“Did he ever make mistakes?”
“Occasionally, but it was always something that could be corrected.”
“Did he ever cause you to lose your temper?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you ever threaten him physically?”
Qwilleran looked at the detective with expressionless eyes, mournfully lidded. “Would you elucidate?”
“Did you ever . . . threaten to . . . clobber him with a two-by-four?”
Instantly Qwilleran recalled lunch at the FOO with Bushy and Roger. They had been overheard!
At the same moment the telephone rang, and a fur body dropped from the overhead beam, landed on the table, panicked, kicked wildly, scattered papers and pens, flew past the inspector’s head to a nearby bookshelf, leaped to the bar and collided with another fur body that had swooped down from the moosehead, bounced off the sofaback, whizzed past the dining table, skimmed across the chairbacks, and crashed into a lamp. The phone continued to ring. Fur bodies were flying in every direction. Zip! Whoosh! The three men were ducking. Then the ringing stopped, and the two cats came to rest on the sofa, where they engaged in mutual licking of imaginary wounds.
“Sorry,” Qwilleran said. “They were having a catfit.”
“The phone scared them,” said the local officer.
The inspector stood up. “Thank you for your cooperation, sir. We may want to talk to you again.”
When the detectives had left, Qwilleran said to the cats, “You two have never been scared by the telephone in your lives!” He gave them a few crunchy crumbles for a treat.
After starting a blaze in the fireplace to dispel the gloom of an overcast sky and the dampness of two non-stop rainy days, he sprawled on the sofa with a cup of coffee. The Siamese arranged themselves in cozy bundles on the hearth rug nearby—their backs to the warmth and their blue eyes fixed on his face, waiting for conversation.
“The thought occurs to me,” said Qwilleran, stroking his moustache, “that Mooseville might be in the grip of a serial killer—an out-and-out sociopath.”
There was a decisive “YOW!” from Koko.
“Thank you, sir, for your vote of confidence. Unlike you, the chamber of commerce will resist the idea; it’s a bad image for a tourist town. But I suspect the police are on to something. Otherwise, why would they bring in their big guns? There’s plenty for them to do Down Below. It’s my belief that they suspect, as I do, that several isolated incidents up here are actually serial killings.”
“YOW!” said Koko again, showing an unusual interest in the topic.
“Sorry, old boy,” Qwilleran said to him, “one body is enough. You’ll do no more excavating!” He massaged his moustache intently. “Where will they look for suspects? It could be an ordinary individual with a hidden personality disorder who kills and doesn’t even know he’s killing. That’s happened elsewhere. It could be the superintendent of schools; it could be the president of the chamber of commerce! That’s why it’s hard to catch this kind of criminal. I say the police have a tricky job ahead of them. The killer could be someone who’s had a twisted relationship with a specific carpenter and proceeds to transfer his animosity to all carpenters. Or he could be another carpenter—a monomaniac who wants the field all to himself. If this is the case, where was he when I needed a builder?”
Qwilleran got up to refill his coffee mug. The cats remained where they were.
Returning he said, “It’s the logistics of this latest crime that boggle my mind: how to lower the body through the trap door, convey it to the middle of the crawl space without leaving a distinct trail, and bury it under loose sand—all with only two feet of headroom, or less. Of course, Iggy was as thin as a potato chip; he can’t have weighed more than ninety pounds.”
Qwilleran began to massage his moustache vigorously. “Could it be that Iggy was already in the center of the crawl space when he was attacked? Could it be that the killer lured him down there with the story of the Klingenschoen treasure? . . . Koko, did you hear two voices under the floor? If the answer is yes, tap your tail three times.”
There was not even a whisker stirring on the hearth rug; both cats were having their afternoon nap.
Qwilleran screened the fireplace without disturbing them and drove to Mooseville to pick up his mail and replace certain items confiscated by the police.
In the post office he found the patrons talking about the murder as they licked their stamps and unlocked their boxes, but they quickly changed the subject when he approached. His mail was plentiful—too plentiful, considering that his secretary had gone on vacation. It always happened that way. And now his narrow escape on Three Tree Island would bring another flood of letters from well-wishers, and the publicity on the murder would result in yet another wave of correspondence.
