chase could hear the sneer in Vi’s voice. “You know they wanted you to sell to them. Since you wouldn’t budge, they were desperate about trying to drive you out of business. Gabe even told me I could be the manager of his donut shop when he got your place. Then, after I kept after him about the money, he took that back. I think Torvald told him to. Those two were liars and cheats. They promised me everything and took it all back. They both deserved to die. Torvald was working on Shaun then, but he didn’t have the money either.”
“They called the health inspector, too, I suppose,” Anna said.
“You need to be quiet, old woman.”
“Old woman?”
“I said, be quiet.” Vi’s words were soft but menacing. She had the green rolling pin in one hand, the other held the knife, still digging into Anna’s neck as Vi held her pinned against the car with her body.
“Torvald had me sign this stupid piece of paper.” Vi sounded a bit calmer, but not a lot. “He called it a note. He said, ‘Here, just sign this little note.’ Like a note is less that a whole letter, right? It should be something informal. But no, he tells me later it’s a binding, official, legal contract. He said he could put me in jail for not paying it!”
The girl was clueless. She had no idea what a note was. Chase looked at Vi, whose hands were full. How was Vi going to bash one of them without the other one tackling her?
Anna started to speak again. “I don’t think he could have—”
“I told you to be quiet!”
Vi threw the rolling pin to the ground, reached into her bag, and pulled out a spool of twine.
Oh. She was going to bind them. Vi tossed the twine to Chase. “Tie her up,” she commanded. “Wrists first.” She flicked a piece of twine off the spool
and returned the knife to Anna’s neck before Chase saw that she’d missed a chance.
She wouldn’t miss the next one. Now, tying Anna, she’d be close enough to Vi to try to get the knife away from her.
Chase took the length of twine and bent close to Anna’s wrists. She lunged into Vi to throw her off Anna.
Anna’s cry pierced Chase’s heart.
FORTY-ONE
A thin stream of blood, dark in the low light, trickled from the knife point down Anna’s throat.
Chase drew back. She’d been too clumsy. She hadn’t knocked Vi over at all, had only caused her to drive the sharp point a fraction of an inch deeper.
Another car cruised past on the road above them, slowing as the last one had. It had come from the other direction. Could Chase hope that the police had arrived and were searching for her, up and down the dam?
“I’ll do it,” Chase said. “I’ll tie her up.”
“Never mind.” Vi drew an ugly black pistol from her own purse. It looked too heavy for her delicate hand, but she didn’t have any trouble holding and aiming it. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this. It’s so noisy.” She discarded the knife, dropped it onto the ground next to the rolling pin, and stepped back. Vi made sure to stay out of reach as she trained the gun on Anna. “Get next to her,” she said to Chase. “Both of you, against the car.”
Chase crowded next to Anna and grasped her hand. It was cold and shook with tremors.
What could Chase do to appease Vi at this point? It was too late to agree to sell to a couple of dead men. Or to offer her job back. Vi would never believe that Chase and Anna would keep quiet if she let them go, or give her time to get away and disappear.
“Start walking.” Vi jerked the gun up and down. “To the water.” She stood aside to let them pass.
The knife and the heavy rolling pin lay between them, forgotten by Vi after she’d switched to the pistol.
Chase motioned for Anna to go first. When Anna was a few feet from her, Chase pretended to stumble, stooped to catch herself, grabbed the rolling pin, and heaved it at Vi.
Her aim was good. She hit Vi on the side of the head and this time Vi went down. She clutched her head with both hands.
Anna swooped and grabbed the gun from the ground.
“I guess you ladies are doing all right,” said a male voice behind them.
Chase turned to see Detective Olson, his own gun drawn, flanked by several uniformed policemen, all aiming at Violet Peters.
“You heard?” Chase asked.
“I heard every word. It was very clever of you to guide us here. Ms. Bjorn was reinterviewed an hour ago and she told us that the woman she’d seen at Gabe’s condo was ‘that other nice girl’—not the owner, the other one, she said.
“The lab has already checked out the buttons. Ms. Peters ordered them, always from the same place, so they’re quite distinctive. And she must not sew them on very securely, because they apparently tend to fall off easily. We found at least one at each crime scene.”
Vi was helped to her feet, then handcuffed. The hot glares she was throwing the policemen, and one policewoman, were almost enough to melt their metal badges.
“They said they’d pay me,” Vi muttered, to no one in particular. “They never paid me for anything. It was hard putting those rats there. After all the risk I took, they acted like they didn’t have to do anything for me. They owed me. They owed me money and a job. They both cheated me!”
