The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

by Lilian Jackson Braun; Nye

“Yes, he did, when we first interviewed him. He said he had seen the world at its best and at its worst, and now he wanted a quiet place in which to study and meditate.”

  Qwilleran thought: He could be running from someone or something. He could be an upscale con man on the wanted list. His murderer could be an enemy from Down Below, settling an old score.

  Compton was saying, “He claimed to have ninety thousand books in his library. He listed his major interests as architecture, horticulture, Shakespeare, and baroque music. He had three academic degrees.”

  “Did you verify them before hiring him?”

  “Hell, no. We took him on faith, knowing what an outstanding job he’d done as principal of Lockmaster. As a matter of fact, he turned out to be so damned good for Pickax that we never crossed him. We were afraid we’d lose him.”

  “Well, you’ve lost him now,” Qwilleran said.

  “I hear the police are looking for your builder, and he’s skipped town.”

  “Lyle, if I were a doctoral candidate in communications, I’d write my thesis on the Moose County rumor mill. Let me tell you something. Dennis Hough had no more motive than you or I have, and I happen to know he’s on his way home to see his family Down Below.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Compton. He lighted a cigar, and that was Qwilleran’s cue to excuse himself, grabbing the check and saying he had another appointment. Actually, since giving up pipesmoking, he found tobacco fumes offensive. Yet, in the days when he puffed on a quarter-bend bulldog, he went about perfuming restaurants and offices and cocktail parties with Groat and Boddle Number Five, imported from Scotland, thinking he was doing surrounding noses a favor.

  Qwilleran did indeed have another appointment—with Susan Exbridge—who was chairing the library committee in charge of the barn tour. As he headed for her antique shop, he was struck by a chilling thought. Suppose Dennis did not go to St. Louis! Suppose he drove to some out-of-county collision shop to have the damage repaired on his van! Suppose the mayor’s wife really did see him coming out of the Shipwreck Tavern! He dismissed the thought with a mental shudder.

  The Exbridge & Cobb antique shop on Main Street was a class act. The clean windows, the gold lettering on the glass, the polished mahogany and brass on display—all sparkled in the afternoon sun, thanks to the ministrations of Mr. O’Dell and Mrs. Fulgrove.

  When Qwilleran walked in, Susan turned, expecting a customer, but the proprietorial smile turned to dismay when she saw him. “Oh, Qwill!” she agonized. “Have you heard the news? They’re hunting for Dennis, and he’s gone!”

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said with diminished confidence. “He’s on his way Down Below to see his family. I saw you two leaving the party together. What happened after that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “He walked me to my car, which was at the far end of the lane, and then returned to his van. He didn’t say a word about going to St. Louis.”

  “Will you take offense if I ask you something personal?”

  “We-e-ell . . .” she hesitated.

  “What were you and Dennis giggling about when you left the barn?”

  “Giggling?”

  “You were enjoying some private joke. I’m not prying into your affairs, but it might give a clue to his next move.”

  “Oh,” she said, recollecting the episode. “It was nothing. It was about one of the Old Lady’s lines to Anne Boleyn. She says, And you, a very fresh fish, have your mouth filled before you open it. On the last night, I said it with a certain significant emphasis. Someone in the audience guffawed, and Fran glared at me murderously. I’d give anything to know who laughed.”

  “Hmff,” Qwilleran said. “I didn’t come here to quiz you, Susan. I came to ask about the Barn Tour. Is everything under control?”

  “There’s one problem, Qwill. Dennis was going to give me some facts about the remodeling, to help the guides answer questions. What shall we do?”

  “I’ll type something out for you. Who are the guides?”

  “Members of the library board and a few volunteers.”

  “How many visitors do you expect?”

  “We’ve printed five hundred tickets, and they’re selling well. The ad runs tomorrow, and we’re taking a few radio spots.”

  “I’m leaving town Friday for the weekend. Why don’t you come over Thursday morning before you open your shop? You can pick up the key to the barn and see that everything’s in order. And don’t worry about Dennis, Susan. I’m confident that it’ll straighten out all right.”

