Fat Cat At Large (A Fat Cat Mystery) (22 page)

“S
peak of the devil,” Chase said, carrying her phone into the office to sit in the chair there. It was easier on her poor back than the stools in the kitchen.

“Vi is the devil?” Julie asked. “Look, I have to go, but maybe we can get together tomorrow night. If the jury goes into deliberations, I’ll be freer than I have been since this trial started.”

“That’ll be great. We need to get some more bike rides in before it starts to snow. How does it look for your team?”

“It’s hard to tell. Everyone on the jury has such a good poker face. I think we’ll convict, but don’t quote me. Poor Grandma. She’s not talking to me about this.”

“She’s seeing, Bill, though. I’m sure that’s helping him, and probably her, too.”

“Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if they got together?”

“They aren’t together now?”

“You know what I mean. Maybe . . . move in together . . . get married?”

“Now, that would be fun!”

“Don’t you dare tell her I said anything about this. Now I
really
have to go.”

“My lips are sealed.” Chase smiled for the first time that day as they ended the conversation.

After she hung up with Julie, she completed the interrupted call to Detective Niles Olson, he of the incredibly dark blue eyes.

Keep your mind on what you’re doing, not on how good looking the cop is, she told herself, waiting for him to pick up.

“Olson, homicide.” He sounded brusk, in a hurry.

“Oh yes, this is Chase. Chase Oliver.” Why was she dithering like a teenager? Maybe because she could picture those blue eyes, hard and full of ice. “I had a thought that, well, might help.”

“Go on.” Yes, he was in a hurry.

“About the button I saw on the floor. It’s cloth-covered?”

“Yes. It is.” He sounded like,
So what?

“Not many people use those.”

“We’ll take that into consideration.” He paused for a breath or two. When he continued, his voice had softened. “Yes, we know Violet Peters often wears that type of clothing. However, I can’t get a search warrant on a button.”

“You can’t?”

He blew air into his phone. “I tried, if you really want to know. The judge wasn’t buying it.”

“Oh. I thought it was evidence.”

“It is, but it’s not enough. Just because no one else you know wears those buttons, doesn’t mean that she’s the only person who does.”

“Oh.”

“We’re watching her, though. She’s on our radar. Can you tell me why she stormed out of your place earlier today?”

He
was
watching her. “She and Laci got into a fight and I fired both of them.”

“Really? They fought each other?”

“Yes, it was awful. Vi pulled Laci’s hair and it came all undone and Laci grabbed Vi’s blouse and ripped some buttons off.”

“Are the buttons still there? You have them?”

“Sure.”

“Would you mind if someone came by and picked up those buttons?”

“Of course not. If it’ll help solve the murder. How will they help, though? They’re not the same color, or from the same blouse, I’m sure.”

“I’m not at liberty to say, but it could help. How many do you have?”

“Only two.”

“That’s enough. I’ll be there in ten.”

Chase felt a thrill inside as she cut the connection. She had evidence. She was helping solve the case.

Wait a minute. Did this mean that Vi was the killer? Why on earth would she go around killing those men, and attacking an old woman? It didn’t make sense.

But . . . Torvald had taken out a restraining order. That meant, she thought, that he must have been afraid of Vi. Were there other reasons to take out restraining orders? Chase had never been afraid of Vi. How could Torvald Iversen be?

Anna wandered into the office. “Who were you talking to?”

“Detective Olson. He’s coming in a few minutes to pick up the buttons Laci tore off Vi’s blouse.”

Frown lines sprouted on Anna’s forehead. “Vi’s buttons? What on earth?”

“Anna, could Vi have killed those men?”

“I hope not. That would mean we’ve been employing a murderess. But what I came in to tell you is that I think I should visit Hilda Bjorn in the hospital again, since we’re closed.”

“Is she still there?”

“I went by her house Tuesday and that neighbor of hers, Professor Fear, told me she’s still there and is expected to be for another week.”

“That’s an awfully long time. She’s been there a week already.”

