Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

Mike, holding Quincy, stood talking to the man who had been sculpting a gopher. Chase looked around. It seemed to her that all of the sculptures had been finished. The artists who were there were cleaning up and putting their things away. Chase moved to approach the two men.

On her way, she saw one woman smoothing a flat piece of her sculpture with a finger she was dipping into a bowl of cold water. Chase stopped to admire it.

“Your North Star is so intricate. I don’t know how you do that.”

The woman beamed. “Years of practice.”

She wiped her buttery finger on a paper towel. “I have to quit now. It’s so hard to leave it be.”

Chase reached the man Mike was chatting with. “I love your gopher,” she said. “It looks like he actually has fur.”

“Yellow fur.” The man chuckled.

“Yes, but it does look like fur,” Mike said. He held Quincy up next to the statue to compare their fur coats.

“Did Quincy get into anything?” she asked.

“I caught him right inside the door. Decided I wanted to see these. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been outside knocking down people.” I wish I were knocking down killers and revealing their guilt, she thought, but how would I even do that?

“Is your cat competing in the Fancy Cat Contest?” the sculptor asked.

“I think so.” If she could come up with a costume very soon, he would be.

TWENTY-ONE

Anna came over to Chase’s apartment that evening to help get Inger moved to Julie’s place. She insisted on lifting Inger’s suitcase onto Chase’s unmade bed.

“It’s no problem for me, Mrs. Larson,” Inger said, taking her clothing from Chase’s dresser drawers, where she had crammed her things in on top of Chase’s.

“You shouldn’t be lifting in your condition,” Anna insisted.

“Everyone keeps telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.” Inger threw her hands out in frustration. “How do I know what I can do?”

“Inger, I’ll get you a book about being pregnant,” Chase said, “but really, you need to make an appointment.”

“I don’t know any baby doctors.”

Chase remembered what Mike had said. “Don’t you have an appointment with a doctor at the clinic?”

“I guess. But I can’t go to someone I don’t know anything about.”

“You help her pack,” said Anna to Chase. “I’ll get a doctor’s name.”

She left the room and came back as they were stuffing Inger’s underwear into the corners of the suitcase.

“Here.” Anna thrust a piece of paper, torn from the pad in Chase’s kitchen, into Inger’s hand. “This is the number of the doctor my friend’s granddaughter is using. She’s due in three months and likes Dr. Ingersoll very much.”

“Inger and Ingersoll,” mused Chase. “You should be able to remember his name.”

Inger smiled for the first time that evening, a small smile. “If it’s someone you know, that’s different. I promise I’ll call him Monday.”

“Give him my friend’s name. It’s there on the paper.”

Chase wondered who was going to pay for the doctor, but she wasn’t going to start worrying about that yet. Chase hoisted the suitcase off the bed and wheeled it behind her. They made their way into the kitchen, where Anna put the kettle on for herbal tea.

“Next project.” Anna dusted off her hands symbolically. “Quincy’s costume.”

“Oh, can I help?” Inger sparked to life. She gave a wide grin. “I’ve been thinking and I have some ideas.”

Chase cocked her head toward Inger in surprise.

“He should be Babe the Blue Ox,” Inger said, clapping her hands.

Quincy lifted his head at the noise.

“It’s better than Puss in Boots,” Chase said. “But how are we going to do it?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard.” Inger turned the piece of paper over on the counter and started drawing. In two minutes she held up a sketch of a cat with horns and ears on a headdress, and a little bodysuit with a cow’s tail at the back.

Chase looked skeptical, but Anna grabbed the paper and said, “Yes! This will be great. I have a bolt of blue felt that I bought for half price. I thought we might be able to use it in the shop somehow.”

“Do you have white felt for the horns?” Inger looked better than she had in days. Her blue eyes twinkled and her smile brought sunshine into the apartment.

“I have something, I’m sure.”

“So,” said Chase to Anna, “we need to go to your place.” Anna had the sewing supplies.

“Everyone else is there,” Anna agreed. “Might as well.”

Chase had a sudden thought. “Should we bring Quincy, with the parrot there? We’ll have to. He has to be there in order to be fitted, doesn’t he?”

“Lady Jane Grey does have a cage,” Anna said. “She’ll have to use it tonight.”

The three of them, four counting Quincy, drove to Anna’s. Anna and Inger went in Anna’s blue Volvo, and Chase followed with Quincy in his carrier.

“You’re going to look great,” she cooed to him on the way. “The other cats will all be dull next to you.” She hoped she was right.

At Anna’s, bedlam broke lose.

As soon as the carrier was set on the floor of the strange living room, the cat sensed something very different was in this place tonight. When the huge parrot walked up to his crate and started pecking, he swatted, claws out. The people ran to them and they all started making a lot of noise. A pair of hands picked the parrot up while the cat’s owner snatched his crate. But, before the bird could be caged, the clever cat hooked his claw in the latch, nudged it open, and jumped out. The cat stopped, mesmerized by the biggest bird he had ever been this close to. The parrot hopped to the floor.

“Control that filthy animal,” shrieked Elsa, stooping to grab her parrot’s feet and pick her up. The bird squawked and flapped her wings, scattering feathers onto the floor. “He’s going to kill Lady Grey.”

Chase cradled Quincy in her arms and looked at the animals. They were about the same size. “How much does your bird weigh?”

“Fifteen point eight ounces.”

“Ounces?”

“She was a pound when I weighed her at my place,” said Eleanor. “Here, let me have her.”

Quincy hadn’t taken his wide, staring eyes off Grey since he’d escaped. Chase made sure she had a good grip on him. He wasn’t struggling to get at the parrot. Maybe he was intimidated.

Eleanor deftly got the parrot into her cage. Quincy didn’t relax one bit.

Eleanor eyed the cat. “I’ll take Grey into the bedroom.”

“You’d better put her in the bathroom,” Anna said, picking the feathers off the floor. “My sewing machine is in the bedroom.”

“That doesn’t seem very convenient.” Elsa stood watching as Anna cleaned up after her bird.

“It’s convenient for me,” Anna said evenly. “I live here.”

The sooner these women left Anna’s place, the better, thought Chase. If Elsa isn’t a murderer now, she might become one. Or Anna might.

Anna got a tape measure and wrapped it around Quincy in a few places, then handed the cat to Inger, but before she and Inger made it to the bedroom, a knock sounded on the front door. Bill Shandy didn’t wait but came right in.

He greeted Anna with a tight hug.

“How are you doing?” she asked him quietly so Elsa and Eleanor couldn’t hear. Chase was close enough to, though. “You still okay with my decision?”

Bill ran a hand over his face. “I’m fine now that I’m here. The sight of you cures everything.”

“Oh, you sweet-talker, you.” Anna patted his shoulder.

“I can’t stay long, but I wanted to see you for a few minutes.”

Chase gave them some space and they talked together on the couch for fifteen minutes or so about flowers and music and wedding details.