Fat Cat Takes The Cake

TWENTY-SIX

When a fit of coughing took Chase by surprise, she turned away from the counter.

“You know what you need to do?” Mallory leaned in close to talk so the customers wouldn’t hear. “Take a damp washcloth and heat it in the microwave for about minute, then put it on your face. It’ll clear your sinuses right up.”

“Thanks,” Chase managed to say, although her cold seemed to be in her chest by now, not her sinuses. “Gotta go.” She was horrified to think she might have infected Mallory, to say nothing of the customer she’d been waiting on.

Inger was done with lunch when she made it to the kitchen. Anna said she would relieve Mallory so the girl could eat. “But you go upstairs and rest,” Anna told her. “I’ll bring some more soup over right after we close.”

Chase remembered her cat through her haze and took Quincy upstairs with her. She collapsed into her stuffed chair and sucked a cough drop until her fit subsided.

She was sick, for sure, but she felt worse about being discouraged that she couldn’t find anyone to take Julie’s place as the number one suspect for Ron North’s murder.

Who else was there? The real estate crooks had seemed the most likely. Van Snelson, her former principal, for whom she had lost all respect, had spent the night at the high school. His actions were strange, but it didn’t seem that he killed anyone. Completely separate from the murder and the real estate scam, how could he go to work every day and be in charge of teenagers when he couldn’t stand them?

Langton Hail, the funny little vest-wearing guy, had been too drunk. Eddie Heath had seen him in his car the next morning, preparing to leave the parking lot hours after the reunion ended. She hoped that those two would be punished for bilking people like Hilda Bjorn, at least.

She admitted that Dickie Byrd had been a distant third choice. She wanted him to have killed Ron to avenge his wife’s honor after she was accosted. But now the Byrds were on the outs. He probably wasn’t interested in defending someone who had kicked him out. He hadn’t spent the night with his wife, but with his mistress, the short, stacked woman who bought him Peanut Butter Fudge Bars.

Who else was there?

Wait! Maybe Dickie Byrd didn’t want to avenge his wife’s honor, but who said she couldn’t avenge it herself? She was fuming mad at Ron, even threw her drink in his face.

Chase stumbled to the kitchen drawer where she had stashed the copied pages of Ron’s notebook. She spread them on the kitchen table and turned to the part that she and Julie assumed was about his serial stalking victims. J was Julie and M was Monique. He had been making the rounds of his old victims at the party. He’d tried Julie, had mashed his face into hers for a kiss. Jay had come to her rescue and nothing else had happened after that. No, Julie had not killed him.

But he had confronted Monique, too. She’d been piled on that night. First, her husband got stewed to the gills at his own campaign rally, which, Chase assumed, Monique had orchestrated exactly as she’d run all his campaigns in the past. He had ruined the night for himself and, most likely, for her. Then maybe Ron’s attack was the last straw. She had left early, even slightly before her husband. She would have had plenty of time to kill Ron. Julie’s scarf had been in Ron’s pocket, so it was convenient for her to use as a weapon as her anger boiled over in the parking lot.

Maybe she started out merely accosting him, perhaps berating him. Ron was so annoying that things could easily escalate. Monique could get madder and madder. She would start yanking at her hair. Fire would come from her eyes. Her anger would overwhelm her and she would lose control and strangle him. As inebriated as he was, he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. Ron wasn’t very large. If Monique were fueled by adrenaline and hatred, she could have gotten him into her car and driven him to the park while it was still dark. She could overcome her touching phobia in a blind rage, couldn’t she?

“Yes,” she said, pumping her fist into the air. Quincy scampered away and jumped onto the couch. “Didn’t mean to scare you, little guy. But I think I have this figured out.”

She followed Quincy to the couch and dialed Detective Olson’s number, but quit halfway through when another coughing fit overcame her. As she sucked yet another cough drop, she had second thoughts. What would she tell the detective? She had no evidence to support her conclusion. There were no clues. It was all supposition. If he searched her trunk he might find blood. Could she convince him to do that?

