The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

by Lilian Jackson Braun; Nye

  “Nick told me what miracles you’ve done with the barn, so I had to come and see for myself. I’ll bet the cats love those ramps and balconies.”

  “May I show you around? The five-dollar tour on Saturday limits visitors to the main floor; as an intimate of Koko and Yum Yum you’re entitled to go up on the catwalks and visit their loft.”

  “First let me give you your correspondence. There are forty-seven letters for you to sign. On the less personal ones, I forged your signature. The crank letters were chucked into the wastebasket.”

  Qwilleran and Lori walked up the ramps, followed by the Siamese with erect tails, then down again. As soon as she sat down, both cats piled into her lap.

  Qwilleran said, “I wish I could get Yum Yum to walk on a leash. With Koko it’s no problem; he walks me on a leash.”

  “Just let her wear her harness around the house until she gets used to the feel of it,” she suggested. “And do you realize, Qwill, that you have a perfect setup here for blowing bubbles?”

  “Bubbles?” he asked dubiously.

  “Soap bubbles. Stand on the balcony and let them float down to the cats below. They’ll have a wonderful time—jumping and trying to catch them.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, stroking his moustache. He could imagine the town gossips peeking in the window and carrying the news back to the coffee shops: “Mr. Q has started blowing bubbles!”

  “The best thing for blowing bubbles,” Lori advised, “is the old-fashioned clay pipe. They have them at the hardware store in Wildcat.”

  At that moment Koko leaped from her lap and bounded to the window, and they all heard the clear-toned who-it? who-it? who-it?

  “That’s a cardinal,” Lori said.

  “He’s Koko’s buddy.”

  “They’re a couple of aristocrats,” she said.

  “Yes, they act like two potentates at a summit meeting. The orchard is full of other species, but somehow Koko is attracted to the cardinal. I don’t know whether he appreciates the bird’s regal demeanor or just likes red.”

  “I’ve read conflicting opinions about a cat’s ability to see color. I’m inclined to believe they feel color. They get different sensations from different hues.”

  “I’ll buy that,” he said. “Koko is equipped with a lot more senses than the basic five. He’s an especially gifted animal.”

  Lori said, “Let me tell you something interesting. I have an elderly aunt who lost her sight totally a few years ago, but she still recognizes red. She claims she can feel it! And she likes to wear red. She says it restores her energy.”

  “I’d like to meet her. It would make an interesting topic for my column . . . Would you like a glass of cider, Lori?”

  “No, thanks, Qwill. Just give me the week’s mail. I’ve got to dash. I’ve got a baby-sitter.”

  Later, he was signing the forty-seven letters when a black van with gold lettering on the panels pulled into the barnyard, and a young blond giant leaped out. He opened the rear doors and hoisted to his shoulders—with apparent ease—a large paper-wrapped cylinder, eight feet in length and about a yard in diameter. Fran Brodie was with him, and she directed him to the back door.

  “This is Shawn, our world-class installer,” she said to Qwilleran.

  “Hi!” said the giant with an amiable smile.

  She guided him through the kitchen to the great hall, four stories high, and told him to put the tapestry on the floor at the foot of the ramp. Going down on one knee, like Atlas with the world on his shoulders, Shawn dropped the cylinder on the floor with a thud. Then he stood up and gazed at the balconies, the triangular windows, and the fireplace cube with its three stacks.

  “How much did this job cost?” he said in awe. “It’s sure different! . . . Is this where the guy hung himself?”

  “Shawn!” Fran said sharply. “Bring in the toolbox, the tack-strips, and the rope.” To Qwilleran she said, “I want to unroll the tapestries down here for inspection. This is the moment of truth!”

  The wrapping was carefully removed, and the eight-by-ten-foot wall hanging was spread out on the floor.

  “Beautiful!” said Qwilleran.

  “Gorgeous!” Fran said.

  Shawn shook his head and said, “Crazy!”

  The design was a stylized tree dotted with a dozen bright red apples the size of basketballs. Tufting gave them dimension.

  “They look real enough for plucking,” Qwilleran observed.

  “Don’t you think,” Fran remarked, “that the artist actually captured their juiciness?”

  “You guys must be nuts,” said the installer. “All I know—it weighs a ton.”

  The Siamese, watching from the top of the fireplace cube, had no comment.

