The Cat Who Blew the Whistle

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  The detail was meticulous, even to the snakes that formed the dog's mane and tail. Qwilleran often bought a small object in the design studio; it pleased Fran, and it was advantageous to please the daughter of the police chief.

  “If you like it,” she said, “I'll give you a price on it and shine it up for you.”

  “I like it,” he said, “but I have some other stops to make. How about shining it up and bringing it to the rehearsal tonight?”

  As Qwilleran left the studio, he was chuckling to himself in anticipation of the cats' reaction to the grotesque bauble. They were always aware of any new item that arrived in their territory.

  His next stop was the office of MacWhannell & Shaw. There was a question he wanted to ask an accountant.

  Big Mac, as he was called, met him with a welcoming hand. “Just thinking about you, Qwill. We're planning Scottish Night at the lodge, and we'd like you to be our guest again.”

  “Thank you. I enjoyed it last year—even the haggis.”

  “I was telling the committee that your mother was a Mackintosh, and Gordie Shaw said you ought to join the clan officially, as a tribute, you might say, to her memory. The Shaws had Mackintosh connections, you know.”

  The suggestion hit Qwilleran in a tender spot. He had grown up with a single parent, and now that he was maturing he realized how much she had done for him. He could forget the piano lessons, and drying the dishes, and two-handed games of dominoes; he owed her a great deal. “What would it entail?” he asked.

  “According to Gordie, you apply for membership, pay your dues, and receive a periodic newsletter. After that you probably start attending Scottish Gatherings and Highland Games.”

  “Sounds okay,” said the writer of the “Qwill Pen” column, sensing a source of material. “Ask Gordie to send me an application.”

  “But I've been doing all the talking,” the accountant said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Just answer a question, Mac. How do you react to the Lumbertown fraud—or alleged fraud?”

  “Fortunately, I have no clients who would be affected, but I sympathize with the Sawdusters. When a white-collar crime is committed in a blue-collar community, it seems particularly reprehensible—to me, that is. Don't ask me why.”

  “At the risk of sounding financially naive, may I ask how a guy like Trevelyan can abscond with millions belonging to his customers? I'm sure he doesn't carry it out in a suitcase.”

  “Basically, he has to be a crook,” said MacWhannell, “but if you're talking about ways and means, well . . . there are such practices as juggling the books, forging documents, falsifying financial statements, and so forth.”

  “Floyd is, or was, a carpenter by trade,” Qwilleran pointed out. “Would he have such educated tricks in his toolbox?”

  “Sounds as if there was an accomplice, doesn't it? This will be an interesting case. With today's crime information networks, he'll be found soon enough.”

  Leaving the accountant's office, Qwilleran passed the department store and saw Carol Lanspeak on the sidewalk, waving her arms and shouting. She was directing the setup of a clothing display in the main window, giving terse but loud instructions to an assistant inside the glass, while the young woman mouthed replies.

  Catching Qwilleran's reflection in the plate glass, Carol turned and explained, “The one inside the window can hear the one outside, but not vice versa.” She waved to her helper and told her to take a break. “This is our last window before back-to-school, Qwill. How time flies! And oh! Weren't you shocked by the news from Sawdust City? Some of our employees live there, and they're Lumbertown depositors. What will happen? When this has occurred elsewhere in the country, it's been a real disaster.”

  Qwilleran said, “If the guy is a swindler and a fugitive, can't his assets be liquidated to cover debts and embezzled funds? He has a big house in the Hummocks near you, and a model train layout that's worth a mint, and the Party Train. That alone must be valued in the millions.”

  “But the justice system is so slow, Qwill! And the victims are families with children, and factory workers subject to layoffs, and retirees with nest eggs on deposit. What will they do when emergencies arise?”

  “Well, let me tell you something surprising,” Qwilleran said. “This morning I was helping to man the phones at the paper, when our reporters were calling in man-on-the-street opinions, and the victims, as you call them, weren't blaming Trevelyan; they were blaming the government for deception and injustice! They called it a plot, a conspiracy, a dirty trick! They refused to believe that Floyd would take their money and skip. They said he'd been a high school football hero and a good carpenter; his picture hung in the lobby of the credit union; he paid daily interest; he was crazy about trains.”

