Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat At Large

Chase heard a car start up in the parking lot. She realized she hadn’t heard Vi’s car leave. Or Shaun’s.

“Is that Vi, just leaving?” Anna said. “I wonder what she’s been doing all this time.”

Chase jumped off the stool and ran to the rear door. Her back didn’t twinge at all. The wine was a good painkiller. She flung the door open and scanned the parking lot. Vi’s red Z4 was pulling away. Another vehicle, a silver Porsche Boxster, drove out of the lot, turned north on Fourteenth, and sped off. Shaun’s car, Chase would bet the store on it. Well, maybe not the whole store, but she was sure it was him. It was the same car he’d had in Chicago. She shivered in the cold night air and came back to the warm kitchen.

“Shaun and Vi both just left. They were probably out there talking. He’s no doubt told her all his lies about me.”

“We both know how fickle Vi is about men. She won’t stick with him long.”

“One day is too long with Shaun Everly.” Chase plopped onto the stool and finished the glass of wine.

“Need another?” Anna didn’t wait for her answer, but poured her a glass.

• • •

Chase didn’t wantto get to Gabe Naughtly’s visitation too early. If no one else were there, she’d have to make small talk with Doris. That would be awful. She waited until 7:30, then walked the few blocks to the funeral home on Southeast Seventh Street. A brisk wind made her glad she’d worn a heavy jacket. She looked at the trees along the way, imagining them as they would look in a month, full of ochres, scarlets, golden yellows, and shiny browns for some of the oaks. For now, they were all still green, stirring in the breeze, giving off slight, breathy rattles as she walked slowly beneath them. She was in no great hurry to get to the visitation.

The parking lot beside the small, white, one-story building was half-full of cars. That must have meant a lot of other mourners were already there, so Chase deemed it safe. She wanted to duck in, sign the book, tell Doris and Ted that she was “so sorry for their loss,” and get out quickly. She had never been fond of Doris, but the more she heard about her from Anna, the less she liked the woman. Chase hated duplicity. She would be forced to be two-faced to the woman at her husband’s coffin, though—to be nice and act sympathetic. Chase would also be very conscious, while she was there, that some of the people present suspected she was the murderer of the deceased.

The guest book was on a wooden stand next to the front door. The pages were white with gold lettering, and a gold pen lay atop the book. Chase was sure Doris had picked out these things. Ornate was the woman’s style.

Chase picked up the heavy pen, glancing at the names already entered between the gold lines. Violet Peters’s name was near the top of the page. Torvald Iversen had scrawled his name five lines up. Under it was another Iversen name, Elinda, written in a loopy style. Since it was on a separate line, it didn’t seem like it was Torvald’s wife. Maybe a sister, aunt, mother? Chase shuddered at the thought of being married—or related—to the man. After she signed her name, she quickly found Doris, muttered her obligatory line, and walked home.

• • •

In her apartment,she settled into her comfy chair without that glass of wine she’d been looking forward to for hours, since she’d already had a couple in the kitchen with Anna after they’d closed up. Her phone rang and she jerked awake, realizing she had dozed off.

“Julie? How’s everything going?”

“We’re still picking the jury, but I think we’ll finish with that tomorrow. The day after, at the latest.” Chase heard Julie take a sip of something with clinking ice cubes.

“It sure is a slow process.”

“Sometimes I think due process should be called glue process,” said Julie. “There’s something I need to tell you. Grandma talked to me just a few minutes ago and I’m not sure what she’s trying to say.”

“What were her words?”

“She didn’t make a lot of sense. She was distraught. First, she told me she thought the receipts looked like they were short again today. Then she rambled on about Ted Naughtly’s history, but when I asked her directly, she said she didn’t think he took the money.”

“Really? More was missing today?”

“Then she told me your nemesis from Chicago showed up. I remember you telling me all about him, the cad.”

“What does Anna think of him? She didn’t say much to him.”

“She wouldn’t say it right out, but I don’t think she dislikes him enough.” More ice cubes clinked. “I got the impression they had talked for at least a few minutes.”

“Wait a sec.” Chase went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of Dr Pepper. The sound of Julie’s ice cubes was making her thirsty. On her way back to her leather couch, Quincy wound around her legs, nearly tripping her. He felt so solid. He had to be gaining, not losing ounces.

“They must have talked after the shop closed. Did she say exactly what he told her?”

Julie blew out a breath into the phone. “He told her you stole that money in Chicago. The money you think he stole and blamed you for.”

“And?”

“I still think you shouldn’t have run. I could have come over and helped you with, I don’t know, some sort of legal solution.”

“I know, and I still appreciate the offer, but I was sick of the place.” Chase took a noisy gulp of the pop, rather more than she’d intended.

“What was that sound?”

“Me, swallowing, silly.”

“Swallowing what?”

Chase sighed. “Dr Pepper.” Chase set the glass on the side table and tucked her feet under the afghan she kept on the back. Her toes were icy from the floor. “So, does Anna believe Shaun?”

Quincy jumped onto the arm of the chair, purring loudly. He scratched his neck with his hind foot, then curled up in her lap.

“No, she says you told her you had proof Shaun was the thief. But she’s worried about you. Hey, I have a call from my boss. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Quincy jumped down with a solid plop. He stepped daintily into his cat bed in the corner of the room and pawed at it before settling down.

“That’s curious,” Chase said to the cat. The bed shouldn’t have made any noise, but there was a faint rustle when Quincy scratched at it. She recalled that he’d been doing that for a few days. Usually he climbed in, curled up, and settled down with no pawing.

“Let me see, little guy.” She knelt, with a groan of pain as her back acted up with her movement, and lifted him out of the plush-lined foam bed, adorned with orange paw prints on the outside. A scrap of paper lay curled in the corner. That must have been what had rustled, she reasoned. She extracted it and Quincy hopped back into his nest.

It was a corner, torn from a larger piece of paper. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it might have been a legal document. At the bottom, Torvald Iversen’s signature and handwritten date were clear below a printed line that had his name, “agent for” with the rest torn off. Above that, the letters GABRI remained under the line and there was no signature above it. She would show this to Julie and see what she could make of it.

But it looked like some sort of agreement between Gabriel Naughtly and Torvald Iversen. It was dated the day Gabe had died. And someone, it seemed, had torn it up. In a fit of anger? Just before a murder? How had it ended up in Quincy’s bed?

FIFTEEN

Chase gave herself the luxury of sleeping in on Wednesday. A whole day stretched ahead, free of the shop, to do anything she wanted. She thought for a while about the people Hilda Bjorn had seen outside Gabe’s condo the day he died. Mike Ramos had said that Iversen was there before he said he was. Maybe Hilda missed that. She probably wasn’t on her front porch all the time. If only there was a way to prove that he was there, beyond one person’s suspicions.