Fat Cat Takes the Cake (4 page)

Monique Byrd was the next person to visit the punch bowl. Ron North leered at her the way he'd done at Julie, but Monique took care of him quickly. After shaking her head a few times and pointing to her husband, Dickie, she splashed her cup of punch in Ron's face with a dramatic fling of her arm.

Most of the conversation in the gym stopped. Bart Fender started toward Ron. Chase thought maybe he was going to do something physical, and he was big enough to hurt scrawny little Ron North.

But Ron headed for the door.

Chase saw Bart follow him a few minutes later. They must have both gone home because neither of them came back. She noticed that Monique and Dickie were gone, too.

One and two at a time, Chase's classmates started to leave the party. It was breaking up early. It was only a little after eleven. She looked around for Julie, but she wasn't in the room. She'd been with Jay the last time she'd seen her. The punch was horrible, but Chase was thirsty, so she headed to the table to get some more of it. Julie was there now. She smiled at Chase, then turned to address the crowd.

“Does anyone know who this belongs to?” she shouted. Julie waved a small notebook in the air. “It was here, by the punch bowl.”

Chase saw Julie pick up something else, look at it, then set it down.

Nobody claimed it, but more than half the people had left by then.

Julie walked over to Chase and showed her a business card for Bart Fender. It seemed he was selling diet supplements on the side.

“Why do I want this?” Chase asked.

“There, on the other side. He wrote down Dillon Yardley's hospital room number. He said she would like some visitors.”

“I thought she was in a coma.”

“Me, too. It was strange.” Julie turned to talk to another classmate.

Then it happened, the thing Chase dreaded. Heading toward her was Eddie Heath.

“C
hase, you look fantastic.”

She glanced around, but there was no retreat. She was next to the wall that held the folded bleachers.

“I mean it. You're a sight for sore eyes.”

She smiled politely and lied. “It's good to see you, too.”

This jerk had dumped her a week before senior prom and she had ended up spending prom night in the corner with the other single girls, without a corsage on her wrist, watching him dance with the homecoming queen all night. Here she was without a date fourteen years later, too.

She had liked dating Eddie. After all, he was a star football
and
basketball player. He developed muscles and a beard a year before any of the other guys. She was one of
the studious kids, not interested in sports—until a sports star asked her out.

The truth was, she'd had a crush on him for years before and was floating on a cloud the whole time they dated. Until he shoved her off the cloud and sent her crashing to the dirt.

“I've thought a lot about you over the years,” he said.

There was no reply to that. She wouldn't admit she thought of him from time to time, too.

“I can't believe how badly I treated you.” He grabbed her hand.

She froze. Sparks shot up her arm and hit her square in the heart. Nothing like this had ever happened with Mike Ramos. Her lips parted. She suddenly longed to kiss Eddie Heath.

Maybe because he had matured early, he had never gotten very tall. He had made his way onto the basketball team by being an excellent player. Now he tended toward short and stocky, but, oh my goodness, he still had all those rippling muscles. And those bedroom eyes.

“Can I make it up to you sometime?”

“Uh . . . when?” Yes, yes, you can. Anytime.

“Tell you what. Here's my number.” He let go of her hand and Chase felt like the lights had gone out. Her shoulders sagged.

Eddie wrote his cell number on the back of a business card and handed it to her.

“You're . . . the owner of this place?”

“Yep, all mine.”

The card had the words “Health from the Heath Bar” embossed in shiny green letters, with “Edward Heath, Proprietor” beneath.

“What exactly is it?”

“A health food bar.”

“I guess we both own bars, then.”

Chase realized she had never had business cards made. “Come by some time and I'll show you our place.”

“Our?”

“I own the business with my partner, Anna Larson.” She told him where Bar None was located.

Eddie flashed her a brilliant smile. “It's a deal. Give me a call.”

Deal, she thought, weak in the knees.

•   •   •

“Am I forgiven?”
Mike walked backward in front of Chase and Quincy. “I really had forgotten all about the convention. And it's one of those things that I had to go to.”