“She’s not young, Charity. Older people take longer to recover.”

“And the attack was pretty horrible, from what I could tell. I thought she was dead when I first saw her.” Chase pictured the scene once more, shivered, then shook her head to get it out of her mind.

“Are you feeling better?” Anna asked.

“You know, I think I am. My headache is gone and my back is feeling much better.”

“It will probably be around five when I get back from seeing Hilda. If you’re hungry then, do you want to go somewhere for an early supper?”

Chase accepted as the chimes on the front door sounded.

Detective Olson walked into the kitchen. “When your sign says closed, maybe you should lock the door,” he said.

“We’re terrible about locking doors, Detective,” Anna said. “But you’re right. We should do that.”

He saw the things on the island counter and bent to examine them.

“Do you want Laci’s bobby pins, too?” Chase asked.

He cocked his head in thought. “Wouldn’t hurt. Maybe I will.” He opened a paper bag and swept the items into it. Would Laci’s DNA be on them? Was she a suspect, too?

“Let’s hope nothing comes of this,” Anna said.

“Why do you say that, Mrs. Larson?”

“Laci and Vi are ours. They’re like family.”

Chase didn’t have the same opinion anymore, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Neither Vi nor Laci would fit into her family, she was sure.

After Detective Olson left, Anna asked Chase if she wanted to come with her to the hospital.

“I think I’d better keep an eye on Quincy, especially if we’re going out for a bit later.”

“Good idea.”

Anna put some of the bars she had baked earlier into a bag, in case Hilda would be able to eat them. She shrugged into her turquoise blanket jacket and left.

“It’s you and me, little fella,” Chase said, stooping to give Quincy a rub between his ears. He closed his eyes and his purr was almost up to full volume. He must have been feeling better.

“I
’m so glad I brought along the dessert bars when I went to see Hilda Bjorn,” Anna said, taking a spoonful of minestrone at the Italian restaurant next door to the Bar None.

It had been the easiest place to meet for their early supper, although it wasn’t all that early by the time Anna showed up. Chase had finished off half a basket of breadsticks before she came. They ordered, getting the half-price bottle of wine that was the special that night, and Anna said she had great news after their orders arrived.

“You loosened her tongue? Or her memory?” Chase asked.

“Both! We started talking about the Bar None and she told me how much she liked the Raspberry Chiffon Bars she got when you had given her the free dozen.”

“A lot of good that did me! My goodwill gesture is mainly what makes me the best suspect for Detective Olson.” Chase refilled her wineglass. At this rate she was going to drink most of it. Anna’s half glassful sat untouched while she worked on her soup and the last breadstick in the basket.

“No, no, listen. She went on and on about ‘that nice girl’ who sold the bars to her. I pinned her down. She meant the girl behind the counter, the one who rang her up.”

“You mean the ‘nice girl’ that she saw go into Gabe’s at just the right time to kill him isn’t me?” Chase twirled her fork in the middle of her salad.

“It seems that it’s Violet.”

Chase dropped her fork with a clang and almost let out a whoop of astonishment in the restaurant. She restrained herself, since that behavior would have clashed with the linen tablecloths and muted lighting. She leaned over the table, putting her head close to Anna’s. “What about her saying she saw the one with the cat?”

“I asked her about that. She said she meant the shop with the cat. Not the girl with the cat.”

“We have to let Detective Olson know this.” Chase’s voice was an urgent whisper. “I think you’ll have to tell him, since Hilda talked to you. Get out your cell phone.”

Anna looked around at the nicely dressed dinner crowd. “I don’t think I should do it here.”

“All right. Let’s finish eating and go outside to do it.”

“I’m parked behind the Bar None. Walk with me after we pay.”

They finished the rest of the meal in record time and skipped dessert, even though Chase had looked forward to it for hours. This was much more important.

On the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Anna realized that her cell phone was in her car.

“Let’s go!” Chase said. She fairly skipped through the shop and out the back beside Anna, to get to where Anna had parked behind the Bar None.

