“Look at her gorgeous eyes! Isn’t she a darling?”
“Yes, she’s a nice cat.”
“Well, I guess I’d better head for home. I have appointments all day tomorrow, starting at seven o’clock at the hospital. And then tomorrow night is the final dress rehearsal.”
“Drive carefully,” he said.
She picked up her shoulder bag and looked for her sweater. “What’s that?” Her face wrinkled with disgust. Alongside her sweater was something brown and slimy.
“Sorry about that,” Qwilleran said, gingerly removing the chewed remains of Tiny Tim. “Koko was presenting you with a parting gift—his favorite toy.” Courteously he walked his uninvited guest to her car and said, “Break a leg Wednesday night!”
He watched the silver bullet wind through the woods and then returned to the barn. Koko was sitting on the coffee table, looking proud of himself; there were times when his whiskers seemed to be smiling. “You’re an impertinent rascal,” Qwilleran told him with admiration. “Now tell me why she came here tonight.”
“Yow,” said Koko.
Qwilleran tugged at his moustache. “It was not to see the barn . . . not to see you . . . not to talk about old times . . . What was her real motive?”
SIXTEEN
THE MORNING AFTER the impromptu visit from Melinda, Qwilleran drove Polly to work. She said, “The trucks were still hauling things away until late last night, but thank goodness they’re required to have everything out by tonight. It’s been nerve-wracking. Bootsie is very unhappy.”
After dropping her at the library, Qwilleran continued on to the police station to see if they had picked up a prowler suspect, but the normally quiet headquarters bristled with activity. Phones were busy; the computer was working overtime; officers were bustling in and out. Brodie, between phone calls, waved Qwilleran away and said, “Talk to you later.”
Mystified by the unusual dismissal, Qwilleran backed out of the station and went to the office of the Moose County Something. Even the unflappable city room reflected the excitement of breaking news.
“What’s happening at the police station?” he asked the managing editor.
“This’ll floor you, Qwill,” said Junior. “Roger just came from headquarters. You know all those trucks hauling stuff from the Goodwinter sale? One of them backed up to the Utley house last night and cleaned out all the teddy bears! They used the tag sale as a cover. Sounds like professionals from Down Below. By now the stuff is probably on a plane headed for California.”
“Where were the women?”
“Still in Minneapolis.”
“They had a watchman. Where was he?”
“Threatened at gunpoint and then tied up. His wife was visiting relatives in Kennebeck, came home late and found him bound and gagged.”
Qwilleran said, “It would be interesting to know how they transported 1,862 teddy bears.”
“They bagged them in leaf bags—those large black plastic ones. That’s according to the caretaker.”
“I wonder if they got Theodore. He was worth $80,000. No doubt the women had Ulysses and Ignace with them in Minneapolis. Doesn’t it sound like an inside job, Junior? I’d question the caretaker. I’d find out if the local supermarkets had a run on black plastic leaf bags in the last few days. Have you talked to Grace Utley?”
“Roger tracked her down in Minneapolis. She’s furious, and her sister is under a doctor’s care. They’re not coming back. They’re going to live down there and sell their house, so we’ll have one more haunted house on the street. They should change the name to Halloween Boulevard.”
A brief bulletin about the theft appeared in the Tuesday paper, ending with the usual statement: “Police are investigating.”
Qwilleran spent Tuesday and Wednesday writing copy for his column, when not chauffeuring Polly or helping out at the box office. The house was sold out for opening night, and there was a great ferment of anticipation in Pickax; everyone who was not in the cast knew someone who was. Comments from ticket purchasers were varied: “Dr. Melinda is playing the female lead . . . The director is a new man in town, unmarried . . . That funny Derek Cuttlebrink is in the show.”
As Qwilleran and Polly drove to the theatre on opening night, he said, “I think we’ll like what Dwight has done with this play. For one thing, he’s cut out Hecate’s long, boring scene.”
“Good decision,” she agreed. “It wasn’t written by Shakespeare anyway.”
