The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

by Lilian Jackson Braun; Nye

  When Qwilleran reached the Moose County line, his watch said seven o’clock. The Living Barn Tour would be over. He hoped the interior would not look like a bus terminal on Sunday morning. Undoubtedly his answering machine would be jammed with messages, which he would ignore until Monday; there was no reason to explain his premature return to the world at large. His only call would be to Polly. He would tell her about the death in the family, and then he would say, “I stopped in the library and met your friend Shirley. She inquired about Bootsie and showed me the wedding pictures. There were a couple of candids of you in a blue dress that I’ve never seen.” And then he would say, “I met some interesting individuals down there. One was a horse trainer—an amiable fellow with a red beard. His name was Steve something or other.” After a moment’s pause her reaction would be a nonchalant, “Oh, really?”

  This entertaining scenario occupied his attention until he arrived at Trevelyan Trail. Mr. O’Dell had installed a new mailbox. The driveway was graded and graveled. In the orchard the debris left from the storm had been removed. Inside the barn there was no indication that half of Pickax had tramped through the place, but the Siamese knew that five hundred strangers had been there. With inquisitive noses they inspected every inch of the main floor.

  Meanwhile, Qwilleran phoned Polly and received no answer. She might be having dinner with her widowed sister-in-law. He called back at nine o’clock and again at eleven. No answer. Most unusual! Polly never stayed out late when she was driving alone. Weary after his eventful visit to Lockmaster, he retired early but was slow in falling asleep. Polly’s absence worried him.

  On Sunday morning he called her number again. It was the hour when she would be feeding Bootsie and preparing poached eggs for her own breakfast. The phone rang twelve times before he hung up. This was disturbing. He began to fear she had arranged a date with Redbeard. The trainer could have left Lockmaster after the fifth race and reached Pickax in an hour. Qwilleran put on a jacket and went for a brisk walk on the pretext of picking up the Sunday papers. Detouring down Goodwinter Boulevard, he noted that Polly’s car was not parked in its accustomed place; she might have driven to meet the man at some out-of-the-way rendezvous.

  Polly and Qwilleran had been close friends for two years, sharing confidences, giving each other priority, consulting on every question that arose. And now she had bought a dress of strikingly different style and color without mentioning it. There was a possibility that her good friend Shirley had arranged to pair her with Redbeard at the wedding reception. There was no knowing what those two women talked about when they were together! It seemed significant that Shirley, when asked about the fellow photographed with Polly, had forgotten his name!

  Systematically, Qwilleran reviewed the evidence: Polly canceled a dinner date at Tipsy’s the day after the wedding, claiming to be tired. She was secretive about the mysterious phone call that came to her office. She had been to the hairdresser twice in less than a week—after a lifetime of washing and setting her own hair. Everything pointed to a rift in their intimate relationship. True, the last two years had seen ups and downs, tiffs and misunderstandings, but only because Polly was inclined to be jealous of the women he met in the course of everyday life.

  Feeling frustrated and perhaps a trifle lonely, Qwilleran called Susan Exbridge to inquire about the barn tour.

  “Darling, it was magnificent!” she cried. “Everyone loved everything!”

  “I called to compliment you on leaving the place in perfect condition, but can you explain why I smelled apple pie when I walked in?”

  “Did you like it? We simmered apples and cinnamon on the range all day. The Mayfus Orchard donated seven bushels of apples, and every guest was invited to take one. How was your weekend?”

  “Pretty good. Were there any momentous local happenings while I was away?”

  “Only an editorial in the Something, offering a huge reward for information on the VanBrook murder. I hope something develops to exonerate Dennis soon. You know, Qwill, I spent a lot of time and pulled a lot of strings in order to introduce that boy to Moose County’s finest families—hoping to get him some jobs—and it will reflect on me if he turns out to be a murderer.”

  His next call was to Arch Riker at the publisher’s apartment in Indian Village. “I hear you ran the editorial and offered the reward, Arch. Get any response?”

