Fat Cat At Large (A Fat Cat Mystery) (10 page)

“I’m not sure I can stay. I’ll see.” Vi turned away and approached some hesitant customers. Soon they were laden with dessert bars. Vi, Chase thought for the umpteenth time, had the touch of gold for sales.

T
he Bar None would close in five minutes. It was finally the end of the long day. And this was supposed to have been an easy one. Chase closed her eyes for a moment and pictured herself with Quincy purring in her lap, sitting in her favorite cushy chair enjoying a long, slow glass of wine and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Dream Bar. When she opened her eyes, the shop was still there, and still open. And her back hurt more than it had all day.

Also, Gabe’s visitation started in an hour. His funeral was going to be tomorrow, Wednesday. The shop would be closed, so, theoretically, Chase would be able to attend the actual service. But she’d rather just sign her name on the book at the visitation. That way, she wouldn’t have to face his family and their grief, and to pretend she was sad that Gabe was dead. She gave herself a mental slap for that last thought, even though it was true.

Anna had returned to the kitchen to start the cleanup and Chase was tending the register, waiting to check out the customers who remained in the store. There were quite a few. Today’s receipts should add up to a lot, she told herself. Could the extra day of big sales make up for the pilfering?

Chase finished a transaction and checked the drawer. She raised her head as a large person blocked the light from the front windows. It was the last person she ever wanted to see again. She grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself and felt the sweat springing up on her palms.

“Hi, Chase,” the man said, giving her the devastatingly handsome smile she’d fallen for.

“Shaun.” Tall, blond, ruggedly good looking, and all too real. She froze for a moment in the headlights of his dazzle.

“Oh, so you remember my name.” The smile on his handsome face wasn’t friendly. “I wondered where you were hiding out.”

She wiped her hands on her smock. “I am not hiding out.”

“I can’t believe you’re not locked up. Maybe you escaped from jail?”

The nearest customers, apparently the grandparents of the student fidgeting between them, stared openly. Chase couldn’t stand a scene in her shop tonight. But what could she say to him to get him to leave? Or at least be quiet?

“Very funny.” She tried for an amused smile. “I’m surprised you’re not
in
jail yet. Come on back and see the place. Vi, could you work the counter for a moment?” She beckoned him toward the kitchen. Anything to get him out of here, away from her customers. The older couple walked toward the door, trailed by their young student.

“Wait a minute,” the young man said. “I wanna buy something.”

“Let’s come back later,” said the woman.

Chase knew they’d never return.

She grabbed Shaun’s elbow and tugged him until he followed her, a doubtful expression on his face.

Anna was drying the mixer attachments and stowing them in the drawer. She looked up as they entered. “Who’s this?” She raised her eyebrows and gave him a brilliant smile.

Shaun turned his charm on full force. “I’m Shaun Everly. Pleased to meet you, Miss . . . ?”

Anna wiped her hands on her apron and extended a palm. “I’m Anna Larson, co-owner of the Bar None.” She gestured at the kitchen with a proud sweep of her hand. “You’re a friend of Charity’s?” She tilted her head at him. Was she flirting?

Chase said, “No,” a fraction of a second before Shaun said, “Yes.”

He chuckled. She didn’t. Anna’s smile faltered.

“We knew each other in Chicago,” he continued. “We worked together. For a while.” He turned toward the office door. “What’s that awful noise?”

“Quincy, hissing at you, as usual,” said Chase.

His ice-blue eyes narrowed. “You still have that mangy cat?”

The smile dropped from Anna’s face. An enemy of Quincy’s would be an enemy of hers.

“There’s the back door,” said Chase. “You’re welcome to use it.”

“I’m not surprised you don’t want me around.” There was a hint of menace in his silky voice. “Afraid people might find out what you did?” He walked over to stand next to Anna and talked to her in an undertone, then handed her something she stuffed into her apron pocket. Chase caught the sound of a sibilant and thought she heard the word
stole
.

“The only thing I’m afraid of,” Chase said, “is that you’ll spread more of your lies. Now get out.”

He gave Chase an ugly sneer. “I’m not going far. Thinking of moving here.” Then he left, giving the rear door a hearty slam.

“Who on earth was that?” Anna looked horrified for Chase. “What an awful man!”