Excited and well-attired townfolk were gathering under the marquee of the theatre and milling about the lobby, where the Bonnie Scots photographs were on exhibit. It was a big occasion in a small town, an occasion for dressing up. Polly wore her dinner dress and pearls; Qwilleran wore his suit. When they took their seats in row five on the aisle, Jennifer Olson’s family was already there—all ten of them—and Grandma Olson kept waving her program at occupants of surrounding seats and saying, “My granddaughter is in the play!”
The house lights dimmed, and after a moment of breathless silence the haunting notes of a tin whistle filled the theatre—no melody, just sounds from another world.
Polly whispered, “It gives me shivers.”
There were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning, and three shadowy, gray, ugly creatures whished onto the dimly lighted stage, their bodies bent in half, their voices cackling, “When shall we three meet again?” One looked like a cat, another like a toad. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair!”
The mood was set, and the story unfolded with the entrance of the king and his sons, the report from the bleeding captain, and praise for brave Macbeth. Then the tin whistle again chilled the audience, and the three witches sidled on stage to celebrate their evil achievements, dancing in an unholy circle as drumbeats were heard off stage. “A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!”
A murmur rippled through the audience when Larry made his entrance, proclaiming in his great voice, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Two scenes later, when Melinda entered as Lady Macbeth, the audience gasped at her costume—sweeping robes of what looked like fur, and a jeweled wimple. When she began her monologue, however, Qwilleran and Polly exchanged brief glances; her delivery lacked energy. Still, act one kept the audience on the edge of their seats: the king murdered by Macbeth . . . the two grooms murdered as a cover-up . . . alarm bells and bloody daggers. There was a moment’s comic relief when Derek Cuttlebrink telescoped his youth and height into the arthritic shape of an ancient porter. “Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there?” At intermission it was the French fry chef from the Old Stone Mill who was the topic of conversation in the lobby.
When Qwilleran spoke to the Comptons, Lyle said, “I think Macbeth was written for bumper stickers: What’s done is done! . . . Out, out, brief candle . . . Lay on, Macduff!”
Lisa said, “Qwill, how do you like Melinda? I think she’s dragging.”
Her husband agreed. “The sleepwalking scene is supposed to come in act two. She played it in act one.”
Most of the audience, while waiting for flashing lights to signal them back into their seats, spoke of other things, as small-town audiences do: “Hey, what did you think about the teddy bear heist?” . . . “Everybody on Goodwinter Boulevard is blowing their stack after that sale!”
Nick and Lori Bamba were there, and Nick whispered something in Qwilleran’s ear that he remembered later.
In the second act the weird music accompanied the witches’ dance around the cauldron. “Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d!” Macbeth, suffering from strange diseases and seeing ghosts, was going mad. Lady Macbeth walked in her sleep, plagued by visions of bloody hands. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” To make matters worse, their castle was besieged by an army of ten thousand soldiers.
While waiting for his favorite line—Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day—Qwilleran began to feel uncomfortable. He found himself staring at the stage without seeing it. Then a chilling shriek of women’s voices came fr
om the wings. He clapped his hand to his moustache and half rose from his seat, whispering to Polly. “Tell Arch to drive you home!” A second later he was walking quickly up the aisle.
On the stage, Macbeth was saying, “Wherefore was that cry?” And an attendant replied, “The Queen, my lord, is dead!”
Neither line was heard by Qwilleran. He was running across the theatre parking lot to his car. He drove through the woods at the rear, and as he approached the barn, he could see the long orchard trail and red taillights receding at the far end of it.
The barn’s automatic lights were on, indoors and out, but he beamed his headlights on the rear entrance and found the glass panel in the door shattered. Jumping out of his car he hurried into the kitchen. The first thing he saw was blood on the earthen tile floor. “Koko!” he shouted.
The cat was sitting on top of the refrigerator, methodically licking his paws with toes spread wide and claws extended. For one moment, Qwilleran thought he had attacked the intruder and driven him away. Yet, there was too much blood for ordinary cat scratches. More likely the housebreaker suffered gashes from broken glass. He phoned the police from the kitchen, and the patrol car reported immediately, with the state police not far behind. A B&E at the Qwilleran barn had top priority.