  “Two, only. The city desk got a call from a crackpot who’s always calling the paper. They know her voice. They call her Dear Heart. First she accused Lyle Compton. Her second choice was Larry Lanspeak. Take your pick . . . Then there was a tip that involved a member of our own staff.”

  “Who?” Qwilleran’s mind raced through the roster of employees.

  “Dave Landrum.”

  “Dave! He was in Lockmaster at a wedding Saturday night, I happen to know. That’s why Roger took the night shift. How did they try to connect Dave with the case?”

  “Well, this is a roundabout explanation. Are you ready? A year ago there was a fatal accident at the humpback bridge. Remember?”

  The humpback bridge over Black Creek was notorious as an accident site. By speeding across it, young drivers could get a roller-coaster thrill, and if they traveled fast enough they were airborne for a second or two.

  Qwilleran said, “As I recall, two kids were killed at the bridge, but it turned out to be a double suicide. Right?”

  “That’s the one—a lovers’ pact. It happened September tenth—exactly one year before VanBrook got his. The person who called us seemed to think that was noteworthy.”

  “Do you know who called?”

  “He declined to identify himself, but we gave him a code name so he can collect his fifty grand if the tip checks out.”

  “How was Dave supposed to be involved?”

  “He’s the father of one of the kids.”

  “I don’t get it,” Qwilleran said.

  “Neither did I, until we checked our files. Dave’s daughter was valedictorian of the June class at Pickax High, and her boyfriend was a football player. We ran a ‘Died Suddenly’ obit when it happened, and then the usual letters came in from irate readers demanding that the humpback bridge should be flattened out. Nothing was ever done about the bridge, of course, but Roger, who gets around to the coffeeshops a lot, came up with the scuttlebutt. The young couple had hoped to attend a state college where they could live in a coed dorm. Unfortunately, the boy’s grades were borderline, and VanBrook refused to graduate him.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “Except that it was considered an act of vengeance on the principal’s part. His regime had been opposed by Concerned Parents of Pickax for a couple of years, and the football player’s father was the most outspoken of the whole pack. After the suicides, he went to VanBrook’s office and staged a violent scene in front of witnesses. He may have made threats.”

  “What’s his name? Do I know him?”

  “Possibly. He has a soft-drink distributorship—Marv Spencer.”

  “Are we supposed to assume that the two fathers collaborated on revenge—on the anniversary of the suicides?”

  “That was the general idea. We turned the information over to the police.”

  “They’ll listen, but they won’t buy it,” Qwilleran said, although he later recalled that Dave Landrum had been rehearsing for the Duke of Suffolk in Henry VIII until insulting treatment from the director caused him to walk off the set in anger.

  Riker asked, “How was the steeplechase?”

  “I’m writing a column on it for Tuesday. You’ll have it at noon tomorrow. Frankly, it would be a better show with more horses and fewer people.”

  At six o’clock Qwilleran tried once more to reach Polly—and again at eight o’clock. Worried, he phoned her sister-in-law and expressed his fears.

  “She went away for the weekend,” said the woman. “She didn’t say where, Mr. Q, but the invitation came up suddenly, and she asked me to feed Bootsie. She’ll be ho
me later this evening.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now I can stop worrying.” Truthfully, the news only exacerbated his unease.

  He wrote his Tuesday column, presenting Lockmaster and the steeplechase from a Moose County point of view: factual, descriptive, politely complimentary, and not overly enthusiastic. He hand-delivered it to the city desk Monday morning and then headed for the public library.

  Passing the Toodle Market (Toodle was an old family name in Moose County) he stopped in to buy powdered soap for bubble blowing—a brand recommended by Lori Bamba. He also purchased some deli turkey breast for the Siamese. That was when he noticed a sign behind the butcher counter: YES, WE HAVE RABBITS.

  “How do you sell the rabbits?” he asked the butcher.

  “Frozen,” said the man, with the expressionless face of one who has spent too much time at ten degrees Fahrenheit.

