Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

Elsie and Ellie! This is going to be confusing, thought Chase. She decided she would call them Elsa and Eleanor. Maybe she wouldn’t have to call them anything if she never saw them again.

“Bye, Anna,” said Elsa. “We’re going to go see Grey.”

Both women swished away, their skirts swirling around their cowgirl boots.

Chase gave Anna a blank look. “Who’s Grey?”

“That’s the parrot. She’s a sweetheart. Her name is Lady Jane Grey, but Elsa and Eleanor call her Grey.”

“She’s alone in your house? Is she in a cage?”

“No, she’s with Dr. Ramos. She was at the house last night.”

“He’s going to have to start charging boarding fees, poor guy. Everyone is dumping their pets on him.”

“Only you and Elsa, right?”

“And a black cat that is usually there.”

The weather was much colder and there didn’t seem to be nearly as many people at the fair today. Maybe Wednesday was Hump Day here, just like in an office—and at the Bar None store. The plug-in heater made the booth toasty, but even that didn’t draw people in as it had before. The people simply weren’t there to be drawn in.

After an hour of meager sales, Chase’s cell rang. It was in her purse under the table. She dove for it and fished it out as it quit ringing.

“Who was it?” asked Anna.

“Inger. I’ll call her back.” But Chase didn’t get an answer when she tried and Inger hadn’t left a message. She worried about her friend for the rest of the morning.

At lunchtime, Bill Shandy, Anna’s recent fiancé, strolled up the aisle and turned in to the Bar None.

“How’s my favorite baker?”

Anna answered with a brilliant smile and a hug. Bill was a few inches taller than Anna, which, given Anna’s small stature, put him only at medium height. His curly gray hair was a match in color for Anna’s, but a patch was missing at his crown. His bushy mustache made up for the baldness on top. Chase liked Bill. It occurred to her that she should appeal to him for help getting Anna away from Elsa and her coterie.

“Do you want to see the parrot?” Anna asked Bill. She said to Chase, “I told him about Lady Jane Grey, and he said he’d like to see her.”

Bill owned a pet store near their Dinktytown treat shop. His family had gone through an ordeal recently, and Chase thought Bill had handled his wacky relatives with infinite patience and grace. He and Anna had become closer during that time, and Chase was glad they had each other. Anna hadn’t shown any interest in a man since her beloved husband had passed away several years ago. Chase loved to see the romance blossoming between them.

“Go ahead,” Chase said. “I’ll be fine here if you both want to head over to the vet clinic.”

“I think I want to meet the parrot’s owner as much as I want to meet the parrot,” Bill said.

If Anna hadn’t been there, that would have been the perfect entrance for Chase to bring up the subject of Elsa. She put out a feeler, which was all she could do.

“Do you know that they’re all staying at Anna’s? Elsa, the parrot, and Elsa’s twin sister?”

“Yes, she told me, but I haven’t had a chance to meet any of them.”

“Elsa is the one whose husband was murdered here,” Chase added.

“Poor woman.” Bill shook his head in sympathy.

When Chase frowned slightly at that, he raised his eyebrows in question.

“I don’t know how poor she is. The insurance settlement should be hefty.”

“Charity!” Anna finally joined in. “That’s no way to talk. Bill, Charity thinks Elsa might have been the one who killed Larry Oake.” She took off her Bar None smock, crammed it under the table, donned her parka, and headed for the midway.

“I’m not the only one who thinks that way,” Chase said. “The police have told Elsa not to leave town.”

Anna kept going. Bill looked back at Chase long enough for her to mouth the words “call me” and then followed Anna.

THIRTEEN

After Bill and Anna got back from seeing Eleanor’s parrot, Bill took his leave with a quick kiss on the lips while Chase looked the other direction, smiling.

“Did you ever get hold of Inger?” Anna asked, coming around the table and tying on her smock.

“No, and I’m worried. Maybe her parents changed their minds and kicked her out again.”

“Already?” Anna said. “It’s only been a day.”

“I know. Do you get the feeling that it’s more her mother or her father having the problem with her being pregnant?”

“I don’t really know. I haven’t met either one of them. Come to think of it, don’t you think it’s a little strange that they have never come to the shop to see where their daughter works?”

“Now that you mention it, yes. You didn’t meet them, did you, when you took Inger home from your place?”

“No, I just dropped her off.” Anna frowned, thinking. “I don’t remember the exact address, but we have it on file in the office. Maybe you could stop by their place and try to see what’s going on.”

“Good idea. I can meet the parents, if they’re there.”

“Are you going to call first?”

“No, I think I’ll drop by. If all three are there, maybe I can get a feel for the family dynamics. If not, I’ll talk to whoever is home.”

“I don’t suppose you can convince the Uhlgrens to go easy on their daughter.” At that point, the first of a steady stream of customers interrupted the conversation.

Chase thought it would be a miracle if she could sway the minds of two people she had never before met concerning a family matter that was probably none of her business. But she knew she should try.

When she was working in Chicago, one of her fellow waitresses got pregnant. The young woman’s mother was very hard on her but didn’t kick her out of the family home. After the baby was born, the mother fell in love with her precious granddaughter. Chase felt that’s the way it ought to work when there was no father to share the burden with the new mother, like with Inger’s intended getting killed in war and not coming back. Families should support each other. What would she do without hers? If her own parents hadn’t made a will naming Anna as her guardian, she would surely have been made a ward of the state when they died. She shuddered to think of what some of those poor kids went through, being sent to homes where they weren’t really wanted and weren’t understood. There were some excellent foster parents, she was sure. You only ever heard about the ones who were . . . not excellent. But what if she had ended up with, well, anyone but Anna?

Overcome with the gratitude welling up inside her, Chase reached over and gave Anna a quick hug. Anna smiled in surprise and they both kept working.

When Chase went to get Quincy at the end of the day, Mike, in the small outer room, was deep in conversation on his cell phone, his face expressionless. It sounded serious, so she gave him a finger wave and went to the examining room. Quincy rose, stretched his front legs, curling his pink tongue as far out of his mouth as he could, then straightened each back leg.

“You’ve been a lazybones today, haven’t you?” Chase said. “Sleeping your life away. I can hardly blame you. It’s pretty boring in here.” She unlatched the cage and lifted Quincy into his carrier.

“Boring in here,” said a raspy voice behind her.

She whirled around. No one was there. Ah, but Elsa’s parrot was in a cage on a shelf.

“Hi there,” Chase said, walking over to the shelf.

“Hi there,” mimicked the bird.

“Are you Lady Jane Grey?”

“Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Grey.” The parrot flapped her soft gray wings, ducking her head and wiggling her red tail feathers.