  Carol shook her head. “Everyone in Sawdust City must be nutty from exposure to industrial pollution.”

  * * *

  Before leaving for the rehearsal that evening, Qwilleran started to read the first few scenes of A Midsummer Night's Dream aloud. Both cats enjoyed the sound of his voice, whether he was reading great literature or the baseball scores. On this occasion Koko was particularly attentive and even got into the act a few times.

  The first scene opened with an indignant father hauling his disobedient daughter before the duke for reprimand. Full of vexation am I, with complaint against my daughter, Hermia.

  “Yow!” said Koko.

  “That's not in the script,” Qwilleran objected.

  After the father had raved and ranted, the duke argued with gentle reasonableness. What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.

  “Yow!” Koko said again.

  The young woman was being forced by law to marry a man of her father's choosing, or enter a convent, or die. Therefore, Hermia, question your desires.

  “Yow!”

  Qwilleran closed the book. He said, “This is getting monotonous, if you don't mind my saying so.” Later, as he walked through the Black Forest to the theatre, he construed Koko's responses as infatuation with a certain sound. To a cat, “Hermia” might have a secret meaning. Then again, Koko might be playing practical jokes; he had a sense of humor.

  The K Theatre, originally the Klingenschoen mansion, was a great three-story mass of fieldstone, transformed into a two-hundred-seat amphitheatre. From the lofty foyer a pair of staircases curved up to the lobby, from which the seating sloped down to the stage. When Qwilleran arrived, the cast was doing a run-through without the book, while the director watched from the third row and scribbled notes. Other cast members were scattered throughout the auditorium, waiting for their scenes. Quietly he took a seat behind Fran Brodie.

  The “rude mechanicals” were onstage: tinker, tailor, joiner, bellowsmaker, carpenter, and the six-foot-eight weaver, who delivered the final line of the scene: Enough: Hold, or cut bowstrings.

  “Break! Take five!” Fran called out.

  Qwilleran tapped her on the shoulder. “That line about bowstrings—I've never quite understood it.”

  “I take it to mean ‘cooperate—or else,' but I don't know its origin. Ask Polly. She'll know.”

  Actors wandered up the aisle to get a drink of water in the lobby or stopped to ask Fran a question. As soon as she and Qwilleran were alone, she said in a low voice, “They've picked up Floyd's car. It was in that meadow where car-poolers park. It had been there all week, and the sheriff was aware of it, but Floyd wasn't on the wanted list then.”

  “Do you suppose someone tipped him off about the audit? Who could it be?”

  “It looks as if an accomplice drove in from Indian Village and picked him up—Nella, for example. They're both missing.”

  “But how would she know about the audit?”

  “Interesting question.”

  “If they're headed for Mexico,” he said, “they've had a headstart of three days. She'd know a lot about Mexico, being from Texas.”

  “Wherever they went, they'll be found easily enough.” Fran looked at her watch
. “Time for the next scene. Don't go. I have more to report. . . . And do you know what? I brought your paperweight and left it in my car.”

  “Why don't you drive down to the barn when you're through here. I'll pour. You can bring the paperweight.”

  “Elizabeth Hart will be with me. Do you mind? I'm her ride tonight.”

  “That's fine. She's never seen the barn. . . . Is it okay to interview Derek now?”

  “Sure. He won't be called for fifteen minutes.”

  Before interviewing the young actor, Qwilleran checked his bio in the most recent playbill:

  DEREK CUTTLEBRINK. Veteran of five productions. Best-remembered roles: the porter in Macbeth and the villain in The Drunkard. Lifelong resident of Wildcat. Graduate of Pickax High School, where he played basketball. Currently employed as a waiter at the Old Stone Mill. Major interests: acting, camping, folk-singing, girls.

