She left the room and came back as they were stuffing Inger’s underwear into the corners of the suitcase.
“Here.” Anna thrust a piece of paper, torn from the pad in Chase’s kitchen, into Inger’s hand. “This is the number of the doctor my friend’s granddaughter is using. She’s due in three months and likes Dr. Ingersoll very much.”
“Inger and Ingersoll,” mused Chase. “You should be able to remember his name.”
Inger smiled for the first time that evening, a small smile. “If it’s someone you know, that’s different. I promise I’ll call him Monday.”
“Give him my friend’s name. It’s there on the paper.”
Chase wondered who was going to pay for the doctor, but she wasn’t going to start worrying about that yet. Chase hoisted the suitcase off the bed and wheeled it behind her. They made their way into the kitchen, where Anna put the kettle on for herbal tea.
“Next project.” Anna dusted off her hands symbolically. “Quincy’s costume.”
“Oh, can I help?” Inger sparked to life. She gave a wide grin. “I’ve been thinking and I have some ideas.”
Chase cocked her head toward Inger in surprise.
“He should be Babe the Blue Ox,” Inger said, clapping her hands.
Quincy lifted his head at the noise.
“It’s better than Puss in Boots,” Chase said. “But how are we going to do it?”
“It shouldn’t be too hard.” Inger turned the piece of paper over on the counter and started drawing. In two minutes she held up a sketch of a cat with horns and ears on a headdress, and a little bodysuit with a cow’s tail at the back.
Chase looked skeptical, but Anna grabbed the paper and said, “Yes! This will be great. I have a bolt of blue felt that I bought for half price. I thought we might be able to use it in the shop somehow.”
“Do you have white felt for the horns?” Inger looked better than she had in days. Her blue eyes twinkled and her smile brought sunshine into the apartment.
“I have something, I’m sure.”
“So,” said Chase to Anna, “we need to go to your place.” Anna had the sewing supplies.
“Everyone else is there,” Anna agreed. “Might as well.”
Chase had a sudden thought. “Should we bring Quincy, with the parrot there? We’ll have to. He has to be there in order to be fitted, doesn’t he?”
“Lady Jane Grey does have a cage,” Anna said. “She’ll have to use it tonight.”
The three of them, four counting Quincy, drove to Anna’s. Anna and Inger went in Anna’s blue Volvo, and Chase followed with Quincy in his carrier.
“You’re going to look great,” she cooed to him on the way. “The other cats will all be dull next to you.” She hoped she was right.
At Anna’s, bedlam broke lose.
As soon as the carrier was set on the floor of the strange living room, the cat sensed something very different was in this place tonight. When the huge parrot walked up to his crate and started pecking, he swatted, claws out. The people ran to them and they all started making a lot of noise. A pair of hands picked the parrot up while the cat’s owner snatched his crate. But, before the bird could be caged, the clever cat hooked his claw in the latch, nudged it open, and jumped out. The cat stopped, mesmerized by the biggest bird he had ever been this close to. The parrot hopped to the floor.
“Control that filthy animal,” shrieked Elsa, stooping to grab her parrot’s feet and pick her up. The bird squawked and flapped her wings, scattering feathers onto the floor. “He’s going to kill Lady Grey.”
Chase cradled Quincy in her arms and looked at the animals. They were about the same size. “How much does your bird weigh?”
“Fifteen point eight ounces.”
“Ounces?”
“She was a pound when I weighed her at my place,” said Eleanor. “Here, let me have her.”
Quincy hadn’t taken his wide, staring eyes off Grey since he’d escaped. Chase made sure she had a good grip on him. He wasn’t struggling to get at the parrot. Maybe he was intimidated.
Eleanor deftly got the parrot into her cage. Quincy didn’t relax one bit.
Eleanor eyed the cat. “I’ll take Grey into the bedroom.”
“You’d better put her in the bathroom,” Anna said, picking the feathers off the floor. “My sewing machine is in the bedroom.”
“That doesn’t seem very convenient.” Elsa stood watching as Anna cleaned up after her bird.
“It’s convenient for me,” Anna said evenly. “I live here.”
The sooner these women left Anna’s place, the better, thought Chase. If Elsa isn’t a murderer now, she might become one. Or Anna might.
Anna got a tape measure and wrapped it around Quincy in a few places, then handed the cat to Inger, but before she and Inger made it to the bedroom, a knock sounded on the front door. Bill Shandy didn’t wait but came right in.
He greeted Anna with a tight hug.
“How are you doing?” she asked him quietly so Elsa and Eleanor couldn’t hear. Chase was close enough to, though. “You still okay with my decision?”
Bill ran a hand over his face. “I’m fine now that I’m here. The sight of you cures everything.”
“Oh, you sweet-talker, you.” Anna patted his shoulder.
“I can’t stay long, but I wanted to see you for a few minutes.”
Chase gave them some space and they talked together on the couch for fifteen minutes or so about flowers and music and wedding details.
After Bill left, Anna and Inger finally retreated to the bedroom to do some work on the costume. They took Quincy with them. That left Chase with the twin sisters. Julie had called to say she’d be very late. It had sounded like Jay Wright was involved. Chase couldn’t very well blame her for finishing her evening up with Jay. She probably wanted to discuss her findings with him from the dinner with Bud, the real estate lawyer. Chase hadn’t mentioned that she wanted to move Inger to her house tonight. Chase inwardly kicked herself and felt a stab of pain behind her left ear. If Inger stayed with Chase again, it would be her own fault.
Chase envied the speed at which Julie’s romance was progressing. For that matter, Anna and Bill Shandy were moving quickly, too. They were all further along than she was with Mike Ramos. Everyone was leaving her in the dust! Then she considered the woman in the same room who had just lost her husband and gave herself a mental slap.
Elsie and Ellie, as they called each other, sat side by side on the couch, both of them staring at Chase with the same hard brown eyes. Grey, brought in from the bathroom, chattered away in her cage on the table at the end of the sofa.
“Who wants to play? How are you? Nothing is forever. Everyone’s a critic.”
Chase burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked Elsa.
“Your parrot! She’s a regular little philosopher. Did you teach her all her phrases?”
Eleanor leaned forward like she was going to spill a secret. “She watches TV.”
To illustrate that point, Grey started shrieking like a police siren. Chase’s head almost split open.
Anna ran out of the bedroom, looked around, glared at the cage, and went back to the bedroom muttering, “That bird again.”
“She’s . . . something,” Chase said, rubbing her temples.
Elsa and Eleanor smiled identical smiles.
The cat had been turned loose in the bedroom when the two women brought him there to work on a noisy machine with some cloth. The animal that so intrigued him was on the other side of the bedroom door, so he stayed close to it. The animal smelled like something delicious, but it was much too big to bring down. Besides, it had almost acted friendly. He was intrigued. When the animal shrieked and the older woman ran out of the bedroom, he slipped out. He slunk around the edges of the room, nearing the big bird cautiously. Nothing was going to keep him from investigating this strange creature.