Polly was waiting to hear his reaction to the letter. “What do you think, Qwill?”
“Did the envelope have her full name and return address?” he asked.
“There was no envelope.”
“There was gossip throughout the tour about Irma’s nightly excursions with Bruce. Did she ever explain to you?”
“Not a word, and I was determined not to mention it. She was a responsible adult, and it was none of my business. She always came in after I was asleep, apparently creeping around in the dark without turning on the lights or making a sound. It was considerate of her, I thought.”
“If Bruce stole Mrs. Utley’s luggage, he wasn’t as ‘clean’ as Irma was led to believe.”
“It would seem so,” Polly agreed.
“Did she ever mention this Katie person to you?”
“No, she was secretive about her Scottish connections, but that was characteristic of her. We never knew how much was bottled up in that cool exterior.”
Qwilleran said, “If we could identify Katie, the police would have something to work with, at least. One would expect Irma to carry an address book in her briefcase—or a list of phone numbers if she planned to call friends in Scotland.”
“Perhaps it was in her handbag,” Polly suggested. “I packed it without examining the contents and sent it home in her luggage. Melinda was to turn everything over to the Hasselriches.”
“Her parents might know Katie’s name and whereabouts. If not, you could ask them for the address book on the pretext of notifying Irma’s Scottish friends about her death . . . In fact,” he added, “Bruce might be listed.”
There were signs that dinner was about to be served. Individual tables were unfolded from the chair arms, and white tablecloths were whisked across them, followed by linen napkins, wine-glasses, tiny vases of fresh flowers, and four-page menu presentations.
Qwilleran said, “We can assume that turbulence is not in their flight plan.”
They ordered vichyssoise, tournedos of beef, and Caesar salad.
After a while he asked, “What will happen at the Senior Care Facility? Will they be able to replace Irma?”
“The administrators always said they’d have to hire a professional if Irma retired. Lisa wants to apply for the job.”
“She’d be pretty good, I think.”
“Before we left for Scotland,” Polly said, “Irma was working on a project called Pets for Patients, with volunteers bringing their cats and dogs to the facility on certain days to boost morale. If it goes through, I’d be willing to take Bootsie. How about you, Qwill?”
“I’d take Yum Yum, but I doubt whether Koko would cooperate. He has his own ideas and doesn’t always do what cats are supposed to do.”
They ordered crème caramel for dessert, and after coffee Qwilleran presented Polly with a small white box bearing a monogram: CRM. It was a handmade silver brooch in the form of a peacock feather, combined with blue-green enamel and a smoky quartz crystal mounted in the eye of the feather.
“It’s beautiful!” she cried. “I love peacock feathers! What is the stone?”
“A cairngorm from the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland. This is one of the designs being made in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh style.”
“It will be perfect on my batwing cape. Thank you so much, dear.”
“Are you going to watch the movie?” he asked. The screen was being lowered at the front of the cabin.
“I’d rather take a nap,” she said.
“I’m going to look at this magazine, if my reading light won’t disturb you.”
Window shades were drawn to shut out the brilliant sunlight, while passengers either put on their earphones to watch the film, or went to sleep, or both. He held the magazine open to a feature on Tlingit art, but he was thinking rather than reading. If he could discover the bus driver’s identity, he would turn the information over to the Pickax police chief and let him follow through. Reviewing the Scottish tour in his mind, Qwilleran searched for clues in the behavior of Irma as well as Bruce. The tapes he had recorded might reveal forgotten details. Their content was intended as material for “Straight from the Qwill Pen,” but it could serve another purpose now . . . His magazine dropped to his lap, and he fell asleep until the cabin was again flooded with light and another meal was served.
By the time the plane landed in Chicago, and by the time they claimed their baggage and went through Customs and Immigration, it was too late to continue to Moose County. They stayed overnight at an airport inn and caught the shuttle flight in the morning. At the Moose County Airport Qwilleran’s white four-door was waiting in the long-term parking structure, a new building made possible by a grant from the K Foundation.
Polly said, “I remember when the terminal was a shack without chairs or indoor plumbing.”
“I remember when we had to park our cars in a cow pasture and be very careful,” Qwilleran said, “and that was only five years ago.”
