The Cat Who Went Underground

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “Who will be there?”

  “Probably the Comptons; you’ve met them, of course . . . The Urbanks are retired; he’s a chemist and a golf nut and a bore . . . John and Vicki Bushland have a photo studio in the next county. He’s an avid fisherman. Everyone calls him ‘Bushy’, which is funny because he doesn’t have much hair . . . The attorney from Down Below is newly divorced. I don’t know whether he’ll be coming up this summer . . . There’s a young woman renting the Dunfield cottage . . .”

  “How about the retired sea captain?”

  “Captain Phlogg never mixes, I’m glad to say. He’s a stinker in more ways than one.”

  “I’d like to write a column on that guy, but he’s a disagreeable old codger. I’ve been in his antique shop a couple of times, and it’s a farce!”

  “He’s a fraud,” Mildred said in a confidential tone. “He’s never been to sea! He was just a ship’s carpenter at the old shipyard near Purple Point.”

  “What is he doing in a social enclave like the Dunes Club?”

  “Want to hear the story that’s circulating? Phlogg bought lakefront property when it was considered worthless. He scrounged lumber from the shipyard and built the house with his own hands, and now lake frontage is up to two thousand dollars a foot! A word of warning, Qwill—don’t ever let your cats out. He has a dog that has a reputation as a cat-killer. The Comptons took him to court when their cat was mauled.”

  There was a muffled ring from the telephone, and Mildred excused herself. Just inside the sliding doors she could be heard saying, “Hi, Roger! I hear you’re babysitting tonight . . . No, what is it? . . . Who? . . . Oh, that’s terrible! How did it happen? . . . What will his family do? They have three kids! . . . Well, thanks for letting me know, Roger, but that’s really bad news. Maybe we can raise some money for them.”

  She returned to the terrace with a strained expression. “That was Roger,” she said. “There’s been a drowning—a young man he went to school with.”

  “How did it happen?” Qwilleran asked.

  “He went fishing and didn’t come home. They found his body at the mouth of the river. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow.”

  “Boat accident?”

  “No, he was casting from the bank of the river. I feel awful about it. After being out of work all winter, he’d just been hired for the construction gang at the condo development.”

  Mildred offered more coffee, but Qwilleran declined, saying he wanted to be home before the mosquitoes attacked. The true reason was that he felt a peculiar sensation on his upper lip—a twitch in his moustache that, in some inexplicable way, had always presaged trouble.

  He covered the half mile along the beach more briskly than before. For the last few hundred yards he felt compelled to run. Even as he climbed up the dune to the cabin he could hear Koko yowling violently, and when he unlocked the door he smelled gas!

  TWO

  When Qwilleran returned from Mildred’s cottage and smelled the noxious fumes in the cabin, he telephoned the Glinko number.

  “Glinko network!” a woman’s voice said, with emphasis on her new word.

  He described the situation quickly with understandable anxiety.

  “Ha ha ha!” laughed Mrs. Glinko. “Don’t light any matches.”

  “No advice,” he snapped. “Just send someone in a hurry.” He had opened doors and windows and had shut the cats up in the toolshed.

  In a matter of minutes an emergency truck pulled into the clearing, and the driver strode into the cabin, sniffing critically. Immediately he walked out again, looking up at the roof. Qwilleran followed, also looking up at the roof.

  “Bird’s nest,” said the man. “It happens all the time. See that piece of straw sticking out of the vent? Some bird built its nest up there, and you’ve got carbon monoxide from the water heater seeping into your house. All you have to do is get up there on a ladder and clean it out.”

  Qwilleran did as he was told, reflecting that the Glinko network, no matter how corrupt, was not such a bad service after all. Two crises in one day had been handled punctually and responsibly. He found a stepladder in the toolshed, scrambled up on the roof, and extracted a clump of dried grass and eggshells from the vent, feeling proud of his sudden capability and feeling suddenly in tune with country living. Up there on the roof there was an intoxicating exhilaration. He was reluctant to climb down again, but the long June day was coming to an end, the mosquitoes were moving in, and remonstrative yowls were coming from the toolshed.

