Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Takes The Cake

First thing in the morning, before she could call the police station, Mike rang her.

“It’s Friday,” he said.

“Yes, it is.”

“Hey, you’re not still mad, are you? I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. There’s a new place on the other side of campus. Small, Italian. One of my patient’s owners likes it, and she’s Italian, so it should be good.”

Was she to ignore the fact that he was shooting daggers at her yesterday? Or was he taking her to dinner to make it up to her?

“Sure,” she said. “That sounds nice.”

“You’re not busy with that other guy?”

Chase huffed into the phone. “He’s a business associate. It was a business meeting.” Sort of. If she said it enough times, maybe it would be true. Maybe she would forget that tingle she got when Eddie touched her. “What time tonight?”

After they settled the details and hung up on good terms—as far as Chase could tell—she dialed Detective Niles Olson.

His answer was abrupt. That either meant he was very busy solving the murder, or he recognized her number and wasn’t looking forward to speaking with her. “Olson here,” he barked.

“Detective, I’ve come into some information—”

“What else is new?” Did he have to sound so weary?

“I wasn’t questioning anyone, I just learned that a car was in the parking lot of Hammond High Sunday morning.”

“You saw a car there? Whose was it?”

“No, Eddie Heath saw it. I don’t know whose it was. Probably the killer’s, don’t you think?”

“There’s no reason to think that, because a car was left in the parking lot, it belongs to a killer. Some heavy drinking was going on and someone probably had the good sense to leave a car there and get a ride.” There was a pause. Was that a good sign? “The car wasn’t there when we processed the scene, so the driver must have left early. Hail and Snelson both said they spent the night together at Snelson’s house. Hail was too drunk to drive. Snelson’s wife even backed him up. I’ll find out if Langton left his car there, but this might not mean anything, Chase.”

It worked so much better when he was calling her “Chase” and not “Ms. Oliver.”

“There might have been someone in the car,” she said. Depending on how much she trusted what Eddie thought he saw. “You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks. But”—his voice grew stern—“do not do any digging into this. We’ll figure out whose car it was.”

“I told you, I wasn’t digging. If I hear anything else I should tell you, right?”

“Yes, but don’t do anything about it. Tell me and no one else. And stay away from Snelson and Hail. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

She did. One of them could be a killer. They had alibied each other, but both could be lying. If so, where were they that night? Whose car was in the parking lot? She wasn’t going to investigate, not exactly, not officially, but she sure was going to keep her ears open.

As she dressed, she glanced out the window. Lovely, soft flakes of snow were falling. It lifted her spirits when the flakes of perfect crystals floated past her window. She hummed “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music on her way downstairs.

Both Inger and Mallory were working the front today, so she hung out in the kitchen with Anna, helping put together some treats. Anna had hit upon a wonderful bakeless Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar that could be made quickly and easily. Of course, nothing could exactly be easy with Anna in the picture. So she and Anna were piping frosting in the shapes of stars, Christmas trees, and holly wreaths on each piece in red and green frosting.

When Inger came in for her lunch break, she was enchanted with their efforts. “How soon can we start selling those? We won’t be able to keep them in the shop. Everyone will love them.”

“Try it,” Anna said, holding out a star-decorated bar.

Inger bit into it. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Chase wasn’t crazy about peanut butter and chocolate together, but she knew a whole lot of people were. This was a good idea.

She went to cover for Inger while she ate lunch. Soon after she entered the salesroom, Bart Fender burst into the shop. Of course, he probably burst into any room he entered. He was a very physical person. Short, but powerfully built. He wore a stocking cap on his bald head, protecting it against the cold.

“Bart,” Chase said. “How nice that you’ve dropped in.” She hadn’t seen him in years until the reunion. He hadn’t changed much, except for piling on some more muscles and losing all his hair. He’d been an athlete then and remained one today as the high school wrestling coach.

“Thought I’d look the place over. What do you have here?”

“Lots of different flavored dessert bars. Do you have a favorite?”

He took off his gloves and rubbed his chin. “I’m not much on chocolate. Used to be, but sweets don’t taste that sweet anymore. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the situation with Dillon.”

“What do you know? Any changes?”

“No, and there aren’t going to be.” He frowned. “Her family . . . they drive me crazy. They won’t admit . . . Oh, enough about that. Do you have something that’s super sweet?” He was a couple of inches shorter than Chase, but stood with a wide stance and took up nearly the whole aisle between the tables of products.

She pointed out the Raspberry Chiffon Bars. “These are pretty sweet, and there’s the delicious raspberry taste.”

His eyes lit up. “I like raspberry. I’ll try a couple of those. Maybe I could taste them better.” He cocked his elbow back to extract his wallet from his jeans pocket. Unfortunately, his elbow connected with a pile of stacked dessert boxes and they tumbled to the floor. The floor was tracked with melting, rather slushy snow.

Bart turned an alarming shade of red. Not just his face, but his whole head. It wasn’t embarrassment, more like anger at something. Himself? The easily dislodged boxes? His lips curled into a snarl and invectives streamed from between his clenched teeth.

“It’s okay, Bart.” Chase hoped he couldn’t tell how scared she was. He was a volcano about to erupt. His reaction seemed entirely out of proportion. “We’ll take these and repackage the goodies that got wet. The dessert bars are probably fine.”

Mallory was already swooping up the fallen wares and whisking them into the kitchen. She cringed, as frightened of the man as Chase felt.

Chase touched his arm. One of his fists unclenched, then the other. “No big deal, Bart. Really. Why don’t you take these two on trial? If you like them, come back and buy some more.” She slid the bars into a bag and held it out to him.

He swiped it with a hammy fist. He gave a grimace that was probably supposed to be a sheepish grin, and stalked out.

Chase deflated a bit when the door closed. Then she squared her shoulders and continued waiting on the steady stream of customers. The shop was so crowded, most of them hadn’t noticed a thing.

FOURTEEN

Chase thought about Bart Fender as she waited on other customers. If he couldn’t taste sweet things, he probably wouldn’t be back. Probably a good thing since he barely fit into the store. In fact, she wondered if all that bulk was natural. It was possible he took performance-enhancing drugs. But he came into contact with young high school athletes daily. She hoped his bad habit—if that was the cause of his massive body—wasn’t rubbing off onto his students. She was so glad she wasn’t going to high school now! Back then, as far as she knew, the principal hadn’t been raking money from the school system and she was sure the coaches weren’t taking illegal drugs.