Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat At Large

“The attacker! And not me either.”

Later, after Mike had dropped her off—without a good night kiss again—Chase wondered if she should have pursued her question further. She was satisfied that his reason for being in the vicinity when she found Hilda was innocent, but what about the woman he’d hugged on his front porch? Was that innocent?

Sunday started off slowly. The shop had only a half-dozen customers before noon. Vi wandered into the kitchen between the trickles to chat with Chase and Anna. Anna had quit baking for the day since there was enough stock if this lack of volume kept up. Chase was caught up in the office, so the three of them sipped iced teas at the island counter.

“Are you still hanging around with Shaun?” Anna asked.

Chase was glad Anna brought that up, because she wanted to—but, at the same time, didn’t want to. The less she said about Mr. Everly, the better.

“He’s been very good to me.” Did she sound defensive? “We get along well together.”

“That’s nice.” Anna had a way of making it sound not . . . nice.

Vi grimaced. “I am sorry I ever introduced him to Mr. Iversen, though.”

Chase choked on her tea. “You . . . introduced them to each other?” Vi must have forgotten she’d told Chase she didn’t know Mr. Iversen.

“I wish I hadn’t. Shaun was stringing Iversen along, just like Gabe did. And now I don’t know . . . well, I wonder if he had anything to do with what happened to Iversen.”

“What do you mean, ‘stringing him along’?” Chase asked. “How was Shaun doing that?”

“He was pretending he had a lot of money to invest in buying your shop. Heck, Shaun’s always bragging to me about how much money he has, but I don’t believe him. He’d take me to nicer places if he was rolling in dough.”

“And Gabe?” Anna said. “He was stringing Iversen along, too? The same way?”

“Sure. Gabe told him he could go halves with Iversen’s investor to buy this place.” Vi swept her arm around the room. “Make me laugh! Gabe didn’t have anything. His wife is the one with the money. She was leaving him high and dry.”

“How do you know all this?” Chase said.

“Torvald told me all about Gabe. He was getting fed up with him and had discovered he wouldn’t be able to hold up his end of their bargain. That was just before Gabe got killed.”

Chase was back to thinking that Torvald must have murdered Gabe, not that she’d ever been very far from that thought. “What about Shaun?”

“Shaun hasn’t told me he doesn’t have the money. But I’ve heard him telling Iversen how wealthy he is, how wealthy his father is, his uncle, his whole family. If they were all so loaded, I’d like to know why I don’t get better jewelry from him. Look at this.” Vi stretched out her right hand to display a ring with a bright blue stone.

“It’s pretty,” said Anna, leaning forward to see it better.

“It’s tiny.” Vi regarded her hand solemnly. “And it’s crystal, cheap.”

It was small, and probably hadn’t cost much, Chase thought. But it was one more piece of jewelry than Shaun had ever bought her.

“It doesn’t matter that much. I think he’s two-timing me, anyway.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to move too fast,” Anna said. “Some men like to take things slow.”

“He’s quick enough to tell lies about me to everyone he sees,” said Chase. “Be careful with him, Vi. He’s a snake.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t believe half of what he says. I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can, dear.” Anna patted the hand that bore the cheap, tiny-stoned ring. “I believe I heard the front door.”

“Finally.” Vi jumped off the stool and went to the front to sell dessert bars.

“I’m bored,” Anna said. “I think I’ll try out a new recipe.”

She rummaged in the cupboards, clanging her metal bowls and equipment onto the granite counter and pulling out bins of flour and sugar. Then she went through the cupboards again, ending up on her knees.

“What are you looking for?” asked Chase.

“My little blue marble rolling pin, my favorite one.”

“You were using it the other day, weren’t you? On Wednesday? It couldn’t be too far back.”

“You’d think so.”

Chase joined her, taking everything out of the cupboards methodically and putting it away.

Anna sat back on her heels. “It’s not here.”

Chase had to agree. “Did you take it home?”

Anna shook her head. “Did you take it upstairs?”

“Could Quincy have done something with it?”

“It’s awfully heavy for him. It weighs at least five pounds.”

“He weighs a lot more than that.”

“Yes, I know. And I’m not slipping him treats anymore, if that’s what you were going to say. I do think that, if you’d listened to me and trained him to walking on a leash, like Sophie Winston, the Domestic Diva, suggests in her column, ‘The Good Life,’ he wouldn’t be having these weight problems now.”

Not that again. Anna hadn’t brought up “The Good Life” column for a while now, but she’d harped on it when Chase wrote her from Chicago that she had acquired a kitten from the shelter not too far from her apartment. Julie had met Sophie when she’d spent a summer in Alexandria, Virginia, between law-school semesters. Anna had been so thrilled that her granddaughter knew a genuine celebrity that she’d faithfully followed the column ever since.

It was nearly time for Vi to take her lunch, so Chase went to relieve her. She was startled to see Vi and Elinda, facing off in front of the sales counter. Torvald’s nephew, the one listed as Felix on the card at Torvald’s funeral, stood behind his aunt, looking embarrassed.

“You said you’d pay him.” Elinda jerked a thumb over her shoulder at her nephew.

Vi flinched when she saw Chase enter the room. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Excuse me.” Vi turned to Chase. “Would you please wait on these customers? I need to take a little break.”

“I just came in to relieve you for lunch, so go ahead,” Chase said. As Vi left the room, Chase asked Elinda, “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, there is.” As she had the last time she visited the store, she stalked out. Felix threw Chase an apologetic look and followed her.

When Vi returned from lunch, Chase tried to ask her what was going on between her and the Iversens, but she avoided answering.

“I have no idea what that woman is talking about. I think she has me confused with someone else.”

Chase concluded that several people seemed to be confused lately. She was certainly one of them. The afternoon continued as slowly as the morning had.

After a couple more hours, Vi wandered into the kitchen. “This is the slowest day we’ve had since I started here.”

“Did you sell some product just now?” Chase asked.

“Of course.”

That made Chase smile.

“Can I leave early?”

She sounded a bit whiny. Chase would rather she have stayed, but couldn’t think why she should with business so slow. “Do you want to leave now? I can cover for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Sure. I have my own car back, so I don’t have to call for a ride.”

Chase was glad she wouldn’t have a chance of confronting Shaun. Maybe Vi would see less of him since she wasn’t dependent on him for rides anymore. She followed Vi to the parking lot with a bag of trash. Vi climbed into her gray Hyundai, giving the rust spots a sad look, and drove off with a rattle of her tailpipe.

When Chase returned to the kitchen, Anna had abandoned her search and picked up her purse and car keys.

“I’m too low on shortening to bake anything anyway. I’ll run out and get some.”