Mike was so sweet. “No, but I need to speak with the policeman. If I can get him.”
She set Quincy down on the floor and dialed the detective, expecting to leave a message but hoping to talk to him. She was pleased when he answered.
“Olson here.”
“This is Chase. I have something to tell you that may help your case.” Quincy prowled the area beneath the bird cage, looking up with his ears pricked forward.
She glanced at Mike. He was trailing a string for Quincy. Sometimes Quincy decided to play along and chase a string. Other times, he made it clear, by following the string with his eyes up to the human’s hand, that he knew exactly what was going on and that this wasn’t a huge mouse tail. Today, he was pouncing with delight.
Chase continued. “Karl Minsky threatened me on Thursday.”
“How did he do that? What did he say?”
“He said, um, that I’d better watch my mouth and that . . .” What else had he said? “He was warning me.”
“Okay. First of all, what did you say that prompted him to tell you to watch your mouth?”
“I was talking to Anna and I said I thought he may have killed Mr. Oake.”
“If I were an innocent suspect—not saying he is or isn’t—I wouldn’t appreciate that. Second, did he threaten to do anything?”
“It was the way he said it. He was acting like a bully.”
“I’ll note that in my file, Ms. Oliver. Thanks for the information.”
He ended the call. That hadn’t gone at all like she thought it would. She almost wished Karl Minsky had threatened her with something specific. Vague, intimidating warnings weren’t much good, it seemed.
Following the string was fun for the cat for a while. But humans never got the movement quite right, never exactly like a mouse, or a wounded bird. The cat sat on his haunches while the man hoisted himself onto the stainless steel table, waiting for his mistress to finish her phone call. As she put the phone away and the man started to speak, the door opened. Maybe there was something more interesting than a piece of string out there. He had to look.
Once again, Chase was at it, running after her cat, who had not only gotten out of the clinic when Betsy opened the door, but had managed to scoot all the way out of the building and was scampering down the midway.
He headed straight for the butter sculpture building. Horrified that he might get inside again and ruin one of the masterpieces, Chase picked up her pace. Mike, who had been pounding along behind her, seemed to sense the same fear and bolted past her on his much longer legs.
As Quincy reached the door, it swung open and he slipped through. Mike dashed inside. Chase, thirty feet behind, gave it all she had in a final burst. And ran full tilt into Winn Cardiman.
They both crashed to the ground and landed on their bottoms. To her amazement, the man started laughing. The tote bag he had been carrying had spilled most of its contents.
“I’m so sorry.” Chase jumped up. “Let me help you.” She started gathering his things. “Ouch!” Something stuck her finger, and she drew her hand back.
“Leave it. I’ll get the stuff.” He started laughing again. His wrinkly, freckled face scrunched up in his glee.
“Am I funny?”
“No, it’s just that your cat got into the building again. He’s a crazy animal. I hope he eats Minsky’s mess. Not that anyone could tell if he did.” He got to his feet and dusted off his jeans.
Chase had to agree that the abstract the man was working on wouldn’t suffer from a few chunks missing. “Yes, Quincy is a handful.”
“Good at getting away, is he?”
Chase sighed. “That’s a huge understatement. That cat is an escape artist.”
Cardiman scooped his tools into his bag.
“Those are your sculpting tools?” she asked.
“They are. I got so mad at everyone that I stormed out and left them here. Then I got to thinking, some of these are my favorites. They’re not expensive, but I’ve had them for years. I work well with this wooden spatula and this metal dowel.” He reached into his bag and held them up. “So I came back to get them.”
The metal dowel looked almost like a surgical scalpel. It was probably what had pricked Chase’s finger.
“You’ve been in there a long time.”
“Yes, I got to chatting with some of the other sculptors. The exhibit will be good. There’s some good work in there.”
“Besides Minsky’s, you mean.”
“Yeah, that son of a gun. Why he let his idiot daughter design their piece, I’ll never know.” His pale face flushed bright red with anger for a brief moment. He looked at the finger Chase was unconsciously rubbing. “Is your finger okay?”
Chase looked at the place where Cardiman’s sculpting tool had poked her. A small drop of blood oozed from the tip of her finger. “It’ll be fine.” That tool was so sharp that the hole was small. The murder weapon was also a pointed dowel. Did the fact that Cardiman still had a pointed dowel mean he wasn’t the killer? Or did sculptors normally have more than one of those? If he only had one, he wasn’t the culprit.
“Did I hurt your tool?”
Cardiman shook his bag. “I’m sure you didn’t. Those dowels are sturdy. Anyway, I have half a dozen.”
That theory was shot. He could still be the killer. Unlikely but possible.
She hurried into the butter building. If the weather got any colder, they would be able to leave the door open.
Mike, holding Quincy, stood talking to the man who had been sculpting a gopher. Chase looked around. It seemed to her that all of the sculptures had been finished. The artists who were there were cleaning up and putting their things away. Chase moved to approach the two men.
On her way, she saw one woman smoothing a flat piece of her sculpture with a finger she was dipping into a bowl of cold water. Chase stopped to admire it.
“Your North Star is so intricate. I don’t know how you do that.”
The woman beamed. “Years of practice.”
She wiped her buttery finger on a paper towel. “I have to quit now. It’s so hard to leave it be.”
Chase reached the man Mike was chatting with. “I love your gopher,” she said. “It looks like he actually has fur.”
“Yellow fur.” The man chuckled.
“Yes, but it does look like fur,” Mike said. He held Quincy up next to the statue to compare their fur coats.
“Did Quincy get into anything?” she asked.
“I caught him right inside the door. Decided I wanted to see these. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been outside knocking down people.” I wish I were knocking down killers and revealing their guilt, she thought, but how would I even do that?
“Is your cat competing in the Fancy Cat Contest?” the sculptor asked.
“I think so.” If she could come up with a costume very soon, he would be.
TWENTY-ONE
Anna came over to Chase’s apartment that evening to help get Inger moved to Julie’s place. She insisted on lifting Inger’s suitcase onto Chase’s unmade bed.
“It’s no problem for me, Mrs. Larson,” Inger said, taking her clothing from Chase’s dresser drawers, where she had crammed her things in on top of Chase’s.
“You shouldn’t be lifting in your condition,” Anna insisted.
“Everyone keeps telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.” Inger threw her hands out in frustration. “How do I know what I can do?”
“Inger, I’ll get you a book about being pregnant,” Chase said, “but really, you need to make an appointment.”
“I don’t know any baby doctors.”
Chase remembered what Mike had said. “Don’t you have an appointment with a doctor at the clinic?”
“I guess. But I can’t go to someone I don’t know anything about.”
“You help her pack,” said Anna to Chase. “I’ll get a doctor’s name.”