It seemed that Anna took forever to unlock her car and find her phone, which had fallen onto the floor under the passenger seat. When Anna straightened, holding the phone, she said, “I don’t know Detective Olson’s number. Do you?”

Chase grabbed her own phone from her purse. “Yes, I have it.”

She dictated the number as Anna pressed the buttons.

“Well?” Chase’s body was humming with nervous energy.

“It’s ringing. Oh, it’s going to voice mail.”

Chase deflated. “How could he? Call again.”

“There’s no point. I’ll call later.” She stuck the phone into her purse. The trees at the edge of the lot filtered the dim light from the streetlamp to send shadows scurrying along the pavement.

“I want to be off the hook,” Chase said, whining slightly. “I want the detective to know it’s Violet Peters he should have at the top of his suspect list, at least for Gabe Naughtly’s murder. I didn’t tell you yet that Julie says Torvald Iversen took out a restraining order against her, so she probably killed him, too.”

“And I guess she’s the logical person to have filched my blue marble rolling pin.”

Chase snapped her fingers. “Sure. She was in the shop and left through the kitchen shortly before I went and found Hilda. I’ll bet Vi wanted to do away with Hilda before she told someone it was her, not me, Hilda saw the day Gabe was murdered.”

A darker shadow moved across the ground between them. Chase looked around. Too late.

Violet Peters had a thin, wiry arm around Anna’s neck and the blade of a knife pressed against her throat.

Chase felt her eyes grow wide and her mouth drop open.

“Don’t make a sound.” Vi’s whisper was guttural, grating.

Chase closed her mouth, but felt her eyes still ready to pop. Blood whooshed through her eardrums and pounded inside her head.

“Both of you, into the car.”

“Vi,” Chase said, breathing hard. “Don’t do this. This isn’t the way to—”

“Be quiet. You know what I’ve done. I heard
her
telling you.” At the stressed word, the point pressed harder into Anna’s neck.

“We haven’t told anyone. The detective didn’t answer his phone. What you’re doing won’t do you any—”

“I
said
, get into the car.”

“Yes, yes, you did. We will.” Chase tried the door and pretended to be unable to open it. “It’s locked.”

“Well, unlock it.” Vi sounded like she was trying to reason with an imbecile.

Chase felt like an imbecile. Why on earth had they discussed this in such a public place? Anna should have called from inside the shop. That would have made so much more sense and would have been so much safer.

“I need her purse. The car keys.” Chase gestured to the bag on Anna’s shoulder. Vi ripped it off and threw it to Chase with more force than necessary. Chase figured all three of them were producing enormous amounts of adrenaline at the moment. She’d better be careful she didn’t set off a murderous rage in Vi.

Chase fiddled inside the purse for a moment, then fished out the car keys. “Got ’em.” She held them up.

Vi seemed to growl at her. Where was the sleek, sophisticated, attractive Violet? This woman’s face was a distorted mask of raw hatred.

Shaking less than she’d anticipated, Chase clicked the driver’s door.

“Unlock the rear doors.”

Chase reached down to the inside of the front door and complied.

“In,” said Vi to Chase. “You drive.” Vi opened the rear door, shoved Anna inside, then, quick as a flash, was in the seat beside her with the knife point at her throat again.

“Where do you want me to drive?” Chase asked.

“Let’s go out to Lake Minnetonka. It’ll be nice and dark.”

That’s when Chase’s hands started to shake.

C
hase couldn’t decide if she should try to perform heroics or not. At the moment, she didn’t think she would be able to, with the attention it took for her to drive Anna’s unfamiliar car. However, the picture of a shiny, razor-sharp blade pressed into the soft flesh of Anna’s neck was clear in her mind.

“Get on Interstate Thirty-Five,” Vi growled from the backseat and, a minute later, “take Three Ninety-Four.”

Chase swerved onto the ramps and around the curves and headed west. “Where, exactly, are we going?”