  “I’ll take one,” Qwilleran said, thinking he could keep it in his freezer while scouting for someone to cook it for the Siamese.

  The butcher disappeared into the walk-in cold vault and returned clutching something that was almost the size and shape of a baseball bat, but red and raw.

  “Is that a rabbit?” Qwilleran asked with a queazy gulp.

  “That’s what you asked for.”

  “Will it stay frozen till I get it home?”

  “If you don’t live south of the equator.” For emphasis he raised the rabbit and slammed it down on the butcher block, neither of which suffered from the blow.

  “Wrap it well, please,” said Qwilleran. “I’m walking.”

  The package he received resembled a concealed shotgun, and he shouldered it for the walk to the library, covering the four blocks more briskly than usual. In the foyer the Shakespeare quotation on the chalkboard was Silence is the perfect herald of joy. He huffed into his moustache. What was that supposed to mean? Dodging the friendly clerks he headed for the stairs to the mezzanine.

  There she was, in her glass-enclosed office, like a sea captain in the pilot house, wearing her usual gray suit but with a blouse that was brighter and silkier than usual.

  “Good-looking shirt,” he said, dropping into a chair with a loud thump; he had forgotten the hard oak seats.

  “Thank you,” she said. He waited for her to say where she had bought it—and why—but she merely smiled pleasantly. And cryptically, he thought. Had it been a gift from Redbeard? he wondered.

  “I tried to reach you this weekend,” he said.

  “You should train Bootsie to answer the phone.”

  “Perhaps I should invest in an answering machine,” she said.

  Polly had always resisted the idea, and he found her sudden change of attitude suspect. “Did you have a good weekend?” he asked.

  “Very enjoyable. Irma Hasselrich invited me to her family’s cottage near Purple Point. We went birding in the wetlands and saw hundreds of Canada geese getting ready to migrate.”

  Qwilleran drew a deep breath of relief. “I didn’t know Irma was a birder.”

  “One of the best! Her lifelist puts mine to shame. Last year she sighted a Kirtland’s warbler while she was traveling in Michigan. How did you enjoy the steeplechase?”

  “I ate too much and lost twenty bucks, and somehow the sight of ten thousand people screaming and jumping up and down like puppets fails to stir my blood, but I explored Lockmaster, and when I found the library I went in and met your friend.”

  “How did you like Shirley?”

  “She’s as friendly as an old shoe. In fact, I suggested that she and her husband come up here and have dinner with us some weekend. She showed me the wedding pictures, including a couple of shots of you. You seemed to be having an unusually good time. I hardly recognized you in that bright blue dress.”

  “Do you like it? Now that my hair is turning gray, I think I should start wearing brighter colors. Did you have brunch at the Palomino Paddock?”

  “No, but the Bushlands gave a dinner party, and I met the editor of the Lockmaster Logger—also a fellow who trains horses and publishes a newsletter called Stablechat.” Qwilleran was observing her reactions closely. “He said he’d met you at the wedding. Perhaps you remember a stocky man with a reddish beard and receding hair.”

  “I don’t recall,” said Polly, although he thought her cheeks became suddenly hollow. “There were so many guests—about three hundred at the reception. Would you like some tea?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks. In the snapshots you were dancing with this fellow. His name is Steve, as I recall.”

  “I think perhaps I do remember him,” she admitted uncertainly.

  “I also met the woman who played Katharine in Henry VIII. We should invite her and Steve up here some weekend. We could have drinks at the barn and then dinner at the Mill.”

  Polly turned pale, and he relented. He had taunted her long enough; it pained him to see her squirm. Charitably, he asked if she might be free for dinner.

  “I have a dinner meeting with the library board,” she said with obvious regret. “Tomorrow night . . . perhaps?”

  “There’s a funeral in Lockmaster tomorrow, so I’d better not count on dinner. The editor down there has a type collection he wants me to see.”

  “How about Wednesday?”

  “That’s the judging of the Tipsy contest. But we’ll get together soon.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get this thing home before it starts leaking.”