  “Now, this tapestry,” the designer explained, “will hang from the railing of the highest catwalk, Qwill, making an exciting focal point that draws the eye upward into that delicious galaxy of radiating beams and triangular windows. Also, it will add warmth and color to an interior with lots of wood and lots of open space. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yow!” said Koko.

  “Okay, Shawn,” she said, “roll it up again and carry it to the top level.”

  “No elevator?”

  “You don’t need an elevator.”

  The tack-strips were installed on the top surface of the catwalk railing; the top edge of the tapestry was pressed down securely on the tacks; and then it was slowly unrolled as the ropes were played out.

  “Hope it doesn’t drop and kill a cat,” said the installer with a grin.

  “If it does,” Qwilleran said, “I’ll be after you with a shotgun.”

  “The other tapestry will be easy,” Fran assured Shawn. “We’ll hang it on the blank wall of the fireplace cube, facing the foyer, and it’s a little smaller.”

  “Why’n’t ya put the heavy one down here?” he asked.

  Again the wrappings were removed, and the tapestry was unrolled on the floor—a galaxy of birds and green foliage.

  “Yow!” came a comment from the fireplace cube, and Koko jumped to the floor. Birds native to Moose County were flitting among weeds, grazing on the ground, sipping nectar from flowers, warbling from tree branches, and swaying on tall grasses. He walked purposefully across the tapestry and sniffed the red bird with black face patch and red crest.

  “Amazing!” Qwilleran said.

  The bird extravaganza was hung and admired, and then Fran glanced at her watch. “I can’t hang around,” she said. “This is my mother’s birthday, and Dad and I are taking her out to dinner. When are you leaving for Lockmaster, Qwill?”

  “After the funeral.”

  “Have a good time at the races. Don’t lose all your money.”

  Qwilleran was glad to avoid socializing. He wanted to stay home and plan his trip and learn how to pack his new luggage. It was the last word in nylon with leather bindings and straps and more pockets and compartments than he needed. It replaced his two old suitcases lost in a disaster Down Below. Imitation leather, scuffed and battered, they had traveled with him from city to city during his lean years. Polly said they were a disgrace. He said they were easy to pack. “Just throw everything in.”

  After dinner, when he opened his new luggage on the bed to consider its complexities, Koko moved into the two-suiter and Yum Yum took possession of the carry-on. He left them sleeping there and settled down with the Thursday edition of the Lockmaster Logger.

  The race course, he learned, was a little over two miles—in a natural setting surrounded by gentle hills from which viewing was convenient. For first-time race goers there were instructions for reading the race chart: the name of the horse and the weight he was carrying; the names of owner, trainer, and rider; the color of the racing silks; the horse’s color, sex, and age; the names of sire and dam. Such details were more than Qwilleran cared to know.

  There was only one entry that aroused his interest: Robin Stucker would be riding in a race that permitted amateurs. He asked himself: Wasn’t St
ucker the name of the woman who played Queen Katharine? Didn’t her note to VanBrook mention that she had to buy boots for Robbie? The horse, according to the chart, was owned by W. Chase Amberton. The trainer was S. W. O’Hare. The name of the horse—and this was what caused Qwilleran to smooth his moustache in speculation—was Son of Cardinal.

  EIGHT

  THE FUNERAL ON Friday morning was a doubly somber affair attended by a few members of the Theatre Club—doubly somber because many of the mourners thought they were saying farewell to a murderer as well as a suicide. No one mentioned it, but glances were exchanged as the pastor of Larry Lanspeak’s church spoke his ambiguous platitudes. Only the Lanspeaks and Fran Brodie believed stubbornly that the rumor was false. Only Qwilleran, Hixie Rice, and Chief Brodie knew the truth. Brodie was there—not in uniform but in kilt and tam-o’-shanter—playing a dirge on the bagpipe at Qwilleran’s suggestion.

  “It will allay suspicions without formally denying them,” he told the chief.

  Hixie drew Qwilleran aside and said in a low but emotional voice, “It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Why don’t the police come up with a suspect? Why don’t you do something about it, Qwill?”

  He said, “It happened only a week ago, Hixie. The police have information not available to me. What’s more, they have computers.”

  “But you solved the Fitch murders when the police were stymied. And you identified the killer at the museum before anyone knew there was a murder!”

