Fat Cat Spreads Out

TEN

Chase pondered the options on her way to the clinic to see Mike and Quincy. She dawdled, shuffling through the sawdust and crunchy leaves, making a detour to stop at the food vendors. Cardiman was angry with Oake. So was Minsky, Mara’s father. So was his own wife, Elsa. She would list all of these to Detective Olson soon.

Chase didn’t have to go far to contact Detective Olson. He was in Mike’s clinic when she arrived carrying their sub sandwiches.

After she pushed the door to the clinic room open with her hip, Detective Olson asked her to remain in the outer room until he was finished. A sign on Betsy’s desk said she was gone for lunch. Chase sat on one of the plastic chairs in the tiny reception area, shivering. The room was cool, but she wasn’t shivering from that. The homicide detective’s face had held such a serious scowl. Was he going to take Mike away again?

She was relieved when the detective swept out of the room without hauling Mike along with him in handcuffs.

“Detective Olson, wait.” Chase jumped up, still clutching the sandwiches. “I found out something you should know.”

He stopped and closed those gorgeous dark blue eyes for three seconds. “Chase, are you trying to investigate again?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that Elsa Oake was talking to Anna. You know, Anna Larson?”

“Your business partner. Yes, I remember her.”

“Elsa told her that Winn Cardiman had a terrible fight with Larry Oake, in front of a lot of people. He was still very angry when I ques—when I talked to him, too.”

“Believe it or not, we have interviewed Mr. Cardiman.” He looked irritated.

“But did you know about their fight?”

“You mean a physical altercation? Blows were exchanged?”

“No, only an argument, as far as I know. But you could find others, by the food trailers, who saw it.” She gestured with one of the sandwiches in that direction.

“Maybe we could. But I don’t see what good that would do us.” He crossed his arms across his chest. It was a nice view, but she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

“Cardiman,” she continued, “seems desperate to win the competition and he thought Oake was copying his own idea.”

Olson’s look softened and he uncrossed his arms. “He’s not that desperate, Chase. He’s dropped out of the competition.”

“Dropped out? After all that angst?”

“He said he didn’t need the money, or the hassle. He’s packed up and gone back home to Waterloo, Iowa.”

“Well, I’ll be darned.” Chase plopped back down on the chair.

A man rushed in cradling a howling dachshund in his arms as Olson exited. The man disappeared into the clinic room and Chase waited while the howling gradually subsided, becoming pitiful little whimpers, then a happy yip. The man came out smiling a few minutes later. The small dog looked contented, too, wagging its tail so fast it blurred.

That’s where Mike found her when he came looking for her. “Did I hear you talking to the detective before that emergency?”

“Yes. As usual, it got me nowhere. What was wrong with that poor puppy?”

“Just a tiny splinter. She’s a big drama queen. Well, a little drama queen, but a good one.”

Mike led the way into the examining room. The clinical smell, while not overpowering, didn’t provide the best luncheon ambience. Chase thought eating at the reception desk might have been better. Mike took one of the sandwiches and sat at the small desk to unwrap it. “Where did you hope to get with Detective Olson?” he said with a grin. He unfolded a metal chair for Chase.

“I hoped to get you off the hook. What did he say to you?”

Mike frowned. “I’m afraid he’s going after someone else now, too.”

Why was he frowning? “Isn’t that good news?”

“No.” His brown eyes held hers. They were sad. “He’s going after my cousin Patrice.”

Chase scraped her chair closer to the desk to set her sandwich on it, too. “What’s going on, Mike?”

Their elbows nearly touched. She could feel the warmth of his body. Flushing slightly, she scooted over a bit.

He had just bitten off a mouthful. Chase waited patiently for him to finish. He took a swig from his water bottle before he answered. He was obviously playing for time, getting his reply ready.

“There’s a lot going on,” he said. “Have you heard that a diamond cat collar is missing from the display in the main building?”

“Yes. I saw the case myself and the empty cushion. It says it was donated by the Picky Puss Cat Food Company. Patrice’s grandfather seems pretty upset with her.”

“Victor Youngren? What do you mean, he’s upset?”

“I overheard that Patrice filched the collar.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“I . . . I happened to overhear her talking to someone.”

“Yes, she did take it.”

“From the display? I’m trying to picture that.”

“Patrice does rash things sometimes.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“She told me she wanted to try it on her cat to see if it would fit. Her cat is—well, she makes Quincy look thin. This is so hard on Viktor. He’s scheduled to start radiation in two weeks. Chemo will come after that.”