  Settling on the screened porch with the Siamese, he relaxed at last. The yellow birds were swooping back and forth in front of the screens as if taunting the cats, and Koko and Yum Yum dashed to and fro in fruitless pursuit until they fell over in exhaustion, twitching their tails in frustration. So ended the first hectic day of their summer sojourn in Mooseville. It was only a sample of what was to come.

  Qwilleran forgot about the drowning of Roger MacGillivray’s friend until he bought a newspaper the next morning. He was in Mooseville to have breakfast at the Northern Lights Hotel, and he picked up a paper to read at the table. Headlined on page one was Roger’s account:

  MOOSEVILLE MAN DROWNS IN RIVER

  Buddy Yarrow, 29, of Mooseville Township, drowned while fishing in the Ittibittiwassee River Thursday night. His body was found at the mouth of the river Friday morning. Police had searched throughout the night after his disappearance was reported by his wife, Linda, 28.

  According to a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department, it appears that Yarrow slipped down the riverbank into the water. There was a mudslide at the location where his tackle box was found, and the river is deep at that point.

  Yarrow was a strong swimmer, his wife told police, leading investigators to believe that he hit his head on a rock when he fell. A massive head injury was noted in the coroner’s report. Police theorize that the strong current following last week’s heavy rain swept the victim, stunned or unconscious, to the mouth of the river, where his body was caught in the willows overhanging the water.

  “He always went fishing at that bend in the river,” said Linda Yarrow. “He didn’t have a boat. He liked to cast from the bank.”

  Besides his wife, the former Linda Tobin, Yarrow leaves three children: Bobbie, 5; Terry, 3; and Tammy, 6 months. He was a graduate of Moose County schools and was currently employed in the construction of the East Shore Condominiums.

  There were pictures of the victim, obviously snapshots from a family album, showing him as a high school youth on the track team, later as a grinning bridegroom, still later as a fisherman squinting into the sun and holding a prize catch.

  On page two of the newspaper, in thumb position, was the column “Straight from the Qwill Pen” about a dog named Switch, assistant to an electrician in Purple Point. Switch assisted his master by selecting tools from the toolbox and carrying them up the ladder in his mouth.

  Qwilleran noted two typographical errors in his column and three in the drowning story. And his name was misspelled.

  He had several ideas for future columns, but the subject that eluded him was the infamous Mooseville antique shop called The Captain’s Mess, operated by the bogus Captain Phlogg. The man was virtually impossible to interview, being inattentive, evasive, and rude. He sold junk and, worse yet, fakes. Yet, The Captain’s Mess was a tourist attraction—so bad it was good. It was worth a story.

  On Saturday morning—after a fisherman’s breakfast of steak, eggs, hashed browns, toast and coffee—Qwilleran devised a new interview approach that would at least command Phlogg’s attention. He left the hotel and walked to the ramshackle building off Main Street that was condemned by the county department of building and safety but championed by the Mooseville Chamber of Commerce. He found Captain Phlogg, with the usual stubble of beard and battered naval cap, sitting in a shadowy corner of the shop, smoking an odoriferous pipe and taking swigs from a pint bottle. In the jumble of rusted, mildewed, broken marine artifacts that surrounded the
proprietor, only a skilled and patient collector could find anything worth buying. Some of them spent hours sifting through the rubble.

  The captain kept an ominous belaying pin by his side, causing Qwilleran to maintain a safe distance as he began, “Good morning, Captain. I’m from the newspaper. I understand you’re not a retired sea captain; you’re a retired carpenter.”

  “Whut? Whut?” croaked the captain, evidencing more direct response than he had ever shown before.

  “Is it true that you were a carpenter for a shipbuilder at Purple Point—before you made a killing in land speculation?”

  “Dunno whut yer talkin’ about,” said the man, vigorously puffing his pipe.

  “I believe you live in a house on the dunes that you built with your own hands, using lumber stolen from the shipyard. Is that true?”

  “None o’ yer business.”

  “Aren’t you the one who has a vicious dog that runs loose illegally?”

  The old man snarled some shipyard profanity as he struggled to his feet.