  Qwilleran massaged his moustache thoughtfully: He was reluctant to reveal that it was Koko’s inquisitive sniffing and catly instincts that had turned up the clues. Only his closest friends and a few journalists Down Below knew about the cat’s aptitudes, and it was better to leave it that way. “I’ll think about it,” he told Hixie.

  He thought about it as he packed his binoculars and dinner jacket for the weekend at the races. Getting away from Pickax, he hoped, would restore his perspective. For the cats he packed some canned delicacies and vitamin drops, their favorite plate and water dish, the turkey roaster that served as their commode, and a supply of kitty gravel. This was to be their first experience as house guests. Qwilleran was nervous about the prospect, but Koko hopped into the travel coop eagerly—a good omen—and scolded Yum Yum until she followed suit.

  When they pulled away from the barn, the route took them south past the potato farms and sheep ranches—and the usual dead skunk on the highway, which caused a flurry of complaints from the backseat. As they neared the county line, Qwilleran began to notice the name Cuttlebrink on rural mailboxes and then suddenly a roadside sign:

  WELCOME TO WILDCAT

  POP. 95

  A few hundred feet beyond, another sign suggested that the Cuttlebrinks had a sense of humor:

  YOU JUST PASSED WILDCAT

  Qwilleran eased on the brakes and made a U turn slowly and carefully. Any sudden stop or start, or any turn in excess of twelve degrees, upset Yum Yum’s gastrointestinal apparatus and caused a shrill protest—or worse. Returning to the crossroads that constituted downtown Wildcat, he counted a total of four structures: a dilapidated bar, an abandoned gas station, the remains of an old barn, and a weathered wood building with a faded sign:

  CUTTLEBRINK’S HDWE. & GENL. MDSE.

  ESTAB. 1862

  The windows, he guessed, had last been cleaned for the centenary of the store in 1962. The frame building itself had last been painted at the turn of the century. As for the items faintly visible through the dirty glass (dusty horse harness, fan belts, rusty cans of roof cement), they had evidently been dropped there at some point in history, and no one had ever happened to buy them.

  The interior was dimly lighted by low-watt lightbulbs hanging from the stamped metal ceiling, and the floorboards—rough and gray with age—were worn down into shallow concavities in front of the cash register and the tobacco case. In the shadows a man could be seen sitting on a barrel—a man with a bush of yellowish-white whiskers and strands of matching hair protruding beneath his feed cap.

  “Nice day,” he said in a high-pitched, reedy voice.

  “Indeed it is,” said Qwilleran. “We’re having beautiful weather for September, although the weatherman says we can expect rain in a couple of days.” He had learned that discussion of the weather was one of the social niceties in Moose County.

  “Won’t rain,” the old man declared.

  While speaking, Qwilleran had been perusing the merchandise on shelves, counters, and floor: kerosene lanterns, farm buckets, fish scalers, flashlights, rolls of wire fencing, light bulbs, milk filters, corncob pipes . . . but no clay pipes.

  “He’p ya?” asked the old man without moving.

  “Just looking around, thank you.”

  “No law ’gainst that!”

  “You have a remarkable assortment of merchandise.”

  “Yep.”

  There were nails by the pound, chains by the foot, rat traps, wooden matches, wire coat hangers, some things called hog rings, button hooks, work gloves, and alarm clocks. “I’ve seen some interesting stores, but this tops them all,” said Qwilleran sociably. “How long has it been here?”

  “Longer’n me!”

  “Are you a Cuttlebrink?”

  “All of us be Cuttlebrinks.”

  Qwilleran continued his search, trying to appear like a casual browser. He found rubber boots, steel springs, plungers, tarpaulins, more fan belts, fifty-pound salt blocks, gnaw bones for rabbits, dill pickles, ammunition . . . but still no bubble pipes. Examining a cellulose sponge—which, according to the label, would clean, sanitize, and remove manure—he asked, “Is this a good sponge?”

  “You got a cow?” Cuttlebrink asked. “That be an udder sponge.”

  “It would be good for washing the car,” Qwilleran said, although he intended it for cleaning and sanitizing the cats’ turkey roaster.

  The old man shrugged and wagged his head at the eccentricity of cityfolk. “You from Pickax?”

