Fat Cat Spreads Out

NINE

Julie called Chase at eleven, after Chase had arrived home, taken a bath with heavenly rose-scented salts, and gotten her flannel PJs on. The nights were getting colder and colder. She would have to break out her long johns soon so she could be warm and toasty while she slept.

“Chase, can I come by to talk?” Julie asked.

“Sure. I was getting set to watch television for a while before I go to bed.”

Julie had sounded somber. Chase wondered if there was trouble between her and Jay. She hoped not. She hadn’t yet seen that much of him, but she liked what she’d seen. Julie hadn’t been serious about anyone for so long. In law school, her time was taken up with studying and graduating at the top of her class, plus interning. After graduation, she landed the job with the district attorney’s office, and they kept her even busier than she’d been in school. Her schedule seemed to be easing up a bit the last few weeks. At least she had time to date.

After Chase let Julie up to her apartment over the shop, she made cinnamon-sprinkled cocoa for both of them.

“Mmm, this is exactly what I need right now.” Julie cupped the mug with both hands. “It’s getting downright chilly out there. I think a new cold front went through while I was on my way here from the office.”

“Is everything going okay, Jules?” Quincy rubbed against Chase’s flannel pajama–clad leg, leaving ginger-hued hairs on the black watch plaid.

“I guess,” Julie said. “But I, well, I’m not quite happy with what I’m doing.”

Chase waited. Not happy with her job? With her boyfriend? When Julie didn’t continue, Chase voiced those two options.

Julie laughed. “Not with Jay. Everything is super with him. No, it’s my job.”

“Has something changed?”

“Not really. I think that I’ve been working so hard I didn’t have time to notice whether or not I liked what I was doing. I’m getting a better handle on how the system works as time goes on and as I work there longer. I have a tiny bit more time to think lately.”

Quincy jumped into Julie’s lap, purring, and she adroitly saved her chocolate from spilling.

“I’ve noticed that. And? What do you think?”

“I think I don’t want to work in the public sector.”

“Why not? I thought you enjoyed it.”

“I do, sometimes, but prosecuting has such negative connotations. I think I’d rather do something positive. And it’s not enough pay for such hard work.”

“Do you want to move to the private sector because Jay works for a private firm?”

“Maybe. I know he works just as hard as I do, maybe harder, and it’s basically the same field. Being a defense attorney is the other side of the courtroom from prosecution.”

“That’s what you want to do? Defense?”

“Not really. Maybe. I’m not sure yet. That’s what’s making me so edgy lately. I really don’t know what I want to do. I thought I did when I took my job, but this isn’t it.”

“Isn’t it good to discover that now, before you spend years and years doing something you don’t enjoy?”

“I’m sure you’re right. But I don’t know what I do want to do. It’s an unsettling feeling. It makes my stomach hurt.”

“Have you talked to Jay about it? I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what your other options are. He might know better.”

“I haven’t talked to him. He knows something’s wrong, but I didn’t want to tell him.”

“Why not?”

Julie looked at Chase’s ceiling for the answer. “Maybe I don’t want him to think I’m flighty. Or a person who doesn’t know how to run her own life.”

Quincy abandoned Julie for Chase and got a neck rub for his trouble.

“If he’s noticed something’s wrong, he probably assumes it’s about him. Don’t you think?”

They both sipped their chocolate in silence for a moment. Then Julie spoke with a decisive air. “You’re right. That’s not fair, is it? If our relationship is good and is going anywhere, I have to share this with him.”

Chase nodded, thinking of how she felt when she thought Mike was keeping something from her and then it turned out that Patrice was his cousin. She and Mike weren’t even serious. Not that Julie and Jay were yet either.

“I’ll talk to him.” She drained her mug and stood to leave.

Chase jumped up to give Julie a good-bye hug.

Quincy, lapless, meowed and stalked off, stiff-legged.

“I’m so glad you talked some sense into me,” Julie said, giving her best friend a good hard squeeze.

“No problem, girlfriend. It might be that I let you talk sense into yourself. But I expect you to do the same for me when I need it.”

After Julie left, Chase wandered over to the glass doors that led to her balcony. It was too cold to sit out there, but she stared through the panes at the streetlights below, glowing like soft lighthouse beacons in the cold, crisp air.

She regretted she hadn’t been able to bring the conversation around to asking Julie to look up information about the case against Michael Ramos. Well, Julie wasn’t leaving her job tomorrow. There would be plenty of time to try to figure out how to get Mike off the hook for the murder. It was a good thing the mills of justice ground slowly. An unwanted picture of Michael Ramos nearing a grindstone flashed into her mind. She shivered and wrapped her robe around her a little tighter.