Chase bent to Quincy's level. “Do you think this harness is too tight?” Right this moment she didn't want to talk about him standing her up. She woke up thinking about Eddie Heath, after all.

“It's supposed to be snug,” the veterinarian said.

Chase was also a bit cranky because she didn't actually want to walk Quincy in a harness. She was only doing it to get Anna off her back. She'd been harping on it for a long time. Anna thought Quincy should get some fresh air, but not by running off, as he usually did. She thought that if he got out on a nice leashed walk, he wouldn't want to escape so much. Chase doubted that.

However, Mike Ramos, as Quincy's vet, supported Anna. So Chase finally gave in, bought a cat harness at the pet store,
returned it because it was too small, bought another one, and was now taking her cat on his maiden stroll. It was Sunday, the morning after the reunion, so Mike wasn't working. Chase's shop was open, but Anna had urged her to take the walk with Mike, knowing how upset she had been that she had to go alone to the gathering.

Chase took off her gloves and fiddled with the buckles a bit, not wanting the harness to be so tight on Quincy, then stood up and continued toward Marcy Park. They wended their way west on SE Seventh Street.

“Did you have a good time?” Mike asked. “You went with Julie, right?”

“Julie and Jay. I felt like a third wheel, if you want to know.” Their breath puffed clouds in the below-freezing air. The brilliant sun made the day crisp and bright, even though its warmth couldn't be felt this time of year.

“But were some people you wanted to see there?”

“Yes, and some I didn't.” And one person I thought I didn't want to see, but really did—Eddie Heath. She wouldn't mention Eddie, though.

Quincy had been wearing the harness a little each day, to get him used to it, and he didn't seem to mind it. However, he'd been reluctant to walk out the door with it on. Chase had run upstairs to get some Go Go Balls and rolled some in front of him to get him going.

By the time they reached the corner of the park, Quincy was moving along nicely. He loved the Go Go Balls that Inger had invented for him. They were full of tuna and catnip. A few piles of fallen leaves nestled at the curbs for the next
street cleaner. The world, in Minneapolis, anyway, was getting ready for winter.

Chase could hear the squeals of children on the playground, climbing and sliding and swinging. Quincy flattened his ears at the sound.

The striped cat struggled with the harness. He was able to detect that one of the clips wasn't properly seated. He was also terrified of the screaming children. There were bushes straight ahead. He should be able to slip out of the horrible contraption and hide in the bushes. He had to get away from those noises. He contorted his body and the thing snapped open.

“Oh no, there he goes,” Chase cried. She shook the harness that she was left holding. “Maybe I can entice him to come out.”

The bushes he had fled into were dense. There could be all kinds of bugs in there, she knew. She wasn't about to crawl into the undergrowth. It would be better if he would come out by himself.

She opened the baggie of Go Go Balls and tossed one into the growth.

“Quincy?” she called. “Quincy Wincy?”

“I'll try,” Mike said, getting onto his hands and knees. “He probably won't want to stay there. There's nothing to eat.”

That was true, thought Chase. Only one little Go Go Ball.
She pulled some more of them from the baggie and scattered them on the pavement.

Mike pushed the branches aside and crawled a few steps, then quickly backed out. “Call the police.” His face was grim.

Chase bent down to peer into the undergrowth. Mike put his hand on her arm. “No, you don't want to look at that.”

Her eyes widened. “What is it? A dead animal?”

“No, it's a dead human.”

“Are you sure the person is dead?” She dove into the bushes in case they could revive whoever it was.

It was dark and dank inside the bushes. But she could see clearly. Quincy squatted on the other side of the body. It was Ron North, and he was definitely dead. It looked like he had been strangled with Julie's scarf. Quincy had raked some peanuts from Ron's pocket and was crunching them.

Chase crawled out as quickly as she could and threw up in a nearby bush while Mike dialed 911.

Ron North.

Dead.

Julie's scarf.

Oh no.

