Fat Cat Takes The Cake

“Hi, Mike,” she croaked. The remedies she had tried so far seemed to have moved the malady to her vocal chords.

“Are you sick, Chase?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You sound awful.”

Go ahead and say it, she thought. Tell me I shouldn’t have been out walking with Eddie.

“I’ll call again tomorrow. You should get plenty of rest tonight. Do you have a cough?”

“A bad one.” She demonstrated for him, unwillingly, and almost couldn’t quit.

“Sleep with an extra pillow or two. It helps your cough if you’re not flat.”

“’Kay, I will.”

That had been easy. Maybe next time she didn’t want to talk about something, she’d get a bad cold. It probably would help to prop up, as he had suggested, so she got two more pillows off her top closet shelf and bolstered herself. She sipped more tea and read several chapters of Kaye George’s Neanderthal mystery Death in the Time of Ice with Quincy curled beside her, then nodded off.

A phone call from Julie awoke her two hours later. She groped for her phone and tried to say, “Hello.”

“You sound worse,” Julie said.

“I am,” Chase managed to say.

“Just listen, then. Don’t try to talk. Gerry has some good ideas for me.” It was a relief to hear the lightness and hope in Julie’s voice. “He says Ron North was killed in the parking lot and transported to where you and Quincy discovered him. He wants you to testify that I wasn’t in the parking lot long enough for that. Other people from the reunion can back that up, too. He’s talked to some of them.

“Now, about Hilda. We dropped in on her. She seems confused tonight. She says she signed something, but ‘that nice man,’ as she calls him, told her it wasn’t anything formal. We tried to get hold of Snelson, but his wife says he’s not home.”

“She kicked him out,” Chase whispered, finding that it was easier on her sore throat than speaking. “Detective Olson told me that.”

“Great. That means I have no idea where to find him until school starts up again in January. A very good thing has happened at work. The other lawyers finally realize that I have nothing to do with the shady side of what those two are doing. I’m no longer getting dirty looks in the break room.”

“I’m glad of that.”

Chase hung up and immediately fell asleep again.

This time, when she woke up, she was disoriented. Two pillows loomed next to her in the bed, looking like a lumpy person at first. Then she remembered she had been propped up so she could breathe more easily. Her clock said it was already 10:00 PM.

Anna would probably be up at this hour. She usually watched the news at ten, then worked her way toward bed.

“Anna?” she said when the older woman picked up. “I don’t think I can come to work tomorrow.”

“You sound awful. Julie said you weren’t feeling well.”

“A code in my head.” She sniffed, but didn’t cough.

“Grace Pilsen gave it to you, I’m sure. What a horrible person she is! I hope she’s still sick at the Batter Battle.”

“No, you don’t. She’ll come anyway and infect everyone there.” Chase was whispering again. If anything, her throat felt more raw than before.

“I wonder if she could be disqualified for making the judges sick. Don’t worry about tomorrow. The way the snow is piling up, we probably won’t get much business. Both Inger and Mallory are planning on showing up.”

“That’s good.” Thad’s goot. No, she shouldn’t talk. Whispering was far better.

“What are you taking?”

“I’ve tried a few things. A hot shower, saltwater gargle, tea with honey. The tea feels best.”

“I can’t do it now, it’s not quite done, but I’ll bring something over tomorrow. Try to get some rest, Charity.”

“Will do. Love you.”

Anna signed off saying she loved Chase, too. Chase couldn’t wait to see what the next remedy would be.

In the morning, her bedroom ceiling glowed with the sunlight reflecting off the snow outside. She struggled to the window to see how much had fallen overnight. At least another foot. There was a little over two feet on the ground, not a showstopper for Minneapolis, but enough to keep some people home.

She was itching to go out and find Van Snelson. Maybe he hadn’t killed Ron North, but he was cheating an old woman and that made her furious. Julie and Gerrold were the better people to handle that problem, she knew. But, with Julie busy following up on the greedy real estate swindlers, she wouldn’t be trying to find ways to prove she was innocent of the murder, in case a judge or jury thought it didn’t take that long to strangle Ron North. That was up to Chase. It was Wednesday and Julie’s court date was Friday. A shot of panic ran through her and brought on a coughing fit. She reached for a cough drop as her cell phone rang. Eddie Heath again.

“You opening today?” he asked.

“Bar None is open, but I’m not working today.”

“Hey, a day off. Want to do something fun?”

“No, Eddie, not a day off. A sick day. I have a cold.”