“I’m glad you got together,” Qwilleran said. “Now when can you and I get together for a technical rehearsal? All we need is a quiet room with two tables and two chairs.”
“Tomorrow night, about eight o’clock?” she suggested.
“Perfect! I’ve brought you a cue card and also a copy of the script, so you can see what happens between cues.”
“You’re so well organized, Qwill!”
“It’s a lot easier than organizing a parade of two hundred boats. How will it work? Will they parade single file?”
“No, in fleets of about twenty-five. There are eight towns on the lakefront, and each will have a fleet—and a port master in charge.”
Qwilleran noticed some eager-looking tourists coming along the boardwalk, and he said, “Tell me the rest of it tomorrow night. Bring the speech you’ll be making to the audience.”
“I’ve memorized it already!” she said proudly.
Qwilleran stopped for lunch at Lois’s Luncheonette. The Tuesday special was always turkey, and Lois always sent a few pieces of meat home to the Siamese. Then he went to the barn for a private run-through of the script.
Now he had to decide how much emotion to put in his voice as a broadcaster. How objective should he be in reporting the first bulletins? And how much concern should he show as the bulletins went from bad to worse? His tone of voice, as well as the words he was reading, would increase the reactions of the audience. When satisfied with the dramatic effect created and the sense of reality maintained, Qwilleran had a cup of coffee and then did another run-through, pressing the PLAY button to bring in the eyewitness reports. So far, so good, but with an assistant handling the controls, the pace would quicken and the emotions of the audience would intensify.
Despite the assorted noises, the Siamese slept peacefully on their cushioned chair . . . until an inaudible sound jerked both of them awake and started their ears swiveling. It could only mean that someone was coming! Qwilleran left the gazebo and walked around the building to the barnyard in time to see a car emerging from the woods, purring like a well-tuned vehicle. The cats could not have heard someone coming; they had sensed it in their sleep. Qwilleran shook his head; it was too much to fathom.
At any rate, he was glad to see his friend G. Allen Barter from the law office. “Bart! What brings you sneaking through the woods like a poacher? How about a drink?”
“Not today, thanks. I’m on my way home, but I was at the courthouse and decided it would be easier to drop in than to call on this erratic cell phone.”
They went to the gazebo, and the attorney spoke to the Siamese, who responded by going back to sleep. He said, “Beautiful day! Did I interrupt something?”
“Not at all. Have a chair—I warn you, they all have cat hairs on them—and tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Well, our senior partner received a panicked call from an important client. She said that you, Qwill, had advised her to disinherit her granddaughter, evict her from the house on the Parkway, change the locks, and hire a security guard!”
Calmly, Qwilleran replied, “I advised her to hire a housekeeper, but I suppose a security guard can cut the grass, too.”
“Also, she said that you, Qwill, told her to donate the property to the community for a museum.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough? How did you get involved with Dr. Carroll’s widow? I’m interested only in you as my client. My partner seemed to think everything made sense.”
Then Bart asked, “Does anyone know when the young people will be back from . . . wherever they’ve gone?”
“Milwaukee—on business. I hired Alicia to do some research for me while she was there, so I’m sure she’ll report to me—to collect her fee, if for no other reason.”
“Has she been here to the barn?”
“No. Gary is particular about not giving out my phone number and address. It’s his idea, not my request, but I appreciate it.”
Barter nodded. “He’s an all-right guy, with a lot of common sense. . . . So why does he have to wear that ridiculous beard?”
“He’s descended from pioneers, and they were—and still are—individualists. Although I must say that he shaved it off for his wedding, and everyone said he looked like a nonentity.”