H
ours later, after Chase had let Anna know she wouldn't be at the shop anytime soon, after the crime scene technicians had left, and after she and Mike had answered countless questions over and over, Chase sat on the curb next to Mike. The yellow tape fluttered a dozen feet away. Traffic was still being routed down another street, so the rumble of cars was distant. The children were no longer on the playground. Worried parents had grabbed them all and taken them home as soon as the first police car showed up.

Detective Niles Olson hadn't come to the scene, but Chase had no doubt the homicide detective would get involved. When Quincy and Chase found dead bodies in the past—only two, though—the good-looking policeman with those impossibly dark blue eyes always turned up on the case.

“I don't have the energy to walk home,” Chase said.

“You want me to get my car? My condo isn't far from here.”

Chase shook her head. “No, I'm exaggerating. I'll make it. That was grueling, though.” She giggled, inappropriately. “Grueling grilling, right? At least neither of us is a suspect.” Her thoughts returned to Julie's scarf and what its presence at the crime scene implied.

Mike slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Bad luck follows that cat, doesn't it? He's not even black.”

Chase leaned into him, grateful he was here, next to her, at this awful time. Quincy sat next to Chase, his harness securely fastened this time. He wrapped his tail around his front feet to keep them warm.

“He's been extremely patient, hasn't he?” she said.

“Considering that, on a normal day, he probably sleeps fifteen to twenty hours, this isn't that much of a disruption.”

“Except there's been a lot of commotion.” She stroked his soft back. He arched it to meet her hand and purred his appreciation. “Poor little Quince. I'd better get you home.”

“You should get to work, shouldn't you?”

“Gosh, yes. I hope they haven't needed me too much. I'm sure the Bar None is busy today.” Saturdays and Sundays were always busy, and, nearing the holidays, business picked up more and more every weekend.

Mike stood and gave Chase a hand up. “You called Anna, but have you called Julie?”

“I need to figure out what to say.” How could she tell her that her scarf had been used to strangle Ron North?

Mike gave her a curious look, probably wondering why she couldn't tell everything to her best friend, and they walked away from the park. At the point where Mike could veer off and head to his condo, Chase insisted she would go the rest of the way to the Bar None by herself. It was only a few more blocks.

As soon as Chase walked into the kitchen through the back door, Anna ran to her and gave her a hug. “What happened? You said you had to answer some questions for the police? What kind of questions? You've been gone for hours.”

Chase sagged onto a stool, propped her elbows on the counter, and stuck her chin on her hands. Anna knelt to take Quincy's harness off. “How did he do?” she asked. “And I want to hear all about the reunion. Julie's told me a little bit, but—”

Chase raised an eyebrow at her pet. “He found another body.”

“He
what
? You didn't say anything about a body.” Anna perched on the stool next to Chase and smoothed the younger woman's hair with a worn, wrinkled hand. It felt warm and wonderful to Chase. Anna must have been baking, because the gentle scent of vanilla wafted from her.

“I couldn't talk about it right then on the phone. A man was strangled and was left in the bushes at Marcy Park. Quincy, of course, wouldn't leave it alone. Probably because Ron's pockets are . . . were . . . always stuffed with peanuts. You know Quincy and food.”

Julie came out of the bathroom.

“I didn't know you were here,” Chase said. She realized
she'd heard the toilet flush and the water running. She had assumed either Inger or Mallory were there.

“Anna said you were having a problem and I came over to help out.”

“Was it a homeless person?” Anna asked.

“Was what a homeless person?” Julie said.

“No, it's Ron North.” Chase said.

“You know him?” Anna said.

“Ron North? What about him?” Julie's voice was soft.

In high school, Julie hadn't told very many people how distraught she was by Ron's stalking. She had kept it from Anna, telling only Chase and another best friend, who moved away right after high school. Even with Chase, Julie hadn't liked to say his name. They called him The Stalking Guy.