“I can hardly wait to see Bootsie,” she said on the way to Pickax.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my two rascals also.”
When they arrived at Polly’s carriage-house apartment, she ran up the stairs while Qwilleran followed with her luggage. “Bootsie!” she cried. “How’s my little boy? Did you miss me?”
The husky Siamese approached with curiosity, appraised her coolly, then turned abruptly and walked away, leaving his adoring human crushed.
Qwilleran said, “That’s your punishment for abandoning him. After he thinks you’ve suffered enough, he’ll smother you with affection. I expect the same treatment when I get home.”
After two weeks of picturesque inns and impressive castles, he had forgotten that the converted apple barn was such a wondrous bit of architecture. The octagonal structure had a rough stone foundation that looked like thirteenth-century Scotland, and the weathered shingle siding was crowned by a slate roof. There were no furry creatures spying on him from the windows, however. They were in the kitchen, sitting contentedly on top of the refrigerator, watching Mildred Hanstable as she slid a casserole into the oven. They looked down on Qwilleran with condescension.
“Welcome home!” she greeted him. “How was the trip?”
“No one ever said traveling is easy.”
“How about a cup of coffee?”
“As soon as I dump this luggage. I’ve been living out of it for two weeks.” He carried his bags up the ramp to the balcony, and when he returned he had a small white box in his pocket, with CRM on the cover. The Siamese were still sitting sphinxlike on the refrigerator. “Did they ever find Irma?” he asked as he slid onto a seat at the snack bar.
Mildred poured two mugs of coffee. “Yes, she finally arrived, and they buried her yesterday, although there was some further unpleasantness. The Dingleberry brothers told Roger—off the record, of course—that the Hasselriches disagreed violently about burial versus cremation.”
“Did the obit run?”
“Yes. On the front page. I left it on the coffee table. It’s a lovely write-up . . . Well, apart from the tragedy, Qwill, how was your adventure?”
“I’ll know better after I’ve spent a night in my own bed and recovered from tour trauma.”
“Did you buy yourself a kilt?”
“No, just a couple of ties in the Mackintosh tartan. Speaking of Mackintosh, here’s a memento of Glasgow.” He pushed the small white box across the bar.
“Oh, Qwill! Thank you so much!” she exclaimed when she saw the peacock feather pin in silver and enamel. “What’s the name of this stone?”
“It’s a cairngorm, found only in Scotland, I believe.”
“It was sweet of you to think of me.”
“It was generous of you to take care of the Siamese, Mildred.”
“Not a bit! It was a thrill to live in this barn, and the cats were enjoyable company. I wouldn’t mind having one just like Koko.”
“There’s no such thing as just-like-Koko,” he informed her. “He’s
the Shakespeare of cats, the Beethoven of cats, the Leonardo of cats!”
Hearing his name mentioned favorably, Koko rose and stretched his rear chassis, then extended his forelegs with spreading toes, after which he jumped down from the refrigerator with a thump and an involuntary grunt and ambled over to Qwilleran to sniff the foreign aromas. Who could say what scents were registered by that twitching nose? Old castles? Heather? Scotch broth? Fishing villages? Sheep? A distillery? The bones of ancient kings? A battlefield soaked with blood 250 years ago?
“Did the cats misbehave in any way?” Qwilleran asked.
“Well, one of them stole my emery boards—a whole pack of them, one at a time.”
“Petty larceny is Yum Yum’s department. I owe you a pack. I’ll take it out of her allowance. How about Koko?”
“He did one naughty thing that gave me a scare,” Mildred said. “I was getting ready to take my diet pill, and he swooped in and snatched it. I was afraid he’d eat it and get sick, but he just punctured the capsule with his fangs.”
“Yes, he likes to sink them in soft, gummy things, like jelly beans,” Qwilleran explained. “Do I smell macaroni and cheese in the oven? All the time I was eating nettle broth, mutton pie, boiled sheep’s tongue, and tripe and onions, I was dreaming about macaroni and cheese.”
“That’s for our lunch,” she said. “I’m leaving some leftovers in the refrigerator for the cats—meatloaf, codfish cakes, terrine of turkey—and there’s beef stew for you in the freezer. I’ve been cooking up a storm while you were away and having a wonderful time.”