When Qwilleran entered the hardware store he was aware he was being ogled by other customers. To the proprietor he said, “Thanks for turning off the rain, Cecil.” Huggins was president of the chamber of commerce, and he regarded the weather as one of his responsibilities of office.
“Too late!” he said dolefully. “The tourists are leaving in droves, and the fishermen are giving me hell. We haven’t seen the sun for three days . . . Say,” he added in a lower voice, “is it true what they said on the radio?”
“Sad but true.”
“Murder is bad for business, you know. Even worse than rain. Tourists don’t like the idea of a killer running around loose. How’d the body get underneath your house, Mr. Q?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Are the police bothering you?”
“I daresay they’re bothering everyone.”
“Do they have any suspects?”
Another customer barged into the conversation—a big man in a flashy cowboy outfit and expensive boots. “Hey, are you the fella with a dead body under the floor?” he asked with a pudding-face smile.
“I’m glad to say,” Qwilleran said politely, “that it’s no longer under the floor.”
“How’d it get there?”
“Lou,” said the storekeeper gently, taking the man’s arm, “look over there in the tool department. There’s a new kind of saber saw that we just got in stock. You’ll like it. I’ll give you a five-percent discount as a good customer.”
The big man drifted away to the other side of the store.
The hardwareman shook his head and said to Qwilleran, “He’s a nuisance sometimes, but he spends a lot of money on tools, so I try not to offend him. Sometimes I feel guilty, because I know he never uses them, but a fella with his money is going to spend it on something, so let him spend it on electric saws. That’s what I say. Am I right?”
“It makes sense,” said Qwilleran. “What do you hear about the flooding?”
“Worst ever! The creeks in three counties are dumping into the Ittibittiwassee. It’s flooding farms and washing out bridges. Very bad! They’re announcing on the radio which roads are closed.”
Qwilleran bought a new flashlight and had another key made. “Do you keep a record, Cecil, of people who buy duplicate keys?”
“Not a chance, Mr. Q. With all the records I have to keep for the government, I can’t keep tabs on folks who lose their keys.” The storekeeper accompanied Qwilleran to the door, and when they were beyond earshot of the clerks and customers he said, “There’s something I should tell you, Mr. Q. Certain local folks are talking about you this morning in a way I don’t like. You’re a great guy when you’re giving the K money away, but get a little mud splashed on your trouser cuffs, and they’re ready to trample you in the gutter.”
“Interesting observation,” said Qwilleran, “but I don’t get the point.”
Cecil glanced hastily around the store and whispered, “A certain element around here—troublemakers and not very bright—would like to think you’re the one who killed the carpenter and buried the body. If they don’t know the truth, they invent it, and they like to do mischief.”
Qwilleran took
it lightly. “Perhaps I should call Glinko and requisition a bodyguard.”
“If I were you, Mr. Q,” said Cecil, “I’d go back to Pickax until it blows over. There’s something else, too, that’s being whispered: When Clem Cottle was last seen, he was working for you.”
Qwilleran thanked him for his concern and left the store. This, he thought, is a new slant on Mooseville society—an idea for the “Qwill Pen.”
When he arrived at the cabin, however, he momentarily lost his detachment. The interior was a wreck! Cecil’s words flashed into his mind . . . until he recognized the nature of the damage and identified the culprits. The dining table had been swept clean, except for his typewriter; all the Indian rugs had been pushed into corners, their fringes chewed; Emma Wimsey’s shopping bag was overturned and the contents scattered.
“Bad cats!” Qwilleran bellowed. Yum Yum went slinking under the sofa; Koko leaped from floor to woodbox to mantel to moosehead in a swift, guilty blur of light-and-dark brown. Scolding would accomplish nothing. This was a Siamese protest against the incarceration and neglect of the last few days. Perhaps the cats were even blaming him for the lack of sunshine.