  Qwilleran believed what he was saying, more or less, until he later met Hixie Rice coming out of the bank. “I’ve been trying to reach you, Qwill!” she cried. “I was in Mooseville this morning, calling on customers, and I saw Dennis’s van! I was driving east on the lakeshore road. He was just ahead of me, and he turned into your property. Don’t you have a letter K on a post at the entrance to your log cabin?”

  Qwilleran nodded solemnly.

  “When he made the left turn, I saw him clearly, hunched over the steering wheel. He looked ghastly! Does he have a key to your cabin?”

  “No, he returned it. I let him use the cabin last month when he was rehearsing. He wanted to learn his lines while walking on the secluded beach.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I’ll drive out there to see what’s happening.”

  “Be careful, Qwill,” she warned. “If he’s cracked up—and if he has a gun—and if he’s killed once—”

  “Dennis doesn’t own a gun, Hixie. In fact, he’s anti-gun. But something’s happened to him. I’ll get my car and drive out to Mooseville.”

  “I’ll drive you. My car’s right here. I hope you don’t mind riding in a piece of junk; it’s a loaner.”

  The route to Mooseville, thirty miles away, was fairly straight, and they far exceeded the speed limit. There was little traffic at this time of year—after the tourist season and before the hunting season. The highway passed through a desolate landscape ravaged by early lumbering and mining operations. Although the sun was shining, the scene was bleak, and so was the conversation.

  Qwilleran said, “If he’s in trouble, why didn’t he confide in me? I thought we were good friends.”

  “Me too. I was thinking of quitting the Something and going into partnership with him. I could line up contracts and get publicity.”

  When they reached the lakeshore, the vacation cottages on the beach had an air of desertion. Qwilleran said, “It’s around the next curve. Slow down.”

  “I’m getting nervous,” said Hixie.

  The letter K on a post marked the entrance to the Klingenschoen property, and the private drive led through patches of woods and over a succession of dunes until it emerged in a clearing.

  “There’s no one here!” Qwilleran said. “This is where he’d have to park.”

  They found tire tracks in the soft earth, however, and on the beach at the foot of the dune there were footprints. Sand and surf had not yet disguised the traces. The cabin itself, closed for the season, was undisturbed.

  “If he’s been on the run, he’s been sleeping in his van,” Qwilleran said. “How well do you know the manager at Indian Village?”

  “We have a good rapport, and she’s high on my Christmas list.”

  “Could you get the key to Dennis’s apartment?”

  “I could think of something . . . I could say that he’s out of town and called me to send him papers from his desk.”

  “Good enough.”

  In Indian Village there were eight apartments in each two-story building, with a central hall serving them all. Hixie admitted Qwilleran into her own apartment and then went to see the manager. She returned with the key.

  “It’s my contention,” Qwilleran told her, “that Dennis returned from the party early Sunday morning and either found a message on his answering machine or found something in his Saturday mail that caused him to take off in a hurry. It would have to be serious business to make
him hide out in his van—a threat perhaps.”

  Entering Dennis’s apartment with caution and stealth, they went directly to the desk. It was cluttered with papers in connection with the barn remodeling. There was a pink or yellow order form for every can of paint and every pound of nails that went into the job. The only sign of recent mail delivery was an unopened telephone bill. Then Qwilleran pressed the button of the answering machine.

  When he heard the first message, he reached for the pocket-size recorder that was always in his jacket along with his keys.

  “We’ve got to tape this,” he said. “I want to play it for Brodie. But don’t say a word about this to anyone, Hixie. Let’s get back to town.”

  Hixie drove to the theatre parking lot, and Qwilleran walked the rest of the way home—through the iron gate, through the woods. Approaching the barn, he could see a van parked at the back door—Dennis’s van—and he quickened his step, torn between relief and apprehension.

  The back door was unlocked, as he expected; Dennis knew where to find the key. Walking into the kitchen Qwilleran shouted a cheerful, “Hello! Anybody here?” The only response was a wild shrieking and guttural howling from the top balcony. He had locked the Siamese in their loft that morning, troubled as he was by his gnawing sense of foreboding. The cacophony from the loft made his blood run cold, and an awareness of death made him catch his breath. He moved toward the center of the building and slowly, systematically, surveyed the cavernous interior.

