Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

After Bill left, Anna and Inger finally retreated to the bedroom to do some work on the costume. They took Quincy with them. That left Chase with the twin sisters. Julie had called to say she’d be very late. It had sounded like Jay Wright was involved. Chase couldn’t very well blame her for finishing her evening up with Jay. She probably wanted to discuss her findings with him from the dinner with Bud, the real estate lawyer. Chase hadn’t mentioned that she wanted to move Inger to her house tonight. Chase inwardly kicked herself and felt a stab of pain behind her left ear. If Inger stayed with Chase again, it would be her own fault.

Chase envied the speed at which Julie’s romance was progressing. For that matter, Anna and Bill Shandy were moving quickly, too. They were all further along than she was with Mike Ramos. Everyone was leaving her in the dust! Then she considered the woman in the same room who had just lost her husband and gave herself a mental slap.

Elsie and Ellie, as they called each other, sat side by side on the couch, both of them staring at Chase with the same hard brown eyes. Grey, brought in from the bathroom, chattered away in her cage on the table at the end of the sofa.

“Who wants to play? How are you? Nothing is forever. Everyone’s a critic.”

Chase burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asked Elsa.

“Your parrot! She’s a regular little philosopher. Did you teach her all her phrases?”

Eleanor leaned forward like she was going to spill a secret. “She watches TV.”

To illustrate that point, Grey started shrieking like a police siren. Chase’s head almost split open.

Anna ran out of the bedroom, looked around, glared at the cage, and went back to the bedroom muttering, “That bird again.”

“She’s . . . something,” Chase said, rubbing her temples.

Elsa and Eleanor smiled identical smiles.

The cat had been turned loose in the bedroom when the two women brought him there to work on a noisy machine with some cloth. The animal that so intrigued him was on the other side of the bedroom door, so he stayed close to it. The animal smelled like something delicious, but it was much too big to bring down. Besides, it had almost acted friendly. He was intrigued. When the animal shrieked and the older woman ran out of the bedroom, he slipped out. He slunk around the edges of the room, nearing the big bird cautiously. Nothing was going to keep him from investigating this strange creature.

Everyone had eaten, so, besides talking about the parrot, there wasn’t much else to do.

“It’s too bad I can’t let her out.” Elsa gave Chase a baleful look. “She could show you her tricks.”

“It’s too bad there isn’t a parrot competition at the fair,” Chase said.

“It is too bad,” said Eleanor. She spoke to Elsa. “Maybe you could suggest it for next year.”

Elsa drew back in horror. “I’ll never be at that fair again! I’m never coming to this town again! As soon as I get my husband’s poor body, we’re leaving. We may never—I mean, I may never come back to Minnesota again.”

That was understandable, thought Chase. If Elsa hadn’t killed him and didn’t get locked up in Minnesota for a good long time, why would she ever return? Maybe, thought Chase, she could do some digging while they were here together.

“I suppose,” Chase said to Eleanor, “your sister told you about how she found her husband after he had been killed?”

“Oh my, yes. She did. She said she screamed her head off.”

Elsa leaned her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes. “It’s something I hope to never see again. I close my eyes and it’s right there, every night. I wonder when that will stop. He was lying there in the straw. There wasn’t very much blood. That metal dowel handle was sticking out of his ear.” A tremor went through her.

“You must have gotten pretty close to see all that,” Chase said.

“Oh no,” both sisters chorused.

“I might have taken two steps,” said Elsa, “but I backed right out. It was full of straw.”

“She couldn’t go inside the building,” Eleanor said.

“No way,” Elsa added. “I couldn’t get close to him. I wanted to run over and check to see if he might be alive.”

“Why didn’t you?” Chase was missing something here. “You saw Dr. Ramos and my cat there, too, right?”

“Yes, I saw everything.”

“But you weren’t inside the building?”

“Oh no. I couldn’t. I saw everything from the doorway.”

“Why couldn’t you go inside?”

“We’re both deathly allergic,” Eleanor said. “That straw on the floor might kill her.”

Elsa nodded. “As it was, just getting a whiff and screaming like that set me off. I had to use my inhaler four times that night.”

“When Elsie called me, she was wheezing so hard I thought she might have to admit herself to the emergency room.” She turned to Elsa. “Good thing you had an extra inhaler with you.”

“Yes, I’m glad you told me to bring it. I sure needed it. The first one ran out on me.”

She hadn’t even entered the building? Allergic to straw? Maybe she hadn’t killed him after all. Chase remembered how awful her face had looked. It had been red and splotchy. Was that from her hay allergy? If so, did that mean she had been inside? Or would she react that way from the exposure from the doorway?

Could she have stabbed him and he staggered into the building after that? Probably not. There had been no indications that he didn’t die where he was found.

“You know, they’ve let that man loose,” Elsa said. “The one who was there when I found my dead husband.”

“Who are you talking about?” Chase asked. “Dr. Ramos?” Chase was indignant. “He didn’t kill your husband!”

“He was right there. But I think now he didn’t do it; he’s so good to Grey. Do you know why he was beside his body?”

“He went in there to get my cat!” And Patrice’s cat collar. “Your husband was dead when he went in.” Chase heard her voice getting strident. Pain spiked behind her eyes.

Elsa huffed. “That Winn Cardiman. Nasty man. I’m pretty sure he did it. And they’ve let him go free, too.” She acted like the argument was over and she had won.

“I wonder what’s on TV tonight,” Elsa said, sounding bored.

And now we change the subject, thought Chase.

Elsa looked around for the remote and found it on the side table, where Anna always kept it, next to Grey’s cage. As she picked it up, Chase noticed a paw reaching up over the edge of the table. Before she could react, Quincy had jumped onto the table and swatted at the lock on the cage door. Grey nosed the door open and flew out.

All three women held their breath. Grey perched on top of her cage and peered down at the cat. Quincy crouched, his tail twitching slightly. Then he stretched his nose up. Grey put her beak down and they touched.

As Quincy purred and licked Grey’s beak, the bird started squawking, “Everything’s coming up roses.” She sounded exactly like Ethel Merman.

TWENTY-TWO

Since Julie hadn’t shown up yet when Chase needed to get to bed, she abandoned the plan to move Inger that night and brought her employee back home with her, lugging the suitcase up the stairs to the apartment. She also brought home a crashing headache. Lady Jane Grey had shrieked through three sitcoms and part of a singing competition show. She especially liked to mimic laugh tracks and high sopranos, as Chase remembered. No wonder Anna was getting tired of having the bird around. By the time Chase left, she didn’t think the parrot was cute at all, even if Quincy was quite taken with her.

However, she was very pleased with Quincy’s costume. Anna and Inger had done a bang-up job. A band around his head secured the lightweight horns and ears of Babe the Blue Ox. A simple blue felt cape, buckled around his body, completed the transformation. Quincy didn’t even seem to mind it too much. Anna had managed to fasten a tufted bit of cloth onto the rear of the cover-up for a bovine tail. The cat’s extra girth gave more credibility to the thought that he might possibly be a miniature of the giant ox.