Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

“How’s your jailbird doing?” Sally asked.

Chase was confused. “I don’t have a bird.”

The blonde leaned over the table and lowered her voice, pointing to Harper’s booth. “ That jailbird. The ex-convict toymaker.”

“How do you know he’s an ex—”

“Shh!”

Chase had inadvertently raised her voice.

“Don’t let him hear you,” she said.

“How do you know he’s been prison?” Chase continued softly.

“Those tattoos. That’s the kind you get there.”

“How do you know?”

She waved a bejeweled hand. “One of my cousins, the black sheep of the family, was locked up for drug charges a few years ago.”

“Say,” Chase said. “You’re not missing any jewelry, are you?”

She peered at her hands. “No, it doesn’t look like it. Is Harper a jewel thief? Is that why he was in prison?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I mean, I don’t know.”

“Well, why do you ask, then?”

She didn’t want to spread Patrice’s name and her weakness all over the fair. “I had a ring taken. It’s nothing to do with Harper. I’m not even sure it was here.” She cringed a little at the lie. She should never have brought it up.

“See you,” Sally said, leaving with her package.

Chase got Anna’s attention as she finished up a sale. “Can you think of a costume for Quincy for the Fancy Cat Contest?”

Anna held her chin in her fist, thinking. “I did think of Puss in Boots, but, as you say, that’s probably too easy. I also thought of Supercat, but if that one is going to be Batman—”

“Batcat.”

“—Batcat, then another caped crusader wouldn’t be good.”

“Patrice wanted to try that jeweled collar on her cat. I imagine there would be more to her getup than that. Maybe a frilly princess dress.”

“You’re right, Charity. After all, what was that cat’s name? Something frilly.”

“Princess Puffball.”

“Are you talking about my cat?” Patrice, decked out in her purple caftan and gold turban, came into the booth, trailing her gauzy robe behind her. She held up a tiny pink ballerina tutu. “I wanted to show you what Princess will be wearing. Isn’t it adorable?”

Anna nodded. “Very fitting for a princess.”

Chase thought it looked ridiculous, but she smiled and nodded.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if Quincy came as Puss in Boots?” Patrice said. “He’s the same color as the cat in the movie.”

Maybe, thought Chase, that’s what was giving everyone the idea. She would have to rack her brain to come up with something. Quick. The contest was the day after tomorrow.

NINETEEN

At lunchtime, Chase volunteered to get sandwiches for both of them. She was getting a second wind. Her headache had receded, and she felt so much better than when she had gotten up. Anna wanted turkey and Swiss, and Chase was hungry for a meatball sub.

“I’ll stop in and see Quincy first,” she said to Anna as she was slipping on her coat and leaving the booth.

Anna gave her a smile that meant she knew Chase was also going to see Dr. Ramos.

On her way, Chase pondered the costume situation. Yes, Quincy was the color of the Puss in Boots cat, but Chase definitely didn’t want to do that. It was way too obvious. What did she want to do? Something brilliant, something that would wow the judges. If they were going to enter, she wanted them to win. Quincy was also the color of marmalade. Could she coax him to curl up on a huge piece of fake toast and BE marmalade? Not likely.

She hummed “Put on a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie as she walked past Patrice’s booth. Yes, she was in a much better mood. Maybe it was because she was away from Inger and Elsa and Eleanor.

Sometimes, when an old show tune popped up on her lips or in her mind, unbidden, she was taken straight back to her childhood, after her parents’ deaths, when she began living with Anna. Her surrogate parent and grandparent, all rolled into one, was an aficionado of musicals. Anna and Chase, and sometimes Julie, would pile into Anna’s gold Pontiac. It was the pride and joy of both the Larsons. Anna’s husband didn’t care for musicals, so it was always a girls’ night out. Anna would do it up right, with dinner before the show at a nearby restaurant, a leisurely walk—if it wasn’t raining—to one of the theaters in Minneapolis that showed musicals in the summertime, and usually good seats that Anna had purchased well ahead of time. Chase loved sitting in the plush seats, imagining she was one of the characters, usually the female lead, and that she could sing like they did. She couldn’t, and wasn’t very musical then or now, but, somehow, a lot of those old tunes had stuck with her. She still liked to go to musicals and sometimes, when their busy schedules allowed it, she and Anna and Julie would all do a rerun of those long-ago days, minus the Pontiac.

Patrice’s fortune-telling booth seemed to be doing well. The purple gauze cloth drape that served as a door was closed, which meant she had a customer. The usual lavender scent hung outside the booth, drifting to the midway and dissipating with the competing aromas from the food court.

Madame Divine kept her booth so dark, she could have hidden the cat collar there after she stole it from the display and before she stuffed it into the sculpture and most people would never have seen it. She was, as Mike said, flaky. What had possessed her to cram it into a butter sculpture? The collar hadn’t been there when Mike tried to retrieve it. Stolen, no doubt, by the person who murdered Larry Oake. The same person who threatened Patrice. Did it make sense that Patrice might have the collar now? That she had murdered Oake? That she had set her cousin up as the number one suspect? Chase shuddered. She hoped not.

The jewelry booth was next. Could one of them have taken it? Chase hadn’t spoken to them much, but they were a little old couple, rather dowdy and ordinary-looking. Just the type to get away with things because they looked so innocent. They knew jewelry, Chase presumed. Would they be tempted by such a dazzling item?

Passing the butter building, she detected extra bustle there. More people than usual were dashing in and out. Maybe they were all getting lunch. It was almost noon. Mara Minsky rushed out and ran into Chase.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “We’re in such a hurry to finish up. Everyone in there”—she jerked a thumb at the doorway behind her—“is crazy right now.”

She was ready to hurry past, then recognized Chase. “Oh, you’re the one Daddy insulted the other day. I’m so sorry about that.”

Karl Minsky hadn’t insulted her. He had threatened her. There was a big difference. Had she seen that? Or maybe he’d told her? Chase thanked the young woman and started to go on.

“He didn’t really mean it. He’s so awfully upset that the policeman thinks he murdered that poor man,” Mara said. “He’s beside himself. He gets, well, mean when he’s upset.”

“Your father needs to learn not to threaten people. That could get him into a lot of trouble.”

“He’s been so desperate to win that prize money. It would make such a difference to us.”

Chase took a step closer to her and spoke softly. “Maybe you shouldn’t go around saying that.”

She frowned. “Why not? I think everybody knows it.”

“Think about it, Mara. That attitude gives him a perfect motive for eliminating his chief competition.”

Mara sucked her breath in through rounded lips. “Oh. Oh. Okay. I won’t go around saying it anymore. But that can’t make people think he murdered the poor man. Daddy was with me when that man died. I told the detective that. My father couldn’t have done it.”