“Yes.” Chase’s knees weakened in the aftermath of the confrontation. She grabbed for a stool and sat.

Anna glanced at the clock. “I’ll go flip the sign and finish up out front.”

Chase waited, unable to stir, listening to the voices in the front of the store. Finally, the last customer left and Vi and Anna came in.

“I really do have to leave,” said Vi. “Have fun without me.”

“Are you going to the visitation for Gabe Naughtly tonight?” Chase asked.

Vi paused on her way to the back door. “I’m . . . not sure.”

“The funeral is tomorrow,” Anna said. “Maybe you’d rather go to that?”

“We’re closed Wednesday this week, right?”

“Yes, so we could all go if we wanted to.”

“I’m doing the visitation,” Chase said.

“Me, too.” Vi continued toward the door.

“See you Thursday?” Anna said. “Since we don’t know when Laci is returning to work.”

They normally closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, except during freshman move-in time, when they only took Wednesday off. Next week they would close both of the normal days.

Vi left out the parking lot door, saying she’d be back on Thursday. Anna released Quincy from the office. He twined around her legs, then sashayed over to Chase.

“Can I get you something? Shall we open that bottle of wine?” She leaned down and rubbed Quincy’s nape.

“That would be lovely. I’ve been looking forward to it all day. I haven’t taken any pain pills since this morning.”

Anna wielded the corkscrew, reached for two of the tumblers they kept in the kitchen, and poured them half-full. She and Chase clinked their glasses and Chase gulped down a hefty amount.

“Now spill,” Anna said. “What was that talk of jail?”

“What did Shaun say to you?”

“That’s not important.” Anna glanced away.

“He’s the reason I left Chicago. I’ve told you that.”

“You never told me his name. Or how good looking he is. Or exactly what the details were.”

“I know. It was . . . upsetting. We both worked at the same place.”

“That German place in the Loop?”

“Yes, I was waiting tables there. The waitstaff took care of the dinner checks, no cashier, and we handled a lot of money. His uncle owned the place. Shaun didn’t work there much, but showed up once or twice a week to help out in the kitchen.”

“What else did he do?”

“He was going to school, I guess. At least that’s what he said. Right now, I don’t believe anything he’s ever said. He asked me out a few times and I thought we hit if off pretty well, but I knew he wasn’t someone I wanted anything permanent with.”

Chase took another glug of her wine. Anna moved around the kitchen efficiently, putting away the day’s equipment, stopping to sip her wine when she passed it.

“When money was missing,” Chase said, “he convinced his uncle I had taken it. I tried to reason with both of them.”

“Who did take the money?”

“I didn’t know, at first. I just knew it wasn’t me.” It sounded like Anna was accusing her. “No matter what I said, Shaun’s uncle was sure I’d taken it, and I got fired.”

“That’s when you came home to Minneapolis?” Anna put the last of the baking sheets in the cabinet and came back to sit beside Chase.

“No, not exactly. Before I left their place, I happened to see a deposit slip in the kitchen wastebasket. I thought that was an odd thing to be there, so I fished it out. Shaun was not only a jerk and dishonest, he was stupid. The receipt was for a large deposit to his personal account. It was for exactly the amount that had been missing the week before. I knew I didn’t want to work with anyone in that family again, so I didn’t use it to get my job back. But I did leave Shaun a sealed note about finding the deposit slip before I left the place.

“Then I tried to get another job. I applied at five different places nearby. One of them finally told me that Shaun had talked to them. I was blacklisted!”

“Blacklisted? That’s terrible. Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s a class-one jerk.”

“You could have brought the deposit slip to the police.”

“Yes, I know, but I just wanted to get far away from everything.”

“So you came home.” Anna’s warm smile eased Chase’s heart. “I’m glad you did.”

Chase heard a car start up in the parking lot. She realized she hadn’t heard Vi’s car leave. Or Shaun’s.

“Is that Vi, just leaving?” Anna said. “I wonder what she’s been doing all this time.”

Chase jumped off the stool and ran to the rear door. Her back didn’t twinge at all. The wine was a good painkiller. She flung the door open and scanned the parking lot. Vi’s red Z4 was pulling away. Another vehicle, a silver Porsche Boxster, drove out of the lot, turned north on Fourteenth, and sped off. Shaun’s car, Chase would bet the store on it. Well, maybe not the whole store, but she was sure it was him. It was the same car he’d had in Chicago. She shivered in the cold night air and came back to the warm kitchen.

