It seemed to be his right front paw, so she grasped his leg to try to see if the bottom of his foot was cut. He snatched it away and hissed! Oh dear. Something must be very sore, his paw or his leg or something.
She heard Anna come in the back door and rushed downstairs to tell her that poor Quincy was bleeding.
“Poor baby!” Anna cried. “Can I try to look at him?”
“Sure, you can try. He won’t let me touch his leg.”
Anna trotted up the stairs. Chase was a little miffed. Why did Anna think Quincy would let her handle him when he wouldn’t let his owner, his favorite person, do it?
She followed Anna up the stairs and came into her living room to find Quincy sitting in Anna’s lap. He was on a dishtowel she had put over her jeans. Chase bit her words back when she realized that it was one of her good dishtowels, one of a set that she’d gotten on a trip to Amish country to see her friend Charlotte Bessette, who owned a wonderful cheese shop in the town of Providence, Ohio.
Not only had her cat abandoned her, he was managing to get bloodstains all over her nice linen dish towel.
“Look, Charity.” Anna lifted his front leg from the paw. “His dewclaw is bleeding.”
Chase realized she had grabbed his leg exactly on his dewclaw. No wonder he’d been irritated. “Why is it bleeding? Should I call Mike?”
“Dr. Ramos? Yes, I think so. Something’s wrong. Maybe it’s infected.”
“The vet sees him all the time. How could it get infected that fast?”
Anna gave her a stern look. “I’m not a veterinarian. How should I know?”
Quincy curled up in Anna’s lap with his tail over his nose. “It doesn’t seem to be hurting him,” Chase said. “I’ll go later. Right now we need to get the shop opened.”
It was obvious Anna thought Chase was doing the wrong thing by waiting, but she didn’t say a word, just gently set Quincy in his bed and swept past her on the way to the kitchen.
Chase finished dressing, ran a brush through her hair, and went to work. Once she and Anna got to working, and established their habitual rhythm, the day seemed brighter.
“Have you decided what you’re going to say to Hilda Bjorn when you see her tonight? Julie said you were visiting her in the hospital.”
“I am going to. I haven’t decided exactly. But I do want to see how definite she is about who she saw and when she saw them. I won’t single you out, but I’ll ask her about everyone she saw. Maybe that will jar something loose.”
“We should keep in mind that she was viciously attacked. I suppose you’ll be safe enough in the hospital, but if someone thinks you’re getting information from her, do you think you’ll be in danger?”
“Who’s going to know I’m there?”
“I don’t know. But someone knew she was giving evidence to the police.”
“Unless her attack has nothing to do with the murders. That’s another thing I’ll try to find out, what goes on in her life and if she’s in danger from elsewhere.”
“That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.” Her mind had held one track lately: the murders and the whys and wherefores connected with them. Hilda probably had a family somewhere, possibly relatives with feuds and factions. Maybe someone was in her will and wanted to inherit soon.
Chase’s mind turned to the dead men, Gabe and Torvald. Their connection was that they were working together to obtain her shop. In other words, she was the link between them. But how did Hilda Bjorn fit in? Could Anna find out?
THIRTY-ONE
When Vi set her big tote bag on the counter and got a sandwich out of an insulated carrier for her lunch, Chase took the stool next to her.
“Are you still getting rides from Shaun Everly?”
Vi, who had just bitten off a mouthful of ham and swiss on rye bread, nodded. She finished her bite and said, “Not much longer, though. I found someone who will fix my Hyundai in exchange for some of my old clothes.”
“That sounds lucky! So you found a female auto mechanic?”
“I did.” Vi sounded proud. “She lives in Shaun’s apartment building.”
Which, Chase knew, was also where Laci lived.
“Are you doing all right with your finances now?”
Vi shrugged. “I guess so. I’m not out of money.”
Chase studied the young woman for a moment. The more she got to know her, the more enigmatic she seemed. Vi was the last person Chase would expect to do business by bartering. She did know that Vi had very little money smarts. After all, she’d gotten herself into enough trouble with her overdue bills that she had felt compelled to dip into the Bar None till. “You be sure and let me or Anna know if you get into any more trouble with your finances.” Chase certainly didn’t want that to happen again!
“Sure.” Vi seemed unconcerned.
“Which clothes are you giving up?” Chase had never seen Vi wear anything that looked as if it should be given away. That mechanic might be getting a heck of a good deal.
“Oh, they’re some that I’m not wearing.” She waved her hand to indicate how inconsequential those clothes were.
“Say, I’ll bet you might know the answer to a question I have.”
Vi crumpled her sandwich bag and stuffed it into the insulated lunch carrier, then stuffed that inside her tote. “Okay.”
“How did Shaun and Torvald know each other?”
“Did they?”
Chase remembered, at that moment, that Vi had denied knowing Torvald Iversen herself, after Chase had seen them arguing in the parking lot. “Yes. And you knew Torvald, too. I saw you talking to him one day outside.” Could Torvald have been the potential source of her money that had fallen through? He’d been a financer, but who would finance Vi? And why?
“Who?” Vi asked, her smooth face the picture of innocence.
“Tall, thin guy, usually wore a blazer.”
Vi raised her impeccable eyebrows and blinked. “Oh, is that who that was? The creep was trying to pick me up.”
To Chase’s ear, her statement rang false.
• • •
Chase crated Quincy, without too much difficulty, right after she closed the shop, and drove him to Mike’s veterinary office in Minnetonka Mills. She’d called and described Quincy’s distress and Mike had said he’d work her in at the end of his day. She got there at 6:30 on the dot. Since it was after regular hours, his outside door was locked, but he opened it as soon as she knocked. His receptionist had gone for the day, so Mike led the way into the first examining room himself.
“I appreciate you doing this,” Chase said.
“No problem.”
They were being so formal. It was as if the redhead were standing in the corner of the room, listening to them. At least, that’s how Chase felt.
Mike lifted Quincy’s paw, gingerly, not touching the dewclaw, which was still seeping a bit.
“Ouch. You have an ingrown toenail, buddy.” He turned to Chase, his lips pursed ruefully. “Sorry I didn’t notice this before.”
“I guess you were concentrating on the size of his tummy.” Even to herself, Chase sounded cold and distant.
“Are you all right?”
“Mm–hmm.”
Mike turned to face her directly. “Are you mad at me?”
Chase couldn’t look him in the eye. “Why should I be?”
“Beats me. Are you free for dinner this weekend?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How about lunch, then?”
“You don’t have plans?”
“Nope. I have the whole weekend free. All day Saturday and Sunday. But you’re open on Saturday and—”
“Dr. Ramos?” A short, round woman in her late forties, or possibly early fifties, poked her head into the room. “Is there anything else? You want me to wait and do this room?”