Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat At Large

Chase waved her arm around the shop with a smile. “This is it.”

“He died for this?” Elinda’s sneer dismissed Chase’s shop as something not worth dying for.

Chase’s smile died. “Excuse me? How do you figure that?”

“He wanted to buy you out.” She stated that as if it explained everything.

“I don’t think I’m following you. Yes, he wanted to buy my shop. However, I never gave him the impression— we never gave him the impression that we would sell it. This property has been in Anna’s family for a long time.”

“Who’s Anna?”

“She’s the other owner.”

“Which one of you killed him?”

Chase stomped her foot. “Neither of us killed him! Torvald killed him!”

Elinda took a step back, blinking. “You’re crazy.”

Anna, no doubt responding to Chase’s foot stomp, poked her head through the kitchen doors. “Everything all right?”

“Are you the one who killed Gabe?” Elinda asked Anna.

“Oh, sure.” Anna blinked. “I ran over there and stuck a knife in him, just for the heck of it. I had no reason to, and didn’t have time to do it, but somehow, that’s what happened.” Anna looked at Chase. “Who is this ?”

“She’s Torvald’s sister and Gabe’s mistress.”

“Oh!” Anna was struck by enlightenment. “She’s Hilda’s floozy.”

Elinda looked confused. “Huh?”

“Tell me,” Chase said. “Exactly what time were you at Gabe’s the day he died?”

“I wasn’t there that day.”

“You certainly were,” Anna said. “The older woman across the street saw you enter and exit.”

“Ted saw you, too,” Chase added. “Gabe’s son.”

“Ted?” Elinda asked. “A guy named Ted was going with Krystal, but not for long. Are you telling me he was Gabe’s son? I never even knew Gabe had a son. For some reason, Gabe never introduced me to any of his family.”

“Just answer the question,” said Anna. “What time were you there?”

“Was he dead when you got there?” Chase asked.

“No! He wasn’t dead! I didn’t kill him! He called me to come over and I got there about, I don’t know, around three thirty, I think.”

Chase nodded. “That fits. That’s when Ted says she was there, soon after Gabe got home from our shop. Before Doris got there.” If Elinda had killed Gabe, Doris may have walked in, seen him dead, and fled, just as she’d said she had. He couldn’t have thrown tomato sauce on Doris if he was dead when she visited, though.

“I don’t have to stand for this. I have places to be.”

“Dressed like that?” Anna said.

“I’ll have you know this is just like what I wear for work. Krystal and I both work at Cooter’s Sports Bar. She’s my roommate. We’d feel overdressed if we wore jeans, after working there.”

Something clicked into place for Chase. “Krystal. She dated Ted, you said?”

“She was with Ted Naughtly when Laci passed out.” Anna nodded.

“Ted Naughtly?” Elinda said. “So he is Gabe’s son?”

“He is,” Chase said.

“He’s been spying on me?”

Anna narrowed her eyes at the young woman. “Did you come back to Gabe’s condo after Doris left?”

“That bitch was there? No. Gabe said he was too busy to see me that day. I’ll bet it was because he was seeing her. We kinda had a spat. I wasn’t going to talk to him again until he called me.” Elinda whipped a tissue out of her tiny purse and dabbed at her eyes. “And now he’s dead. I wish I hadn’t gone away.” She stopped dabbing her eyes. “He saw her after he sent me away? Is that what you’re saying?”

Anna nodded. Elinda stormed out of the shop. Could Elinda be crossed off as a suspect? If only the police would cross off Chase.

• • •

Somehow, Chase madeit through the rest of the hours of operation on Friday. The words murder suspect kept echoing in her mind throughout the day, preventing her from thinking about anything else, even driving all the show tunes out of her head.

After the shop closed, she and Anna went through the cleaning up motions mechanically, without any conversation beyond what was needed to do the job. Anna seemed to have something on her mind, too. Chase was too unnerved by the visit from Elinda and too distracted to rouse herself to be concerned about Anna.

Later, upstairs, relaxing with a glass of wine that didn’t do much toward easing her fears, she chided herself for not being more concerned about Anna. She lifted her cell phone, which seemed to weigh five pounds, and called Anna, but didn’t get an answer. She tried Julie with the same result, then settled for a warm, purring cat in her lap until the phone rang.

“Detective Olson here. I need you to come to the station.” He sounded crisp and official.

“Now? It’s late and I’ve had a glass of wine. I shouldn’t drive.” She didn’t really think that one glass would impair her coordination, but it sounded like a good excuse to her. She certainly didn’t want to go to the station and be held all night again.

“I’ll come to your place. I have a few more questions.”

“What about?” It could be about Gabe, or Torvald, or Hilda. Any of the cases she was a prime suspect in.

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

The connection went dead. At least she wouldn’t have to go to the station. Chase paced the floor of her apartment until she heard the doorbell. Just outside the rear door to the shop were two doorbells, one for her apartment and one for the shop. The shop bell tinkled like an old-fashioned brass bell, but the apartment doorbell chimed, so she could easily tell the difference. The chimes, usually pleasant, sounded dull tonight to her ear. Chase trudged down the stairs to let Detective Olson in and led him up to her apartment.

“Where do you want to talk?” he asked.

“In here, I guess.” Chase walked into her living room and sat on the couch. Detective Olson took the stuffed chair, kneeing the hassock aside.

He was in a cotton shirt, without his jacket. The day had been warm, but now the air was cooling off. His blue shirt sleeves were rolled up and cuffed, revealing strong forearms with soft brown hairs curling over the edges of the cuffs. His shirt was a shade or two lighter than his eyes. He pulled out a notepad.

It occurred to Chase that the man was a guest, although uninvited, in her home. She remembered her manners. “Would you like something to drink?” Anna would be appalled if she didn’t offer.

“What do you have?”

She didn’t want to offer wine to an officer of the law, even though her mostly empty glass was on the table beside him.

“I could make coffee or tea.”

“Just a glass of water, please.”

She had to admit that this was nicer than being interrogated in the station. She felt a degree of control over the situation in her own home. That control might be all in her mind, but she felt it nonetheless.

After she set a glass of ice water at his elbow, she returned to the couch while Detective Niles Olson drained half the glass.

Quincy sauntered in from the bedroom, where he had, no doubt, been under the bed until he’d decided to check out the newcomer. He sniffed the man’s leather shoes, then made his decision. He rubbed his side against the detective’s pant leg.

“Quince, you’ll get hair on him.” Chase jumped up to get her cat, but Detective Olson waved her away.

“That’s fine. It’ll mingle with the dog hairs from my golden retriever.”

“How do you manage a dog with the hours you must keep?”

“I have a neighbor who looks in on her from time to time. It’s very handy. Now, I’d like to know a bit more about you finding Hilda Bjorn.”