  The afternoon sun was slanting through the high windows on the west, making triangles on the rugs, walls, and white fireplace cube, and across one triangle of sunlight there was a vertical shadow—the shadow of a body hanging from a beam overhead.

  SIX

  DENNIS HOUGH—CREATOR of the spectacular barn renovation and darling of the Theatre Club—had let himself into the apple barn Tuesday afternoon, using the hidden key. Then he climbed to the upper balcony, threw a rope over a beam, and jumped from the railing.

  Brodie himself responded when Qwilleran made his grisly discovery and called the police. The chief strode into the barn saying, “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? This is the man who killed VanBrook. He couldn’t live with himself!”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” Qwilleran said. “Let me play you a tape. Dennis arrived at his apartment early Sunday morning, following the party, and checked his answering machine for messages. This is what he heard.”

  There followed a woman’s voice, bitter and vindictive. “Don’t come home, Dennis! Not ever! I’ve filed for divorce. I’ve found someone who’ll be a good daddy for Denny and a real husband for me. Denny doesn’t even know you any more. There’s nothing you can say or do, so don’t call me. Just stay up north and have your jollies.”

  Qwilleran said, “Do you want to hear it again?”

  “No,” Brodie said. “How did you get this?”

  “I had access to his apartment, just as he had access to this barn. I found the message this afternoon and taped it to disprove your theory. Dennis didn’t know he was under suspicion—or even that VanBrook had been killed, probably. He was overwhelmed by his own private tragedy.”

  Brodie grunted and massaged his chin. “We’ll have to notify that woman as next of kin.”

  “I’ll be willing to do it,” said Qwilleran, who prided himself on his comforting and understanding manner in notifying the bereaved. He punched a number supplied by directory assistance, and when a woman’s voice answered he said in his practiced tone of sincerity and concern, “Is this Mrs. Hough?” The fact that he pronounced it correctly was in his favor.

  “Yes?” she replied.

  “This is Jim Qwilleran, a friend of your husband, calling from Pickax—”

  “I don’t want to talk to any friend of that skunk!” she screamed into the phone and banged down the receiver.

  Qwilleran winced. “Did you hear that, Andy?”

  “Gimme the phone.” Brodie punched the same number, and when she answered he said in his official monotone, “This is the police calling. Your husband is dead, Mrs. Hough. Suicide. Request directions for disposition of the body . . . Thank you, ma’am.”

  He turned to Qwilleran. “I won’t repeat what she said. The gist of it is—we can do what we please. She wants no part of her husband, dead or alive.”

  Qwilleran said, “His friends in the Theatre Club will handle everything. I’ll call Larry Lanspeak.”

  “I’ll take the tape,” Brodie said. “Just keep it quiet. He was never declared a suspect, so there’s no need to deny the rumor. Let the public think what they want; we’ll continue the investigation.”

  While the emergency crew and medical examiner went about their work, Qwilleran notified one person about the suicide, and that was Hixie. “You’ll hear it on the six o’clock news,” he said. “Dennis has taken his life.” He waited for her hysterical outburst to subside and then said, “Don’t mention the message from his wife to anyone, Hixie. Those are Brodie’s orders. When he finds the real killer, Dennis will be cleared.”

  At six o’clock a brief announcement on WPKX stated: “A building contractor—Dennis Hough, thirty, of St. Louis, Missouri—died suddenly today IN . . . a Pickax barn . . . he had recently . . . remodeled. No details . . . are . . . available.” The name of the deceased was pronounced Huck. “Died suddenly” was a euphemism for suicide in the north country.

  Qwilleran was loathe to imagine the anguish of his friend’s private moments preceding his desperate act. He thought: If I had been here, I could have prevented it. Qwilleran’s own life had once been in ruins. He knew the shock of a suddenly failed marriage, the pain of rejection, the guilt, the sense of failure, the hopelessness. He skipped dinner, finding the thought of food nauseating, and fed the Siamese in their loft apartment. Koko, who knew something extraordinary had been happening, was determined to escape and investigate, but Qwilleran brought him down with a lunging tackle.