Chase told Anna and Julie now about how he'd been killed, but failed to mention that the weapon was Julie's scarf. She could only imagine what Julie would think when she heard that. She hadn't told the police that she knew who the scarf belonged to either but knew she would have to eventually. She shuddered, picturing the disappointment in Detective Olson's eyes when he found she'd concealed that fact. She must tell him very soon. Meanwhile, she had a business to help run.

In her apartment above the Bar None shop that evening, she decided to go over everything she could remember about the reunion. Something was tickling the recesses of her consciousness. Something about that scarf.

She snuggled in her bed with a cup of chamomile tea, propped up with three down pillows. Quincy stretched out
beside her, lying along her hips and chest. Later he would usually curl up behind her knees, after she turned onto her side. She closed her eyes, inhaling the aroma of the tea, and cast her mind back to the reunion.

Ron North had hung around the punch bowl, accosting everyone who came to get a cup. The first person Chase had talked to had been Bart Fender, when she hadn't yet seen Ron. Then Jay left with some guys to talk about football. That's when Ron came over, when Chase and Julie were alone at the punch bowl table.

He'd started accusing Julie of having something to do with a recent real estate scandal. She remembered that he'd seemed belligerent, enough so that Jay noticed and came over to get rid of Ron.

Bingo! She remembered what had been bothering her. Ron had grabbed Julie's scarf after she shoved him, then stuffed it into his own pocket when Jay scared him off. He had bothered others, too. For now, she knew enough to let herself relax. Ron had left with the scarf. Chase had finished the tea and her eyelids were drooping. She pushed two of the pillows away and nestled down to try to sleep. She had just dropped off when Julie called.

“Did the police question you?” Julie asked.

“What? About . . . Ron North?” She was going to say “finding the body” but she was unwilling to depersonalize him that much. Nor had she told Julie she was the person who had found the body.

“They're hung up on something, but they wouldn't say what. For some reason, they think I had a good reason to kill
him. Detective Olson called me into the station as I was about to go to Hilda Bjorn's house to talk to her about that offer on her house.” She sounded exasperated, but not frightened.

Chase guessed what they were hung up on. Somehow, they knew the scarf was Julie's. Of course, anyone who had been at the reunion might have been able to tell them that. She didn't tell Julie that she had recognized her scarf, but she would have to admit that to the detective.

•   •   •

Monday morning, Chase
got her chance to talk to the police. Detective Olson woke her up early, wanting her to come to the station to give a formal statement. She had hoped to sleep in, since the shop was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. She had fallen asleep, planning on telling the police how the scarf got to be with Ron North. The murderer had used it because it was there, she assumed.

She would have to say that it was Julie's. It seemed the police already knew, but if they hadn't found out yet, they would discover it sooner or later. She knew Julie hadn't killed the man, but she didn't want any suspicion to fall on her. If they knew how it got there, that should clear Julie. She hoped.

She showered and dressed in a hurry, tossed food in Quincy's bowl and freshened his water. Taking a peek at the litter box, she decided it could wait until she got back from the police station.

It was another pristine winter day. A bit warmer than Sunday. There was a tang in the air that heralded much colder weather soon. Chase hoped it wouldn't be too soon.

A parking place opened up as she pulled into the lot in
front of the imposing Second Precinct building. Careful to push the right fob button to lock her car with her gloves on, she puffed out a steamy breath of anticipation and nervousness.

She enjoyed the sun's warmth on her shoulders as she walked across the lot to the Eastside Guardian statue. She loved wearing her winter sweaters, but would rather enjoy the rare string of sunny days for longer. December in Minnesota could be a gloomy, cloudy affair. She gave the statue child's head a rub for good luck. The child gazed up, trustingly, to the policeman statue holding her bronze hand in his. Another officer in an old-fashioned dress uniform stood on the plinth beside them.

Chase hadn't decided yet exactly how she would word things to Detective Olson. Since awakening, she'd gone back and forth with herself about what she would say. She had to make sure he knew Julie couldn't have killed Ron. The words to “Follow Your Heart” floated through her head. Anna had never taken her to a performance of
Urinetown
, disliking the name of the musical intensely, but Chase had heard the lyrics plenty of places.

