In answer, a white CSI SUV with a blue BCA logo on the side pulled up behind the detective’s car. Beneath the bold initials were the words “Bureau of Criminal Apprehension” with a stylized map of Minnesota under the name of the state.
Chase observed while they took photographs and measurements, then answered their questions about exactly where the garment had been before Quincy pulled it out, as near as she could tell.
After they left, she realized that she’d stood Dr. Ramos up. Oops. She ran upstairs and called him from the apartment.
“Can you still see us?”
“I expected you about an hour ago.” He sounded annoyed, for which she didn’t blame him.
“Something happened. I need to talk to you about it.” Was that true? She wanted to talk to him about it.
“I’m about to see a patient. I should be done in half an hour, then I’m free for an hour.”
“I’ll be there this time. I promise.”
It was after lunchtime, so she gulped down a peanut butter sandwich, but would have preferred a bowl of hot soup. She’d gotten chilled standing in the parking lot for so long, watching the officials process the scene. The longer she had looked at the jacket, the less that stain had looked like blood to her, too. What was going on?
When Chase got to Mike’s office at Minnetonka Mills, he was still with his patient. After a short wait, she hauled Quincy into the examining room in his carrier. Did he feel lighter? Not likely, since he’d still been getting treats from Anna as of yesterday.
Chase winced when she lifted the carrier onto the exam table.
“Is something wrong?” Mike asked.
“I hurt my back the other day. His crate feels extra heavy, I think, since I did that.”
When the vet weighed him, though, it was worse than she expected.
“He’s gained a few ounces, almost a quarter of a pound.” He shook his head and gave Chase a stern glare. “That’s not good. The crate feels heavier because it is.”
“I should have waited longer. He’ll lose weight by next week.”
“Why would that magically happen?”
There was no call for sarcasm, she wanted to say, but bit her tongue. “I’ve put together a recipe, like you suggested. It’s for a healthy cat treat.”
“Tell me.” His look softened.
She told him the recipe and he admitted, nodding, that it was a good one. “I have to keep Anna from sneaking desserts to him.”
“Would you like me to tell her not to?”
Chase could imagine how well that would go over. “No, I can do it.” It would work better now that there was an alternative. She hoped.
“Take care of your back. If Quincy were lighter that would help.”
She wanted to stick her tongue out at him, but that would have been juvenile. As she left, she turned her head toward his closed office door and did it anyway.
• • •
Later, when Chase was dressed for bed in her favorite flannel nightie, she finally got a chance to confer with Julie. She’d been wanting to talk to her all day.
“You wouldn’t believe how slow this thing is going,” Julie started out. “We finally finished voir dire today. I thought we’d be done with it two days ago.”
“Still, isn’t that pretty good for a major case? I think it takes longer than that sometimes.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that this doesn’t seem that major. The evidence will be pretty cut-and-dried. I mean, I don’t see how we can lose.”
“So what makes it take longer?”
“I think everyone is being extra careful about everything they do.”
Chase stretched and yawned. She was getting sleepy and hadn’t talked to Julie yet about Doris’s jacket.
“Why are they being so careful, do you think?”
“Oh, that’s obvious,” Julie said. “The press is all over this. They’re swarming the courthouse. It makes a good, scandalous story, robbing money from charity.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Chase tried to picture Doris’s murder trial when that day came. Or Ted’s. Or Torvald’s. Would she be called to testify? Would there be a gauntlet of reports and microphones to endure? “Listen, I want to talk something out with you.”
“Shoot.”
“I talked to Ted today, at Laci’s apartment.”
“I thought they broke up.”
“I’m not sure about their status. It seems to be on again at the moment. Anyway, he told me he saw his mother run out of Gabe’s condo, the afternoon he was murdered, with a huge red splotch on her jacket.”
“Wow! Do the police know about this?”
“They do now.”
“So she murdered him?”
“Not sure about that. Ted says she threw her jacket in the bushes right outside the condo. However, Quincy got out late this morning, after I came back from Laci’s, and he found her jacket behind my trash bin.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Julie giggled. “Quincy is quite the detective, isn’t he? How did that happen?”
“Getting out or finding the jacket?”
“Never mind. So you called the police?”
“Yes, and they came and went over everything out there. But what do you suppose this means?”
“You mean how did the jacket get there?”
“I guess. I don’t even know if Ted was telling the truth. Detective Olson doesn’t think the stain is blood at all. Could Ted be cold-blooded enough to try to frame his mother?”
“If he is, he’s going about it in an odd way. He told you where she put the jacket, but that’s not where it was.”
“I wonder if Doris moved it. If she knew Ted saw her stash it there and decided to . . . I don’t know . . . try to implicate me?”
“But her jacket can’t implicate you, can it?”
Chase grunted in exasperation. “I don’t know. I don’t know who to believe and I don’t know what anything means.”
EIGHTEEN
The next morning, Chase arrived downstairs before everyone else, carrying a plastic bin that contained Quincy’s new treats. After she put it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, she busied herself in the kitchen, starting the coffee and getting out supplies for the day’s baking. She was eager for Anna to get there so she could tell her about the treats—and about Doris’s jacket.
When Anna finally came in, Chase had to look twice. She wore her usual vibrant sweater, this one of bright teal with turquoise swirls, but the rest of her was drab and colorless. There wasn’t a hint of bounce in her step. Even her usually brilliantly shining gray hair was limp and lackluster. Chase wasn’t sure whether to sympathize or to leave her alone.
Anna surveyed the bowls, the mixer, and the pans Chase had spread on the granite counter, and dropped to one of the stools, where she started swiveling back and forth, a dull expression on her face.
“I have something to show you.” Chase’s own voice sounded unnaturally bright to her, trying, as she was, to combat Anna’s gloom. She presented the plastic container of cat treats and opened the lid so Anna could see them.
Anna leaned over and sniffed. “They don’t smell too appetizing.”
“They’re not for you, silly. They’re for Quince. These are healthy cat treats. Dr. Ramos says he should have only these from now on, and his diet food.”
“Poor Quincy.”
“He loves them! And you’re to stop giving him desserts.” Chase knew she was becoming shrill. Anna was being unreasonable.
Anna shrugged, glanced away, and picked a couple of cat hairs off her pants. The swiveling stool had developed a squeak.
“You’re driving me nuts,” Chase said, then softened her voice as she put the cat treats into the refrigerator. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Do you know about Julie’s trial?” She quit swiveling.