The Cat Who Blew the Whistle

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  On the way out of the building, Qwilleran passed Hixie Rice's office. The vice president in charge of advertising and promotion hailed him. “Qwill, I loved your column about the sweet corn of August—and about this being the corniest county in the state! I sent Wilfred out to buy several dozen ears. We're sending them to advertisers as a promo.”

  He grunted a lukewarm acknowledgment of the compliment. “Not to change the subject,” he said, “but was Floyd Trevelyan a customer of yours?”

  “Yes and no. He was tight-fisted with advertising dollars.”

  “His son lives in Indian Village. Do you know him?”

  “I see him in the parking lot. I thought Gary Pratt looked like a black bear, but Floyd's son is too much!”

  “Is he in your building?”

  “No, I think he's in Dwight's building. Why? Is it important?”

  “No, I'm just addressing my Christmas cards early,” Qwilleran said with a nonchalant shrug.

  Hixie looked at him with suspicion. “You've got something up your sleeve, Qwill! What is it?”

  “Are you still chummy with the manager at Indian Village?”

  “Not exactly chummy, but she's on my Christmas list in a big way, and she's extremely cooperative. What can I do for you?”

  “Floyd Trevelyan's secretary had an apartment in G building. Tell the manager you have a friend Down Below who's being transferred to Pickax and wants to rent an upscale apartment. Ask if Nella Hooper's is vacant—or will it be vacant soon.”

  “Would you like to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Only my journalistic curiosity,” he said. “If the apartment is not available, someone must be paying the rent, and it would be interesting to know who—or why.”

  “I smell intrigue,” Hixie said. “Anything else?”

  “Find out when Eddie Trevelyan moved in. That's all. Get back to work! Sell ads! Make money for the paper!”

  “How's Polly? I haven't seen her lately.”

  “She's fine—excited about her new house, of course. By the way, she's due for a physical and wants to switch doctors. She doesn't care for the man who bought Melinda's practice. Have you heard any good reports about the Lanspeaks' daughter?”

  Hixie waggled an accusing finger at him. “Qwill, you old rogue! Is that your underhanded way of finding out what happened to my late lamented romance? Well, I'll tell you. He was a wonderful, sincere, thoughtful, attentive bore! But I still see his mother once a week for French lessons.”

  “Pardonnez-moi,” he said with a stiff bow.

  * * *

  Qwilleran next stopped at Amanda's Studio of Design to see Fran Brodie. She was in-house three days a week, sketching floor plans, working on color schemes, and greeting customers.

  “Cup of coffee? Cold drink?” she asked.

  He chose coffee. “Have you started dress rehearsals?”

  “Tonight's the first. We test our system for handling extras. A busload of lords and ladies will come from the high school in time for the first act—complete with sweeping robes and elaborate headdresses. After the first scene they're not needed until the end of the play. What do we do with them in the meantime? There's no room backstage. Do we put them on the school bus to wait? Do we send them back to school for an hour? You know how giddy kids can get if they're having to wait.”

  Qwilleran thought for a moment. “Would the Old Stone Church let you use one of their social rooms? Bus the kids across the park, give them a horror video, and pick them up an hour later.”

  “Super!” Fran exclaimed. “Why didn't we think of that? The Lanspeaks are pillars of the church; they can swing it for us. . . . More coffee?”

  While she poured, he asked, “What's the latest from your confidential source? The last thing you told me, the police were checking the secretary's story.”

  “It turned out to be true, Qwill. Nella Hooper was really fired two weeks before Audit Sunday. She collected severance pay and filed for unemployment benefits.”

  “How long ago did you do her apartment in Indian Village?”

  “More than a year.”

  “I suppose Floyd paid for the furnishings.”

  “No, the credit union paid the bill; they could take it as a business expense. Did I tell you the FBI went in with a search warrant? Nella hadn't left anything but the furniture and a tube of toothpaste.”

  “What brand?”

  Fran smirked at his humor. “How do you like my flowers?” A magnificent bouquet of white roses stood on her desk.

  “You must have acquired a well-heeled admirer,” Qwilleran said. “How come I can't smell them? How come I'm not sneezing?”