“And, by the way, there’s a curious sidelight to this domestic drama,” Bart said. “I’m a greenhorn from Down Below, and it amazes me how the locals descend on their relatives without warning and stay overnight. The element of surprise appears to be part of the fun. They may bring their sleeping bags and bed down on the living room carpet; the sleeping bags are another part of the fun. . . . Well, Mrs. Carroll tells us that her granddaughter always drops in without warning. Suppose the girl turns up on the holiday weekend and finds herself locked out of Mount Vernon, and Ittibittiwassee Estates takes a dim view of unwedded couples camping on the living-room carpet; and every tourist accommodation is booked solid. The two letters sent to Alicia each contained a list of accommodations with a sold-out notice. But what if the young couple come right here from wherever they are without touching base in Milwaukee! Then what?”
“Don’t look at me,” Qwilleran said. “My guest room is not available. And I think the cats don’t care for Alicia; they’ve never met her, but Koko snarls every time she talks on the phone.” He refrained from mentioning the nature of the assignment he had given her. Qwilleran himself was beginning to consider the research a lost cause.
A moment later, an ear-shattering, bloodcurdling howl came from the corner of the gazebo.
The attorney jumped to his feet. “What the devil was that?”
Qwilleran said, “Just something that Siamese males do to attract attention.”
“Sounds to me as if he has a bellyache. Better give him a pill! . . . Well, since I’m on my feet, I might as well go home.”
Bart left, and Qwilleran gave Koko a searching look. That unsettling howl had nothing to do with indigestion. It meant that someone, somewhere, had been murdered, and there was significance to the crime. As for Qwilleran, he was still experiencing the goose bumps caused by Koko’s howl, and he rubbed both arms to restore the circulation.
Qwilleran treated himself to a solitary dinner at the Black Bear Café before the technical rehearsal with Maxine. By sitting at the bar, he could exchange a few words with Gary, as he shuffled back and forth, filling drink orders.
On this occasion the barkeeper was acting in a most unusual way: saying nothing, glancing about as if he expected to be raided, and altogether exuding an air of mystery.
Finally, Qwilleran said, “Is there something you want to tell me, Gary? Don’t tell me the Pratts are pregnant!”
Ignoring the quip, Gary wiped the top of the bar at length before confiding in a low voice, “Just heard the most spectacular rumor.”
“Are you keeping it to yourself, or do you want to tell me?”
“Promise you won’t tell a soul!”
“Promise!” As a journalist, Qwilleran could never tolerate not knowing.
Gary gave two swift looks up and down the bar. “Brrr is getting Mount Vernon, complete with antiques, as a museum!”
“No kidding! Where did you hear it?”
“I’ve sworn not to tell. But it’ll be front-page news in the Something soon.”
“It would be interesting to know who engineered the deal, wouldn’t it, Gary?”
“Yeah . . . well . . . we’ll never know. What I’d like to know is how it’ll affect Lish and Lush; they’ve been campin’ out at the house, y’know.” Then he was called away to pour a tray full of drinks for a waitress, and that was the end of grand intrigue for that evening.
Qwilleran was still enjoying a private chuckle when he met Maxine in a small room off the foyer. She was much too businesslike to have heard the rumor. “Okay! How do we do this?” she asked, clapping her hands together. “I’m all excited!”
“You at your recorder, Maxine, and I at my mike will both be facing the
audience. First, I’d like to hear your introduction to them. You’ll walk to the front of the platform and face the crowd to make your speech, then immediately return to your machine and press the first button. You sit down and stay seated until we take our bow at the end.”
“Is there an intermission?”
“Not for the audience and not for you, but I leave the stage to denote the passage of time—during which your recorder is playing storm music.”
“What kind of expression should I wear?”
“Alert. Concerned. No reaction to the news, though.”
“And what should I wear?”
“Something ageless and timeless, like a blouse and skirt, so long as the blouse has a high neck and the skirt isn’t too much above the ankles. You should wear it a week from tonight, for our dress rehearsal.”
Maxine was so efficient, so agreeable, that Qwilleran contemplated doing more than the scheduled seven performances.
The Siamese were nervous that evening, frequently jumping to the kitchen counter and peering out the window into the darkness of the woods.
“Expecting someone?” Qwilleran asked archly.
