“Okay,” Chase said. “First of all, there is a ‘world of butter sculpture’? Second, what is the Minnesota Symbol Contest?”
“Bunyan County,” Jay said, “always holds a contest to see who can carve the best butter sculpture. We don’t carve butter cows, though. Butter cows are a standard in the butter sculpting world, but we like to do it differently. This year we’re asking the artists to re-create a state symbol in butter.”
“How big is this butter sculpting world?” Chase shook her head. “I can’t believe it’s a well-known . . . art? Craft? Hobby?”
“Right the first time,” said Jay. “It’s an ancient art that began with Tibetan monks.”
“You’re not serious.” Anna gave Jay a stern look. The look of a grandmother who does not like to be lied to.
“He’s right, Grandma. Jay’s told me all about it. Butter sculpture goes back to the times of Babylon and Rome. The Tibetan monks have done butter sculptures for Tibetan New Year for hundreds of years.”
“Well, I guess it’s cold enough there for it to keep,” Anna said. “It’s a shame this isn’t in history books. It would make history a much more fun subject.”
“Anyway,” Julie continued, “we invited Larry Oake specially.”
“‘We’?” asked Chase.
“I’ve been helping with the fair. I hate to think of him being murdered just because he came here.”
“Where’s he from?” Chase asked.
“Not far. Wisconsin.” Jay tipped his mug up and drained it.
“More cocoa?” Chase jumped up to take his cup.
“No, we’d better be going.” He and Julie exchanged an unmistakable look and stood up.
Yes, Chase thought, definitely warm and cozy. Maybe even smoke and fire.
“Wait a minute,” Chase said. “I want to know if Jay could get Mike out of jail, if that’s where he is.”
Jay turned serious, all business. “What do you know?” he asked.
“Just that they took him away and Detective Olson was there and Mike’s not answering his cell phone.”
“I’ll make some calls. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see if there’s something I can do. I’m busy on another case with the firm, but I’m sure I can at least find out what his situation is.”
Chase felt her shoulders relax a notch. “Yes, that would be wonderful. Thanks so much.”
After they left, Chase poured herself a second cup of cocoa, leaving the marshmallows off this time. Besides, there were some wisps clinging to her cup that would melt in nicely. “Did Larry’s wife—Elsa?—give you any more details about what happened?”
“Yes, Elsa Oake. We got sidetracked by those two and their butter sculpture history, didn’t we?” Anna gazed into her cup.
“Oh, you’re empty. Do you want a refill?”
“No thanks, Charity.” Anna hesitated, setting her mug aside and rubbing Quincy’s right ear. “Elsa told me everything she saw, and it’s not good. She was supposed to meet her husband at the food trailers for an early lunch. He’d been doing some preliminary work on his sculpture in the morning.”
“And he didn’t show up, I’m guessing.”
“Right. So she went looking for him. She said she opened the door to the butter room and saw her husband on the floor. When she called her husband’s name, Dr. Ramos blocked her way. That’s when she screamed.”
“He probably didn’t want her to see a dead body.” Mike was a considerate person. She could easily picture him shielding the poor woman from the grisly sight.
“I think that’s probably the case. But she thinks he was keeping her from trying to revive him. So, naturally, she thinks Mike killed him.”
“What was Mike doing in there, anyway?” Could he have been looking for Quincy? Maybe he saw the cat sneak in with someone else?
Anna looked down at her lap and poked Quincy’s substantial tummy with her forefinger. “Elsa said this guy was on the table, next to the sculpture.”
“Devouring it, I suppose. It looked like Quince had butter on his whiskers when that policewoman handed him to me.”
“Elsa was bothered by what she saw. She said her husband had a butter sculpture dowel poking out of his ear. She told me how horrible the trickle of red blood was against his brown skin. She can’t get the image out of her mind.”
Chase winced. “How awful.”
“Maybe Jay Wright can find out about everything and can get Dr. Ramos home,” Anna said.
“I’ll bet he can.” She remembered her tearful relief in Jay’s car after he had gotten her out of that terrible interrogation room in September. She hoped Mike was in one of those, dismal as they were, instead of in a jail cell. “I have a feeling Mike is going to need a lawyer. I wonder what Jay will charge him.”
“He didn’t charge you, did he?”
“No, but Mike might need more services than I did. And Mike isn’t best friends with Jay’s girlfriend.” Chase was sure Mike had gone into the building to get Quincy. But how had Quincy gotten inside? Someone must have opened the door for him. Would that have been Larry or someone else?
Chase sighed. This wasn’t the first time Quincy had gone looking for food and found trouble. Why did her cat have a talent for discovering dead bodies?
After Anna left, Chase unpacked the satchel she’d carried to the fair. Along with the parking instructions for exhibitors, and the receipt for the booth, she found the pamphlet from the pet chip place. She leafed through it, deciding that Quincy needed a microchip. However, that would only help find his owner once someone located him. What he really needed was a GPS transmitter. She wondered if they made those for cats.
She picked up the phone and called the direct line to Detective Niles Olson’s desk. She’d acquired his number earlier in the year when she’d been a suspect in a murder in the Dinkytown neighborhood. That was the first time Quincy was found next to a dead body. He had been eating the dinner the man had been preparing.
“Chase?” He’d seen her caller ID. He didn’t sound irritated. That was a good start.
“Hi. Could you tell me . . . I, uh, I need to know what’s going on with Dr. Mike Ramos.”
“Why do you need to know that?”
“Okay, I want to know. He’s a friend. I saw him being taken away in a police car at the fair. Is he arrested?”
“We’re questioning him.”
“He’s been there for a long time. Does someone think he killed that sculptor?”
“How do you know who the victim was? We haven’t released a statement.”
“Anna talked to his wife—his widow. She said something was sticking out of his ear. Some kind of dowel?”
Niles Olson expelled his exasperation into the phone. “It was a butter sculpture dowel. It’s a pointed metal tool, about the size of a nail file. I’m told it’s for making small round holes in the butter. I shouldn’t tell you that, but Elsa already told Anna all about the crime scene, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Was there a reason she shouldn’t? Oh, I know! You don’t think Mike is really the killer and you want to withhold what you know from the murderer. Am I right? You think Mike didn’t kill that poor man?”
“No comment.”
“He was in there to get Quincy, I’m sure.” She twirled a strand of her hair between two fingers.
“Your cat again. Why would you let him run around the fairgrounds?”
“I didn’t let him!”
“Let me guess. He got loose.”
“We didn’t even know he was there with us. We thought he was back at Bar None. He stowed away in our basket.”
“Don’t bring him to the fair again.”
Chase hung up without telling the detective that Jay Wright was on the case. Or that she and Anna planned on bringing Quincy to the fair every day for the rest of the week.
* * *
The next morning, Chase, still in her bathrobe, ran outside to the front sidewalk to get pictures of the Bar None’s exterior. Then she whipped inside, turned all the lights on, and snapped some more. She didn’t know if Tanner would want to show the kitchen, but she took some shots of it as well and e-mailed them to him.