  Down on the main level he turned on the answering machine; he wished no idle gossip, no prying questions. Then he shut himself in his studio, away from the sight of those overhead beams, that fireplace cube, and those triangular windows. He tried to lose himself in the pages of a book. As he delved farther and farther into the Backhouse biography, it occurred to him that the life of the mysterious VanBrook would be equally fascinating. The mystery of the man’s personality and background, whether resolved or not, would be intensified by his violent death. The search for the killer, sidetracked by false suspicions, would add another dimension of suspense.

  There was a violent storm that night. Gale winds from Canada swept across the big lake and joined with heavy rain to lash the rotting apple trees. By morning, the orchard was a wreck, and Trevelyan Trail was a ribbon of mud. Qwilleran called the landscape service, requesting a clean-up crew and truckloads of crushed stone.

  Then he showered and shaved in a hurry and fed the cats without ceremony. It was Wednesday, and he hoped to escape before the vigorous Mrs. Fulgrove arrived to dust, vacuum, polish, and deliver her weekly lecture. This week her topics would undoubtedly be murder and suicide, in addition to her usual tirade about the abundance of cat hair. He succeeded in avoiding her and even had time for coffee and a roll at Lois’s Luncheonette before reporting to the back door of Amanda’s Studio of Interior Design.

  He was met by a distraught young woman. “Dad told me about it!” Fran cried. “He wouldn’t discuss motive, but everyone says it means that Dennis killed VanBrook.”

  Irritably Qwilleran said, “What everyone in Pickax says, thinks, feels, knows, or believes is of no concern to me, Fran.”

  “I know how you must feel about it, Qwill. I’m distressed, too. Dennis and I worked so compatibly on the barn. I’ll miss him.”

  “Larry is arranging the funeral. There’ll be a private service in the Dingleberry chapel for a few friends, then burial next to his mother.”

  Fran asked, “How is Polly reacting?”

  “We haven’t discussed it,” he
said.

  “Are you two getting along all right?” she asked with concern.

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked sharply.

  “Well, you know . . . she wasn’t there at the barn Saturday night . . . and then someone saw you at Tipsy’s on Sunday—with another woman, they said.”

  Qwilleran huffed into his moustache angrily. “Okay, where are the cartons? How many do you have to deliver? Let’s get the van loaded!”

  On the short drive to Goodwinter Boulevard the designer said, “Hilary’s neighbors will have their telescopes out. They’ll be sure I’m looting a dead man’s house.”

  “I gather that snooping is a major pastime in Pickax.”

  “You don’t know the half of it! There are two busybodies who make it their lifework to spy and pry and spread rumors. But if you meet them on the post office steps, they’re so sweet!”

  “Who are they?”

  “I’ll give you a couple of clues,” Fran said teasingly. “One wears a plastic rainhat even when the sun is shining, and the other calls everyone Dear Heart.”

  “Thanks for warning me,” Qwilleran said. “Was Hilary a good customer of yours?”

  “He didn’t buy much, but he liked to come in to the studio and look around and tell us things that we already knew. He considered himself an authority on everything. He bought a lamp once, and we upholstered a chair for him last year, but the screens are the first big order I wrote up. And then this had to happen!”

  “I suppose your father got a search warrant and went into the house.”

  “I don’t know,” she said coolly.

  “Does he know you’re delivering merchandise?”

  “No, but Dear Heart will see that he finds out. Actually, Qwill, Dad and I haven’t been on good terms since I moved into my apartment.”

  “Too bad. Sorry to hear it.”

  Fran parked in the rear of the house, and they started to unload. The interior was similar to others on Goodwinter Boulevard: large, square rooms with high ceilings, connected by wide arches; heavy woodwork in a dark varnish; a ponderous staircase lavished with carving and turnings; tall, narrow windows. But instead of the usual heirloom furniture and elaborate wallcoverings, the main rooms were white-walled and sparsely furnished with tatami floor matting, low Oriental tables, and floor cushions. There were a few pieces of porcelain, two Japanese scrolls, and a folding screen decorated with galloping fat-rumped horses. The only false note was the use of heavy draperies smothering the windows.