Eventually a vehicle came swooping through the trees and stopped at the kitchen door with the assurance of a frequent visitor. The cats started frisking around—their body language for Here he is!
“What brings you here in such a cloud of dust?” Qwilleran asked.
“Thirsty, mon!” said Chief Brodie, “and some fresh-breaking police news.”
He seated himself at the snack bar, and Qwilleran served Scotch and cheese, and the cats observed from a respectful distance.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Andy. Have they caught the vandal who’s been soaping windows?” Qwilleran asked facetiously.
Dismissing the weak quip with a grunt, Brodie said, “There’s been a copycat murder in northern Michigan—like the one on your property—same MO . . . same type of weapon . . . same sort of victim . . . same sort of wooded terrain.”
“Do similarities like that aid in the investigation?” Qwilleran asked absently. His mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of Koko’s death howl. It was not the first time that the remarkable cat had sensed wrongdoing in some distant spot.
No matter how remote, there was always a connection to the here and now. That was the reason Qwilleran had wanted to investigate Koko’s heritage.
TEN
It was panic time in the octagonal barn on Saturday night—although not for the two cats huddled atop the fireplace cube, gazing down on the frantic scene below. Four humans were scrambling about on hands and knees, rolling up rugs, climbing a stepladder, pulling seat cushions off the upholstered furniture, dumping wastebaskets on the floor.
“Here it is! I’ve found it!” cried Mildred Riker.
“Thank God! I thought she’d swallowed it!” Qwilleran shouted.
“You should keep it in a locked drawer,” Arch Riker suggested with authority.
Polly Duncan—assuming the voice of the WPKX gossip reporter—said, “A mad thimble scramble was held at the James Mackintosh Qwilleran residence Saturday night. Refreshments were served, and everyone had a good time.”
“Make mine a double martini,” said Arch.
Qwilleran poured dry sherry for Polly and mixed Q cocktails for Mildred and himself. Then they sat around the big square cocktail table with bowls of peanuts in red skins.
Arch said, “I don’t like the skins.”
“They’re nutritious, hon,” his wife said.
“I don’t like anything that’s good for me.”
“He’s just trying to sound macho,” she explained.
The four of them were old friends, and the rule of conversation was: Anything goes. The two men had been friends since kindergarten in Chicago.
Qwilleran asked, “Do you ever hear from your sister, Arch?”
“Oh, sure. She’s living with her second husband in Kansas and selling real estate and still writing in her diary.”
Mildred said, “Did I detect a snicker from both of you?”
Qwilleran said, “We might as well confess, Arch. We stole her diary once.”
“We only borrowed it from her dresser drawer while she was ice-skating. We were in fifth grade; she was in seventh and getting interested in boys.”
“It was hot stuff!” Qwilleran said. “She used code names to refer to different boys. How George Washington looked at her in a strange way and made her feel weak all over. And Benjamin Franklin said, ‘Hi!’ in history class, and she almost fainted.”
Arch said, “We returned the diary carefully, but she had set a trap for us, and the jig was up! It was all his idea!” Arch pointed a finger at his old friend. “But I was the one who got punished. I lost a week’s allowance.”
“As I recall,” Qwilleran said, “I very nobly gave you half of mine.”
“Yeah, but I also had to give up desserts for three nights, while she sat across the dinner table, grinning like a fiend!”
Mildred and Polly glanced at each other and rolled their eyes in resignation.
At that point, Yum Yum walked among them, carrying her thimble clamped in her jaws, and the question arose: Why do cats like thimbles? (They’re small and can be hidden; they’re round and can be rolled.)
Qwilleran said, “Let’s take a vote: Have another round of drinks or go to dinner?”
Arch lost, and they drove to the Nutcracker Inn on the bank of Black Creek. It occupied a Victorian mansion famous for its black walnut paneling and its roast loin of pork. They ordered the house specialty all around. The food was superb; conversation flowed easily; the squirrels in the yard entertained with their antics; the chef came out from the kitchen and kissed the ladies’ hands. Everything went well until . . .