  “They're silk! Aren't they fabulous? Amanda found this new source in Chicago. My grandmother used to make crepe paper flowers during the Depression and sell them for a dollar a dozen. These are twenty-five dollars each! Why don't you buy a big bunch for Polly?”

  “She'd rather have fresh daisies,” he said truthfully.

  “Qwill, why doesn't Polly let me help her with her house?” Fran said earnestly. “I don't mean to belittle your beloved, but she's a colorfusser. I showed her some fabrics, and she fussed over the colors, trying to get a perfect match. I could teach her something if she'd listen.”

  “I don't know the answer, Fran. I'm even more concerned than you are.” He started to leave.

  “Wait a minute! I have something for you to read.” She handed him the working script of a play. “See if you think we should do this for our winter production. The action takes place at Christmastime. I'd love to play Eleanor of Aquitaine. . . . You could grow a beard and play Henry,” she added slyly.

  “No thanks, but I'll give it a read.”

  * * *

  On the way home Qwilleran took a detour into the public library to see Polly, but she was out of the building, the clerks informed him. They always considered it appropriate to tell their boss's friend where she had gone and why: to Dr. Zoller's office to have her teeth cleaned, or to Gippel's Garage to have her brakes adjusted. Today she had an appointment with the vet; Bootsie had been vomiting, and there was blood in his urine.

  “If she returns, ask her to call me,” he said in a businesslike tone, but he was thinking, That's all she needs to push her over the edge! A sick cat!

  At the barn he loaded a cooler of soft drinks into his car and drove down the trail for his mail. Eddie was bending over a whining table saw, lopping off boards as if slicing bread, while two new helpers climbed about the framed building, hammering nails with syncopated blows.

  “Comin' right along!” he called out encouragingly.

  “Yeah,” said Eddie, walking in his direction and sharpening a pencil. “If it don't rain tonight, I'll do some gradin'. I'll do all that fill and start on that hill she wants next to the road.”

  “That'll make a long day for you,” Qwilleran said.

  “Yeah . . . well . . . a guy in Kennebeck'll rent me a skim-loader cheaper at night.”

  “How do you transport it all that distance?”

  “Flatbed trailer.”

  Qwilleran asked, “Do you live in Kennebeck? That's where they have that good steakhouse.”

  “Nah, I live in . . . uh . . . out in the country.”

  “Where's Benno? Still hung over?”

  “Di'n't you hear? He got his!”

  “You mean, he was killed? In an accident?”

  “Nah. A fight in a bar.”

  “That's too bad,” Qwilleran said. “You'd known him a long time, hadn't you?”

  “Yeah . . . well . . . gotta get back to work.”

  Driving back to the barn, Qwilleran wondered why Eddie considered it necessary to conceal his Indian Village address. The development on the Ittibittiwassee River was swanky by Moose County standards, catering to young professionals with briefcases and styled hair: Fran Brodie, Dwight Somers, Hixie Rice, and Elizabeth Hart had apartments there. Eddie hardly fitted the picture, with his rough appearance and rusty pickup.

  Qwi
lleran arrived at the barn in time to hear the phone ringing and see Koko hopping up and down as if on springs. It was Polly, calling in a state of anxiety. Bootsie was in the hospital. He had feline urological syndrome. They were giving him tests. He might need surgery.

  Listening to her anguished report, his reaction was: I told you so! Many times he had warned Polly that she was overfeeding Bootsie; he was gorging on food to compensate for loneliness; what he needed was a cat friend.

  Now Qwilleran tried to comfort her by mumbling words of encouragement: She had caught it in time; Bootsie was in good hands; the vet was highly skilled; Bootsie was still a young cat and would bounce back; would she like to talk about it over dinner at the Old Stone Mill?

  No, she said. Unfortunately the library was open until nine o'clock, and it was her turn to work.

  * * *

  It was raining slightly when Celia arrived for her briefing—not really raining, just misting. “Good for the complexion,” they liked to say in Moose County.

  She was wearing a plastic hat tied under her chin. “Did anyone expect this rain?” she asked.