“Shaun and Vi both just left. They were probably out there talking. He’s no doubt told her all his lies about me.”

“We both know how fickle Vi is about men. She won’t stick with him long.”

“One day is too long with Shaun Everly.” Chase plopped onto the stool and finished the glass of wine.

“Need another?” Anna didn’t wait for her answer, but poured her a glass.

•   •   •

Chase didn’t want
to get to Gabe Naughtly’s visitation too early. If no one else were there, she’d have to make small talk with Doris. That would be awful. She waited until 7:30, then walked the few blocks to the funeral home on Southeast Seventh Street. A brisk wind made her glad she’d worn a heavy jacket. She looked at the trees along the way, imagining them as they would look in a month, full of ochres, scarlets, golden yellows, and shiny browns for some of the oaks. For now, they were all still green, stirring in the breeze, giving off slight, breathy rattles as she walked slowly beneath them. She was in no great hurry to get to the visitation.

The parking lot beside the small, white, one-story building was half-full of cars. That must have meant a lot of other mourners were already there, so Chase deemed it safe. She wanted to duck in, sign the book, tell Doris and Ted that she was “so sorry for their loss,” and get out quickly. She had never been fond of Doris, but the more she heard about her from Anna, the less she liked the woman. Chase hated duplicity. She would be forced to be two-faced to the woman at her husband’s coffin, though—to be nice and act sympathetic. Chase would also be very conscious, while she was there, that some of the people present suspected she was the murderer of the deceased.

The guest book was on a wooden stand next to the front door. The pages were white with gold lettering, and a gold pen lay atop the book. Chase was sure Doris had picked out these things. Ornate was the woman’s style.

Chase picked up the heavy pen, glancing at the names already entered between the gold lines. Violet Peters’s name was near the top of the page. Torvald Iversen had scrawled his name five lines up. Under it was another Iversen name, Elinda, written in a loopy style. Since it was on a separate line, it didn’t seem like it was Torvald’s wife. Maybe a sister, aunt, mother? Chase shuddered at the thought of being married—or related—to the man. After she signed her name, she quickly found Doris, muttered her obligatory line, and walked home.

•   •   •

In her apartment,
she settled into her comfy chair without that glass of wine she’d been looking forward to for hours, since she’d already had a couple in the kitchen with Anna after they’d closed up. Her phone rang and she jerked awake, realizing she had dozed off.

“Julie? How’s everything going?”

“We’re still picking the jury, but I think we’ll finish with that tomorrow. The day after, at the latest.” Chase heard Julie take a sip of something with clinking ice cubes.

“It sure is a slow process.”

“Sometimes I think due process should be called glue process,” said Julie. “There’s something I need to tell you. Grandma talked to me just a few minutes ago and I’m not sure what she’s trying to say.”

“What were her words?”

“She didn’t make a lot of sense. She was distraught. First, she told me she thought the receipts looked like they were short again today. Then she rambled on about Ted Naughtly’s history, but when I asked her directly, she said she didn’t think he took the money.”

“Really? More was missing today?”

“Then she told me your nemesis from Chicago showed up. I remember you telling me all about him, the cad.”

“What does Anna think of him? She didn’t say much to him.”

“She wouldn’t say it right out, but I don’t think she dislikes him enough.” More ice cubes clinked. “I got the impression they had talked for at least a few minutes.”

“Wait a sec.” Chase went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of Dr Pepper. The sound of Julie’s ice cubes was making her thirsty. On her way back to her leather couch, Quincy wound around her legs, nearly tripping her. He felt so solid. He had to be gaining, not losing ounces.

“They must have talked after the shop closed. Did she say exactly what he told her?”

Julie blew out a breath into the phone. “He told her you stole that money in Chicago. The money you think he stole and blamed you for.”

“And?”

“I still think you shouldn’t have run. I could have come over and helped you with, I don’t know, some sort of legal solution.”

“I know, and I still appreciate the offer, but I was sick of the place.” Chase took a noisy gulp of the pop, rather more than she’d intended.

“What was that sound?”

“Me, swallowing, silly.”