In the middle of the night Qwilleran had a nightmare; Lish and Lush moved into his guest suite on the second balcony, despite Koko’s snarls. The dream was so real and so objectionable that Qwilleran had to get a flashlight and walk three times around the barn in his pajamas, disturbing the creatures of the night who scuttled through the underbrush and fluttered in the trees.
When he finally came indoors, Qwilleran wrote in his personal journal before going back to bed.
Saturday, June 28. Correction—Sunday morning, June 29:
Why did I order pork for dinner? Why did I ever consider that mercenary prima donna for my Great Storm show? And why did I commission her to do research—and give her fifty dollars on faith? It’s pure conceit on my part to want to know Koko’s background. As for that smart cat, he doesn’t care a whit whether he’s descended from a royal household in ancient Siam or from a computer, as long as he gets two squares a day, a couple of snacks, grooming with a silver-backed brush, and plenty of entertainment!
The call from California came around noon on Monday, reporting the arrival time of Simmons’s flight the following Saturday.
“Good! I’ll pick you up at the airport,” Qwilleran said. “We’ll drop your luggage at the barn, and you’ll have time to change into something for the wedding dinner.”
“Any suggestions for a wedding present?”
“Not a waffle iron!” Qwilleran winced at the roar of laughter in his ear. “They’ll be living in Thelma’s house, which is completely furnished and equipped, as you know.”
“Something else, Qwill. When I worked in Thelma’s dinner club as a security guard disguised as a friendly host, some peculiar things happened, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I don’t pretend to be a writer, and it’s just a school notebook, but I thought of wrapping it up and giving it to Janice. It’ll bring back memories.”
“Excellent idea, Simmons, but you should keep a copy for yourself.”
“Okay. I’ll take it out and have it copied.”
“No! Bring it along. I have a copier.”
Qwilleran was curious to see the notebook himself; it might have possibilities.
“Will do, Qwill! See you soon.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Chiefly Qwilleran was looking forward to having frank discussions with Simmons, on subjects avoided in a small town. Even with his close friends, Polly and Arch, he practiced self-censorship.
Qwilleran drove to Boulder House Inn with a signed copy of Short & Tall Tales for Silas Dingwall, who had contributed a hackle-raising legend titled “The Mystery of Dank Hollow.” The innkeeper was elated to see his name in print in a book—and his words verbatim. Actually, he was a practiced storyteller, gathering his guests around the craggy fireplace on a cold night and telling ghost stories that had been in his family for generations and rum-running tales that he swore were true.
Qwilleran said to Dingwall, “While I’m here, let’s discuss the wedding dinner. All expenses go on my credit card. There’ll be three couples, plus one surprise guest from California. Where will you seat us?”
“Ah! We have a glassed-in porch upstairs, for privacy and a view of the lake. And it has an oval table that can be laid with a handsome banquet cloth!”
“Sounds ideal! Let me explain the surprise guest,” Qwilleran said.
Dingwall, who enjoyed a little intrigue, said, “We’ll hide him in the office until the proper moment. We’ll give him a drink—on the house—while he’s waiting.”
Jovially, Qwilleran said, “I should tell you, Silas, he is the son of a revenue agent.”
“I don’t care who he’s the son of—if he’s your friend, he’s welcome here!”
“I’d like to order flowers for the table. Any suggestions?”
“Only this. Two low bowls of something instead of one tall arrangement. We use a fine white tablecloth that makes a handsome background for any flowers you choose.”
“I’d like Mrs. Duncan to decide on the flowers. May I use your phone?” He called the library and posed the question.
“Lilies!” she said. “Definitely lilies! They’re the most extroverted of blossoms, and without the long stems, they have a very appealing personality. And they come in all colors. It would depend greatly on what colors the bride and her attendant are wearing. Do you happen to know?”
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