The Cat Who Talked Turkey

by Lilian Jackson Braun

Qwilleran parked in front of Unit One of The Willows. “You run in and hug your cats,” he said. “I’ll take the luggage.”

  “Would you like to stay for some cottage cheese and fruit?” she asked in the soft, vibrant voice that had first attracted him. Cottage cheese was far from his favorite food. He hesitated a fraction of a second. “Yes, I believe I would.”

  Later in the afternoon Qwilleran took a legal pad and some yellow pencils—along with the Siamese and the cordless phone—to the gazebo. It was an octagonal summerhouse, screened on all eight sides—located in the bird garden a few yards from the barn. He drafted his Tuesday column; Yum Yum pursued her hobby of batting insects on the outside of the screen; Koko huddled on the floor and watched a family of seven crows strutting back and forth for his benefit. Were they the same ones that had visited the previous summer? Qwilleran wondered; all crows look alike, he thought. He called them the Bunkers, after Dr. Teresa Bunker, corvidologist. He considered her slightly nutty, like her cousin Joe, the WPKX meteorologist. Joe called himself Wetherby Goode and spiced his weather predictions with jokes and jingles.

  Qwilleran’s ruminations were interrupted by a phone call.

  It was his friend Thornton Haggis—retired stonecutter, history buff, and indefatigable volunteer.

  “Hi, Qwill! Are you busy? I have something for you—and something to discuss.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’ve been helping out at the Art Center. I can be there in five minutes.”

  “We’re in the gazebo. Care for a glass of wine?”

  “Not tonight. We’re having company. My wife invited the new pastor and a couple of people from the church.”

  The art center was at the far end of the former apple orchard, connected by an old wagon trail, and soon Thornton’s shock of white hair, like a dust mop, could be seen approaching. The Siamese watched and waited with eagerness; they had never figured out the purpose of that white thing on his head.

  Thornton was clutching what looked like a dumbbell, and he set it down on a table. “This is for you! A belated birthday present.”

  “It’s spectacular!” Qwilleran said. “I can’t believe you turned this on your lathe!”

  Wood turning was Thornton’s latest hobby.

  “It’s spalted olive wood. It’s sort of a candy dish, but you can use it to feed the cats if you want to.”

  The Siamese were on the table, appraising the object with quivering noses. A saucer-like dish, over a sculpted stem and a round base, was turned from a single piece of wood, with the pronounced grain spiraling upward and ending in squizzles and splotches that nature had given to an olive tree.

  Qwilleran said, “I’m overplussed and non-whelmed, or vice versa. I’ll keep it on my desk for stray paper clips, rubber bands, and gold coins. . . . Now, sit down and let’s hear what’s on your mind.”

  “Well, I know Pickax is a hundred and fifty years old next year, but the town of Brrr is two hundred years old this year. How to celebrate? The planning committee thinks that the average person is mixed up about ‘centennial’ and ‘bicentennial’ and ‘sesquicentennial.’ So Brrr is going to have a simple birthday party in July and August. There’ll be a birthday cake with two hundred candles, a parade of two hundred cabin cruisers, and all kinds of shows and contests. The Reenactment Club will stage the Lumberjack Brawl in a saloon, and we’re wondering if you’d take your one-man show out of mothballs and do it a couple of times during the summer. People are still talking about it!”

  Thornton referred to the Big Burning of 1869, a forest fire that destroyed half of Moose County.

  “Hmm,” Qwilleran mused, stroking his moustache. “There was also a great storm of 1913 that sank scores of ships and destroyed lakefront towns.”

  “Perfect! Have you written it?”

  “No, and that’s the problem. For the show on the forest fire I had access to the Gage collection of historical documents. I’ve done no research on the 1913 storm.”

  “I’ll do it for you,” Thornton said with his usual enthusiasm. “Shall I tell Gary Pratt you’re on the hook? Then you can take it from there.”

  Thornton got up to leave.

  “What are you having for dinner tonight?”

  “Something with leftover turkey. We’re fond of turkey.”

  “Yow!” said Koko.

  Thornton walked back to the Art Center.