“He has cancer?”

“It’s a small growth and we hope it will be taken care of with the treatments. But I can tell it’s weighing on him. And now this business with Patrice. Again. He had to retire earlier than he wanted to. He worked full-time until six months ago, when he started feeling tired all the time.”

The poor man. “So she wanted to take it home that night?”

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t she just ask Daisy for permission to try it on her cat?”

“She likes to get away with things. I think that’s part of the thrill for her. Not so much having the stolen items as the excitement act of swiping them.”

“If that’s the case, maybe she wouldn’t mind giving me back my ring.”

“She stole your ring?” Mike’s mouth dropped open.

Chase nodded. “It was pretty slick. She took it right off my finger when she shook hands with me.”

Mike rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’ll talk to her about it.” He pressed his lips into an angry line. “About the collar . . . She said she was going to put it back early the next day.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“She told me that a man came into her fortune-telling tent and saw it.”

“She left it out for everyone to see?” This was sounding nuttier and nuttier.

Mike gave a weary sigh. “I told you, Patrice is—”

“Rash. You didn’t say she’s crazy.”

“I don’t think she’s crazy, exactly. She’s a . . . borrower. Once she borrowed her mother’s ruby earrings and wore them to high school. The problem with that was that she forgot to take them off for softball practice and lost one of them jumping to catch a ball. She was an outfielder.”

Chase shook her head at the behavior. The woman wasn’t a borrower. She was a thief.

“Another time, she borrowed her grandfather’s truck and destroyed his next-door neighbor’s prize roses. He had to pay the neighbor a ton of money to replace them.”

“So she’s also a bad driver.”

“Not now. She’s a pretty good one. But she was fourteen when she did that.”

“Oh. I think I’m seeing a pattern here.”

“Yes, if she wants something, she takes it. She always intends to give it back.”

“So she was going to take the cat collar home, then put it back into the exhibit?”

“Yes, but that man scared her and she decided, instead of putting it back right then, to hide it next door.”

“In the butter building.”

“In a butter sculpture.”

“Yuck! It would get all oily.”

“Diamonds are pretty hardy. I’m sure it would wash. It would have been okay, if only . . .”

Chase waited for Mike to continue filling in the last of the blanks of the story as she finished her sandwich in the interval.

Mike put down the rest of his sub beside a pile of folders. “Patrice asked me to retrieve it. I didn’t think it would be that hard.”

“Did Quincy sneak in there with you?” She saw Quincy’s ears perk up at the mention of his name. He stood up and paced a bit. The glossy black cat in a cage next to his gave him a look of boredom, then ignored him.

“He might have. As soon as I got into the building, I saw the body on the floor.”

“Did you call the police?” Chase asked.

“I was about to. Before I got my phone out, Quincy jumped up onto the table and started licking Babe the Blue Ox.”

“He does like butter.” Her sub was a little dry. It could probably use some butter. At least more mayo.

“The cavity in the leg was obvious,” Mike continued. “Patrice had tried to smooth it over, but she’s not a professional sculptor by a long shot. I punched through and reached into the cavity, but it wasn’t there anymore. Before I could try to get my phone out again, Elsa opened the door and started screaming. I was still groping around inside the Blue Ox.”

“And you told her you went there to retrieve Quincy.”

“It’s all I could think of.” His deep brown eyes were troubled. “And now the detective has decided to focus on Patrice.”

“Did you tell him that story?”

“No, but her mother did—part of it. She didn’t tell them that I was there to get the collar, just that Patrice had put it there. Betsy has never gotten along well with her daughter. Betsy is a . . . She’s an orderly person. She likes everything kept neat and tidy.”

“And I take it Patrice is more . . . disorderly?”

“She’s the creative type, I’ve always thought. I think the world of my cousin, but she is different.”

“Are you going to finish that sandwich?”

Mike handed her the last little bit of his sub.

“I thought Quincy might like a bite.”

“That is not what he should be eating.”

“Just the meat?”

“It’s pepperoni! No, not even the meat.”

Mike seemed awfully grouchy today, Chase thought, walking back to the Bar None booth after a brief Quincy cuddle.

Mike should come clean and tell the police why he was really there. He could get himself into all kinds of trouble if he didn’t. He probably didn’t want to put suspicion on Patrice. However, her mother had done it for him. What a mess!

She peeked into the butter building and, sure enough, Winn Cardiman’s station was empty. Even his sculpture was gone.

Was he innocent of Larry Oake’s death, or was he cleverly trying to throw everyone off?