Fat Cat Takes The Cake

The cat, left in the office alone, set out to declutter the desktop. An offensive object sat on the corner. It was small and black. The cat batted it to the floor. That didn’t seem to satisfy him, though. A loose sheet had fallen out. He shoved the extra piece until it was out of sight underneath the desk. He had nearly gotten the notebook there, too, when his mistress came into the office.

“Now where is that thing?” Chase’s eyes searched her desk, then her toe kicked the notebook. “Oh, I’ll bet you cleaned off the desk, didn’t you?” She gave Quincy a head rub and took the notebook into the kitchen to show Anna.

“What do you make of this?” she asked.

Anna leafed through it, puzzling over the arcane notations. “Do you have any idea what these pertain to? Are PRINCE and PHOTO and BIRD the names of . . . animals, people?”

“I haven’t figured it out. They’re things, right? One is a person, one is an object, and one is an animal.”

Anna handed her the notebook. “You got me.” She frowned and shrugged, then started setting out ingredients for her Batter Battle creation.

“We think we might know what some of the things in pink mean.” She explained what Julie and she had figured out about the stalking dates and initials.

“Charity, I have to keep practicing until I don’t make any mistakes. I’m not nearly there yet and I don’t have time for games.”

At Chase’s shocked expression, Anna softened. “I’m sorry. I know a man is dead and this isn’t a game to you. But if you don’t know what anything means, those writings are useless. I’m sure the police can figure it out. Don’t they have experts to do that kind of thing? You say Julie found it. Why do you have it now?”

“I ended up with it. Wouldn’t it look better for me to turn it in than Julie? I don’t want them to suspect her any more than they already do.”

“I’m sure they’ll get to the truth, find out who did what, and won’t blame Julie for anything.”

Although Chase didn’t hold out much hope for that—after all, Niles Olson wasn’t familiar with any of these people—she hoped Anna was right. The next thing she had to do, after she copied the pages, was to give the notebook to Detective Olson.

SEVEN

The rest of Tuesday, Chase’s second day off, was jam-packed. She dropped the notebook off at the front desk of the police station—Detective Olson wasn’t in, to her relief. She didn’t want to explain to him where the notebook had been until now.

Today she absolutely had to buy shoes. Unlike Julie and Anna, she took no delight in that exercise. Those two put together a strategy days in advance and planned their shoe excursions like battles. Chase merely shopped for footwear when she had to. And her sneakers had a hole in the toe. It was time.

She needed wedding shoes, too, but had to get those with Julie along so they would match. At least she was spared shopping for gifts for Julie and Anna this year. They had decided, with the wedding and the busy season at the shop, not to give one another anything for Christmas.

Before sneaker shopping, she decided to take Quincy out for some more leash training. She needed to train herself on how to attach the harness, too, so that he wouldn’t slip out of it when she left a strap unfastened. It didn’t take much for that little guy to figure out where the weaknesses were. She didn’t expect more dead bodies, but it wouldn’t do for him to get loose on a sidewalk and run into the street.

She made sure the harness was snug and all the fasteners were in place. Getting Quincy out the back door required a bit of coaxing. That figures, she thought. If the door were left open a quarter of an inch, he’d be sneaking through it in a heartbeat. But make it easy for him, and he didn’t want to budge. They made it into the parking lot and proceeded toward the sidewalk, passing through the shade of a tree planted at the corner.

Chase decided to turn south, toward the river. She looked up and down SE Fourth Street when they reached it to see if any large dogs lurked. Or any small dogs, for that matter.

Her least favorite politico stood outside a small bar half a block away. She had no desire to speak to him, to have to lie about why his campaign poster wasn’t in the window of the Bar None, so she turned away and walked the other direction.