  “In Moose County we always expect the unexpected. Come in and tell me about the day's excitement at The Roundhouse. Did Wrigley steal the show? Did Tish break down and tell all? Did Florrie plant a bomb in the elevator? This is better than a soap opera.”

  “I decided not to take him,” she said. “That train wreck really scared him! So I told them his little tummy was upset from eating a rubber band. I'm getting good at inventing stories, Chief.”

  “I'm proud of you, Celia.”

  “Well, wait till you hear! When I arrived, they both hugged me—Tish and Florrie—and said they'd been lonely over the weekend, and they wanted to know if I'd come and live with them! I and Wrigley! I almost fell over! I had to think quick, and I said my grandson was coming up from Illinois to live with me so he could go to school in Pickax, starting in September. They said Clayton could move in, too! I told them I was really touched by the kind invitation and would have to think about it. Whew!”

  “Nice going,” Qwilleran commented.

  “So we had lunch and talked about this and that. Tish reads your column, Chief, and she raved about the one on sweet corn. I was dying to tell her I know you, but I didn't. They asked about Clayton, and I asked if they had many relatives. Tish has one brother—no sisters—grandmother dead, aunts and uncles moved away, grandfather a retired railroad engineer in Sawdust City. And here's the sad part: He lives twenty miles away and has never been to visit them! Her grandmother never even sent a birthday card! Tish hasn't met either of them. This family is very strange, Chief.”

  “Was anything more said about the dog?”

  “I asked if they were going to get another watchdog. I said my son had a German shepherd. Tish got all teary-eyed and talked about Zak and how sweet and cuddly he was. She said he might have been killed by her brother's best friend; they'd been having some violent arguments. Isn't that terrible!”

  Qwilleran agreed but was not surprised. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together. “Could you get her to talk about the credit union?”

  “Not yet, but I'm getting there! After Florrie went to have her nap, I told Tish she was a wonderful person to give up college and stay home to take care of her mother. I said office work must be boring for someone with her talent. Then she showed me a clipping of a book review she wrote for your paper, and they paid her for it! She was so thrilled to see her name in print! She signed it Letitia Penn. That's Florrie's maiden name. . . . I asked what kind of work she did at the office, and she said a little bit of everything. She seems afraid to talk about it.”

  “You're doing very well, Celia. Now I think it's time for that strange family to have a reunion. The grandfather has reached an age when many persons look back on their lives with remorse and a desire to make amends for past mistakes. I mentioned it to Mr. Penn when I interviewed him, and you might sound out the women tomorrow.”

  “I know they'll love it!”

  “Do you mind picking up the old gentleman in Sawdust City?”

  “Be glad to.”

  “When the family is together, you can show a video of the Party Train, with Mr. Penn in the engineer's cab,” he said, and then thought, Unfortunately, it includes shots of F.T. in the engineer's cab and F.T. with his secretary.

  “Oh, we'll have a ball!” Celia squealed. “I'll make some cookies.” She stood up. “I should drive home now. When the sky's overcast, it gets dark early, and the woods are kind of scary at night.”

  Qwilleran accompanied her to her car and asked if she had noticed a lot of cars in the theatre parking lot. “It's a dress rehearsal for Midsummer Night's Dream, and I have a pair of tickets for you for opening night, if you'd like to see the show.”

  “I'd love it! Thank you so much! I'll take Virginia; she's been so good to me . . . What's that rumbling noise?”

  “Only a bulldozer working overtime at the end of the orchard.” He opened the car door for her. “Fasten your seatbelt. Observe the speed limit. And don't pick up any hitchhikers.”

  The irrepressible Mrs. Robinson was laughing merrily as she started through the block-long patch of woods at a bumpy ten miles per hour.

  * * *

  To Qwilleran the rumbling of the tractor was a welcome sound. It meant that Polly could cross off one item on her worry list. The man-made hill between house and highway would give her a sense of privacy, though there was little traffic on Trevelyan Road. Paving it had been a political boondoggle; no one used it except locals living on scattered farms.

