The expert tucked his thumbs in his belt, rocked his chair on two legs, and nodded wisely. “Old house. Building settles. Doorframes get out of whack. Doors shrink. I can fix ’em, but it’ll cost ya.”
For a man who hated to work, he seemed most agreeable. New lock for the back door? “Easy!” Twenty doors refitted? “Piece o’ cake!”
He said he would start the next morning—early. Qwilleran surmised that Mrs. Cobb had bribed him with a promise of huckleberry pancakes and sausages.
After Birch had roared away on his motorcycle, the housekeeper said, “Isn’t that a wonderful machine?”
Qwilleran grunted noncommittally. “How is he going to transport tools with that thing?”
“Oh, he told me he has a couple of trucks, and an ORV, and one of those big campers. He likes wheels. He wants to take me for a ride on the motorbike. What do you think?”
Qwilleran exhaled audibly into his moustache. “Don’t rush into anything with that guy. I think he’s an opportunist.”
“He seems very nice. When I told him that smoke was harmful to antiques, he chucked his cigar without a word. And he loved my coconut cake.”
“That’s obvious. He ate most of it.”
“Even little Yum Yum liked him. Did you see her sniffing his boots?”
“Either he’d been walking around a barnyard or she was looking for a shoelace to untie. It wasn’t necessarily a character endorsement . . . . By the way, have you noticed Koko sitting on the main staircase a lot?”
She nodded. “That’s his favorite perch, except for the refrigerator.”
“The strange thing is that he always sits on the third stair. I don’t understand why.”
The housekeeper looked warily at Qwilleran. “I have something strange to report, too, but I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me.”
“Mrs. Cobb, I always take you seriously.”
“Well, you remember I mentioned ghosts when I came here. I was only kidding, sort of, but now I’m beginning to think this house is haunted—not that I’m afraid, you understand.”
“How did you get that idea?”
“Well, sometimes when I come into the kitchen at night I see a white blur out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn to look, it’s gone.”
“I’m always seeing white blurs, Mrs. Cobb. One’s called Koko and the other’s called Yum Yum.”
“But things also move around mysteriously—mostly in the kitchen. Twice it was the kitchen wastebasket, right in the middle of the floor. Last night that old suitcase was shoved across the doorway. Do you know anything about the people who lived here, Mr. Qwilleran? Were there any unexplained deaths? I don’t know whether you really believe in ghosts.”
“These days I’ll believe anything.”
“It’s dangerous. I almost fell over the suitcase in the dark. What’s it doing here? It seems to be full of musty clothes.”
“I’ll put it in the broom closet—get it out of your way. And you must promise to turn on lights when you come in here after dark.”
“I guess I’m used to saving electricity.”
“Forget about that. The estate owns a big chunk of the electric company. And please don’t walk around without your glasses, Mrs. Cobb. How’s your eye problem these days?”
She held up two crossed fingers. “I still see the eye doctor twice a year.”
“Is everything else working out all right? Any questions?”
“Well, I took some cookies over to the painter in the garage—he’s a nice young man—and he showed me the huge daisies all over the walls. Who painted those?”
“A girl named Daisy, by a strange coincidence. She used to work here. I hope you’re not planning to paint irises all over the kitchen.”
“Oh, Mr. Qwilleran,” she laughed.
“Have you started to catalogue the collection?”
“Yes, and I’m terribly excited. There’s a silver vault in the basement with some eight-branch silver candelabra about three feet high. The butler’s pantry has china to serve twenty-four, and the linen closet had damask and Madeira banquet cloths like you wouldn’t believe! You ought to give a big dinner party. Mr. Qwilleran. I’d be glad to cook for it.”
“Good idea,” he said, “but don’t try to do too much. Save some time for yourself. You might want to join the Historical Society, and when you’re ready to take on appraisal jobs we’ll run an ad in the Picayune—even get you some publicity on WPKX.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!”
“And how would you like to attend a city council meeting? I intend to go, and the attorney suggested you might enjoy it, too.”