By the time they arrived, he had assessed the damage: “Broken window, forced entry, two items missing,” he reported. “One is a combination radio and cassette player. The other is a carrying case of cassettes—all spoken tapes from my trip to Scotland plus interviews conducted around Moose County. The tapes would be of no value to anyone, unless he wanted to suppress the material contained, and that’s highly unlikely.”
Or is it? he wondered, almost at the same moment.
One of the officers said, “They thought it was country music or rock. Cassettes are like candy to the kids.”
“You think it was a juvenile break-in?” Qwilleran asked. “It happened just before I arrived home. I saw a car leaving through the orchard and turning right on Trevelyan. Either I interrupted them, or they had taken what they came for. The equipment was on my desk, visible through the windows. The interior lights came on automatically at dusk.”
“You should keep the shades pulled when you go out,” the officer advised. “Lotta nice stuff here.”
“I guess you’re right. What’s happening to Pickax? Petty thieves . . . master burglars . . . prowlers . . .”
“The town’s growing. New people coming in. We were on TV last week.”
Koko was watching the police stoically from the top of the refrigerator, and one of them, feeling eyes boring into the back of his head, turned suddenly and asked, “Is that the cat Brodie talks about?”
As soon as they were off the premises, however, Koko’s cool behavior changed. He uttered a loud wail from the pit of his stomach, ending in a falsetto shriek.
“For God’s sake! What’s that about?” Qwilleran gasped. And then he shouted in alarm, “Where’s Yum Yum?”
She had a dozen secret hiding places and was known to evaporate when strangers came to the house.
“TREAT!” Qwilleran shouted and then listened for the soft thumps meaning a cat had jumped down from a perch. There was a hollow silence.
“TREAT!” His voice reverberated among the beams and balconies, but there was no soft patter of bounding feet. Even Koko was ignoring the irresistible T word; he sat on the refrigerator as if petrified.
Qwilleran peeled off his coat and tie, grabbed a high-powered flashlight from the broom closet, and raced to the upper level to begin a frantic search of every known hiding place, every crevice in the radiating beams, under and over every piece of furniture, inside every drawer and closet . . . all the while calling her name.
He didn’t see the headlights approaching the barn through the woods, but he heard the pounding on what remained of the back door. Looking over the balcony railing, he saw Nick and Lori Bamba wandering inquisitively into the kitchen.
“Is this blood on the floor?” Nick was asking.
“What’s wrong with Koko?” Lori was saying.
As Qwilleran walked down the ramp, flashlight in hand, Nick called up to him, “I picked up the B&E on my police band when we left the theatre. How bad is it?”
Qwilleran could hardly force himself to say what he was thinking. “It looks . . . as if . . . they’ve stolen Yum Yum.”
“Stolen Yum Yum!” they echoed in shocked unison.
“The police were here, and I reported the theft of a radio and cassettes. I didn’t know then that she was missing. I’ve searched everywhere. I’m convinced she’s gone. There’s an emptiness when she’s not here.” He stooped and picked up a stray emery board and snapped it in two. “Koko knows something’s radically wrong. He knows she’s gone.”
“Why would they take her?” Lori wondered.
That was something Qwilleran preferred not to contemplate. He walked aimlessly back and forth, pounding his moustache.
Nick headed for the phone. “I’m going to call the police again.”
Qwilleran and the cat on the refrigerator had been staring at each other. “One minute, Nick!” he said. “At the theatre you mentioned you’d seen the prowler again.”
“Yes, today. His car was parked outside the Dimsdale Diner, so I went in and sat at the counter next to this bearded guy. The cook called him Chuck. I talked about fishing and baseball, but he didn’t respond. I got the impression he wasn’t tightly wound, or else he was stoned. I’m sure he hangs out in Shantytown.”
“Let’s go out there,” Qwilleran said impulsively, reaching for a jacket.
“D’you think he’s the one who broke in?”