  So Qwilleran listened to the comforting grunting and groaning of Eddie's skim-loader. Lounging in his big chair, he asked himself: What have we learned to date? Benno may have killed Zak. Yet, even if he were a vengeful victim of the embezzlement, he would have known that the dog was not Floyd's. Tish had said the two young men had been arguing violently. Over what? A soccer bet? A woman? Drugs? Eddie may have killed his friend in a fit of drunken passion. The tension between boss and helper had been evident on the job—ever since Audit Sunday. When Eddie visited the barn, Koko hissed at him.

  “Yow!” said Koko, sitting on the telephone desk, perilously close to the English pencil box. His comment gave Qwilleran another lead: The police were being evasive about the murder weapon at the Trackside Tavern. “Not a hunting knife” was all Andy Brodie would say. Could it have been a well-sharpened pencil?

  With a growl and an abrupt change of mood, Koko sprang from the desk and launched a mad rush around the main floor—across the coffee table, up over the fireplace cube, around the kitchen. Objects not nailed down were scattered: books, magazines, the wooden train whistle, one of the carved decoys, the brass paperweight. Qwilleran grabbed the wooden pencil box from the path of the crazed animal.

  “Koko!” he yelled. “Stop! Stop!”

  Another decoy went flying. There was the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. Then the cat flung himself at the front door. He bounced off, picked himself up, gave his left shoulder two brief licks, and stormed the door again like a battering ram.

  “Stop! You'll kill yourself!” Qwilleran had never interfered in a catfit; it usually stopped as suddenly as it had started. But he honestly feared for Koko's safety. He rushed to the foyer and threw a scatter rug over the writhing body and pinned him down. After a few seconds the lump under the rug was surprisingly quiet. Cautiously he lifted one corner, then another. Koko was lying there, stretched out, exhausted.

  It was then that the growl of the bulldozer floated up the trail on the damp night air. So that was it! The constant stop-and-go noise was driving Koko crazy. Or was that the only reason for the demonstration? Qwilleran felt an urgent tingling on his upper lip. He pounded his moustache, put on his yellow cap, and started out with a flashlight.

  THIRTEEN

  Following Koko's significant catfit, Qwilleran jogged to the building site, where the skim-loader was making its nervous racket—starting and stop
ping, advancing and retreating, climbing and plunging. He could see bouncing flashes of light as the vehicle's headlights turned this way and that. While he was still a hundred yards away from the earth-moving operation, the noise stopped and the headlight was turned off. Time for a cigarette, Qwilleran thought; he'd better not leave any butts around.

  At that moment there was a gut-wrenching scream—a man's scream—and then an earth-shaking thud—and then silence.

  “Hey! Hey, down there!” Qwilleran shouted, running forward and ducking as something large and black flew over his head.

  His flashlight showed the tractor lying on its side, half in the ditch. The operator was not in sight. Thrown clear, Qwilleran thought as he combed the area with a beam of light. Then he heard a tortured groan from the ditch. The operator was pinned underneath.

  Futilely he threw his shoulder against the machine. Desperately he looked up and down the lonely highway. A single pair of headlights was approaching from the north, and he waved his flashlight in frantic arcs until it stopped.

  “Gotta CB? Gotta phone?” he yelled at the driver. “Call 911! Tractor rollover! Man trapped underneath! Trevelyan Road, quarter mile north of Base Line!” Before he could finish, the motorist was talking on his car phone. He was Scott Gippel, the car dealer, who lived nearby.

  Almost immediately, police sirens pierced the silence of the night. Seconds later, red and blue revolving lights converged from north and south, accompanied by the wailing and honking of emergency vehicles.

  While Gippel turned his car to beam its headlights on the scene, Qwilleran climbed down into the ditch, searching with his flashlight. First he saw an arm, grotesquely twisted . . . next a mop of black hair . . . and then a bearded face raked with bleeding clawmarks.

  A police car was first to arrive, followed by the ambulance from the hospital and the volunteer rescue squad from the firehall. Seven men and a woman responded. They had rescue equipment and knew what to do. They jacked the tractor and extricated the unconscious body from the mud.

  Qwilleran identified him for the police officer: Edward Trevelyan of Indian Village; next of kin, Letitia Trevelyan in West Middle Hummock. The door closed on the stretcher, and the ambulance sped away.