“Wasn’t that sweet of her! Yes, I’d love to go,” Mrs. Cobb said, her eyes shining. “We had so much trouble with bureaucrats in the city; I’d like to see how a small town operates.”
“Okay, it’s a date. Now I’m going to take a bike ride before dinner.”
“Mr. Qwilleran,” the housekeeper said hesitantly, “It’s none of my business, but I’d like to say something if it won’t offend you.”
“Fire away!”
“I wish you’d get a new bicycle. That old one is such a rattletrap! It’s not safe.”
“The bike’s perfectly safe, Mrs. Cobb. I’ve cleaned it and oiled it and bought new tires. It has a few squeaks, but it’s good enough for my purposes.”
“But there are so many trucks, and they travel so fast! They could blow you right off the road.”
“I do most of my biking on country roads, where there’s very little traffic. Don’t worry.”
The housekeeper set her mouth primly. “But it doesn’t look right for a man in your position to be riding a—riding a piece of junk, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“And if you’ll pardon my saying so, Mrs. Cobb, you’re beginning to sound like Penelope Goodwinter. Those eight-branch candelabra have gone to your head.”
She smiled sheepishly.
“While I’m gone,” he said, “Miss Goodwinter might call to say when she’s picking us up for the council meeting. Also, a Mrs. Hanstable might phone. She wants a tour of the house. Tell her that any time tomorrow will be okay. I’m going to start charging twenty bucks for these tours.”
“Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you must be kidding.”
In order to bike on country roads he had to negotiate four blocks of downtown traffic, five blocks of old residential streets, and then six blocks of suburbia abounding in prefabricated ranch houses, children, plastic tricycles, dogs, and barbecue smoke. After that came the lonely serenity of open country—pastureland, old mine sites, patches of woods, and an occasional farmhouse with a bicycle-chasing dog.
As he pedaled along the four straight miles on Ittibittiwassee Road he thought of many things: lamb stew and dumplings for dinner . . . Melinda coming home soon . . . the loungy sofa he had ordered . . . Arch Riker’s pending visit . . . a tick-tick-tick in the rear wheel . . . a dinner party with three-foot silver candelabra . . . poor Mrs. Cobb, too long a widow . . . a new grinding noise in the sprocket . . . Daisy, Daisy . . . the police chief with a good Scottish name . . . cream-filled coconut cake.
“The nerve of that guy!” he said aloud, and a lonely cow on the side of the road turned her head to look at him benignly.
Nerve was Birch Tree’s outstanding trait. Early the next morning he arrived with a truckful of tools, an appetite for breakfast, and a portable radio. Qwilleran was half awake when a blast of noise catapulted him from his bed. Raucous music was augmented by a concert of caterwauling.
Grabbing his old plaid robe, he bolted downstairs and found the maintenance man happily at work on a kitchen door. Yum Yum was screeching like the siren at City Hall, and Koko was exercising his full range of seven octaves as the music pulsed out of a radio with satellite speakers and a control panel like a video game.
“Cut the volume!” Qwilleran shouted. “It’s hurting their ears!”
“Throw ’em a fish head and they’ll shut up,” Birch yelled. “Baa-a-a-a!”
Mrs. Cobb beckoned him into the laundry room. “Let’s not discourage him,” she whispered. “He’s touchy, and we want to keep him on the job.”
For the next few days Birch Tree was always underfoot, modifying the volume of his radio in proportion to Mrs. Cobb’s supply of food, compliments, and beer. The whine of power tools turned the cats’ ears inside out, but Qwilleran learned to accept the chaos as a positive indication of progress.
On the afternoon that Mildred Hanstable came to see the house, the tour started in the garage, where the slow-motion painter was spreading Mojave beige in Qwilleran’s future studio. They picked their way among buckets, ladders, and drop cloths to reach Daisy’s apartment.
At the sight of it the art teacher caught her breath. “It’s remarkable! A tour de force! A poor girl’s Sistine Chapel!” Tears came to her eyes. “That sad little creature! I wonder if she’ll ever return.”
Qwilleran fingered his moustache uncertainly. “Frankly, I’m beginning to doubt that Daisy’s alive.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Qwill?”