  As Qwilleran watched his friend walk down the lane, an idea struck him. He had recently collected twenty-seven Moose County legends to be published as a souvenir of the Sesquicentennial. Called Short & Tall Tales, the book was being printed privately by the Klingenschoen Foundation. Could it be ready in time for the Brrr birthday party?

  He phoned the attorney G. Allen Barter at home. Bart, as he was called, represented Qwilleran in all matters pertaining to the K Fund.

  “I can’t foresee any problem,” Bart said. “The text is in print; the slip-jacket has been designed.”

  “What color?” Qwilleran asked.

  “They said it was something eye-catching.”

  Late that evening there was a phone call from Chief Brodie of the Pickax police force.

  “Gotta talk to you!” he said in his gruff way. “Confidential!”

  “Okay, Andy, come on over. Don’t exceed the speed limit.”

  By the time the Scotch, ice cubes, and cheese tray were set up on the snack bar, the chief was there, stomping up to the bar with the same swaggering presence he had when in uniform. He sat at the bar and helped himself to the refreshments.

  “You put on a good act at the groundbreaking, when you found the chest empty, Andy.”

  He grunted, like one unaccustomed to compliments.

  Qwilleran asked, “Where is the empty chest now?”

  “Locked up at the station, till they decide what to do with it. It should go on display at the new bookstore—in a bulletproof showcase. That’s what they should call the bookstore: The Pirate’s Chest.”

  “Do you have any guess what happened to the contents?”

  Brodie replied, “If there was anything in it when Eddington inherited, I say he converted it into government savings bonds and lived on them for the rest of his life. He sure didn’t make enough money in the book business to keep his cat in sardines.”

  “But he was an astute bookman, Andy, despite his modest personality. Once in a while he probably bought a book for a dollar and sold it for a thousand. And he had a bookbinding business in the back room.”

  Qwilleran asked, “Well, anyway, what did you want to talk about?”

  “The beach property you inherited from Fanny Klingenschoen. How far does it extend?”

  “Half a mile—from Top o’ the Dunes Club on the east to Cooper’s Lane on the west. That’s the dirt road with a boat launch at the end.”

  “Yeah. Used to be a hangout for kids until the sheriff cracked down.”

  “The entire K property is being placed in conservancy, but it hasn’t been posted as yet. Why do you ask?”

  The chief cut another wedge of cheese and poured another drink. “Mighty good cheese! . . . Well, a sheriff’s deputy on patrol last night, just before dark, saw buzzards circling a patch of woods. She investigated and found a dead body on your property, about a hundred yards in from Cooper’s Lane. Well-dressed male, shot in the back of the head, stripped of all ID. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  Qwilleran felt a familiar prickling sensation on his upper lip. “Any idea as to the time of death?”

  “Interesting point. It was late afternoon, when everybody was at the groundbreaking, and all three police agencies were handling traffic.”

  “What are you implying, Andy? That it was a local job?”

  “Or someone from Down Below trying to make it look like a local job. The SBI was called in. Don’t say a word about this. What’s the name of this cheese?”

  “Port Salut, from the Sip and Nibble Shop.”

  Brodie grunted amb
iguously. He gave Koko some morsels of cheese and was letting Yum Yum untie his shoes. The three of them had come a long way since their first awkward meeting.

  Then, as the chief left, he said, “Let me know if your smart cat has any clues about this crime.”

  Brodie left, and Qwilleran realized that Koko’s ghastly howl the previous afternoon really had been a death howl, and it signified wrongful death. It was happening thirty miles away! How did he know?

  Qwilleran shook his head. One could go mad trying to figure out that cat! Was there a connection with something else? It was usually the case.

  TWO

  The town of Brrr was not only the oldest in Moose County but also the coldest. (Visitors were warned not to go swimming or fall out of their boats.) It was also the most glamorous, in natural beauty and antiquity. There was a natural harbor, at the head of which soared a noble cliff, and on the cliff was a historic building with the unlikely name of Hotel Booze. Across its roof was a sign in letters that could be seen a mile into the lake: FOOD . . . ROOMS . . . BOOZE.

  The Black Bear Café in the hotel served the best burgers in the county. At the entrance was a mounted bear rising menacingly on hind legs, and the proprietor had an ursine appearance himself, with his shuffling gait and shaggy black hair and beard.