  Qwilleran started to back away. “Have you ever been taken to court on account of the dog?”

  “Git outa here!” Captain Phlogg reached for the belaying pin.

  At that moment a group of giggling tourists entered the shop, and Qwilleran made a swift exit, pleased with the initial results. He planned to goad the man with further annoying questions until he got a story. The chamber of commerce might not approve, but it would make an entertaining column, provided the expletives were deleted.

  Returning to the log cabin, Qwilleran was met at the door by an excited Koko, while Yum Yum sat in a compact bundle, observing in dismay. Koko was racing back and forth to attract attention, yowling and yikking, and Qwilleran cast a hasty eye around the interior. Living room, dining alcove, kitchen and bar occupied one large open space, and there was nothing abnormal there. In the bathroom and bunkrooms everything appeared to be intact.

  “What’s wrong, Koko?” he asked. “Did a stranger come in here?” He worried about Glinko’s duplicate key. There was no way of guessing how many persons might have access to that key. “What are you trying to tell me, old boy?”

  For answer the cat leaped to the top of the bar and from there to the kitchen counter. Qwilleran investigated closely and, in doing so, stepped in something wet. On the oiled floorboards a spill usually remained on the surface until mopped up, and here was a sizable puddle! The idea of a catly misdemeanor flashed across Qwilleran’s mind only briefly; the Siamese were much too fastidious to be accused of such a lapse.

  Opening the cabinet door beneath the sink, he found the interior flooded and heard a faint splash. He groaned and reached for the telephone once more.

  “Ha ha ha! A drip!” exclaimed the cheerful Mrs. Glinko. “Allrighty, we’ll dispatch somebody PDQ.”

  In fifteen minutes an old-model van with more rust than paint pulled into the clearing—the same plumber’s van as before—and Joanna swung out of the driver’s seat.

  “Got a leak?” she asked in her somber monotone as she plunged her head under the sink. “These pipes are old!”

  “The cabin was built seventy-five years ago,” Qwilleran informed her.

  “There’s no shutoff under the sink. How do I get down under?”

  He showed her the trap door, and she pulled open the heavy slab with ease and lowered herself into the hole. Koko was extremely interested and had to be shooed away three times. When she emerged with cobwebs on her clothing, she did some professional puttering beneath the sink, went down under the floor again to reopen the valve, and presented her bill. Qwilleran paid thirty-five dollars again and signed a voucher for twenty-five. It made him an accomplice in a minor swindle, but he felt more sympathy for Joanna than for Glinko. He rationalized that the ten-dollar discrepancy might be considered a tip.

  “What’s under the floor?” he asked her.

  “The crawl space. Just sand and pipes and tanks and lots of spiders. It’s dusty.”

  “It can’t be very pleasant.”

  “I ran into a snake once in a crawl space. My daddy ran into a skunk.” She glanced about the cabin, her bland face showing little reaction until she spotted Koko and Yum Yum sitting on the sofa. “Pretty cats.”

  “They’re strictly indoor pets and never go out of the house,” Qwilleran explained firmly. “If you ever have occasion to come in here when I’m not at home, don’t let them run outside! There’s a vicious dog in the neighborhood.”

  “I like animals,” she said. “Once I had a porcupine and a woodchuck.”

  “What are those yellow birds that fly around here?”

  “Wild canaries. You have a lot of chipmunks, too. I have some pet chipmunks—and a fox.”

  “Unusual pets,” he commented, wondering if vermin from the wildlife might be tracked into the cabin on her boots.

  “I rescued two bear cubs once. Some hunter shot their mother.”

  “Are you allowed to keep wild animals in captivity?”

  “I don’t tell anybody,” she said with a shrug. “The woodchuck was almost dead when I found him. I fed him with a medicine dropper.”

  “Where do you keep them?”

  “Behind where I live. The cubs died.”

  “Very interesting,” Qwilleran mused. Eventually he might write a column on Joanna the Plumber, but he would avoid mentioning Joanna the Illegal Zookeeper. “Thanks for the prompt service,” he said in a tone of farewell.