Maybe Monique would come into the shop again and she could ask her some questions. She tucked one foot underneath herself on the leather couch. Quincy sat in her lap and they both dozed.

Chase’s head grew bigger and bigger. It started spinning, slowly at first. Then faster and faster. It whirled around, still gaining weight, sickening her stomach, spinning, spinning, spinning . . . until it exploded. She grunted as her skull flew apart and suspects came flying out. Snelson and Hail tumbled to the floor. Dickie Byrd flew out and stuck to the ceiling. Then Monique, yanking at her hair, spun through the air, staying suspended for an impossible amount of time. Chase grunted again.

Her lap was cold. Quincy had taken off when she had started stirring in her dream. She clutched her scalp, but it was intact. Her head hadn’t exploded. She was going crazy with this cold and all these suspects who didn’t kill Ron North. Quickly, before the details could evaporate, she reviewed everyone she had seen come flying out of her stuffy head, which did feel super heavy still. Snelson, Hail, and the two Byrds. No, no one new. Those were all the culprits. That was rotten luck, she thought. Why couldn’t her subconscious have worked out the answer? Maybe it had. Monique was the last one out and she hadn’t landed anywhere. The dream had been so vivid, Chase checked the ceiling, expecting Dickie Byrd to be stuck up there. She felt doom was barely beyond her sight, maybe down the hallway.

Her door opened. Anna let herself in with her key and arrived with more soup!

“I’m so glad to see you,” Chase said. She breathed easier.

“You sound all stuffed up.” Anna busied herself heating the soup. “I’ll stay and have some with you, if you don’t mind. We closed up a little early and I sent Inger and Mallory home. Did you know that Inger is moving into her apartment on Monday?”

“That’s great. It will be so nice for her to finally get out of that house for good. Her parents are no treat.”

“No kidding. Have you gotten some rest?”

“Yes, I woke up just before you got here.”

“I’m glad I didn’t wake you.”

“You have to go to the police station with me. I had a weird dream.”

Anna raised her eyebrows. “You had a dream, so I have to talk to the police with you? Are you running a fever?”

“No, I mean . . . those two aren’t related. Well, only a little bit.” She still felt slightly dizzy.

Anna put bowls and soup spoons on Chase’s kitchen table.

Chase tried to explain her dream, but muddled it up. The terrible impending-doom feeling she had awakened with was receding, thank goodness.

“So, Monique Byrd stayed in the air instead of on the ceiling—”

“Or the ground.”

“—so she killed Ron North.” Anna had a right to be skeptical when it was put like that.

“Really, though, I think my subconscious might have figured this out. She’s the only person left with motive, the only one who hasn’t been ruled out with an alibi.”

“Tell me her motive again.” Anna ladled her golden soup into the bowls and Chase inhaled the healing aroma.

“Ron was stalking her, so she killed him,” Chase said.

“That’s about all they have on Julie!”

“They also have the fact that Ron was about to expose the real estate swindle and he thought she was part of it.”

“But that’s just it. She’s not,” Anna said. “Julie has said her lawyer will point that out.”

“What about all the cases where there’s only one suspect, so that one gets the guilty verdict?”

“I don’t know if there are all that many.”

“There are some. And one is too many if it’s Julie.”

“I agree with that, but what can we do?” She gave a heavy sigh. “What are you going to say to the detective when you go to the station? After you infect him with your cold?”

Maybe she should. If he were sick, he might back off trying to get Julie charged. “I would like to point out that he should make sure Monique has an alibi. Then, when he finds that she doesn’t, he should be smart enough to consider her as his new prime suspect.”

“Eat your soup and get some rest. Call him tonight, or see what you think tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Thursday! The hearing is—”

Anna’s phone rang. She listened with a worried look on her face.

New information, thought Chase. They found something else that makes Julie look guilty. She knew it.