  “I’ve lived there for a while.”

  “Thought so.”

  Paint thinner. Goat feed. Fuses. Axle grease. Razor blades. Red bandannas. Pitch forks. Swine dust. Another kind of work glove.

  “You seem to have just about everything,” Qwilleran remarked.

  “Yep. What folks want. No fancy stuff.”

  “Do you happen to have any clay bubble pipes? I’d like to get some for my young ones.”

  The storekeeper hoisted himself off the barrel and hobbled to the rear of the store, where he climbed a shaky ladder, one unsure step at a time. On the top shelf he found a cardboard box in the last stages of decay and brought it down, one unsure step at a time.

  “You amaze me,” Qwilleran said with admiration. “How do you manage to find things?”

  “They ain’t lost.”

  The box held half a dozen clay pipes that had once been white but were now gray with dust.

  “Good! I believe I’ll take them all.”

  “Won’t be none left to sell,” Cuttlebrink objected.

  “How about five?”

  “Sell ya four.”

  Qwilleran paid for the four pipes, the sponge, and a dill pickle, and the sale was rung up on an old brass cash register on which was taped a crayoned sign: BROWNING GUNS WANTED. The storekeeper hobbled back to his barrel, and the three travelers went on their way.

  At the county line the terrain changed from rocky pastureland to rolling green hills. This was Lockmaster’s famous hunting country, where miles of fences dipped and curved across the landscape, and here and there an opulent farmhouse with barns and stables crowned a hill. Then came the restaurant known as the Palomino Paddock, with luxury cars in the parking lot, after which the highway became Main Street.

  In the nineteenth century wealthy shipbuilders and lumber barons chose to build their residences fronting on the chief thoroughfare, to be admired and envied by all. With affluent families striving to outdo each other, houses as large as resort hotels were lavished with turrets, balc
onies, verandahs, bowed windows, bracketed roofs, decorative gables, and stained glass.

  Zoning had changed with the times, however. Now they were upscale rooming houses, gourmet bed-and-breakfast establishments, law offices, insurance agencies. One imposing structure was a funeral home, another a museum, another the Bushlands’ photographic studio. Having inherited it from Vicki’s side of the family, they combined business with living quarters. It was a massive three-story frame building with a circular tower bulging from the southwest corner.

  Qwilleran drove under the porte cochere that sheltered the side door, saying to his passengers, “We’re here! I expect you to be on your best behavior for the next forty-eight hours. If you cooperate, you may wind up on the cover of a slick magazine.” There was no reply. Were they asleep? He turned to see two pairs of blue eyes staring at him with inscrutable intensity as if they knew something that he did not know.

  Leaving the Siamese and their gear in the car, Qwilleran lugged his own traveling bag to the carriage door and rang the bell. He was greeted by Vicki in a chef’s apron.

  “Excuse me for arriving early,” he said. “I thought I might explore the town.”

  “Good idea!” exclaimed his hostess. “Come on in. Bushy’s in his darkroom and can’t be disturbed, and I’m wrestling with pie crust, but your room’s ready and you can go straight up. We’re giving you our really grand guestroom in the southwest corner. You can put the cats in the connecting room; I know they’re used to having their own pad.”

  “Truthfully I’d prefer to have them with me,” he said. “In a new environment I like to keep a fatherly eye on them.”

  “Whatever makes you comfortable, Qwill. Make yourself at home.”

  He walked slowly and wonderingly across the broad foyer and up the wide staircase, observing the carved woodwork, gaslight fixtures converted for electricity, velvety walls hung with ancestral portraits in oval frames, and the jewel-like stained glass in the windows. The choice guestroom was in the front of the house, a large, square space ballooning into a circular bay—actually the base of the tower. Furnished with canopy bed, writing desk, chaise, wingback chairs, dresser, highboy, blanket chest, and scattering of ruby-red Oriental rugs, it was homey enough for a week’s stay. Nothing matched, but family heirlooms gave it a hospitable togetherness. In the circular bay, rimmed with window seats, there was a round table holding a bowl of polished apples, a dish of jelly beans, and magazines devoted to photography and equestrian arts. There was also a four-page newsletter titled Stablechat—a collection of steeplechase news and horsey gossip listing S. W. O’Hare as publisher and Lisa Amberton as editor.