Patiently Qwilleran collected the desktop clutter from the floor. Patiently he straightened the rugs. Patiently he collected Emma’s papers. “I hope you cats know,” he said, “that I’m bucking for sainthood when I do this with such forbearance.”
Half the pens and pencils were missing, but he knew where they were. With a broom from the mudroom he made several swipes under Yum Yum’s favorite sofa and retrieved the following:
A few balls of cat hair.
A toothbrush with a red handle.
Two felt-tip pens and one gold ballpoint.
Three pencils.
A postcard from Polly Duncan, perforated with fangmarks.
A cheap lipstick case, evidently Joanna’s.
A white sock with green sports stripe.
Qwilleran assuaged his own damaged feelings with a cup of coffee and a session with the letter opener. First he read the latest postcard from Polly Duncan. She was having difficulty adjusting to the English climate; she was having respiratory problems. “She thinks she’s got problems!” he said to anyone who cared to hear. Next he opened a letter from the Senior Care Facility:
Dear Mr. Qwilleran,
I think you will want to know this. Yesterday our dear Emma Wimsey celebrated her birthday. She had a birthday cake with candles and wore a paper hat. As the aide was putting her to bed, Emma said, “I hear scratching under the door.” Shortly after, she passed away quietly in her sleep. She had just turned ninety.
Sincerely,
Irma Hasselrich, MCSCF
Chief Canary
Emma Wimsey had lived a long life, Qwilleran reflected. She had secured an education, raised a family, performed her farm chores, worshipped her Lord, collected her little stories, and passed her final days among those caring canaries in yellow smocks. Only when he visualized the diminutive woman in a paper hat on her ninetieth birthday did he feel a degree of sorrow. Opening her valentine box, he regretted that none of her family wanted this paltry legacy. If she had left a grandfather clock and a rosewood piano, they would have fought for their inheritance—a bitter idea for the “Qwill Pen.”
The box contained trinkets and scraps of paper, including one yellowed clipping from the old Pickax Picayune, probably seventy years old:
NUPTIALS CELEBRATED
Emma Huggins and Horace Wimsey of Black Creek were united in marriage at the Mooseville Church Saturday at four o’clock. There were six in the wedding party. Refreshments were served in the church basement.
Among the mementos were a buffalo nickel and a Lincoln-head penny; a tiny locket; a blue ribbon won at a county fair for home canning; a thin ring set with a few garnets, one missing; a bit of ivory that could be nothing but a baby tooth, probably that of her firstborn.
The Siamese had come out of seclusion to watch the excitement, and when Qwilleran tackled the contents of Emma’s shopping bag, they wriggled in anticipation. They knew reading material when they saw it, and they liked him to read aloud. In the bag were school notebooks filled with daily thoughts and bundles of hand-written manuscripts on lined paper.
“This appears to be,” Qwilleran told his listeners, “the lifework of a north-country farmwife who attended teacher’s college, taught school for a while, and retired to raise a family. She never forgot how to spell and punctuate and compose a good sentence, and she obviously had an urge to write.”
Leafing through the collection, he found one tale titled “The Face at the Bridge.” It was footnoted, “A true story which I told to my children many times. It always scared them.”
“Here’s a story that will curl your whiskers,” he said to the cats, and he read it aloud.
THE FACE AT THE BRIDGE
When I started teaching in a one-room schoolhouse near Black Creek, I lived with a farm family and had to walk three miles to school in all kinds of weather. I always went early because I had to make a fire in the wood stove and trim the lamps and wash the glass chimneys and sweep the floor.
One day in late November before snow had started to turn the brown landscape white, I set out for school in pitch-darkness. There was a covered bridge over the creek, and oh! how I dreaded crossing that bridge in the dark! On this particular day, as I entered the dark tunnel, I saw something that made my knees shake. There was a white object at the far end—small and round and white and floating in the air. I stood stockstill with my mouth open as it came closer, bobbing gently. I wanted to turn around and run, but my feet were rooted to the ground. And then I realized it was a FACE—no body, just a white face! It started to make noises: “U-u-ugh! U-u-ugh!”
