The land sloped gently down to the creek, meandering through wild gardens and the black walnut grove that had given the inn its name. Squirrels performed their acrobatics, and guests sat on park benches and fed them peanuts.
Upstream the creek cut through a dense forest that had been placed in legal conservancy by the Klingenschoen Foundation, forever to remain a wilderness performing natural services for the environment.
Downstream were five rustic cabins facing the water, which the inn offered for rent by the week, month or season. They were widely spaced and each had a screened porch overlooking the creek.
Qwilleran stood on the bank and marveled at the serenity of this waterway that had been a raging torrent in lumbering days, when logs were floated downstream during the spring thaw. Now it was about fifty feet wide—and placid as a pond. If Polly were there, he reflected, she would recite Wordsworth: The river glideth at his own sweet will, but she would change the gender of the pronoun to her.
As he watched, the only ripples were in concentric circles when another trout leaped to catch another skeeter . . . and a V-shaped wake as a duck moved effortlessly through the water, followed by half a dozen ducklings leaving their own little wakes.
The five rustic cabins on the bank of the creek were about a hundred feet apart, each with a screened porch overlooking the water, each with parking space at the rear. Walking along the footpath at water’s edge, Qwilleran checked them out in the systematic way he had.
Cabin One—Small white car with Florida plates. Cabin windows open. Woman singing a number from a Gilbert & Sullivan opera—live, not a recording.
Cabin Two—No vehicle. TV going full blast. In the front yard, young boy throwing rocks at ducks. Qwilleran chided him, and he ran indoors, where a shrill voice scolded him for talking to strangers. Qwilleran thought, City types!
Cabin Three—New SUV in parking lot. Stereo playing Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet. Did he also compose a “Duck” Sonata, “Squirrel” Concerto and “Skeeter” Rhapsody?
Cabin Four—No car. Large woman sitting on porch. He said, “Beautiful day!” She only glared at him. He decided she was deaf.
Cabin Five—No sign of life.
Farther downstream was a boat shed offering canoes and outboards for hire . . . and, in the distance, the picturesque Old Stone Bridge now used only by fishermen.
Back at the inn he found extension ladders leaning against the turret and window-washers hard at work.
In the lobby Nick signaled him. “The turret room in your suite is spic and span, but your cats are raising the roof. They don’t like being shut up in the bedroom.”
Koko’s declamatory yowl and Yum Yum’s shriek could be heard in the lobby. Qwilleran ran upstairs and released them from their prison. “Please!” he pleaded. “Do you want to get us evicted?”
The turret door stood open; the staircase rose like a piece of sculpture; the windows sparkled. Some old furniture was jammed into the room—odd bedroom pieces with cracked mirrors. Apparently no one knew it was there when the Limburger furnishings were liquidated.
Two inquisitive cats entered the turret room cautiously, but instead of running up the spiral staircase and peering out the windows, they preferred to sniff the furniture.
“Cats!” Qwilleran said aloud. “Who can outguess them?”
Koko was trying to open a dresser drawer. Yum Yum was investigating another cat in a cracked mirror.
Only old friends can be invited to dinner at the last minute, and the Rikers were friends of long standing, and no minute was ever too late for a dinner invitation. Arch Riker, now the publisher of the Moose County Something, had grown up with Qwilleran in Chicago. Mildred Riker, a native of Moose County and now food editor for the paper, had the kind of comfortable, outgoing personality that made new friends feel like old friends.
On this occasion Qwilleran had hinted at a fantastic discovery that would make big news; the Rikers reported to the inn at six o’clock sharp. “Welcome to the Nutcracker Inn,” he greeted them.
“They should have called it the Squirrel House,” Arch said.
Nevertheless he was mightily impressed by the black walnut woodwork. Mildred raved about the coral tint of walls and tablecloths that made everyone look good. Both were surprised to hear that the rich texture of the painted walls was accomplished by grinding up black walnut shells and adding them to the paint.
