Mallory stuck her head into the kitchen, spotted Chase, then came over close to her. “Ms. Oliver? Someone is here to see you.” Her voice was quiet.
“Who is it?”
“She didn’t tell me. She said she has something for you.”
Chase gave Anna a shrug, closed the refrigerator, and went to see who it was. Patrice, Mike’s cousin, stood by the glass case, her back to Chase, gazing out the front windows to the shops across the street. She turned when she heard Chase and Mallory come in.
“Hi, Patrice,” Chase said. “Mallory says you have something for me?”
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
Now Chase was truly puzzled. She ushered Patrice through the kitchen, to the office. Quincy, showing no favorites, twined around first Chase’s legs, then Patrice’s after Chase closed the door. Anna had given them a quick glance, no doubt wondering what was going on.
“Hello, you handsome fellow.” Patrice stooped to pet Quincy and his purr motor started on high.
“What is it you have, Patrice?”
She looked around the room.
“Would you like to sit down?”
“No, I won’t be long. I came to give you this, but please don’t tell anyone where you got it from.” She opened her small purse and pulled out a folded paper. After a moment’s hesitation, she thrust it at Chase.
“I heard you talking at lunch,” she said. “I thought you would like to have this.”
Chase was getting a bad feeling about whatever it was she held. She slowly unfolded the paper. At the top of the sheet, in all caps, it said “BANANA RICE WONDER CAKE.” Scanning down, it seemed to be a cake recipe, made with rice flour. “What is this?”
“You said Anna would like to see Grace Pilsen’s recipe.”
Chase’s mouth dropped open. “You . . . stole Grace’s recipe?”
“You said Anna needed to see it.”
“I don’t think I said she needed to see it.”
“It sounded like you said that.”
Patrice had been listening in on her and Eddie. Chase had known that at the time, but hadn’t foreseen the consequences. After all, Patrice got a kick out of stealing things.
Chase tapped on the paper, trying to decide what to do. She had already seen it, so she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t. “Is this the only copy? Does Grace have another one?”
Patrice nodded. “I copied it and put it right where I found it.”
The woman was a skillful thief, Chase had to admit. “And no one saw you do it?”
“Of course not.”
“How did you get this?”
“I don’t think I can to tell you that. It’s my secret.”
Chase didn’t want to go into the business of stealing recipes, but was curious how Patrice had gone about it. However, she wasn’t going to find out.
“This is going to help you out, isn’t it? I wanted to make up for taking your ring at the fair.”
“Yes. Well, I guess this will do it. We’re completely even now. You don’t need to steal any more things for me, Patrice.” She meant well, Chase thought. Didn’t she?
After Patrice left, Chase stayed in her office, ostensibly finishing up her work, but really dithering about what to do with the recipe. On the one hand, she thought this would be an easy one to beat. The ingredients wouldn’t go together well. Rice flour needed a stronger flavor than banana to make a delectable dessert. The cake recipe wasn’t likely to wow the judges. So not showing it to Anna shouldn’t change a thing. On the other hand, Anna seemed so very nervous about competing with Grace that it might make her feel better knowing Grace’s entry wasn’t a winner. But, if Chase had a third hand, there was something else to consider. Was this actually Grace’s recipe? Even if it belonged to her, was it the one she was using for the Batter Battle?
Since Chase had no idea where or how Patrice had gotten it, she couldn’t be sure it was the real thing. She wouldn’t show it to Anna. Tucking it into the pocket of the smock she hadn’t taken off, she felt good about that decision. It sounded busy out front, so she went to help out until closing time.
It would be fun going to the show tonight with Anna and Julie.
THIRTEEN
The show was perfect, both hilarious and dramatic, with snappy songs that Chase was sure would rattle around inside her head for days. In fact, as they were leaving the show, Chase realized she had forgotten about the whole Ron-North-murdered, Julie-Larson-suspected mess. Maybe Julie had, too.
“You know, that developer, Langton Hail, had an excellent motive to want Ron North dead,” Julie said, climbing into the backseat of Anna’s Volvo.
Chase, already belted in the front seat, realized that Julie hadn’t forgotten about a thing. She twisted around to talk to Julie. “Have you been thinking about this all during the show?”
“No. Well, a little bit. Detective Olson has to talk to me at the station again tomorrow.”
Chase turned to the front and tried not to let her dismay show.
“But developing property,” Julie went on, “buying cheap and making money on it, is Hail’s livelihood. He would have a lot to lose if Ron’s story cast him in a bad light. It might have made someone investigate what he’s doing. Even if it only shut him down for a while, it would hurt.”
“And,” Chase said, turning halfway around again as Anna started the car, “it looks like Hail was paying blackmail money to Ron. If so, he knows that what he’s doing is wrong.”
Anna cranked the heater up all the way. Chase stuck her hands next to the vent. She hadn’t been able to find her good gloves and hadn’t wanted to wear her disreputable everyday ones with the holes to the theater.
“You know, Eddie said that someone might have slept in his car all night after the reunion.”
“Someone who got awfully drunk, you mean,” Julie said.
“Yes, maybe he stayed there to sleep it off instead of driving.”
“It was cold that night,” Anna said.
“So,” Julie said, “this person might have spent part of the night killing Ron North, then slept in his car for a bit. What exactly did Eddie see?”
“You’re seeing a lot of Eddie,” Anna said to Chase.
Chase ignored Anna. “He saw a car and someone was in it.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, then, does it?” Julie said. “Someone could have killed Ron and he could have been too drunk to move after that. It’s a wonder he didn’t freeze to death.”
“God,” Anna said, “protects fools and drunks.”
“And if you’re both,” Chase added, “you’re doubly blessed, aren’t you?”
Chase hated the fact that Olson was continuing to badger Julie. She would call him first thing in the morning to tell him to take a closer look at who might have been in the car the morning after the reunion.
When she got home from the theater it was late and she had to open the shop in the morning.
The treat giver started to go into her bedroom. However, the cat ran ahead of her and started howling. When she noticed, he ran into the kitchen. That was when she realized that he hadn’t had a single treat today, only din dins. After the treat was warmed and put into his dish, he let her know what a transgression this was by turning his back, gulping down the treat, then, after a whisker cleanse, jumping onto the couch for the night.
“Oh, come on, you’re not so mad that you’re going to sleep on the couch, are you?” Chase said, her hands on her hips as she regarded the indignant cat. “I might as well have a husband.”