  The last of these was only too true. At performances in the K Theatre there was always a claque of Derek's girlfriends and ex-girlfriends and would-be girlfriends, ready to applaud as soon as he walked on stage. Whatever the source of his magnetism, his turnover in female companions was of more interest than the Dow Jones averages in Pickax. Tonight Derek was sitting with his latest, Elizabeth Hart, in the back row, where they could whisper without disturbing the proceedings on stage.

  Qwilleran asked her if he might borrow Derek for a brief interview in the lobby.

  “May I listen in?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  The eccentric young woman he had met on Breakfast Island had improved her grooming, but her taste for exotic clothing had not changed. While other club members were in grungy rehearsal togs, Elizabeth wore an embroidered vest and skullcap, possibly from Ecuador, with a balloon-sleeve white silk blouse and harem pants. Their bagginess camouflaged her thinness. The interview was taped:

  QWILLERAN: You're playing the role of Nick Bottom, the weaver. How do you perceive Mr. Bottom?

  DEREK: You mean, what's he like? He's a funny guy, always using the wrong words and doing some dumb thing, but nothing gets him down. People like him.

  ELIZABETH: (interrupting) His malapropisms are quite endearing.

  DEREK: Yeah. Took the words right outa my mouth.

  QWILLERAN: How does Bottom fit into the plot?

  DEREK: Well, there's a wedding at the palace, and for entertainment they've got a bunch of ordinary guys to put on a play. Bottom wants to direct and play all the roles himself.

  ELIZABETH: His vanity would be insufferable, if it weren't so ingratiating.

  DEREK: Yeah. You can quote me. The players rehearse in the woods, and one of the little green men turns me into a donkey from the neck up. The joke of it is: the queen of the greenies falls in love with me.

  ELIZABETH: She's a bewitcher who is bewitched.

  DEREK: That's pretty good. Put it in.

  QWILLERAN: How do you feel about little green men in a Shakespeare play?

  DEREK: No problem. He called 'em fairies; we call 'em greenies. They're all aliens, right?

  QWILLERAN: What is your favorite line?

  DEREK: I like it when I roar like a lion . . . Arrrrgh! Arrrrgh! And at the end I have a death scene that's fun. Now die, die, die, die, die. That always gets a laugh.

  Qwilleran, having completed his mission, more or less, returned to the barn through the Black Forest, listening for Marconi. It was still daylight, however, and Marconi was a night owl.

  Yum Yum was waiting at the kitchen door. He picked her up and whispered affectionate words while she caressed his hand with her waving tail. Koko was not there. Koko was in the foyer, looking out the window.

  The formal entrance to the barn was a double door flanked by tall, narrow windows. These sidelights had sills about twenty inches from the floor, a convenient height for a cat who wanted to stand on his hind feet and peer through the glass. There was something out there that fascinated Koko. With his neck stretched and his ears pricked, he stared down the orchard trail. Surveyors had been there and lumberyard trucks and carpenters' pickups and a cement mixer, but that was daytime activity, and there was no action after four-thirty. Yet Koko watched and waited as if expecting something to happen. His prescience was sometimes unnerving. He could sense an approaching storm, and a telephone about to ring. He often knew what Qwilleran was going to do before Qwilleran knew.

  Koko also had a sense of right and wrong. The decoys on the fireplace cube, for example, were lined up facing east. One day Mrs. Fulgrove came to clean and left them facing west. Koko threw a fit!

  On this summer evening he watched and waited, while Qwilleran listened to the tape of Derek's interview; to make an eight-inch think-piece out of it would require all his fictive skills. Only once was Koko lured away from the window, and that was when Derek roared like a lion.

  A run-through without the book was always a long rehearsal, and it was dark when Qwilleran's guests arrived. As soon as the car headlights came bobbing along the wooded road, he floodlighted the exterior of the barn to play up its striking features: a fieldstone foundation ten feet high, three stories of weathered shingle siding, and a series of odd-shaped windows cut in the wall of the octagonal building. Visitors were usually awed.

  Qwilleran put on his yellow cap and went to meet the two women, and as he opened the passenger's door Elizabeth stepped out and looked around. “You have an owl,” she said. “It sounds like a great horned owl. They hoot in clusters. We had one in our woods on the island, and we used to count the hoots. The pattern varies with the season and the owl's personal agenda.”