They were seated at a table in the front window where they could enjoy the June evening and the comic cavorting of squirrels. Mildred said, “It doesn’t seem right to be here without Polly. Have you heard from her, Qwill?”
“She left only yesterday. Her sister is flying from Cincinnati and meeting her in Virginia.”
“Have you ever met her sister?” Arch asked.
Playfully Qwilleran replied, “No, and sometimes I wonder if Polly really has a sister in Cincinnati.”
“She might have another man in Cincinnati,” Arch suggested.
“Shame on you both,” Mildred rebuked them. “You were naughty schoolboys, and now you’re naughty men!”
The two men exchanged mischievous glances and Arch said with glee, “In fourth grade Qwill composed disrespectful couplets about our teachers. I remember: ‘Old Miss Perkins, flat as a pie, never had a boyfriend, and we know why.’”
“Not one of my better couplets,” Qwilleran admitted. “Arch peddled them around the school yard for a penny apiece and that’s where we made our mistake—going commercial.”
Arch ordered a martini and suggested consulting the menu. “There’s a documentary on TV that I want to see tonight.”
Qwilleran asked, “Any hot news from the big city, Arch? I’ve been gone since eight o’clock this morning.”
“Well!” Mildred announced with authority. “Fran Brodie was seen having dinner with Dr. Prelligate at the Palomino Paddock. They were drinking champagne! Everyone’s wondering if they’re serious.”
“Serious about what?” her husband asked. “I’m serious about having my dinner.”
The salads were served, and Mildred began her editorial of the evening. “Historically, salads were intended to refresh the palate before the rich dessert. Restaurants started serving them first to keep customers busy and happy while waiting for the steak. Mothers started serving them first because kids and husbands hated salads but would eat them at the beginning of the meal when they were ravenously hungry.”
“I’m with the husbands,” Qwilleran said. “I hate salads.”
“The sour taste of most dressings is too sophisticated for many palates. When my daughter was a teen, she used to put sugar on the French dressing.”
“Yuk!” said her husband.
“Please pass the sugar,” Qwilleran said.
All three diners ordered the same thing and agreed that the leg of lamb was superb but the strawberry pie wasn’t as good as Mildred’s. There was no lingering over coffee; the Rikers wanted to see the unique staircase.
Koko and Yum Yum met them at the door of 3-FF and followed them to the turret room.
“Fantastic! A work of art,” Mildred cried. “And over a hundred years old!”
Arch said, “We could use a three-column shot of this on the front page Monday. . . . Okay if we send a photographer tomorrow? He’ll call first. . . . It’ll be picked up by papers around the state and even TV. . . . But this furniture will have to be moved out of the way.”
“It’s all black walnut!” Mildred cried. “And that low chest is a dower chest! It has the bride’s name on it!”
Lettered on the front of it, in fancy script, was “Elsa Limburger.” “Oh, let’s look inside!”
It was indeed filled with wedding finery, lace-trimmed and embroidered, but dreary with age.
“How sad! The poor girl died before her wedding,” Mildred went on. “Her parents were so distraught, they couldn’t bear to look at the furniture she would have taken into her new home.”
Qwilleran knew otherwise, but he allowed his friend to hav
e her romantic fantasy. As for the cracked mirrors, he had a theory. On the dressing table, bureau and cheval glass there were spidery cracks radiating from a central hole. He could imagine Elsa’s enraged father going from mirror to mirror and smashing it with the signet ring on his fist. It would be a large, ostentatious chunk of gold.
Then the Rikers had to leave, and on the way to the elevator Arch asked Qwilleran if he would like to review the play opening Friday night at the high school auditorium. He said, “The Mooseland Choral Society is doing it, and they’re supposed to be very good. And since you’re living here . . .”
“No thanks,” said Qwilleran.
“You wouldn’t have to file your copy until Monday morning.”
“No thanks.”
“It’s Pirates of Penzance and you like Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“No thanks.”