They were heading toward the lake, but Lake Minnetonka could more properly be called a bunch of connected bays. Saying they were going to Lake Minnetonka was like saying they were going to Canada. It was a vague destination.

“Gray’s Bay Dam,” came the terse answer.

That was bad. There was a fishing area there, and a park. The place would be deserted now, and dark. The sun had set at around seven. The dam wasn’t high, but high enough that a couple of disabled bodies could easily be rolled into the water.

Chase tried to get that latest picture out of her mind and think clearly. She had to find out exactly what Vi’s plan was. The route was straight for several miles until they would need to turn off onto Bushaway Road. There was time.

“We’re going to Gray’s Bay, you say. Violet, are you still holding the knife on Anna back there?”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’ll be at the Gray’s Bay Dam in about fifteen minutes. What are you going to do with me and Anna when we get there to keep us from telling the police what we know about you and the murders?”

“What’s the matter with you? Just be quiet and drive.”

They had crossed Interstate 494 on Interstate 394, which had devolved into Wayzata Boulevard, pronounced “Y-zetta” by the locals. “We’re already on Wayzata Boulevard. I think that, since you admitted to us that you killed those men, and attacked Hilda Bjorn, you think you might have to get rid of us. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Why are you talking so loud?”

“If Hilda had died, everything would have been okay, wouldn’t it?”

“Everything
is
going to be okay.”

“Not for me and Anna! You’re going to kill us with that knife.”

Vi reached one thin arm to the front and snatched Anna’s purse off the passenger seat.

Chase’s heart sank. In the rearview mirror she saw Vi hold up Anna’s phone, which she had just fished out of the purse.

“You called someone! Anna’s phone was on!”

Which meant that, now, it wasn’t on. When Chase had gotten the keys from Anna’s purse, she had redialed Detective Olson’s number and left the connection open. Had he answered the call? Had he heard anything? Had the connection been good enough for him to understand what she was saying?

The turn onto Bushaway Road came way too soon. There wasn’t another soul on the dark road, which was lined with tangled undergrowth and thick trees at that point. Chase slowed the car to a roll, but Vi noticed and told her to speed up.

The trees thinned out, then were missing entirely when they reached the dam, but the people were missing, too, and there was no lighting.

“Keep going, keep going. Slow now.”

Chase eyed the frail wire fencing on either side of the paving. The fences stood a few feet from the two-lane road, leaving virtually no shoulder. They couldn’t stop on the dam.

“Go past the fence. There, turn there.”

Chase turned left onto the turnout to a small fishing area. Her mind, which should have been working a million miles an hour, was stuck on idle. As she got out of the car, her gears started to turn. What was Vi going to do with them?

“How did you get messed up with Gabe and Torvald anyway?” Chase said. “I heard you talking to someone named Felix. Torvald’s nephew? Have you known him long?”

Vi backed out of the car, dragging Anna with her, the knife never more than an inch from Anna’s precious neck.

If Vi forced them into the water, they could swim to shore. Especially if she did it from here, a small parking lot that led to a gentle slope with access to the water for fishing.

The black water made ominous sucking sounds against the shore. A gust of cold air blew Chase’s straight hair off her neck. She realized the nape of her neck was sweaty, even in the frigid evening air.

“Stand against the car.” Vi gave Anna a rough shove, pinning her to the car with the knife.

Then Chase saw Vi shrug her oversize handbag off her shoulder and extract Anna’s second-favorite rolling pin, a green marble one two inches longer than the short blue one.

She was going to bash them over the head with it! The same way she’d tried to kill Hilda.

Please, please, Niles. Please have heard what I said on the way out here. Please be on the way.

A car went by on the road above, slowing slightly, but not stopping. Stray rays from the headlights filtered down to glint off Vi’s knife.

Chase concentrated on not looking at the car. Vi didn’t give it a glance either. Had it been a police car? Or Detective Olson in a plain car?

Please, please, please.

“Which one first?” Vi seemed to be mumbling to herself.