  “What is it?”

  “A frozen rabbit from Toodle’s. For the Siamese.”

  “Really? Are they eating wild game now?”

  “Well, they like venison and pheasant, and when they started knocking the rabbit out of my typecase, I assumed they were trying to tell me something.”

  “Perhaps they want you to read WatershipDown,” she said, and it was not clear whether she was teasing or being helpful.

  After two years of intimacy, during which Qwilleran had confided in Polly about Koko’s uncanny modes of communication, he was still unsure whether she really believed. He sometimes suspected she humored him—going along with the gag, so to speak. Nevertheless, he took her suggestion and checked out Watership Down from the library’s fiction room. He had read it before, and it merited being read aloud.

  At the apple barn he was greeted vociferously by his housemates, who showed no interest in the package from the butcher but plenty of interest in the library book. Either they knew it was all about rabbits, or they knew it had been previously borrowed by subscribers who lived with pets. He tossed the frozen rabbit into the freezer and invited the Siamese to join him for a read in the library area. Here were deep-cushioned lounge chairs in pale taupe leather, arranged around one wall of the fireplace cube. White lacquered shelves were loaded with old books. Over the white lacquered desk hung the printer’s typecase, its eighty-nine compartments half-filled with old typeblocks.

  “Is everyone comfortable?” Qwilleran asked as he opened the book. His feet were on the ottoman, Yum Yum was on his lap, and Koko made a comfortable bundle at his elbow. No sooner had he read the first sentence, which consisted of only four words, than the telephone rang. Grumbling mildly, he disturbed his listeners and went to the desk to take the call.

  “Hello . . . Is this . . . uh, Mr. Qwilleran?” asked a wavering voice.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Fiona in Lockmaster—Fiona Stucker.”

  “Of course. I recognized your voice,” he said. “I’m sorry about Saturday night, but we were all upset about Mrs. Inglehart, and it was hardly an occasion for celebration.”

  “Ummm . . . yes, it’s too bad. She was a nice old lady.”

  “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so. I have to work.”

  There was an awkward pause during which Qwilleran heard voices in the background. He said, “How does Robin feel about being a winner?”

  “He’s all excited. He’s only seventeen, you know.
”

  There was another pause, and Qwilleran filled in with the usual pleasantry. “How’s the weather down there? It’s a beautiful day in Pickax.”

  “It’s nice here, too.”

  Employing his professional escape clause he said, “I’m sorry our conversation will have to be brief, but I have a newspaper deadline.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” she said. “Steve wanted me to call you about something.”

  “In connection with what?”

  “Ummm . . . would you like to . . . buy a horse farm?”

  “A horse farm!”

  “There’s one for sale. He says it’s a good bet.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not my kind of venture, Fiona.”

  “It’s the Amberton farm. Steve is stablemaster, you know, and Robbie works there.”

  “I know, but—”

  “He gave me a list of things to tell you. Want me to read them?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Koko was on the desk, standing on his hind legs and reaching for the typecase. Qwilleran pushed him away, at the same time listening attentively as Fiona read:

  “Sixty-eight acres, one-third wooded. All pastures fenced. Eight horses, including Son of Cardinal. Stables for twenty. Twelve horses now being boarded. Restored seventy-year-old farmhouse with all improvements, worth four hundred thousand. Swimming pool. Guest house. Historic barn on property.”

  Somewhat awed by this recital, Qwilleran failed to notice Koko’s stealthy return to the desk until a typeblock was spirited out of its niche, landing on the telephone book and bouncing to the floor. Mention of the historic barn prompted him to ask, “Is the farm a going business or just a hobby for the owners?”

  “Steve says it makes money. They breed horses and train them, and board horses for people, and give riding lessons.”

  Wild fantasies were racing through Qwilleran’s head. “Is it on the market yet? Is it listed with a broker?”

  “Not yet. Mr. Amberton wants to try selling it first. Steve says he has a couple of leads.”