After his guests had gone home to their TV documentary, Qwilleran had a thought about the “dark cloud” that Lori sensed in the building. He was not superstitious, but if one wanted to make a case, three broken mirrors in the basement should be as unlucky as three on the third floor. The furniture should be removed from the premises! He phoned the office. “Nick, can you stand some good news?”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Koko won the lottery.”
“Better than that! The Something wants to run the turret staircase on page one. It’s the kind of curiosity the media will pick up around the state. But we have to move the furniture out in a hurry.”
“We can stack it in the basement.”
Qwilleran thought fast: If Lori’s “dark cloud” theory were true, having the three broken mirrors in the basement wouldn’t help much. He said, “Well, here’s the situation, Nick. The stuff is very valuable, and it’s the property of the K Fund, actually. We should move it to a storage unit on Sandpit Road. The K Fund will cover the rental.”
Nick was always agreeable. “Sure thing! Keith is on duty tonight. He and I can do it. I think the facility is open all night.”
“I’ll go along,” Qwilleran said. “Maybe I can help.”
The Siamese had to be sequestered in the bedroom again as the black walnut treasures were being moved to the elevator, and Qwilleran wondered, Why were they more interested in the furniture than the staircase? There was a reason, but one would have to be a cat to know the answer.
chapter three
Before going in to breakfast Sunday morning, Qwilleran visited the small boutique in the office. It sold postcards of the inn, small bags of peanuts for the squirrels, insect repellent, and the official Moose County T-shirt in sizes small to extra-extra large. Across the front of the shirt was splashed a moose head fifteen inches wide. Nature had given the animal a dour expression that was comic or ugly, depending on one’s sense of humor, and Qwilleran wanted to buy one for Arch Riker.
The two men enjoyed playing tricks on each other, much as they had done when they were eight years old. Riker wrote absurd fan letters, anonymously, to the “Qwill Pen” columnist who, in turn, sent unsuitable gifts, anonymously, to the editor and publisher.
As for the famous black walnut staircase, it had already been photographed by Roger MacGillivray, former history teacher now working for the Something. Qwilleran knew him to be an ailurophobe and had locked the Siamese in the bedroom before Roger’s arrival.
“Where are they?” the pale young man asked.
“In the bedroom, handcuffed to the bedpost, and—in case they get loose and break down the bedroom door—they’re muzzled!”
The photographer exposed plenty of film, showing the staircase from all angles. In one of them a bushy-tailed squirrel could be seen peering through the window. “That’s it! That’s the one they’ll use!”
“Can you join me for breakfast, Rog?”
“I’d like to, but I’m the only leg man on duty, and I’ve gotta shoot a couple of paintings at the art center—best-of-show and popular favorite. I don’t know what to expect. They’re self-portraits by kids.”
“I was one of the judges,” said Qwilleran, “and I can tell you right now that the winner won’t reproduce in black-and-white. It’s a girl with pale yellow hair and pale blue eyes, wearing a pale pink dress against a pale lavender background.”
“All I can do is print it up as contrasty as possible—and explain to the picture desk. Maybe they can cover it in the cutline.”
The Siamese were beginning to howl, and Roger made a quick exit.
In the dining room Qwilleran was seated at a table next to a couple involved in animated discussion. They were dressed as if they had just come from church. They were fortyish and spirited enough to make Qwilleran wonder who they were. He opened the Wilson Quarterly he had brought along and pretended to read while listening. The man was husky and had a firm jaw, twinkling eyes, and a tuft of hair falling boyishly over his forehead; the woman had a pleasant voice and expressive hands.
The man asked, “So it’s definite that he’s going to come and speak?”
“Oh, yes! We’re covering all his expenses. The date will be firmed up tomorrow. We’re quite flexible on that score.”
“Who will attend?”
“Only MCCC people.”
“Do you know the gist of his speech?”
“The future of MCCC: opportunities, problems, warnings. It should be the most important event we’ve ever had.”
“It certainly seems so.”