“Me,” Chase said. “Me first.” She couldn’t bear it if Vi hit Anna on the head with that heavy piece of rock.

At last, Chase felt her mind speed up. A plan formed. Would it work? If it didn’t, nothing would matter, so it had to.

First, some distraction.

“Vi, if Anna and I are both gone, would you mind taking care of Quincy?”

“Have you lost your mind? You’re thinking about your cat right now?”

“I don’t want him to suffer.”

“And you think I’d be a good person to look after him? I’m not crazy about animals. Touching those rats was horrible.”

“You put the rats in the kitchen?”

“Yes. Torvald and Gabe hired me to do it. I had help from that kid.”

“Felix? Torvald’s nephew?” Chase knew now that he was the young man she’d seen arguing in the parking lot with Vi that one time.

“Yes!” Vi shouted. “I know Felix! His mother is a friend of my mother. We played together as kids. He’s the one who thought his uncle and Gabe could help me out with the money. So I cut him in for a share if he’d handle those rats.”

“Elinda said you never paid him.”

“How could I? No one paid me. I asked them over and over. Gabe had loaned me rent money and said he’d cancel my debt if I did that for him.”

“Gabe loaned you money?” How could he? “I didn’t think Gabe had any money.”

“He had enough for three months’ worth of my rent. But then he said there was interest or something and he needed me to pay him more. I was losing everything! My dad would have a cow if I got evicted.”

Vi seemed to be reliving her ordeal, the prospect of being penniless. Her agitation was increasing. Maybe Chase should try to calm her down.

“I can see how you would feel,” Chase said.

“I went to Gabe’s a million times, then I asked Torvald a million more times. I got so mad at Gabe, I just grabbed that knife and stabbed him. You just don’t realize how easy it is to kill someone with a sharp knife. I didn’t exactly mean to kill Gabe. I was sorry right away. He might have been easier to get money from than Torvald. That guy was impossible. He’s the one who insisted I carry through with the rat plan after Gabe died on me. Then he wouldn’t pay me either.”

“Why?” This squeak came from Anna, in spite of the blade at her neck. “How could they want to put the rats in the shop?”

“How do you think?” In the darkness, Chase could hear the sneer in Vi’s voice. “You know they wanted you to sell to them. Since you wouldn’t budge, they were desperate about trying to drive you out of business. Gabe even told me I could be the manager of his donut shop when he got your place. Then, after I kept after him about the money, he took that back. I think Torvald told him to. Those two were liars and cheats. They promised me everything and took it all back. They both deserved to die. Torvald was working on Shaun then, but he didn’t have the money either.”

“They called the health inspector, too, I suppose,” Anna said.

“You need to be quiet, old woman.”

“Old woman?”

“I said, be quiet.” Vi’s words were soft but menacing. She had the green rolling pin in one hand, the other held the knife, still digging into Anna’s neck as Vi held her pinned against the car with her body.

“Torvald had me sign this stupid piece of paper.” Vi sounded a bit calmer, but not a lot. “He called it a note. He said, ‘Here, just sign this little note.’ Like a note is less that a whole letter, right? It should be something informal. But no, he tells me later it’s a binding, official, legal contract. He said he could put me in jail for not paying it!”

The girl was clueless. She had no idea what a note was. Chase looked at Vi, whose hands were full. How was Vi going to bash one of them without the other one tackling her?

Anna started to speak again. “I don’t think he could have—”

“I told you to be quiet!”

Vi threw the rolling pin to the ground, reached into her bag, and pulled out a spool of twine.

Oh. She was going to bind them. Vi tossed the twine to Chase. “Tie her up,” she commanded. “Wrists first.” She flicked a piece of twine off the spool and returned the knife to Anna’s neck before Chase saw that she’d missed a chance.

She wouldn’t miss the next one. Now, tying Anna, she’d be close enough to Vi to try to get the knife away from her.

Chase took the length of twine and bent close to Anna’s wrists. She lunged into Vi to throw her off Anna.

Anna’s cry pierced Chase’s heart.