“I’m getting ideas. Everything’s beginning to mesh.” He combed his moustache vigorously with his fingertips.
“Okay. We’ll take my car. It’s got everything we need.”
Qwilleran said, “Lori, talk to Koko. He’s acting like a zombie.”
The road north from Pickax ran straight, and Nick drove fast. At Ittibittiwassee Road he turned left into the wooded slum, the car bouncing slowly along the rutted road between the trees, the headlights picking up glimpses of shacks and junk vehicles.
“If his car isn’t here,” Nick said, “we’ll try the site of the old mine.”
At the mention of the abandoned mine, and all it implied, Qwilleran felt nausea in the pit of his stomach. “There it is! That’s the car!” he said.
Nick turned off his lights and parked in a patch of weeds behind a junk truck. “If he’s the right one, I can radio the police.”
“How shall we work this?”
“I’ll get him to open up. You stand back out of sight, Qwill, until I get my foot in the door.”
“Let me go first.”
“No. Your moustache is too well known. Hand me the gun from the glove compartment, in case he gives us any trouble.”
“Easy with the car door,” Qwilleran said, as they stepped out into the weeds.
The maroon car was pulled up to a ramshackle travel trailer with a dim light showing through the small window. A radio was playing. By approaching the window obliquely, the two men could see parts of the interior while avoiding the meagre spill of light into the yard. They saw a heavily bearded man lying on a cot, fully clothed, taking swigs from a pint bottle. Although the face was hairy, red gashes could be seen on the forehead. Another gash crusted with dried blood trailed from the corner of one eye, which was swollen shut.
Qwilleran thought, To get those wounds from glass, he’d have to go through the door headfirst; he was clawed! He whispered to Nick, “I can see my radio and cassettes in there.”
They crept forward. Then Nick banged on the door and called out in a friendly voice, “Hey, Chuck! I’ve got some burgers and beer from the diner!” After a slight delay, the door opened cautiously. It opened outward, and Nick yanked it all the way. “Jeez, man! Wha’ happened? You been in a fight—or what?”
“Who’re you?” the bearded man mumbled.
&nbs
p; “You know me—Harry from the diner.” Both men barged through the door as the fellow stepped back uncertainly.
“You’re cops!”
“Hell, no! I’m Harry, don’t you remember? This is my uncle Bob.”
There was a foul odor in the littered trailer, also a large collection of electronic equipment, also a silver pocketknife alongside a small sink.
“Wotcha doin’ here?”
“Just wanna warn you, Chuck. The cops are on your tail. You gotta get out of here.”
“Where’s the beer?”
Qwilleran said with avuncular concern, “Forget the beer, son. You need a doctor . . . Harry, can we take him to a doctor? . . . Yes, son, you could lose an eye if you don’t have it taken care of fast. Where’d you get those bloody gashes?”
“Uh . . . in the woods,” was his fuzzy-minded reply.
“You must have been attacked by a wildcat! You can get blood poisoning from something like that. We’ve got to get you to the hospital for a shot, son, or you’re dead! Was it a wildcat? . . . Or was it a housecat?” Qwilleran gave it a threatening emphasis.
The wounded man looked at him suspiciously.
Qwilleran, who had been sniffing the fetid air of the trailer like a connoisseur, suddenly bellowed, “TREAT!”
“NOW!” came a piercing shriek from behind a small closed door.
He yanked it open. It was a closet-size toilet, and Yum Yum was perched precariously on the rim. She was wet. She had slipped into the rusty bowl.
Ripping off his jacket, he wrapped it around her, crooning reassurances in her ear. “Take her to the car,” he said to Nick, “and stay with her. You know what to do. I want to talk to Chuck for a minute.”
Yum Yum knew Nick, and she was purring as he carried her from the trailer. As an afterthought, he took the gun from his pocket and laid it on the sink.
Casually picking it up, Qwilleran said, “Sit down, son. You look sick. The poison’s getting into your bloodstream. I want to give you some advice before the police get here. They’re going to ask a lot of questions, and you’d better be ready with some good answers.”
The Cat Who Wasn't There Page 20
