Anna wiped her hands on her apron and extended a palm. “I’m Anna Larson, co-owner of the Bar None.” She gestured at the kitchen with a proud sweep of her hand. “You’re a friend of Charity’s?” She tilted her head at him. Was she flirting?
Chase said, “No,” a fraction of a second before Shaun said, “Yes.”
He chuckled. She didn’t. Anna’s smile faltered.
“We knew each other in Chicago,” he continued. “We worked together. For a while.” He turned toward the office door. “What’s that awful noise?”
“Quincy, hissing at you, as usual,” said Chase.
His ice-blue eyes narrowed. “You still have that mangy cat?”
The smile dropped from Anna’s face. An enemy of Quincy’s would be an enemy of hers.
“There’s the back door,” said Chase. “You’re welcome to use it.”
“I’m not surprised you don’t want me around.” There was a hint of menace in his silky voice. “Afraid people might find out what you did?” He walked over to stand next to Anna and talked to her in an undertone, then handed her something she stuffed into her apron pocket. Chase caught the sound of a sibilant and thought she heard the word stole.
“The only thing I’m afraid of,” Chase said, “is that you’ll spread more of your lies. Now get out.”
He gave Chase an ugly sneer. “I’m not going far. Thinking of moving here.” Then he left, giving the rear door a hearty slam.
“Who on earth was that?” Anna looked horrified for Chase. “What an awful man!”
“Yes.” Chase’s knees weakened in the aftermath of the confrontation. She grabbed for a stool and sat.
Anna glanced at the clock. “I’ll go flip the sign and finish up out front.”
Chase waited, unable to stir, listening to the voices in the front of the store. Finally, the last customer left and Vi and Anna came in.
“I really do have to leave,” said Vi. “Have fun without me.”
“Are you going to the visitation for Gabe Naughtly tonight?” Chase asked.
Vi paused on her way to the back door. “I’m . . . not sure.”
“The funeral is tomorrow,” Anna said. “Maybe you’d rather go to that?”
“We’re closed Wednesday this week, right?”
“Yes, so we could all go if we wanted to.”
“I’m doing the visitation,” Chase said.
“Me, too.” Vi continued toward the door.
“See you Thursday?” Anna said. “Since we don’t know when Laci is returning to work.”
They normally closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, except during freshman move-in time, when they only took Wednesday off. Next week they would close both of the normal days.
Vi left out the parking lot door, saying she’d be back on Thursday. Anna released Quincy from the office. He twined around her legs, then sashayed over to Chase.
“Can I get you something? Shall we open that bottle of wine?” She leaned down and rubbed Quincy’s nape.
“That would be lovely. I’ve been looking forward to it all day. I haven’t taken any pain pills since this morning.”
Anna wielded the corkscrew, reached for two of the tumblers they kept in the kitchen, and poured them half-full. She and Chase clinked their glasses and Chase gulped down a hefty amount.
“Now spill,” Anna said. “What was that talk of jail?”
“What did Shaun say to you?”
“That’s not important.” Anna glanced away.
“He’s the reason I left Chicago. I’ve told you that.”
“You never told me his name. Or how good looking he is. Or exactly what the details were.”
“I know. It was . . . upsetting. We both worked at the same place.”
“That German place in the Loop?”
“Yes, I was waiting tables there. The waitstaff took care of the dinner checks, no cashier, and we handled a lot of money. His uncle owned the place. Shaun didn’t work there much, but showed up once or twice a week to help out in the kitchen.”
“What else did he do?”
“He was going to school, I guess. At least that’s what he said. Right now, I don’t believe anything he’s ever said. He asked me out a few times and I thought we hit if off pretty well, but I knew he wasn’t someone I wanted anything permanent with.”
Chase took another glug of her wine. Anna moved around the kitchen efficiently, putting away the day’s equipment, stopping to sip her wine when she passed it.
“When money was missing,” Chase said, “he convinced his uncle I had taken it. I tried to reason with both of them.”
“Who did take the money?”
“I didn’t know, at first. I just knew it wasn’t me.” It sounded like Anna was accusing her. “No matter what I said, Shaun’s uncle was sure I’d taken it, and I got fired.”
“That’s when you came home to Minneapolis?” Anna put the last of the baking sheets in the cabinet and came back to sit beside Chase.
“No, not exactly. Before I left their place, I happened to see a deposit slip in the kitchen wastebasket. I thought that was an odd thing to be there, so I fished it out. Shaun was not only a jerk and dishonest, he was stupid. The receipt was for a large deposit to his personal account. It was for exactly the amount that had been missing the week before. I knew I didn’t want to work with anyone in that family again, so I didn’t use it to get my job back. But I did leave Shaun a sealed note about finding the deposit slip before I left the place.
“Then I tried to get another job. I applied at five different places nearby. One of them finally told me that Shaun had talked to them. I was blacklisted!”
“Blacklisted? That’s terrible. Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s a class-one jerk.”
“You could have brought the deposit slip to the police.”
“Yes, I know, but I just wanted to get far away from everything.”
“So you came home.” Anna’s warm smile eased Chase’s heart. “I’m glad you did.”
Chase heard a car start up in the parking lot. She realized she hadn’t heard Vi’s car leave. Or Shaun’s.
“Is that Vi, just leaving?” Anna said. “I wonder what she’s been doing all this time.”
Chase jumped off the stool and ran to the rear door. Her back didn’t twinge at all. The wine was a good painkiller. She flung the door open and scanned the parking lot. Vi’s red Z4 was pulling away. Another vehicle, a silver Porsche Boxster, drove out of the lot, turned north on Fourteenth, and sped off. Shaun’s car, Chase would bet the store on it. Well, maybe not the whole store, but she was sure it was him. It was the same car he’d had in Chicago. She shivered in the cold night air and came back to the warm kitchen.
“Shaun and Vi both just left. They were probably out there talking. He’s no doubt told her all his lies about me.”
“We both know how fickle Vi is about men. She won’t stick with him long.”
“One day is too long with Shaun Everly.” Chase plopped onto the stool and finished the glass of wine.
“Need another?” Anna didn’t wait for her answer, but poured her a glass.
• • •
Chase didn’t want to get to Gabe Naughtly’s visitation too early. If no one else were there, she’d have to make small talk with Doris. That would be awful. She waited until 7:30, then walked the few blocks to the funeral home on Southeast Seventh Street. A brisk wind made her glad she’d worn a heavy jacket. She looked at the trees along the way, imagining them as they would look in a month, full of ochres, scarlets, golden yellows, and shiny browns for some of the oaks. For now, they were all still green, stirring in the breeze, giving off slight, breathy rattles as she walked slowly beneath them. She was in no great hurry to get to the visitation.
The parking lot beside the small, white, one-story building was half-full of cars. That must have meant a lot of other mourners were already there, so Chase deemed it safe. She wanted to duck in, sign the book, tell Doris and Ted that she was “so sorry for their loss,” and get out quickly. She had never been fond of Doris, but the more she heard about her from Anna, the less she liked the woman. Chase hated duplicity. She would be forced to be two-faced to the woman at her husband’s coffin, though—to be nice and act sympathetic. Chase would also be very conscious, while she was there, that some of the people present suspected she was the murderer of the deceased.