“We don’t know if she ever really left town, do we?”
“Do you suspect something . . . awful?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch, but it’s a strong one.” How could he tell her about the tremor on his upper lip and the tune that kept running through his mind? “Let’s go to the house, Mildred, and you can tell me what Daisy’s mother said.”
As they turned to leave the apartment the congenial Steve was standing in the doorway, holding a paint roller and shaking his head. “I’d hate to hafta paint this room. Did she do it all by herself? Crazy Daisy! That’s what we called her in school.”
“Just go back and push that roller, Speedo,” Qwilleran said with a fraternal punch on the shoulder. “No laps, no sags, no drips, no pimples.”
In the main house he conducted Mildred through the rooms with the finesse of a professional guide. “Opposite the fireplace you see a pietra dura cabinet, late seventeenth century. The Regency desk is laburnum with kingswood banding.” Mrs. Cobb was training him well.
“All this art! All this splendor!” Mildred exclaimed. “You don’t expect it in Moose County.”
“Very few people knew what this house contained,” Qwilleran said. “The Klingenschoens never entertained, although they owned a boxcarful of china and silver . . . . Would you like a drink?”
“Do you have any fruit juice?”
He served white grape juice from Koko’s private stock, and they sat in the solarium, where Mildred critiqued the marbled sculptures. It was mercifully quiet, except for an occasional “Baa-a-a!” Birch had turned off his radio and was having a beer with Mrs. Cobb in the kitchen. Either the housekeeper was totally smitten, or she was a master strategist. The work was being done, and it was being done well.
“And now,” Qwilleran said to Mildred, “tell me about Mrs. Mull.”
“She was fairly sober and quite agreeable. I gave her your message, and when I mentioned the gold jewelry she perked up noticeably.”
“Did she have any news of her daughter?”
“None, but here’s something interesting. She too received a postcard shortly after Daisy left. Something like ‘Going to Florida . . . never coming back . . . forget about me . . . you never loved me.’ Della was quite bitter about it.”
“Did you see the card?”
“She hadn’t kept it. And naturally she didn’t remember the postmark or the handwriting or the date. That was five years ago, and she’s been in a fog most of the time.”
Qwilleran said, “I went to the police station and met Chief Brodie. Pleasant guy, very cooperative. Daisy had no record—no arrests, no complaints. I gave him the date when she left, but there was no report to Missing Persons.”
“I’m relieved to know she has a clean slate,” Mildred said. “She wasn’t a bad girl, but the odds were against her. She used to come to school in rags. I kept some of Sharon’s old clothes in the art room, and I’d make Daisy put them on. Yesterday I looked up some of the old yearbooks. She was a sophomore when she left school, but her picture wasn’t in the book. Couldn’t afford to have a photo taken, I guess. There was a comment about each student, and for Daisy they said she’d marry a rich husband. I don’t know whether they were being kind or cruel.”
“I think I’ll visit Della Mull tomorrow while she’s in a good mood.”
“Good. She lives in an old trailer with a big daisy painted on the door.”
“Excuse me a minute,” Qwilleran said. “I want to show you something.” He went to the broom closet and returned with the baby clothes in a Lanspeak’s shopping bag.
Mildred examined them thoughtfully.
“These aren’t from Lanspeak’s. They’re handmade. It looks like Della’s work.”
“Then she knew Daisy was pregnant, didn’t she? We may be getting somewhere. I’ll know better tomorrow.”
The next morning Qwilleran overheard a conversation that gave him an idea. Birch was again on the job, snacking with Mrs. Cobb in the kitchen and describing the culinary delights of the Dimsdale Diner: corned beef and cabbage on special every Tuesday; foot-longs with chili every Wednesday. Qwilleran decided to take Della Mull to lunch. Women, he found, liked to be lunched. They became friendly and talkative. To Della, the Dismal Diner would be haute cuisine.
