“Are you talking about my cat?” Patrice, decked out in her purple caftan and gold turban, came into the booth, trailing her gauzy robe behind her. She held up a tiny pink ballerina tutu. “I wanted to show you what Princess will be wearing. Isn’t it adorable?”
Anna nodded. “Very fitting for a princess.”
Chase thought it looked ridiculous, but she smiled and nodded.
“Wouldn’t it be fun if Quincy came as Puss in Boots?” Patrice said. “He’s the same color as the cat in the movie.”
Maybe, thought Chase, that’s what was giving everyone the idea. She would have to rack her brain to come up with something. Quick. The contest was the day after tomorrow.
NINETEEN
At lunchtime, Chase volunteered to get sandwiches for both of them. She was getting a second wind. Her headache had receded, and she felt so much better than when she had gotten up. Anna wanted turkey and Swiss, and Chase was hungry for a meatball sub.
“I’ll stop in and see Quincy first,” she said to Anna as she was slipping on her coat and leaving the booth.
Anna gave her a smile that meant she knew Chase was also going to see Dr. Ramos.
On her way, Chase pondered the costume situation. Yes, Quincy was the color of the Puss in Boots cat, but Chase definitely didn’t want to do that. It was way too obvious. What did she want to do? Something brilliant, something that would wow the judges. If they were going to enter, she wanted them to win. Quincy was also the color of marmalade. Could she coax him to curl up on a huge piece of fake toast and BE marmalade? Not likely.
She hummed “Put on a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie as she walked past Patrice’s booth. Yes, she was in a much better mood. Maybe it was because she was away from Inger and Elsa and Eleanor.
Sometimes, when an old show tune popped up on her lips or in her mind, unbidden, she was taken straight back to her childhood, after her parents’ deaths, when she began living with Anna. Her surrogate parent and grandparent, all rolled into one, was an aficionado of musicals. Anna and Chase, and sometimes Julie, would pile into Anna’s gold Pontiac. It was the pride and joy of both the Larsons. Anna’s husband didn’t care for musicals, so it was always a girls’ night out. Anna would do it up right, with dinner before the show at a nearby restaurant, a leisurely walk—if it wasn’t raining—to one of the theaters in Minneapolis that showed musicals in the summertime, and usually good seats that Anna had purchased well ahead of time. Chase loved sitting in the plush seats, imagining she was one of the characters, usually the female lead, and that she could sing like they did. She couldn’t, and wasn’t very musical then or now, but, somehow, a lot of those old tunes had stuck with her. She still liked to go to musicals and sometimes, when their busy schedules allowed it, she and Anna and Julie would all do a rerun of those long-ago days, minus the Pontiac.
Patrice’s fortune-telling booth seemed to be doing well. The purple gauze cloth drape that served as a door was closed, which meant she had a customer. The usual lavender scent hung outside the booth, drifting to the midway and dissipating with the competing aromas from the food court.
Madame Divine kept her booth so dark, she could have hidden the cat collar there after she stole it from the display and before she stuffed it into the sculpture and most people would never have seen it. She was, as Mike said, flaky. What had possessed her to cram it into a butter sculpture? The collar hadn’t been there when Mike tried to retrieve it. Stolen, no doubt, by the person who murdered Larry Oake. The same person who threatened Patrice. Did it make sense that Patrice might have the collar now? That she had murdered Oake? That she had set her cousin up as the number one suspect? Chase shuddered. She hoped not.
The jewelry booth was next. Could one of them have taken it? Chase hadn’t spoken to them much, but they were a little old couple, rather dowdy and ordinary-looking. Just the type to get away with things because they looked so innocent. They knew jewelry, Chase presumed. Would they be tempted by such a dazzling item?
Passing the butter building, she detected extra bustle there. More people than usual were dashing in and out. Maybe they were all getting lunch. It was almost noon. Mara Minsky rushed out and ran into Chase.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “We’re in such a hurry to finish up. Everyone in there”—she jerked a thumb at the doorway behind her—“is crazy right now.”
She was ready to hurry past, then recognized Chase. “Oh, you’re the one Daddy insulted the other day. I’m so sorry about that.”
Karl Minsky hadn’t insulted her. He had threatened her. There was a big difference. Had she seen that? Or maybe he’d told her? Chase thanked the young woman and started to go on.
“He didn’t really mean it. He’s so awfully upset that the policeman thinks he murdered that poor man,” Mara said. “He’s beside himself. He gets, well, mean when he’s upset.”
“Your father needs to learn not to threaten people. That could get him into a lot of trouble.”
“He’s been so desperate to win that prize money. It would make such a difference to us.”
Chase took a step closer to her and spoke softly. “Maybe you shouldn’t go around saying that.”
She frowned. “Why not? I think everybody knows it.”
“Think about it, Mara. That attitude gives him a perfect motive for eliminating his chief competition.”
Mara sucked her breath in through rounded lips. “Oh. Oh. Okay. I won’t go around saying it anymore. But that can’t make people think he murdered the poor man. Daddy was with me when that man died. I told the detective that. My father couldn’t have done it.”
Chase could see that Detective Olson might call Minsky’s alibi weak. If all it depended on was the word of his very loyal daughter, it was shaky indeed. She still hadn’t told Detective Olson about her most recent encounter with the awful Karl Minsky and his threatening behavior.
Behind Mara, one of the sculptors opened the door and hurried out. Chase did a double take, peering inside the building.
Mara was starting to walk away, so Chase touched her sleeve. “Mara, did I just see Winn Cardiman inside there?” She had glimpsed that distinctive monkey-like face and those prominent ears.
She turned back to Chase. “You could have. He’s here.”
“I thought he took himself out of the competition and went home.”
“He did. Maybe he forgot some tools or something.”
Maybe he was returning to the scene of the crime, like murderers often did.
She ducked into the largest building on the fairgrounds and walked toward the back, where the vet clinic was. Before she rounded the corner, she heard two men’s voices.
“No, she couldn’t wear the collar, Papa.”
It was Peter Aronoff again, talking to Ivan, his wacky father. She stopped to listen.
“Yes, she can. It should be ours. Shadow should wear it. That company should not have cut you. It was wrong. They don’t know good people when they have them. They owe you for making us homeless.”
“I got a severance package, Papa. Picky Puss doesn’t owe me anything. I’ve told you a million times. Your talking is getting me into a lot of trouble.”
Chase didn’t catch Ivan’s grumbling response. Did this conversation mean that they actually had the collar and were arguing about using it in the competition?
“Anyway,” Peter said, “even if I’d gotten a better severance, we would have run through it by now. That fancy collar has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with us. But it’s all you’re talking about. And now, because of your big mouth, that detective thinks I killed the guy. I don’t exactly have an alibi.”
Ivan grumbled again. The two men appeared from around the corner, and Chase started walking so they would think she had arrived a second ago. Ivan still wore his fur hat, but Peter’s was stuffed into his pocket, a bit of fur poking out.