Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

“Stand back, everyone,” the policeman said. “You’re not going anywhere,” he told Ivan. “Everyone stay put until the detective gets here. No one is to move an inch.”

They all watched as Detective Olson and six uniformed backup officers strode through the crowd toward Ivan. Ivan glared at everyone and hissed, showing his teeth. Chase thought he looked like an angry cat.

“That’s him!” Patrice shouted again, stabbing her finger at Ivan, but staying a good distance away from him. Her mother, Mike’s aunt Betsy, had made her way over and folded Patrice, cat and all, to her bosom.

Mike was right behind them. He went directly to Chase and put an arm around her shoulder.

“What’s going on now?”

“Now we know who killed Oake.” She leaned into him and watched Ivan.

When Olson reached them and confronted Ivan, the fight went out of the cranky old man and he submitted to a pat-down without further resistance. He kept his mouth shut, although he threw daggers at both Chase and Dr. Ramos.

Patrice repeated everything about Ivan’s threats when he’d seen her with the collar, as one of the officers took notes.

Peter conferred with Inger briefly before following his father as he was taken out of the arena by two of the officers.

People were slowly beginning to leave the arena, one at a time, after being questioned by the police at the door.

Chase and Mike stepped aside, to the edge of the now-dwindling crowd.

“What just happened? I could see what I thought was a struggle, but too many people were in the way.”

“Quincy and I found the diamond collar!”

“Where was it?”

“In Shadow’s carrier. Ivan is the one who murdered Larry Oake.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Ivan tried to get it from me, but Quincy bit him on the arm. It was awesome. You should have seen it. I didn’t get hurt much.”

“How about out there with the van? You got hurt there, didn’t you?”

“Not really. My hands are sore and a little bruised from Hardin pounding on my knuckles, but nothing too bad.” They were a dozen yards away from where the guard held Ivan’s biceps in an iron grip. “And I hurt my knees a little bit.”

“What exactly did you do?” Mike took her hands in his and inspected them, frowning at her bandages. His hands were warm. His own knuckles looked bruised. She rubbed a finger over them.

“I hung on to the car while he tried to drive away.”

“If you had fallen off, you’d have been badly hurt.”

Chase grinned. “But I didn’t. How about you?”

“My hands are sore, too, from pounding on the wall of the van,” he admitted. “Thank goodness you realized what was happening.”

“We’re quite the pair, with our injuries. But why did Hardin kidnap you?”

“I couldn’t figure that out at first. I startled him earlier, on the midway. He was coming out from the aisle next to the butter building. He looked panicked—I didn’t know why—but just ran away. After he took me to the van and threw me inside, he was raving about something he thought I’d seen. He thinks I saw him kill someone back there behind the booths!”

“It all started when Hardin saw Ivan run away after killing Oake.”

“He saw him run from the building?”

“Yes. He told Sally, one of the travel agents, but then refused to talk about it, especially with the police.”

Mike’s jaw swung open. “Why? Why wouldn’t he tell anyone what he saw?”

“He’s a murderer who escaped from prison and changed his name. If the police found out, he’d be going back to prison. I’m not sure why he told Sally. He was probably trying to impress her. She was good-looking and was about the only person here that talked to him. She said she would go to the police if he didn’t. I guess he thought it was worth harming both of us to stay out of prison.”

“He thought it was worth killing for, Chase. He admitted to the police that he had strangled a woman behind the booths before they drove him away. Now I know it was the travel agent,” Mike said. “He was raving that I had seen him kill her and that he would get rid of me, too.”

“How can someone not care a bit about others? How could Hardin strangle her when all she did was tell people what he had told her?”

“He doesn’t care about anyone. Just about himself.”

“So there actually were two murders here. And two murderers.” Chase shuddered violently and Mike squeezed her shoulders.

They rejoined the few people left on this side of the arena, Anna and Inger among them.

“Could we keep Shadow for a day or two?” Inger appealed to Chase and Anna as soon as she saw them.

“Inger,” Anna said. “Do you know the Aronoffs?”

“I know Peter, mostly.” She looked at her feet.

“How on earth do you know him?” As soon as she said it, Chase remembered how Inger had searched the homeless shelter and that the cook had mentioned a young man. She also remembered Ivan saying he and his son were homeless after Peter had lost his job with Picky Puss. “The homeless shelter?” Chase asked.

“Yes, I met him there, delivering our dessert bars. Peter is crazy about the Harvest Bars. I didn’t want to say anything. It’s too soon after Zack died. Isn’t it? But Peter was so nice to me.”

Anna put a hand on Inger’s shoulder. She raised her chin up with the other hand. “Inger, you need to do what’s best for you.”

Chase wasn’t sure Peter Aronoff was the best for her. Given her nutty on-again-off-again parents, though, it would be nice if someone else were looking after her. But maybe someone who wasn’t homeless and whose father wasn’t a murderer.

“Peter has a new job and they haven’t been in the shelter for a couple of weeks, he said.” She looked down again. “I talked to him today for a long time.” She turned tear-filled eyes to Chase. “He’s awfully upset about his father right now. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do about that whole mess.”

“Did he know his father killed Oake?” Anna said.

“He thought his father knew where the stolen collar was, but he didn’t really know about the murder. Not for long. He suspected but didn’t admit it to himself.”

“He should have turned him in as soon as realized what he had done.” Chase wondered if he would be charged with obstructing justice.

“He did give the police an anonymous tip about the collar.” Inger turned on Chase. “Would you do that?” Her words were impassioned. “To your own father? Could you really do that?”

Chase didn’t know.

THIRTY

“Go, go!” urged Inger. “You’ll be late.” It was near closing time and only three customers lingered in the Bar None. Inger had been explaining the blue ribbon to them. She did it several times a day, but she said she didn’t get tired of it. The picture Chase had snapped of Quincy in the Babe the Blue Ox costume was taped to the display case next to the ribbon.

Anna and Chase both felt it would be wrong to display the Picky Puss Cat Food bags in the shop, the ones featuring Quincy all dolled up in the diamond collar. Five different images of him, in various poses, graced the bags.

He had loved the photo shoot, Chase thought. Dozens of people fussed and fawned over him, and he purred nonstop. He even hammed it up when they shot the television ads. The one Chase liked best started with an empty metal bowl. You then saw Picky Puss kibble cascading into it. The camera panned out and left the kitchen, took the viewer through a living room and a front hallway, up the stairs, down a narrow hallway, and into a bedroom where Quincy lay in regal splendor on a gray silk cat bed, wearing, of course, the collar. Throughout the camera’s journey, the sound of pouring, clattering kibble grew fainter and fainter. But when the camera—and presumably the sound, or maybe the smell—reached Quincy, his head shot up and he leapt out of the cat bed, reversed the route, and ended up chowing down in the kitchen.