Fat Cat Takes the Cake

TWENTY-NINE

Chase set the page on her desk, carefully, and called Julie. The cell phone rang over to voice mail.

“Call me,” she barked. She glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. Julie was, no doubt, in the middle of something at work.

She got up and started pacing. The paper was yellow and brittle. It must have fallen out of the notebook when they first started examining it. Maybe it was a page from an older notebook that Ron had stuck into the newer one. The louse had been blackmailing people for a long time. It was a wonder he wasn’t rich. Or hadn’t been killed years ago.

Stopping long enough to peer at the paper, she bent close over the desk. Squint as she might, she couldn’t quite make out the smudged writing. Was the first letter H? If she could find a way to connect this with another blackmail victim, even if it was an older one, there would be another suspect.

“Charity? Tanner is here,” Anna said as she rapped on the office door.

Chase opened the office door, careful to keep Quincy contained. “Hi, Tanner. How’s it going?”

“Hangin’ in there. Do you have a check for me?”

“I was going to mail it tomorrow, but you can have it today.” Since he’d come by, he must need the money. She wrote him a check, wishing she could pay him more. Maybe she would be able to some day. He deserved it, having done such a great job on the webpage. “I’ve heard people say they found our shop on the Internet, so the page is working.”

“Great.” His smile lit up his skinny face as he took his money. His nose and eyebrow rings glinted in the glow of the moving screen saver.

“What’s this?” He reached for the page.

“No, don’t touch it.” Chase caught his hand. “It’s old and pretty delicate. I just found it under my desk. I think the cat put it there.”

“Why is it so special?”

“I think it’s an old page from the notebook of the man who was murdered.”

“That one I hacked into? That rnorth83 guy?”

“You remember his e-mail name?”

“Sure. He was emailing bigbyrd about some pictures he had.”

“Do you want to look at this paper and tell me if you can decipher what it says?”

Tanner left it on the desk, but adjusted the desk lamp to shine more brightly on it. “H something, right? HU? Should I go into his account again and see if he e-mailed anybody with HU in their name?”

“Can you do that? Do you have time?”

“No problem.”

That was a good idea. “Have a seat,” she said, waving him into her desk chair.

The cat and the fish disappeared and Tanner started working. His long, thin fingers flew over the keys, clicking so loudly that Quincy stared. Chase stared, too, hoping to see the name of the murderer displayed on the screen, along with a picture and personal statistics. That always happened for the sleuths on TV.

“You can go do something else while I work,” he said.

She was probably making him nervous, hanging over his shoulder. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Anna had a batch of her favorites, Lemon Bars, coming out of the oven, so Chase grabbed a hot pad and slid the dessert bars onto a cooling rack. She picked one up with a paper towel and blew on it to cool it.

Mallory poked her head into the kitchen. “Did I hear Tanner come in?”

“He’s in my office,” Chase said. “He’ll be out in a few minutes.” Maybe.

Mallory’s face split into a huge grin. “Okay. Tell him I’m here.”

Chase assured her she would. She loved seeing this young love blossom before her eyes. Mallory was working hard at smiling at the customers, and she was doing a much better job than when she’d started working at the Bar None. But no customer had ever gotten the grin she had given at the thought of Tanner being near.

She popped the Lemon Bar into her mouth, closing her eyes as the sweet-tart flavor melted on her tongue.

In less than half an hour, Tanner emerged. “I got it. Wanna see?”

Chase hurried into the office. Tanner pointed to the screen. He had gotten into Ron North’s e-mail account again.

“How long before someone shuts this down?” she asked.

“It might stay out there for years, unless the cops want to close it.”

This time the messages were between rnorth83 and someone called hunkyb.

hunkyb: not tellin u agin

rnorth83: wotz ur problem man

hunkyb: its all yr fault stay away from her its all yr fault

rnorth83: or?

hunkyb: ill smash in ur ugly face

rnorth83: like u did last time

hunkyb: this time ill do it

“So,” Chase said, trying to figure out what was going on in this exchange. “Hunkyb warns Ron to stay away from . . . someone, a female.”

“Probably his girlfriend. Or wife. And looks like North was stalking her, like he did all those others. Is she in the notebook?”

“How would I tell?”

“Let’s look at it again.”

“Better yet,” Chase said, “let’s figure out who hunkyb is. This older page references someone beginning with H.”

“Can I touch it? I’ll be careful.” Tanner pointed to the brittle paper.

Chase bit her lip, but nodded.

Tanner grasped the paper at the corner and held it up to Chase’s desk lamp. The letters leapt into clarity, seen with the backlighting.

“HULK,” they both said together.

“Great,” Chase said. “Now we have to figure out who both HULK and hunkyb are.”

“Probably the same person. North gave people nicknames. He wouldn’t call the guy the same thing the guy called himself. This sounds like a big person, either name you use.”

“Someone who thinks he’s good looking, since he calls himself a hunk.”

Her cell phone rang. It was Eddie Heath. A shiver ran up her spine. Eddie wasn’t tall, but he was muscular. And his last name started with H.