Chase nodded, thinking of how she felt when she thought Mike was keeping something from her and then it turned out that Patrice was his cousin. She and Mike weren’t even serious. Not that Julie and Jay were yet either.
“I’ll talk to him.” She drained her mug and stood to leave.
Chase jumped up to give Julie a good-bye hug.
Quincy, lapless, meowed and stalked off, stiff-legged.
“I’m so glad you talked some sense into me,” Julie said, giving her best friend a good hard squeeze.
“No problem, girlfriend. It might be that I let you talk sense into yourself. But I expect you to do the same for me when I need it.”
After Julie left, Chase wandered over to the glass doors that led to her balcony. It was too cold to sit out there, but she stared through the panes at the streetlights below, glowing like soft lighthouse beacons in the cold, crisp air.
She regretted she hadn’t been able to bring the conversation around to asking Julie to look up information about the case against Michael Ramos. Well, Julie wasn’t leaving her job tomorrow. There would be plenty of time to try to figure out how to get Mike off the hook for the murder. It was a good thing the mills of justice ground slowly. An unwanted picture of Michael Ramos nearing a grindstone flashed into her mind. She shivered and wrapped her robe around her a little tighter.
* * *
The next morning, at the Bar None booth at Bunyan County Fairgrounds, Chase arrived well before Anna. In fact, Anna slid behind the table as the first customers wandered in.
“Good news,” Anna said when she arrived, breathless. “Inger’s parents took her back. I dropped her off this morning.”
“Good grief, Anna. They should have picked her up. Did they apologize for all the trouble they’ve put you to?”
“I didn’t actually see them. Inger asked me to drop her off in front of the house. I made sure she got in, though. Frankly, I didn’t feel like talking to them. I might have been tempted to say something I shouldn’t. But look. I stopped off to get this.” Anna held up a small space heater. Each booth had been provided with an electric power strip so they could plug in lights after it got dark. A pole lamp stood in the back corner of each booth, but there was no provision for heat.
Chase, who hadn’t taken off her wool coat yet, was glad to see the heater. “It won’t blow out the power, will it?”
“The man at the hardware store said it takes the least power of any of their heaters. Since this is such a small space, it should work well here.”
It did. Soon the booth was toasty warm. Anna shed her down parka and Chase took off her heavy coat. Fairgoers were ducking in to warm up, especially those who hadn’t bothered to check the weather before setting out and weren’t dressed warmly enough.
When a break came for them, Chase asked how it went last night with Elsa Oake.
“It was her earring, all right.” Anna perched on the edge of the folding chair to rest her feet.
Chase poured hot cider for both of them from her thermos. She was glad she had thought of that when she woke up. “Did you have any trouble finding her?” She took the other chair and sipped, savoring the cinnamon and nutmeg.
“Nope, no trouble at all. I walked right up and asked the clerk at the front desk of the Crowne Plaza if they could dial her for me. Elsa gave me her room number over the phone.” Anna lowered her voice and bent close to Chase. “I will say that she was a little tipsy.”
“Mourning her husband?”
“I’m not sure. She doesn’t seem too sorry he’s gone.”
“Surely she’s not celebrating his death?”
Anna shrugged as a group of teenagers meandered in.
When the lunch rush was over, Chase said, “This morning Mike asked me if I’d meet him for a late lunch today at the clinic. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. It doesn’t sound like the most appetizing place to dine.”
“I’ll get to see Quincy an extra time. He seems lonely when I pick him up at night. He purrs so loud and nuzzles so hard.”
“It’s good for him. Makes him appreciate you more.”
Chase laughed. “I’m not that hard up that I need my pet to pine for me.”
The truth was, she hadn’t seen much of Mike either since the fair started. Just dropping Quincy off and picking him up, and maybe an odd other time or two. That trick of not seeing much of Dr. Ramos was working on her, making her want to be with him more.
“I have yet to ask Julie if she can get any info from the police on the case against him,” Chase said.
“Do you want me to ask her? She’s coming over to my house late tonight. You’re welcome to come, too, but we’re planning our shoe thing.”
Anna and her granddaughter both loved shoes—and boots. Every fall, they planned their shopping excursion for days. “You’re going next week?”
“Yah. Now that the weather has turned cold, they’ll start selling out.”
Chase knew, from listening to the plotting that the two of them did, that there was a fine line in timing. A smart shopper couldn’t go too early or too late. They’d want the shoes to be on sale, but for the stores to still have a good selection. Anna and Julie both came back from their Fall Shoe Safari with more than they could wear. That was Chase’s opinion. She was more of a minimalist, shoe-wise.
“Did I tell you what Elsa said about that little Winn guy?” Anna asked as Chase slipped into her coat and wound her scarf around her neck to leave their cozy booth.
“No. Winn Cardiman? When I spoke to him, he seemed upset that Oake was carving the same thing he was, Babe the Blue Ox.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Elsa said he and her husband had a loud shouting match the day they were moving into the sculpture place. Cardiman saw Oake’s sketches, according to Elsa, and accused him of copying his idea. Oake insisted that he’d drawn his sketches weeks ago and accused Cardiman of the same thing. A bystander separated them when it looked like they might come to blows.”
“Has she told the police that?”
“She didn’t say whether she has or not. But she seems to think he’s the one who killed Larry Oake now.”
“Where did this go down? Did other people see what happened?”
“Elsa said the actual fight was by the food trailers.”
“I should check with Detective Olson, then. He could try to question people who might have witnessed the argument.”
TEN
Chase pondered the options on her way to the clinic to see Mike and Quincy. She dawdled, shuffling through the sawdust and crunchy leaves, making a detour to stop at the food vendors. Cardiman was angry with Oake. So was Minsky, Mara’s father. So was his own wife, Elsa. She would list all of these to Detective Olson soon.
Chase didn’t have to go far to contact Detective Olson. He was in Mike’s clinic when she arrived carrying their sub sandwiches.
After she pushed the door to the clinic room open with her hip, Detective Olson asked her to remain in the outer room until he was finished. A sign on Betsy’s desk said she was gone for lunch. Chase sat on one of the plastic chairs in the tiny reception area, shivering. The room was cool, but she wasn’t shivering from that. The homicide detective’s face had held such a serious scowl. Was he going to take Mike away again?
She was relieved when the detective swept out of the room without hauling Mike along with him in handcuffs.
“Detective Olson, wait.” Chase jumped up, still clutching the sandwiches. “I found out something you should know.”
He stopped and closed those gorgeous dark blue eyes for three seconds. “Chase, are you trying to investigate again?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that Elsa Oake was talking to Anna. You know, Anna Larson?”