  When she had clomped out of the cabin in her heavy boots, he recalled something different about her appearance. The boots, the jeans, the faded plaid shirt and the feed cap were the same as before, but she was wearing lipstick, and her hair looked clean; it was tied back in a ponytail.

  He settled down to work on his column for the midweek edition—about Old Sam, the gravedigger, who had been digging graves with a shovel for sixty years. He had plenty of notes on Old Sam as well as a catchy lead, but there was no adequate place to write. For a desk the cabin offered only the dining table, which was round. Papers had a way of sliding off the curved edges and landing on the floor, where the cats played toboggan on them, skidding across the oiled floorboards in high glee. They also liked to sit on his notes and catch their tails in the carriage of his electric typewriter.

  “What I need,” Qwilleran said to Yum Yum, who was trying to steal a felt-tip pen, “is a private study.” Even reading was difficult when one had a lapful of cat, and the little female’s possessiveness about his person put an end to comfort and concentration. Nevertheless, he made the best of an awkward situation until the column was finished and it was time to dress for the beach party.

  As the festive hour approached, the intense sun of an early evening was slanting across the lake, and Qwilleran wore his dark glasses for the walk down the beach to Mildred’s cottage. He found her looking radiant in a gauzy cherry-colored shift that floated about her ample figure flatteringly and bared her shoulders, which were plump and enticingly smooth.

  “Ooooh!” she cried. “With those sunglasses and that moustache, Qwill, you look so sexy!”

  He paid her a guarded compliment in return, but smoothed his moustache smugly.

  They walked along the shore to the Madleys’ contemporary beach house, where a flight of weathered steps led up the side of the dune to a redwood deck. Guests were gathering there, all wearing dark glasses, which gave them a certain anonymity. They were a colorful crew—in beach dresses, sailing stripes, clamdiggers and halters, raw-hued espadrilles, sandals, Indian prints, Hawaiian shirts, and peasant blouses. Even Lyle Compton, the superintendent of schools, was wearing a daring pair of plaid trousers. There was one simple white dress, and that was on a painfully thin young woman with dark hair clipped close to her head. She was introduced as Russell Simms.

  The hostess said to Qwilleran, “You’re both newcomers. Russell has just arrived up here, too.”

  “Are you from Down Below?” he asked.

  Russell nodded and gazed at the lake through her
sunglasses.

  “Russell is renting the Dunfield house,” Dottie Madley mentioned as she moved away to greet another arrival.

  “Beautiful view,” Qwilleran remarked.

  Russell ventured a timid yes and continued to look at the water.

  “And constantly changing,” he went on. “It can be calm today and wildly stormy tomorrow, with raging surf. Is this your first visit to Moose County?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you plan to stay for the summer?”

  “I think so.” Her dark glasses never met his dark glasses.

  “Russell . . . that’s an unusual name for a woman.”

  “Family name,” she murmured as if apologizing.

  “What do you plan to do during the summer?”

  “I like to . . . read . . . and walk on the beach.”

  “There’s a remarkably good museum in town, if you’re interested in shipwrecks, and a remarkably bad antique shop. How did you happen to choose the Dunfield cottage?”

  “It was advertised.”

  “In the Daily Fluxion? I used to write for that lively and controversial newspaper.”

  “No. In the Morning Rampage.”

  Qwilleran’s attempts at conversation were foundering, and he was grateful when Dottie introduced another couple and steered Russell away to meet the newly divorced attorney.

  Everyone at the party recognized Qwilleran—or, at least, his moustache. When he was living Down Below and writing for the Fluxion, his photograph with mournful eyes and drooping moustache appeared at the top of his column regularly. When he suddenly arrived in Pickax as the heir to the Klingenschoen fortune, he was an instant celebrity. When he established the Klingenschoen Memorial Fund to distribute his wealth for the benefit of the community, he became a local hero.

  On the Madleys’ redwood deck he circulated freely, clinking ice cubes in a glass of ginger ale, teasing Dottie, flattering the chemist’s wife, asking Bushy about the fishing, listening sympathetically as a widower described how a helicopter had scattered his wife’s ashes over Three Tree Island.