* * *

The next morning, at the Bar None booth at Bunyan County Fairgrounds, Chase arrived well before Anna. In fact, Anna slid behind the table as the first customers wandered in.

“Good news,” Anna said when she arrived, breathless. “Inger’s parents took her back. I dropped her off this morning.”

“Good grief, Anna. They should have picked her up. Did they apologize for all the trouble they’ve put you to?”

“I didn’t actually see them. Inger asked me to drop her off in front of the house. I made sure she got in, though. Frankly, I didn’t feel like talking to them. I might have been tempted to say something I shouldn’t. But look. I stopped off to get this.” Anna held up a small space heater. Each booth had been provided with an electric power strip so they could plug in lights after it got dark. A pole lamp stood in the back corner of each booth, but there was no provision for heat.

Chase, who hadn’t taken off her wool coat yet, was glad to see the heater. “It won’t blow out the power, will it?”

“The man at the hardware store said it takes the least power of any of their heaters. Since this is such a small space, it should work well here.”

It did. Soon the booth was toasty warm. Anna shed her down parka and Chase took off her heavy coat. Fairgoers were ducking in to warm up, especially those who hadn’t bothered to check the weather before setting out and weren’t dressed warmly enough.

When a break came for them, Chase asked how it went last night with Elsa Oake.

“It was her earring, all right.” Anna perched on the edge of the folding chair to rest her feet.

Chase poured hot cider for both of them from her thermos. She was glad she had thought of that when she woke up. “Did you have any trouble finding her?” She took the other chair and sipped, savoring the cinnamon and nutmeg.

“Nope, no trouble at all. I walked right up and asked the clerk at the front desk of the Crowne Plaza if they could dial her for me. Elsa gave me her room number over the phone.” Anna lowered her voice and bent close to Chase. “I will say that she was a little tipsy.”

“Mourning her husband?”

“I’m not sure. She doesn’t seem too sorry he’s gone.”

“Surely she’s not celebrating his death?”

Anna shrugged as a group of teenagers meandered in.

When the lunch rush was over, Chase said, “This morning Mike asked me if I’d meet him for a late lunch today at the clinic. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. It doesn’t sound like the most appetizing place to dine.”

“I’ll get to see Quincy an extra time. He seems lonely when I pick him up at night. He purrs so loud and nuzzles so hard.”

“It’s good for him. Makes him appreciate you more.”

Chase laughed. “I’m not that hard up that I need my pet to pine for me.”

The truth was, she hadn’t seen much of Mike either since the fair started. Just dropping Quincy off and picking him up, and maybe an odd other time or two. That trick of not seeing much of Dr. Ramos was working on her, making her want to be with him more.

“I have yet to ask Julie if she can get any info from the police on the case against him,” Chase said.

“Do you want me to ask her? She’s coming over to my house late tonight. You’re welcome to come, too, but we’re planning our shoe thing.”

Anna and her granddaughter both loved shoes—and boots. Every fall, they planned their shopping excursion for days. “You’re going next week?”

“Yah. Now that the weather has turned cold, they’ll start selling out.”

Chase knew, from listening to the plotting that the two of them did, that there was a fine line in timing. A smart shopper couldn’t go too early or too late. They’d want the shoes to be on sale, but for the stores to still have a good selection. Anna and Julie both came back from their Fall Shoe Safari with more than they could wear. That was Chase’s opinion. She was more of a minimalist, shoe-wise.

“Did I tell you what Elsa said about that little Winn guy?” Anna asked as Chase slipped into her coat and wound her scarf around her neck to leave their cozy booth.

“No. Winn Cardiman? When I spoke to him, he seemed upset that Oake was carving the same thing he was, Babe the Blue Ox.”

“Yes, that’s the one. Elsa said he and her husband had a loud shouting match the day they were moving into the sculpture place. Cardiman saw Oake’s sketches, according to Elsa, and accused him of copying his idea. Oake insisted that he’d drawn his sketches weeks ago and accused Cardiman of the same thing. A bystander separated them when it looked like they might come to blows.”

“Has she told the police that?”

“She didn’t say whether she has or not. But she seems to think he’s the one who killed Larry Oake now.”

“Where did this go down? Did other people see what happened?”

“Elsa said the actual fight was by the food trailers.”

“I should check with Detective Olson, then. He could try to question people who might have witnessed the argument.”