Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

As the three women assembled dough and layered the sweet treats together, putting baking pans into the oven and pulling them out like an assembly line, Chase tried to learn more about the woman. Elsa wore cowgirl boots again—red ones tonight—and a long, black skirt. Her arms were flecked with flour and powdered sugar.

“Do you know when you’re going back to Wisconsin?” Chase asked.

Elsa knitted her brows in distress. “No, I’m not allowed to leave right now. My sister is on her way tomorrow to keep me company.”

“That’s good,” Anna said, sticking a bowl of sugar and butter under the mixer to cream. “Are you close to her?”

“We’re twins, only sixteen minutes apart. She’s bringing my birdie. I miss her so much.”

“What kind of bird?” Anna asked.

“She’s a parrot, an African grey. I’ll be so happy to see her. I’m just not sure the hotel will be pleased about it.”

“Would you like to stay at my place? I wouldn’t mind having her. What’s her name?”

Chase stared, wide-eyed. Anna was offering her home to a murder suspect, and her family, plus her pet. She shook her head behind Elsa’s back, but Anna pointedly ignored her.

“You and your sister are both welcome. It’s costing a fortune for the hotel, isn’t it?”

“That won’t be a problem. Larry left me well provided for. He had a huge insurance policy. I’ll be more than fine when that comes through.”

Another motive, thought Chase. She never did get around to mentioning cat costumes.

TWELVE

The kitchen was cleaned up and the two older women had left. Chase stood in the middle of the room, deep in thought.

Elsa could very well have killed her husband. Her motive was good, since he had a large life insurance policy. Chase assumed that he would have indeed left her high and dry if he had succeeded in divorcing her and moving to Costa Rica, cleaning out bank accounts on his way out of town. No need to spend the money on a divorce when you could leave the country and disappear.

She started pacing the floor as her thoughts warmed up.

Winn Cardiman, the butter sculptor whose design was, he said, stolen by Larry Oake, had made such a good suspect. It was a pity he had dropped out of the competition and gone home. He was angry enough to have killed the man in a fit of passion when Chase had been talking to him. Wait, maybe he did kill him, then, realizing what he’d done, left in a hurry. He could still be a suspect. Even if he didn’t need the prize money, he was angry that his design had, he perceived, been stolen.

She paced faster, suspicions tumbling over one another in her mind.

The other sculptor, Karl Minsky, was desperate for the money. He was fiercely proud of his daughter’s artistic talents and wanted the best for her. The only problem was, he couldn’t afford the expensive art school she wanted to attend. If he eliminated some competition, he believed he would win, using Mara’s design. To Chase’s eye, it was a little too abstract to appeal to a general population, but maybe the judges were more modern, artistically, than she was.

All three—Elsa, Winn, and Karl—had engaged in loud arguments with Larry shortly before his death. Or had they? Elsa said Winn argued with the victim, but no one else had mentioned it. Had she lied about that? Detective Olson didn’t seem to know about it. Karl’s daughter talked to Chase about his shouting match, so that one probably happened. And Elsa’s argument? She told Anna about it, so it probably had happened, too. There was no advantage, Chase reasoned, in telling Anna about these altercations, because they could incriminate Elsa.

Neither Mike nor Patrice had ever argued with the man. Had never even met him—she would bet money on that. Why would they be acquainted with a butter sculptor? Mike was merely trying to retrieve the bauble—okay, the valuable jeweled bauble—for his cousin. And she was just being her thieving self. Their timing was very, very bad. And so they were the preferred suspects.

Chase stopped pacing. Say that Elsa had killed her husband. Wouldn’t it be an excellent tactic to wait for the next person to enter the building, then to “find” that person—Mike—with the body?

The butter sculpture tool, the pointed dowel, was most assuredly a weapon of convenience, so the crime had to be one of passion. If someone had planned to kill him, he or she would have arrived with a weapon. Who would be more passionate than Oake’s spouse?

That was another factor in Mike’s favor. How could he kill the man in a fit of passion when he didn’t even know him? The same held true for Patrice, surely.

Her phone rattled in her pocket and she saw Tanner’s number. She hadn’t gotten anything for him yet. She opened the phone and ran into the office.

“Hi, Tanner. I’m working on the product list right now.” Not really a lie. She was opening a document file this very minute to begin typing the descriptions.

“Can I have part of the payment, if this is going to, like, take a long time to finish up?”

That was fair. But she didn’t want to use the shop bank account. “Can you come by to pick up a check?” She would have to use her own account until this was revealed to Anna. At this stage, she probably wouldn’t appreciate the potential.

“This isn’t too late for you?”

It was a little past ten o’clock. Not all that late. Usually she would be lounging in her PJs by now. At least she was still dressed, but only because she hadn’t had time yet to get ready for bed. “Oh no. Not too late at all.”

“Cool. I’ll be right there. I can look at what you’ve done so far.”

Chase groaned after she ended the call. She furiously began typing very bad, short descriptions. Strawberry Cheesecake: cheesecake bar with strawberries. Hula Bars: pineapple, coconut, walnuts. Lemon Bars: lemon-flavored. This wouldn’t do.

The back doorbell rang. She closed the file and hit “Don’t Save” as she exited the screen.

“Hey, Ms. Oliver. Thanks for letting me come by. So, you got my check?”

“Just a sec. I have to run upstairs for my checkbook.”

“I’ll look at your product description file while you do that.”

“Oh. You know what? I was working on it and something happened. I lost everything. Don’t worry, I can redo it.”

He gave her a look that unmistakably let her know he thought she was a moron.

He no sooner left than her cell chirped again. She was delighted to see Mike’s number. “Hey, my favorite doctor,” she said.

“I hope I’m your favorite animal doctor and you have a people doctor you like.” She heard the smile in his voice.

“You’re right. You’re Quincy’s favorite doctor.”

Maybe her saying his name set her cat off. Just after she said it, she heard loud, insistent meowing from her apartment above. She mounted the stairs while she talked. “What’s up?”

“I called to see how you’re holding up. It seems that you and Anna are working awfully hard this week.”

“Ha!” She opened the door to her apartment, sticking a leg in to keep her cat from bolting. “This week is no different. We always work hard. I will say that the hours are longer, though.”

“Did you just get home?”

“No, but we finished baking for tomorrow a few minutes ago. I’ll admit that we do have a better rhythm during normal workweeks. Have you heard anything new about the murder?”

“They’re hardly likely to tell me what they’ve found.”

“So you’re still suspect numero uno?” She stuck a Kitty Patty in the microwave to heat for a few seconds.

“As far as I know, unless Patrice has replaced me. Your Detective Olson questioned her for a long time this afternoon. I’ve just talked with her. She’s not sure whether he’s trying to pin the murder on her or whether he’s trying to get her to say I did it.”