With the gold bracelet in a buttoned pocket, and with Daisy’s suitcase and carton of clothing in the trunk of his car, he started for Dimsdale shortly before noon. Halfway there he turned on the twelve o’clock newscast from WPKX:
“ . . . and you’ll save dollars on top quality at Lanspeak’s. Now for the headlines . . . The mayor of Pickax has assured local merchants that the downtown business district will have a new municipal parking lot before snow flies. In a speech before the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Blythe said downtown would definitely have a new parking lot before snow flies.
“A Pickax restaurant has announced an expansion project that will increase seating capacity by fifty percent and create seven new jobs. Otto Geb, the proprietor of Otto’s Tasty Eats, told WPKX that the new addition will serve fifty percent more customers and add seven employees to the payroll.
“A Dimsdale woman was found dead in her trailer home early this morning, a victim of accidental substance abuse. The body of Della Mull, forty-four, was found by a neighbor seeking to borrow a cigarette. The coroner’s office ascribed death to alcohol and pills. According to Dr. Barry Wimms, the ingestion of alcohol and pills was the cause of death.
“And now a friendly word from the folks at Lanspeak’s.”
EIGHT
“When are we going to have your memorable macaroni?” Qwilleran asked Mrs. Cobb as they waited for Penelope Goodwinter to pick them up.
“As soon as I find some good nippy cheese. It has to be aged cheddar, you know,” the housekeeper said. “By the way, I forgot to tell you—a woman phoned you and wants to come to see you. I told her to call back tomorrow. It’s about Daisy, she said.”
“Did you get her name?”
“It sounded like ‘Tiffany Trotter,’ but I’m not sure. She sounded young.”
Mrs. Cobb was wearing her no-iron pink pantsuit, and Qwilleran had thrown his wash-and-wear summer blazer over a club shirt. When the attorney drove up in her tan BMW, she was wearing a crisp linen suit in pin stripe mauve with a mauve silk shirt and mauve pearls. In a cordial but authoritative tone, Penelope instructed Mrs. Cobb to sit in the back seat.
“My brother has returned,” she told Qwilleran, “and we are discussing a plan of organization for the Klingenschoen Foundation. Everyone endorses the idea heartily. I have never seen such unanimity in this city. Usually there are several warring factions, even if the issue is only flowerboxes on Main Street.”
The City Hall was a turreted stone edifice of medieval inspiration, lacking only a drawbridge and
moat. With its parking lot, fire hall, police station, and ambulance garage, it occupied an entire city block, just off Main Street.
In the council chamber Mayor Blythe and the council members were assembling at a long table on a dais, and they included—to Qwilleran’s surprise—two persons he knew: Amanda Goodwinter with her built-in scowl and Mr. Cooper with his perpetually worried expression. Ten rows of chairs for the general public were already filled, except for three reserved seats in the front row. Penelope took care to seat herself between Qwilleran and his housekeeper.
The mayor’s gavel rapped the table, and he intoned, “All rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Chairs were scraping the floor and the audience was struggling to its collective feet when a loud voice in the back of the room called out, “I object!”
Mrs. Cobb gasped audibly. The audience groaned and sat down again. Council members fell back into their chairs with assorted grimaces of impatience, exasperation, and resignation. Looking around for the source of the disturbance, Qwilleran spotted a belligerent-looking middle-aged man with an outdated crew cut, standing and waiting to be recognized by the chair.
With stoic calm the mayor said, “Will you please state your objection, Mr. Hackpole?”
“That’s not the official flag of these United States,” the man announced in a booming voice. “It’s got forty-eight stars, and the federal government retired that piece of cloth in 1959.”
The audience uttered another groan, and individuals shouted, “Who’s counting? . . . Sit down!”
“Order!” Mayor Blythe banged the gavel “Mr. Hackpole, this flag has been saluted in this chamber for more than a quarter of a century without offending the taxpayers of Pickax or the federal government or the residents of Hawaii and Alaska.”
“It’s a violation of the flag code,” insisted the objector. “What’s right is right. What’s wrong is wrong.”
An elderly councilwoman said in a sweetly reasonable voice, “Many of us remember fondly that this flag was presented to the city of Pickax by the late Miss Klingenschoen, and it would be a mark of disrespect to remove it so soon after her untimely death.”
The Cat Who Played Post Office Page 9