• • •
Julie, Anna, and Chase sat on Chase’s balcony, each wrapped in a thick woolen blanket. The old-fashioned globe streetlamps glowed, casting golden pools on the sidewalk below them, where shoppers, wrapped in heavy jackets, hurried through the chilly night. The three women sipped goblets of dark red wine and nibbled Anna’s latest creation, dessert bars that tasted like donuts. She hadn’t decided what to call them yet and Julie said she hadn’t decided if she liked them. To help make up her mind, she reached for a third one from the copper tray on the low table next to her.
Quincy nestled in Chase’s lap, purring so loudly that some of the pedestrians below glanced up when they passed by.
Anna ran her hands over the smoothness of the new blue marble rolling pin Julie had surprised her with tonight. She laid it on the table next to her with a smile.
“What do you think of Inger?” Chase asked. She had hired the young woman while Anna was in Woodstone, Connecticut, for a rest and recuperation, visiting her old friend Alice Slocum. Alice was the secretary for the police department there and had a friend named Gigi who furnished them with delicious meals from her Gourmet Delite catering service.
“She seems capable. I’m sure she’ll do well.”
“I feel bad about it, but I asked Niles how to run a background check on her. She checks out fine.”
“Niles? You’re on a first-name basis now?” Julie smiled. “What happened to Mike? Is he Dr. Ramos now?”
Chase hesitated. “Nooo, not exactly.”
“You’re stringing both of them along?”
“Not stringing along! I’m just not dating either one exclusively.”
“It doesn’t hurt to take your time,” said Anna, “or to keep your options open.”
“At least neither one of them is anything like Shaun Everly.”
“Is he still around?” Julie asked. “I never got to meet the cad.”
“No, he’s gone back to Chicago. I found the deposit slip, finally. I sent a note to his uncle, accompanied by a copy of the evidence that he was the one stealing from the restaurant, not me. His uncle is bringing charges. Last I heard, he was in jail and no one had posted bail for him. Detective Olson has a friend on the force there and he said he’d keep me updated. I can’t wait to find out the outcome of the trial.”
“Sometimes the justice system does dispense justice,” Anna said.
Julie nodded in agreement. “You were talking about keeping your options open, Grandma,” she said. The light from inside Chase’s apartment caught Julie’s mischievous smile as she turned her head toward Anna. “Is Bill Shandy still on the fence?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Anna reached into her pocket and fumbled under the blanket for moment. When she brought her left hand up, a brilliant diamond winked in the light on the ring finger.
Quincy raised his head as a shard of reflected light from the ring ran across his face. He gave the ring a glance, then, seeming content, lowered his head and resumed purring.
RECIPES
Hula Bars
Oven: 375
Yield: 36 small dessert bar squares or 18 dessert bars
Crust:
½ cup melted margarine
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
Filling:
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1⅓ cups (1 package) walnut chips
½ cup dried pineapple
½ cup coconut, lightly packed
Topping:
¼ cup powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Spray Pam on sides and bottom of 8x8 baking pan.
Melt the margarine. You can use a glass measuring cup and the microwave.
In a smallish to medium bowl, stir together brown sugar and flour. Stir in the margarine and extracts. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan.
When the oven is preheated, bake the crust for 15 minutes.
While the crust bakes, prepare the filling. In a medium bowl
, beat the eggs until frothy.
In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, flour, baking powder, extracts, and salt. Stir this into the eggs.
Mix in the walnuts, pineapple, and coconut. Spoon this over the crust and return the pan to the oven.
Bake 20–25 more minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Cut into 36 bite-size squares or 18 bars. Put them on a preparation plate and dust with powdered sugar. Transfer to serving plate or storage container.
Kitty Patties
Yield: 8 small patties
½ pound ground beef
½ pound ground turkey
4 tablespoons low-salt chicken stock
½ cup oatmeal or 1 instant packet
4 eggs
Mix meat and broth, then add oatmeal and egg. Make into 8 small patties.
Broil 1 or 2 at a time, leaving them fairly rare.
Allow to cool, then serve.
You can keep some in the refrigerator for 3 days at the most, but only if the meat is very fresh.
Freeze the other patties until ready to use, up to 4 months.
Janet Cantrell is the Agatha Award–nominated author of the Fat Cat Mysteries. She and her husband live in Tennessee.
Fat Cat At Large (A Fat Cat Mystery) Page 25