Fat Cat Takes The Cake

“What time did he get in the night of the reunion?” Quincy squirmed in her arms after she unhooked the poster from him. She needed to get him out of the salesroom, but she also needed to be certain whether or not Dickie could have killed Ron.

“It was before midnight. Maybe around eleven thirty or so. He left the party and went home. Then he came to my place because he was locked out.”

He probably wouldn’t have had time enough to kill and transport Ron. Chase wasn’t even sure he could have lifted him into a car trunk. Dickie wasn’t very strong. Chase gave up trying to indict Dickie Byrd, said thank you to his mistress, and went to lock Quincy in the office.

Were there any other suspects left besides her best friend?

TWENTY-SIX

When a fit of coughing took Chase by surprise, she turned away from the counter.

“You know what you need to do?” Mallory leaned in close to talk so the customers wouldn’t hear. “Take a damp washcloth and heat it in the microwave for about minute, then put it on your face. It’ll clear your sinuses right up.”

“Thanks,” Chase managed to say, although her cold seemed to be in her chest by now, not her sinuses. “Gotta go.” She was horrified to think she might have infected Mallory, to say nothing of the customer she’d been waiting on.

Inger was done with lunch when she made it to the kitchen. Anna said she would relieve Mallory so the girl could eat. “But you go upstairs and rest,” Anna told her. “I’ll bring some more soup over right after we close.”

Chase remembered her cat through her haze and took Quincy upstairs with her. She collapsed into her stuffed chair and sucked a cough drop until her fit subsided.

She was sick, for sure, but she felt worse about being discouraged that she couldn’t find anyone to take Julie’s place as the number one suspect for Ron North’s murder.

Who else was there? The real estate crooks had seemed the most likely. Van Snelson, her former principal, for whom she had lost all respect, had spent the night at the high school. His actions were strange, but it didn’t seem that he killed anyone. Completely separate from the murder and the real estate scam, how could he go to work every day and be in charge of teenagers when he couldn’t stand them?

Langton Hail, the funny little vest-wearing guy, had been too drunk. Eddie Heath had seen him in his car the next morning, preparing to leave the parking lot hours after the reunion ended. She hoped that those two would be punished for bilking people like Hilda Bjorn, at least.

She admitted that Dickie Byrd had been a distant third choice. She wanted him to have killed Ron to avenge his wife’s honor after she was accosted. But now the Byrds were on the outs. He probably wasn’t interested in defending someone who had kicked him out. He hadn’t spent the night with his wife, but with his mistress, the short, stacked woman who bought him Peanut Butter Fudge Bars.

Who else was there?

Wait! Maybe Dickie Byrd didn’t want to avenge his wife’s honor, but who said she couldn’t avenge it herself? She was fuming mad at Ron, even threw her drink in his face.

Chase stumbled to the kitchen drawer where she had stashed the copied pages of Ron’s notebook. She spread them on the kitchen table and turned to the part that she and Julie assumed was about his serial stalking victims. J was Julie and M was Monique. He had been making the rounds of his old victims at the party. He’d tried Julie, had mashed his face into hers for a kiss. Jay had come to her rescue and nothing else had happened after that. No, Julie had not killed him.

But he had confronted Monique, too. She’d been piled on that night. First, her husband got stewed to the gills at his own campaign rally, which, Chase assumed, Monique had orchestrated exactly as she’d run all his campaigns in the past. He had ruined the night for himself and, most likely, for her. Then maybe Ron’s attack was the last straw. She had left early, even slightly before her husband. She would have had plenty of time to kill Ron. Julie’s scarf had been in Ron’s pocket, so it was convenient for her to use as a weapon as her anger boiled over in the parking lot.

Maybe she started out merely accosting him, perhaps berating him. Ron was so annoying that things could easily escalate. Monique could get madder and madder. She would start yanking at her hair. Fire would come from her eyes. Her anger would overwhelm her and she would lose control and strangle him. As inebriated as he was, he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. Ron wasn’t very large. If Monique were fueled by adrenaline and hatred, she could have gotten him into her car and driven him to the park while it was still dark. She could overcome her touching phobia in a blind rage, couldn’t she?

“Yes,” she said, pumping her fist into the air. Quincy scampered away and jumped onto the couch. “Didn’t mean to scare you, little guy. But I think I have this figured out.”