Did his wife alibi him, too? Was Dickie with her? Would Detective Niles Olson tell her?
There was one way to find out.
He answered his cell phone on the first ring, for once.
“Hi, Chase.” He sounded easy and friendly today, not uptight and official, as he sometimes did.
“Detective Olson? Could I ask you a couple of questions?” Quincy, who had been dozing on the floor of the office, decided Chase’s lap was too empty. So he jumped into it and bumped his head against her arm, almost jostling the phone out of her hands.
“You can always ask.”
“I guess that’s right.” And he was free to not answer. “I just learned that it was Langton Hail’s car in the parking lot Sunday morning.”
“Yes, we know that. He admitted leaving his car there when we asked him.”
“He was in it.”
“He was in the car? You saw him?”
“No, Eddie Heath saw him waking up in his car, like he’d been there all night. He didn’t know who it was on Sunday. Now Mr. Hail has started going into Eddie’s shop and he recognized him.”
There was a pause. That was a good sign, Chase thought. The detective was considering her information. “That doesn’t exactly jibe with his statement.” It sounded like he was talking to himself. “He and Snelson both said they spent the night together at Snelson’s house. Hail was too drunk to drive. Snelson’s wife backed him up at first, but both of their statements have fallen apart. I’ll be damned. I think you’ve got something there, Chase.”
She grinned. She had given the detective something useful. He would soon find out Julie did not kill anyone. “I have another question. Does Dickie Byrd’s alibi stand up?”
“Do you know what his alibi is?”
“No, but if Mona says he was with her . . .”
“I always take a spouse’s protection with a grain of salt.”
“If Dickie wasn’t home all night, was he with his mistress?” Quincy became more insistent with his head-butting.
“Why do you call him Dickie? Is that what most people call him?”
“Probably not, nowadays. It’s a nickname from high school.”
“Does he prefer it?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he dislikes it.”
“Then why do you use it?”
That was a good question. Maybe she shouldn’t. She had rarely called him anything else, but they weren’t kids anymore. He didn’t even remember her. “You’re right. I should call him Richard.” One more good bump from the cat and her phone flew to the floor.
She dumped Quincy off her lap and snatched up her phone. “Are you still there?” The battery had fallen out and was on the floor. She put it back together, but the detective didn’t answer her call. She didn’t know much more about Dickie’s alibi now than before she called.
“You little dickens,” she scolded, picking Quincy up and stroking his back. “You’ve had plenty of exercise. Why are you so feisty today?”
A sudden sneeze sent the cat to the floor and Chase grabbing a tissue from the box on her desk.
She abandoned her work on the inventory and took the cat upstairs so he could use up some of his energy batting a Go Go Ball around the apartment. It was her day off, after all, and she shouldn’t be working. She’d only been doing it to occupy her mind, since she wasn’t getting anywhere replacing Julie as the main murder suspect on Olson’s list.
A gentle snowfall started. It was about three in the afternoon. Her throat felt a bit scratchy, so she made a cup of decaf English Breakfast tea and poured a generous amount of honey into it. She snuggled into the corner of her comfy chair, sipping her sweet home remedy, and watched the flakes, falling straight down in the absence of even a breath of wind.
At four, she jerked her head up, suddenly awake. The doze had felt good. She was energized. But what had awakened her? Her doorbell sounded. That must have been what she had heard. Her cell phone signaled distress that the battery was low, too, so she plugged it in first.
She stepped into her slippers and ran down the stairs. When she opened the door, Professor Anderson Fear stood there fidgeting, his shoulders frosted with snow. His fat-tire bicycle leaned against the wall behind him, which meant that he had pedaled over in the snow.
“Ms. Oliver? Can I speak with you?” His pinched face showed worry.
“Of course. Come on in.” As she spoke, she realized her throat didn’t feel much better. She had caught Grace Pilsen’s cold, curse the woman.
She led him up the stairs to her apartment and pointed him to the leather couch. It would be less affected than her chair by the snow that would melt off him. After taking off his coat and draping it over the arm, he sat. Quincy eyed him, but didn’t jump up beside him. The cat very much disliked being wet.
Professor Fear’s dark, disheveled hair was coated with white flakes as well. He took off his glasses and polished the thick lenses on the tail of his mud-brown sweater. “I’m worried about Hilda.”
“Is she all right?” Chase also knew that her health wasn’t excellent.
He drew a shaky breath. “Physically, yes. I’m not sure about her mind lately, though.”
“What’s happened?” Chase unwrapped a cough drop and popped it into her mouth.
“I went to check in on her this morning and a man was leaving her house. I’m certain he’s the one who was there before. The man she said looked like an egret.”
“Van Snelson, the high school principal.”
“Yes, yes. She calls him Nelson, but that’s the one. I ran right in and asked her what had happened.”
“She did promise not to sign anything, right?”
“That’s what she said.” His hair had dripped melted snow onto his glasses. He took them off again and rubbed them against the sleeve of his sweater, then stuck them back on his nose. “That’s what she agreed to then, when you were talking to her. But she said today the man had a paper she needed to sign immediately.”
“She signed it?” Chase sat up straight, her eyes wide. “Did you see it?”
“Yes, she signed. And no, she doesn’t have a copy.”
“No copy. This is bad. I need to call Julie.” Chase jumped up and almost tripped over Quincy, who was curled at Professor Fear’s feet. Her cell phone was in the kitchen on the charger. She left it plugged in and stood beside the counter, since it probably didn’t have much charge on it yet. Her body thrummed as she listened to Julie’s phone ring and ring. And ring.
As soon as Chase broke the connection, Julie returned her call, much to her relief.
“Hi, I was on another call,” she said. “It was Gerry.”
“Gerrold Gustafson?” Julie’s lawyer.
“Yes, he wants to meet me after work to go over some things.”
“What does he think?” She stopped to sneeze.
“What was that?” Julie asked.
“I’m getting a cold.” It came out sounding more like “I’m geddig a code.” She continued. “Does he think they’ll charge you with murder?”
“He doesn’t really say. But I know he’ll do everything he can. What did you call about?”
“Oh, Julie. This is bad. Hilda Bjorn signed a paper for Van Snelson. Professor Fear is here and he says Snelson was leaving this morning when he arrived and Hilda had just signed something.”
“Well, what did she sign? A contract?”
Chase called to the man in the living room. “Did she say anything about what the paper was?”
“She has no idea,” he said, coming into the kitchen. “But I’ve talked to some others on our block. Some have signed contracts with him and some are refusing. More have signed than not and they’re mostly elderly. That man should be locked up. I think he was going to come to my house next, but he saw how angry I was that he was at Hilda’s.”