  On Monday morning Qwilleran phoned the innkeeper, Gary Pratt, to talk about Brrr’s birthday party, and was not surprised to be invited to lunch. The café had a down-to-earth shabbiness that appealed to boaters, fishermen, and campers, and the high stools at the long bar were appropriately rickety.

  Gary was behind the bar. “Want to have your burger at the bar, Qwill? Then we can talk.”

  “It’s smart of you to call it a birthday party instead of a bicentennial,” Qwilleran said. “It’s in keeping with the personality of the town and will appeal to your kind of tourists.”

  “It’s crazy, but we can get away with it because we’re fifty years older than Pickax. Their shindig’ll be pretty grand, I hear. We can do things they can’t—like a parade of two hundred cabin cruisers, each flying an American flag. It’s gonna be a fantastic spectacle. The TV crews will be up here from Down Below.”

  “Do you have that many cabin cruisers?”

  “Sure do! They’re signing up already—from towns all along the beach. And for the kids, we’re building a ten-foot wooden birthday cake with two hundred electric candles—make a wish and blow, and the candles go out! Thing of it is, we can do stunts like this that would be too crazy for Pickax.”

  For a while Gary left to tend bar, and Qwilleran enjoyed the burger called “bear burger” by the regulars. Then they discussed the show on the Great Storm. It would be staged in the hotel ballroom, same as the show on the Big Burning.

  “You may remember, Gary, that I had an assistant to handle the tape recorder and bring in music or voices on cue. Can we get Nancy Fincher to do it again? She was very good.”

  “Too bad,” Gary said. “Nancy married a dog-sledder who races in the Iditarod, and she moved to Minnesota with her thirty Siberian huskies. But I know a guy who could do a good job for you.”

  “A woman is better, Gary—for visual balance and interest. She’d have to be available for rehearsals—to get the timing down pat. Timing is everything.”

  “Excuse me a minute.” Gary moved down the bar and served an early luncher and two early drinkers.

  Qwilleran was drinking Squunk water, a mineral water from a local spring.

  When Gary shuffled back with a plate of apple pie, he said, “Did you ever happen to meet Lish Carroll? I think she left town before you came up here.”

  Qwilleran said, “I can safely say I’ve never in my life met anyone called Lish.”

  “Short for Alicia,” the barkeeper said. “She’s my age. I knew her in high school. A sharp cookie—into science, math, computers—all A’s. I steered clear of that type.”

  Gary said, “Funny thing, I remember that she had very small feet, and when the guys teased her about it, she said that people with small feet have large brains, and she looked pointedly at the gunboats they were wearing. Lish was never subtle!

  “She left town after high school, but she’s back now, visiting her grandmother. Don’t know how long she’ll be here, but she’d be the right one to press buttons on cue for your show.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Milwaukee, I think.”

  “Milwaukee?” Qwilleran had a suppressed desire to talk with a Milwaukeean and ask some questions—just to satisfy his curiosity. Nothing serious.

  “What is this smart cookie’s profession, may I ask?”

  “I don’t know exactly. There’s always been a lot of gossip about her. Excuse me.” Gary signaled to a waitress who was setting up tables and pointed to the customers at the bar. Then he said to Qwilleran, “Let’s go into my office.”

  Qwilleran’s interest was piqued. Lish sounded promising.

  Gary shut the door and poured two mugs of coffee from his personal carafe. It proved to be somewhat better than the brew served in the restaurant. In Qwilleran’s book “stronger” meant “better.”

  “The thing of it is,” Gary began, “Lish lived with her grandma in Brrr while she was in high school. She even took her grandmother’s last name. Perhaps you know old Mrs. Carroll who lives in the house that looks like Mount Vernon. No? There was a scandal, you see, in Lockmaster, where Lish had grown up. Her father was a big-shot landowner, and her mother was a social snob. Then he went to prison for land fraud—on a grand scale!—and a female employee was involved, one way or another. His wife was so stunned or embarrassed or something that she overdosed. And Lish landed in Brrr with her grandmother.”

  “Do you expect me to believe this, Gary? It sounds like something you read in a tabloid.”

