“Hi there,” she said with a smile. “How’s it going?”
“Hi,” said Peter. “We were discussing the costume for Shadow.”
“Weren’t you doing Puss in Boots?” Chase said, with a glint of devilment in her eye.
“That is what I keep telling him,” Ivan said. “Puss in Boots. Perfect.” He flung his right arm out for punctuation.
“Thanks,” Peter said with an ironic twist to his mouth. It turned into a smile, though, so Chase knew he’d gotten her little joke. Ivan must not have remembered discussing it in front of her previously.
“But I’ll bet he’d look better as Batcat,” she said, not willing to side with Ivan against his son.
Now Peter gave her a full grin. Chase thought she might like Peter, in a little-brother sort of way, if she got to know him better.
“We go now,” Ivan said gruffly. The Aronoffs took off quickly. The son didn’t have an alibi? Did Detective Olson really think he was the killer? Or maybe the detective was good at giving all the people he questioned the impression that they were the prime suspects.
Elsa came hurrying up behind Chase after the two men left and before Chase could continue to the vet clinic. The older woman looked worried.
“My purse is gone,” she blurted when she was still fifteen feet away.
“Where did you lose it?”
“I have no idea! I would know where it was if I knew where I lost it, wouldn’t I?”
“What does it look like?” Chase vaguely remembered that she carried a red purse.
“It’s very expensive. Red tooled leather with my monogram in gold.” Elsa panted, but Chase thought it wasn’t from exertion. She was very worried about losing her purse. Chase would be, too, if she had lost hers. What a horror it would be, canceling credit cards and worrying about identity theft.
There was a metal bench in the hallway. Chase guided the distraught woman to it and sat beside her, trying to calm her down.
“We need to think of every place you’ve been today and when you noticed it missing.”
“Every place.” Elsa squinted and frowned. “We got here and dropped Grey off.”
“Yes, I was there for that. Ellie was with you.”
“And then we had something at the food court. I had it then because I paid. Ellie is very cheap that way. Always wants me to pay when we eat together.”
“What time was that?”
“Not too long ago. We looked at some exhibits first.”
“But you had it at the food court. And Ellie was with you. Where is she now?”
“She’s trying to retrace our steps.”
Chase wondered why they had split up but didn’t ask about it. “Then where did you go after you ate?”
“We came here”—she gestured toward Mike’s office—“to say hi to Grey.”
That couldn’t have been more than two hours after they had dropped off the parrot. “Then where did you go?”
“I went to the jewelry booth. When I wanted to buy a pair of earrings, I noticed my purse was gone.”
Thieves at the jewelry booth? “How big is it?”
“It’s very small.” She indicated six inches square or so with her hands. “Do you think the jewelry seller lifted it? Pickpockets are sometimes very clever.”
“You were at the vet’s right before you missed it. Have you looked there?”
“That was going to be my next stop.”
TWENTY
Mike’s aunt Betsy was on receptionist duty when Chase and the distraught Elsa entered Dr. Ramos’s clinic.
“He’s tending a sick sheep,” she told them.
Chase had never been here when Betsy was on duty, since she was usually dropping Quincy off early, picking him up late, or visiting during lunchtime. Betsy smiled at them.
“He should be almost finished,” she said. “Is he expecting you?” She looked at a mostly blank appointment book open on the desk.
Dr. Ramos opened the door to the examining room. He ushered a young man through the door, leading a sheep on a leash.
“Thanks, Doc,” the sheep owner said. “I was afraid I’d done something terrible, letting her have that gum.”
“You’re welcome,” Mike said. He leaned down to pat the sheep’s back and gave the boy a reassuring smile. The boy took off whistling, his sheep trotting behind him.
“Chase, come on back.” He said to his aunt, “She’s here to see her cat.”
And to see you, thought Chase, in case you haven’t noticed.
“Elsa wants to take a look for her purse, too,” Chase said.
Mike laughed. The deep, rich sound resonated somewhere deep inside Chase. “I was going to try to track you down.” He walked to the parrot’s cage and pointed. “Here’s your culprit. I think she grabbed it when you were here. I saw it after you left.”
He picked up the red purse and handed it to Elsa.
“It’s damaged,” she said. She pointed out two indentations in the soft leather.
“I think those are Grey’s bill marks. I found it in her cage and rescued it.”
Elsa’s worried expression finally left. She approached Grey’s cage with a little smile. “You naughty birdie. What are we going to do with you?” She stuck a finger through the bars, which were certainly wide enough to admit the slim purse. The bird was fast asleep and ignored her owner. “Thank you, Dr. Ramos.”
“No problem. I’m sorry you were concerned. I couldn’t get away and don’t have your phone number.”
She thanked him again and left without giving him her phone number.
Chase had been thinking Patrice might have stolen the purse, had even suspected the jewelry sales couple, so she was glad that neither of those had been the culprit.
“Do the police still suspect Patrice for Oake’s murder?” Chase asked.
“I think not. Vik finally told them that he and Patrice were having pizza at a picnic table at the food court during the critical time.”
“Why did it take so long for her grandfather to tell the police? To clear his granddaughter?”
“For some reason, they never questioned him. Patrice hadn’t told him she was a suspect. Didn’t want him to have one more thing to worry about. She slipped up and let him know, then he went right to the police station and told them.”
“I’m glad she’s off the hook.”
“She’s only off the hook for the murder because she stole the collar. After she admitted stealing it, he was bawling her out for that and kept her there for an hour.” Mike gave an ironic smile.
“Whew. She knows how to get into trouble. What was that about, with the sheep?” Chase asked, unlocking Quincy’s cage and picking him up.
“The young lad left a package of gum where the sheep could get it. She ate it, package and all, and he thought he might have injured her.”
She was glad he’d gotten over the patient confidentiality thing with her. “They’re here for the sheep jumping contest?” When Chase had walked past the exhibition room, low jumps were being set up. The idea was to make it look like the standard cartoon pictures of counting sheep to get to sleep, except in this case, the judges would count how many jumps each sheep made successfully before losing interest, according to the description that had been in the brochure about the contests. “Did you fix up his sheep?”
“No need. Sheep can eat almost anything. They don’t even chew their food until it’s been swallowed, broken down, and digested.”
“Like cows chewing their cud?”
“Exactly like that. Gum is not an ideal diet, but it won’t hurt the sheep at all.”
Mike busied himself with updating his notes and Chase stroked Quincy, enjoying his enthusiastic purr. It was still bothering Chase that she hadn’t told Detective Olson about her latest encounter with Karl Minsky. Mike’s examining room was so nice and private, it gave her an idea.
“Do you mind if I make a phone call here? It’s not something I want to do in our booth on the midway.”
“Sure. Do you need me to leave the room?”