Fat Cat Takes The Cake

Julie had been in the parking lot with them, unfortunately. Chase didn’t notice her leave or return. She couldn’t testify as to how long Julie had been missing. How could the other, unnamed classmates do that?

The next thing Chase remembered was being approached by Eddie Heath. People were beginning to leave.

Who else had been in the parking lot at about that time? Probably lots of people. How could someone have killed Ron North and not been seen?

Bart had followed him out immediately. If he worked quickly, he could have done it. He was strong enough to strangle skinny Ron North. Chase had detected flashes of rage from him and wondered if he had Roid Rage from the steroids he was most probably taking. But why would he kill Ron? For bothering Monique Byrd? For blackmailing two men, one of whom was his boss? For mashing Julie, with whom he had almost no interaction? It didn’t seem that any of the letters in the notebook could mean Bart Fender. There were no Fs and the only B had to be Dickie Byrd.

Rats. Here was a good suspect with opportunity and means—and no motive.

The butterscotch tabby grew bored with nothing going on. She was sitting there, not even typing. When she worked on the keyboard, he often jumped into her lap, never mind that it made it doubly hard to type that way. It got him attention. Sometimes he even jumped onto the keyboard. That could be counted on to cause a lot of commotion. This writing on paper business, however, was extremely boring.

He decided to check on his stash. He snaked a claw under the desk and pulled the material out a bit. Yes, it was still there.

“My gloves!” Chase plopped down onto the floor. “There they are! You pushed my gloves under the desk, didn’t you, you pesky cat.” She fished one out, pushing Quincy away. He wanted to play with it, but she needed her good gloves. The weather was turning colder and colder and she didn’t see any sense in buying a new pair when she already owned these.

“The other one is under here, too, isn’t it?” she asked him. She knelt down, putting her head on the floor to see better. Something was under there, for sure. Reaching up to her desk drawer, she withdrew a wooden ruler and used it to get at the other glove.

“There! I’m so glad I found these.” She picked them up. A piece of paper dropped to the floor. She retrieved it. Why did it look so familiar? It had been torn from a spiral notebook, judging from the shredding on one side. The paper was small and lined. She squinted to make out the faint pencil writing. It held some words in capital letters and amounts next to them. It was another page from Ron North’s notebook!

TWENTY-NINE

Chase set the page on her desk, carefully, and called Julie. The cell phone rang over to voice mail.

“Call me,” she barked. She glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. Julie was, no doubt, in the middle of something at work.

She got up and started pacing. The paper was yellow and brittle. It must have fallen out of the notebook when they first started examining it. Maybe it was a page from an older notebook that Ron had stuck into the newer one. The louse had been blackmailing people for a long time. It was a wonder he wasn’t rich. Or hadn’t been killed years ago.

Stopping long enough to peer at the paper, she bent close over the desk. Squint as she might, she couldn’t quite make out the smudged writing. Was the first letter H? If she could find a way to connect this with another blackmail victim, even if it was an older one, there would be another suspect.

“Charity? Tanner is here,” Anna said as she rapped on the office door.

Chase opened the office door, careful to keep Quincy contained. “Hi, Tanner. How’s it going?”

“Hangin’ in there. Do you have a check for me?”

“I was going to mail it tomorrow, but you can have it today.” Since he’d come by, he must need the money. She wrote him a check, wishing she could pay him more. Maybe she would be able to some day. He deserved it, having done such a great job on the webpage. “I’ve heard people say they found our shop on the Internet, so the page is working.”

“Great.” His smile lit up his skinny face as he took his money. His nose and eyebrow rings glinted in the glow of the moving screen saver.

“What’s this?” He reached for the page.

“No, don’t touch it.” Chase caught his hand. “It’s old and pretty delicate. I just found it under my desk. I think the cat put it there.”

“Why is it so special?”

“I think it’s an old page from the notebook of the man who was murdered.”