They ordered chicken liver omelets; Qwilleran had eggs Benedict. Both finished at about the same time. They paid by credit card and left the dining room. Qwilleran charged his brunch to 3FF and followed them into the lobby, where the man was looking at a photo exhibit of ancient black walnut trees with enormous trunks.
The hostess said, “Mr. Qwilleran, did you enjoy your brunch?”
The man with the firm jaw and twinkling eyes whirled around. “Mr. Qwilleran! My wife and I are avid readers of yours! I’m Bruce Abernethy.”
“And compliments to you, doctor, on your letter to the editor Friday.”
“Someone has to speak up,” was the modest reply. “This is my wife, Nell. She keeps a ‘Qwill Pen’ scrapbook.”
Merrily she said, “He passed up a Henrietta and a Thomasina to get a one-syllable wife.”
“It wasn’t her name I went for; it was her black walnut pie.”
“Mr. Q, if we promise to serve it at the MCCC luncheon, will you be our guest of honor?”
“It would be my pleasure!” He was quite sincere. He had been looking for an appropriate entrée into the hard-shelled academic clique at the college.
“Wonderful! We’re having a guest speaker, but I’ll have to notify you of the time and place.”
Then the doctor said, “Andrew Brodie told us you were spending a few weeks in Black Creek—and that you might be interested in an experience I had at the age of eleven.”
“Yow-w-w!” came an unearthly sound form the upper floors. Everyone in the lobby looked up.
“I would!!” Qwilleran said with a distracted glance upstairs.
“Yow-w-w!”
“That’s my cat! Excuse me . . .”
“Call me! Wednesday’s my day off!”
Qwilleran ran up the stairs three at a time, and even as he unlocked the door to 3FF, the tumult increased.
“Please!” he scolded Koko. “This is a public establishment! If you don’t moderate your crescendos, they’ll kick us out!”
It was a weak argument, because that was probably what the crafty rogue wanted.
Qwilleran tried a different tack. “How would you like a walk down to the creek?” He dangled the harness and leash, causing Yum Yum to disappear and Koko to prowl in anticipation.
“Going for a walk” meant that the man walked and the cat rode on his shoulder, securely harnessed and leashed. They rode the elevator and went out the back door to avoid inquisitive guests in the lobby. When they started downhill to the creek, however, well-meaning sightseers converged on them with the usual naïve comments and ge
nder confusion.
“Is that a cat?”
“It’s so skinny!”
“Hey, look! She has blue eyes!”
“Does he bite?”
“Nice kitty! Nice kitty!”
“Is it a girl or a boy?”
Kao K’o Kung—from his lofty perch—looked down on the rabble in disdain. As for Qwilleran, he had some snippy replies to their questions, but he held his tongue. Squirrels scattered at the sight of the cat, each running up its favorite tree. One of them had her baby tucked under her chin, while its tiny forelegs clutched her neck.
At the water’s edge seven crows strutted nonchalantly. Trout jumped out of the water for skeeters, causing Koko to jerk his head excitedly, this way and that. Then his body stiffened; Qwilleran could feel the tension on his shoulder. Did the cat see an otter swimming, or a raccoon on the opposite shore? No, something was drifting down the creek.
Qwilleran glanced in several directions before dashing toward the first cabin. “Do you have a phone?” he shouted to someone on the screened porch. “I need to call 911!” He was now clutching a struggling cat under one arm.
A woman let him in and pointed indoors. “On the kitchen wall!” She turned off some music.
To the operator he said, “There’s a body floating down stream in the Black Creek. It just passed the Nutcracker Inn, about half a mile south of the Stone Bridge—moving slowly—not much current. Face down—fully clothed—I think it’s a man.”
“Oh, dear!” the woman said when he hung up. “I couldn’t help hearing what you said. Isn’t that awful! Must have fallen out of a boat.” She clutched her throat, and her face flushed. “It’s so upsetting—a drowning . . .”
Cat Who Went Up the Creek Page 3