She told herself she had better decide soon. Squaring her shoulders, she yanked open the large wooden door and went to meet her fate.

After she gave her statement, telling about Quincy getting away and Dr. Ramos crawling in to retrieve him, and then about her recognizing the victim, she signed the printout the detective handed her. She had repeated what she had said yesterday and hadn't mentioned the scarf yet. But she would. Soon.

“I need to show you some things now,” he said. He opened a folder that held large color photos.

The first picture Detective Olson showed her was of the scarf. Her heart sank.

“Do you recognize this?” He shoved the photo toward her across his desk. His desk sat in the middle of several rows of them in the large room. The policeman beside them clacked his computer keys, typing with two fingers and bobbling his head between his monitor and his keyboard. Chase wondered if he would have a headache later.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “I saw it by the body.”

“Have you ever seen it before?” He raised his eyebrows and looked at her sideways.

“Yes.” It was time to fess up. “It belongs to Julie Larson. Ron took it from her at the reunion.”

“He took her scarf?” Now he looked like he didn't believe her. “Why would he do that?”

Oh dear. She had to be careful to not implicate Julie. There had been a mini-scene and surely some of the people there had seen it. “He was talking to her and . . . took hold of it.”

“That's odd. Were they arguing?”

“Not really arguing.” She reached up to twist a lock of her hair, then clasped her hands in her lap. No nervous gestures, she told herself. “They were talking.”

“What about?”

“He was getting drunk. He tried to pour some bourbon into her punch.” That would have improved the nasty too-sweet stuff, but she didn't say that. “Julie told Ron she didn't want any bourbon. He started pouring it in her cup anyway.
She jerked her cup away and he spilled some from his own flask.”

“I see.” Olson leaned back in his chair, implying that he saw more than what Chase was saying.

Chase thought she was making a mess of this. “Ron was bothering a lot of people at the reunion. He's an annoying person.”

“Did he bother you?”

“Not really.”

“Just Julie.”

“He used to have a thing for her. In high school.”

Niles Olson's blue eyes sparked as he leaned forward again and rested his forearms on his desk. “A thing. What kind of thing?”

Yes, she was making things worse and worse. “It was a long time ago.” She waved her hand, carelessly, she hoped. “You know, a high school crush.”

“Uh huh.” He jotted something down on a yellow pad. “Who else did he tangle with at the reunion?”

“He didn't ‘tangle with' Julie. They . . . talked.” And he mashed her face into his for an unwelcome kiss. She realized she was now twisting the strands of her straight brown-blonde hair. She put her hand down again. “He went up to quite a few people. He talked to our old principal, Mr. Snelson. And some other older man who was with Mr. Snelson. They both argued with Ron. And he talked to Monique. Oh yes, Monique threw her punch in his face. I just remembered.”

He was writing as she talked. “Anyone else?”

“Probably, but I'd have to think some more. He left soon after Monique did that. Can I go now?”

He nodded and she fled.

All the way home she worried that she hadn't mentioned Ron literally stalking Julie in high school. She probably should have. His latest victim seemed to be Monique, though. She had also omitted the kiss Ron forced on Julie. Would their altercation make Julie look more guilty? Or less? If Chase knew, she would know what to say to the police.

A text popped up on her phone as she stopped for a red light. She grabbed her cell and quickly read the message from Julie: “Where are you?” The light changed before she could reply.

Pulling into the parking lot behind her apartment and shop, she saw Julie sitting in her pickup, clouds of vapor streaming out of the tailpipe, glittering in the sunlight, as she ran the engine to keep warm. Julie spotted Chase right away, turned off the engine, and jumped out.

Anna's car was there, too, beside Julie's truck.

“Anna's here? Why aren't you inside?”

“I just got here. Grandma's working on her recipe,” Julie said. “I offered to help, but she would rather do it alone. Where have you been?”