  “Honest! It was all over the Lockmaster Ledger when it happened. More coffee? So now the scuttlebutt is that old Mrs. Carroll is moving into Ittibittiwassee Estates, and Lish is getting the big house. Do you want to hear more?”

  “I never say no to coffee or scuttlebutt, Gary.”

  “Well, the thing of it is, Lish travels with a guy, and that doesn’t set too well with Grandma Carroll. Lish says he’s her driver; she can’t have a license because of a special heart condition. He’s tall and lanky, and you see him traipsing behind her like a puppy dog.”

  “Do they come in here? Is Lish good-looking?”

  “Well, she has . . . an intelligent face. Her driver is good-looking and has long hair and drinks a lot. I call them Lish and Lush.”

  Qwilleran went home and thought about the brainy young woman with an intelligent face. No doubt she could handle the sound effects skillfully, but he had hoped for someone with an engaging personality. There was, however, one detail in her favor. She lived, or had lived, in Milwaukee.

  Qwilleran’s interest in the brainy young woman was understandable, but he needed a second opinion. He called his friend Wetherby Goode, a native of Lockmaster.

  “Qwill! Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since you moved back to the barn!”

  The two men had adjoining condos in Indian Village, and Qwilleran spent winters there when the barn was too hard to heat.

  “I need to talk to you, Joe. How about coming over for sandwiches and coffee—between your six P.M. and eleven P.M. broadcasts. Lois’s Luncheonette is featuring TLTs this week, and it’s turkey off the bone.”

  The Siamese hopped about joyously when the weatherman’s car pulled into the barnyard. Did they recognize the sound of the motor from last winter in Indian Village? Did they sense that the driver lived with a cat named Jet Stream? Did they know what was in the sandwiches that had been delivered?

  The reunion consisted of loud talk and back-slapping. Then they trooped out to the gazebo, with the host carrying a large tray and the guest carrying the cats and a cordless phone in a canvas tote bag.

  “Did you attend the groundbreaking?” Qwilleran asked.

  “No, I had a family poww
ow to attend in Horseradish, but I read all about it in today’s paper.”

  Qwilleran surmised that the personable bachelor had found a new attraction in his hometown in addition to his ample supply of cousins, aunts, nieces, uncles, nephews, and in-laws.

  Wetherby went on, “I’ll bet Polly is all excited about managing the store. What will they name it? How about The Pirate’s Chest? I hope they’re planning to have a cat. If they want music at the grand opening, I’d be glad to play.”

  “Do you have a repertory of bookstore music, Joe?”

  “Without giving it any deep thought, I’d say that . . . John Field’s Nocturnes would be good for starters.”

  “Yow!” said Koko, who had been sitting nearby.

  “See? He agrees with me,” Wetherby said.

  “Don’t be fooled, Joe. Koko saw a sliver of turkey drop out of your sandwich.”

  “Hey, Qwill! I never told you how much I enjoyed your column on Cool Koko!”

  He referred to a recent “Qwill Pen” column in which Qwilleran introduced the wise sayings of Cool Koko: “A cat with no tail is better than a politician with no head. . . . A cat may look at a king, but he doesn’t have to lick his boots. . . . Every dog has his day, but cats have three hundred sixty-five.”

  He said to Wetherby, “If Jet Stream has any wise sayings, send them to Cool Koko, in care of the Moose County Something.” Then he mentioned casually, “Do you happen to remember, Joe, a big land-fraud scandal in Lockmaster?”

  “Sure do! The Kranson case. Juiciest crime we ever had in our simon-pure county! Why do you ask?”

  “To answer your question in a roundabout way: Do you remember the one-man show I did on the Big Burning?”

  “I should! I saw it three times!”

  “Well, I’m doing a similar dramatization on the Great Storm of 1913, and the Kranson daughter has been suggested to handle the sound effects.”

  “Sorry. Don’t know anything about her.”

  “Oh,” Qwilleran said, “I thought you might, since you spend so much of your time in Horseradish.”

  The sly comment was overlooked—or purposely avoided—as the weatherman jumped up, tapped his watch, said he was due at the station, said a hasty thanks for the food, and left.