Chase ran upstairs to tend to Quincy. He complained loudly about his breakfast being late, but forgave his mistress when she dished out the homemade treat he liked so much. As Chase watched her pet daintily chomp his food, she wondered who Vi had gotten a ride from. Shaun? Had he merely been chauffeuring Vi last night and not tailing Chase, after all?
TWENTY-SIX
Downstairs, Chase got a call from Laci saying that she’d seen her doctor again, but wasn’t cleared to work yet.
The morning flew by, with a steady stream of customers, although there weren’t many at a time.
“You never told me exactly why Detective Olson decided to detain you,” Anna said. As usual at this time of day, she was stirring a batch of batter. Chase had been getting a head start on the midmonth payroll and was taking an iced-tea break in the kitchen. It was almost lunchtime. She would spell Vi in the front pretty soon.
Chase hadn’t told Anna about the evidence against her. It seemed like blaming poor old Hilda, like telling on her, but she decided she wanted Anna’s opinion.
“You remember the older woman who lives across from Gabe Naughtly’s condo?” Chase said. “The one who had Quincy last week?”
Anna nodded, concentrating on her bowl. She stuck it under the beaters and turned the mixer on.
Chase raised her voice to be heard over the whirring. “She told the detective that she saw me quite a bit before I said I was there.”
“At the condo, you mean?”
“Yes. She said I was there after Doris and Torvald left, around four thirty, hours before I was really there. And she says that I had blood on my clothes.”
“She’s sure she saw you?”
“She said she saw ‘that nice girl from the Bar None’ leave the condo with blood on her clothing. Come into the office. I want to ask you something.”
Anna switched off the mixer and followed Chase.
As soon as Chase closed the door and Anna sat in the desk chair, Vi called to them and knocked on the door.
“Can someone watch the front? I have an emergency.”
So much for discussing Hilda with Anna. They both returned to the kitchen.
Vi clutched her tote bag to her chest and looked as worried as Chase had ever seen her. “Is there something we can do?”
“No. It’s a family thing. I just found out. It won’t take long. Maybe an hour. There aren’t any customers right now.”
Anna went to Vi, put her hand on Vi’s sateen sleeve, and nodded. “It’s nearly time for your lunch break. You can take it now. We’ll be fine.”
Vi scurried out the back door.
“I wonder where she’s going,” Chase said. “She doesn’t have a car. That reminds me. I told you that Mike saw another person in the car with Shaun last night, but I didn’t mention that I think it might have been Vi.”
“That makes sense.” Anna started pouring batter onto a baking pan. “They seem to have gotten to know each other. You said they were talking outside the other day.”
Chase grimaced. “I don’t think that’s a good thing, but I guess it’s lucky he’s giving her transportation.”
“We should have found out exactly where her car is. I could have someone go out and look at it. Do you think it’s at her home?”
Chase recalled that Vi lived in an expensive part of town, near Lake Calhoun. “If it is, I’ll bet it seems strange, that beat-up old car, in that neighborhood.”
“One of us ought to get out front. I said she could leave, so I’ll go.” Anna untied her apron and draped it over a stool. Chase shook her head after Anna left, and hung it on the proper hook.
Mike called as soon as she returned to the office. Quincy jumped softly into her lap when she sat at the computer.
“I talked to Karla,” he said.
“Who’s that? Oh, your cleaning lady?”
“Yes. She calls her service Karla Kleening, both starting with the letter K.”
“Cute. Or should I say, kute with a K?” Should she be worried about Karla with a K? She tossed Quincy off her lap and began to pace.
“She is kind of cute,” he said. “She’s short and round and has more energy than a Dalmatian puppy.”
Maybe Mike liked round women. Chase wasn’t round, not all over anyway. “Did she tell you anything interesting about finding Torvald?”
“I’m not sure. When she found him, she didn’t touch anything, aside from trying to push the door open so she could get in. As soon as she realized he was probably dead, she backed up and called the police. She said she found a button in the corner, after the body was gone. Iversen’s landlord asked her to clean up so he could re-rent the place.”
“A button? I don’t see what difference that would make.”
“She said it matched a button she found about a week before that. She thinks it’s from a woman’s piece of clothing, probably a top. Too small and delicate for a man’s shirt, she said.”
“Is she taking it to the police?”
Mike hesitated. “Well, that’s a problem. She says she swept it up and threw it out. Later, she realized that, because it was so much like the other one, maybe she should have kept it. But she didn’t have the first one either.”
“None of this sounds like it’s going to help the police any.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Chase heard a beeping sound.
“That’s my front door. I think my next appointment is here,” Mike said. “I’ll call you later.”
Still fretting about Karla, Chase opened the office door to the kitchen. Then, remembering that they needed more paper bags in the front, she hoisted a box of them and set it on the kitchen counter.
After being shoved off the treat maker’s lap, the cat stalked the room with his tail twitching. A box of comfy paper products stood in the corner with its top open. The cat jumped into the space, just barely big enough to contain him, and took a snooze. The box was left on the kitchen counter. Soon, the cat awoke and peered over the edge of the box.
The box seemed extra-heavy. Chase would carry it up front later. She paced the kitchen. She decided that as soon as Vi returned and Anna was back in the kitchen, she was going to sound her out about Hilda Bjorn. Could the old woman be malicious? Mistaken? Senile? She hadn’t seemed senile. Maybe she could talk to the neighbor, Professor Fear, and find out more about her personality.
There was another thorn in her side at the moment, Karla the Kleener. She was growing more and more fond of Michael Ramos. But the thorn from Karla was a mere sliver compared to the stab that Hilda was delivering to her. How could the woman insist that Chase had run from Gabe’s with blood on her clothes? And how could Chase clear herself of the charges? She didn’t have any bloody clothing, but that didn’t prove anything. She could have thrown her clothes away. As for the timing, how could she prove she wasn’t there at 4:30?
She thought back to that day. She’d been so upset about Gabe coming into the shop and threatening her, and then even more upset about losing control and threatening him, she had taken a walk around the parking lot at about that very time, to cool off and calm herself down. It was a very short walk, not enough time to get to that condo and back. She would never mention that to Detective Olson. No one at the Bar None had said anything about that. Unless Anna had.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The kitchen closed in, stifling her. Maybe she would return to Hilda’s and see if she was home. She grabbed her sweater from the hook and opened the rear door. She hesitated. She should tell Anna she was leaving. Turning around, she saw Quincy leap from the box on the counter. He darted between her legs and was gone before she could completely recover her balance.