  “Shall we go indoors? I'm thirsty,” Fran said impatiently.

  The interior was aglow. Indirect lighting accented the balconies and the beams high overhead; downlights created mysterious puddles of light on the main floor; a spotlight focused on a huge tapestry hanging from a balcony railing. Appropriately, the design was an apple tree.

  As Fran gazed around in admiration, Elizabeth went looking for the cats.

  Fran said, “I've been here a hundred times, and I never cease to marvel at Dennis's genius. His death was a flagrant waste of talent. If he had lived, would he have stayed in the north?”

  “I doubt it,” Qwilleran said. “His family was in St. Louis.”

  “I can't find Koko and Yum Yum,” Elizabeth complained.

  “They're around here somewhere, but we have an abundance of somewhere in this place. Shall we go into the lounge area and have a glass of wine or fruit juice?”

  Koko, having heard his name, suddenly appeared from nowhere, followed by Yum Yum, yawning and stretching her dainty hindquarters.

  “They remember me from the island!” Elizabeth said with delight, as she dropped to her knees and extended a finger for sniffing.

  Fran followed Qwilleran into the kitchen to watch him prepare wine spritzers.

  “What did you want to tell me?” he asked quietly.

  In a low voice she said, “The police have been questioning Floyd's associates, and they've discovered something that I consider bizarre. Have you heard of the Lockmaster Indemnity Corporation? They were supposed to be private insurers of depositors' funds in the Lumbertown Credit Union, but they're broke! They can't cover the losses!”

  “How can that be? Sounds to me as if they're part of the scam.”

  “I don't know, but they'd transferred their assets to their wives' names. They call it estate planning. Dad calls it dirty pool.”

  “I'd say your dad is right. If they get away with it,” Qwilleran said, “there's something radically wrong in this state!”

  As he carried the tray into the lounge area—two spritzers and one club soda—Elizabeth rose gracefully from the floor. “We've been having a significant dialogue,” she said. “They're glad to see me.”

  All five of them sat around the large square coffee table, where Qwilleran had placed three small bowls of Kabibbles. There was also a copy of that day's Moose County Something. Fran commented on the in-depth coverage
of the scandal, and Qwilleran gloated over the journalistic feat, while Elizabeth listened politely. She was known to have a high I.Q. and an interest in esoteric subjects, as well as a sizable trust fund, but she had no idea what was happening in the world. She avoided reading newspapers, finding them too depressing.

  After a few minutes the host steered the conversation to her realm of interest. He said, “I hear you're working on costumes for the play. What do you have in mind for the fairies?”

  “We call them greenies,” she replied, “and the assumption is that they come from outer space. We know, of course, that extraterrestrials have been visiting our planet for thousands of years.”

  “I see,” he said.

  “For our production they'll wear green leotards and tights, green wigs, and green makeup. We have to get parental approval for the young people to wear green makeup. The effect will be surreal, and Fran is coaching them in body movements that will make them appear amiable and slightly comic.”

  “How about the king and queen of the . . . greenies? Oberon and Titania usually wear something regal.”

  “They'll have glitter: green foil jumpsuits with swirling capes of some gossamer material—and fantastic headdresses. I really love this play,” she said with eyes dancing.

  Qwilleran remembered how dull her eyes had been when he first met her on the island. Moose County—or Derek—had a salutary effect. “Do you have a favorite character? If you were to play a role, what would you choose?” He expected her to choose Titania in green foil.

  Her reply was prompt. “Hermia.”

  “Yow!” said Koko, whose ears were receiving the conversation even while his nose was tracking the Kabibbles.

  “I can relate to her parent problem,” Elizabeth explained, “although in my case it was my mother who insisted on ordering my life.”

  Fran said, “We'd have the greenies arriving in a spacecraft, if it were feasible, but we don't have the stage machinery. Larry thinks they should appear in puffs of stage smoke. Pickax audiences love stage smoke. But I'd like to see something more high-tech. Elizabeth has an idea, but I can't figure out the logistics. Tell Qwill about your pyramids, Elizabeth.”