I tried to scream, but no sound came from my mouth. Then two white hands reached for me. “U-u-ugh! U-u-ugh!”
As the white face came close to mine, I was about to faint, but then I recognized it. I recognized a pale young girl from our church. She was wearing black garments and a black shawl over her head, and she was trying to tell me not to be afraid. She was a deaf-mute.
Qwilleran smoothed his moustache with satisfaction. This was the kind of stuff his readers would enjoy, and it actually happened in Black Creek; the bridge might still be there. With his interest piqued, he delved into the bagful of manuscripts, reading how Emma’s son had been attacked by a swarm of wild bees who chased him all the way home, and how Emma’s cousin had caught her hands in the wringer of an early electric washing machine. There were local legends, mining and lumbering adventures, and the account of Punkin, the cat who scratched under the door.
The possibilities raced through Qwilleran’s mind. The Moose County Something could feature these country tales with Emma’s by-line on page two alongside the “Qwill Pen”; he would write an introduction for each one. Arch Riker might be able to syndicate them; there was a growing interest in country lore. If the Klingenschoen Fund would publish them in book form, the royalties could establish an Emma Wimsey Scholarship—unless greedy heirs tried to get into the act; Hasselrich would have to deal with that aspect.
“If we publish a book, that little lady will be dancing in her grave,” Qwilleran told the cats, “and I hope her insensitive relatives choke on it!”
As he read on, he was able to identify the early and late periods of Emma’s writing. In the older manuscripts the paper was yellowed and the ink was fading. Those of a later date were written by a hand that was beginning to shake with age or infirmity.
There was one work in poignant contrast to the others in the collection. Scribbled on the stationery of the Senior Care Facility, it was apparently written after Emma entered the nursing home. The handwriting was almost illegible, and Emma’s story-telling talent had faded. Titled “A Family Tragedy,” it was a mere statement of facts without style or grace or emotion. Qwilleran had no desire to read it aloud.
My husband was a farmer. We had four sons and one daughter. She was beautiful. Her name wa
s Violet. She could have had a fine young man, but she fell in love with a rough fellow. Her brothers pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t listen, so her father disowned her. Violet’s husband never built her a proper house. They lived in a shack. Their little girl went to school in rags. My menfolk wouldn’t let me visit them. I used to peek in the school window to look at my granddaughter. I gave the teacher clothes for her to wear. One day the girl went to school crying. Her mother was sick and all black and blue. The teacher called the sheriff. He arrested Violet’s husband for beating her. He wasn’t in jail long. Violet was pregnant. She died when the baby came. The older girl had to keep house and tendthe baby. The teacher said she changed overnight from a child to a woman. There was a lot of gossip. The baby grew to be a beautiful child. I knew something terrible was happening. When the child was twelve she shot herself with her father’s gun. I prayed that the Lord would punish him. My prayers were answered. The back of a dump truck fell on him and killed him.
Qwilleran lost no time in phoning the hardware merchant, who was related to the Wimseys by marriage. He put a blunt question to Cecil.
“Yes,” was the answer. “Little Joe is Emma’s granddaughter. Her real name is Joanna. Joanna Trupp. She doesn’t have anything to do with the Wimsey or Huggins family—just keeps pretty much to herself. I don’t know why. We’ve never given her any cause. All the relatives feel sorry for her. It’s a sad case. But she’s a pretty good plumber, I hear.”
“Why do you call it a sad case?” Qwilleran asked.
“Well, you know, Big Joe abused both his daughters sexually after his wife died. That’s probably why the younger girl killed herself. She was only twelve. Did it with her daddy’s gun. Big Joe was just no good! Everybody knew that. God knows every family tree has one branch that’s unhealthy and withers away. I hope Little Joe makes it.”
EIGHTEEN
As soon as Qwilleran confirmed that Joanna was Emma Wimsey’s granddaughter, he knew what to do with the valentine box. She might not care about it, but it included two small items of jewelry, and he ought to offer it to her. Adding the lipstick that Yum Yum had hidden under the sofa, he put the box in his bicycle knapsack.
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