After lunch, Mildred packed and moved out, and Qwilleran shut himself in his balcony suite until an operatic chorus outside his door reminded him it was time for dinner. The three of them snacked informally on the leftovers, and then he sprawled listlessly in his favorite lounge chair with no desire to read the newspaper or play the stereo or write a letter or take a walk or call anyone on the telephone. It was post-vacation lethargy. When the Siamese crowded around, having forgiven him for his unexplained absence, he stroked Yum Yum halfheartedly and told Koko without much conviction that he was a handsome fellow.
Impulsively, Koko jumped from the arm of the chair and walked deliberately to the large square coffee table, where Mildred had left a copy of the Moose County Something. Hopping to the tabletop, he stared down at the newsprint with a near-sighted gaze. Then, arching his back and bushing his tail and sweeping his ears back, he commenced a slow prance around the lead item on the front page. He circled it again and again in a hair-raising ritual that Qwilleran had seen before. It meant that Koko’s extra senses were detecting a discrepancy that escaped human perception.
Qwilleran felt the familiar crawling sensation in the roots of his moustache. There on page one was the three-column photo of Irma Hasselrich and the half-page obituary. Koko, he remembered, had howled at the exact moment of her death. Without benefit of satellite he had known what was happening in a remote Scottish hamlet. Was it possible that the cat sensed more than that? Was Koko the source of the subliminal message urging him to return home early? Polly thought she had a remarkable rapport with Bootsie, but it was nothing compared to the mutual understanding that existed between Qwilleran and Koko.
But no, he finally decided; it was all absurd imagining. “I’m punchy from jet lag,” he said to the Siamese. “Let’s turn out the lights and call it a day.”
SEVEN
BACK HOME IN his own bed Qwilleran enjoyed a good night’s sleep, but in the morning he was disoriented. He didn’t know what day it was. He knew only that it was Day Thirteen. After living in a tour-induced limbo, where days had numbers instead of names, he had not adjusted to the standard calendar week. Consequently, the morning after Koko’s macabre dance around Irma’s obituary was Day Thirteen in Qwilleran’s book.
The sound of church bells ringing on Park Circle suggested that Day Thirteen might be translated into Sunday. On the other hand, it might be Saturday if the bells were celebrating a wedding. He thought of phoning the city desk at the Moose County Something and asking, “Is this Saturday or Sunday?” He had answered stranger questions than that when he worked for metropolitan newspapers Down Below. The local radio station was of no help; the announcer gave the time, the temperature, the wind velocity, and the relative humidity, but not the day of the week. As for the WPKX brand of daily newscasting, it was a half hour of what Qwilleran called mushy news—no less mushy on Saturday than on Sunday.
If the day proved to be Saturday, that meant he had arrived home on Friday. Yet, would Mildred Hanstable have been there on a Friday morning? She taught school and would have been in the classroom unless, of course, it was a Teacher-Optional Workday, in which case she might have opted to stay home and prepare macaroni and cheese, although that was extremely unlikely for one as conscientious as Mildred. Ergo, this had to be Sunday, and the church bells were calling the faithful to worship. That was Qwilleran’s cue to walk to the drug store and pick up the out-of-town Sunday papers.
The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday—or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow.
“I’m going downtown,” he announced to them. “Is there anything you want from the drug store?”
They looked at him as if he were demented. Or daft, as they said in Scotland. (Qwilleran had bought a glossary of Scottish terms at the Edinburgh airport.) The Siamese knew very well when he was talking nonsense. Or blethering, as they said in Scotland.
A brisk walk downtown had the effect of clearing the stupefied brain he had brought home from the Bonnie Scots Tour. He did his best thinking while walking alone. Now he resumed his ruminations begun on the plane: Irma knew about Bruce’s past record . . . She might have relived her youthful passion on the moor . . . She might have vented some hidden bitterness caused by her own conviction for manslaughter . . . She might have been Bruce’s accomplice in the jewel theft!
This wild scenario brought forth not so much as a tickle on Qwilleran’s upper lip, but when he tried another avenue of brainstorming, his moustache bristled slightly: Irma might have been Bruce’s victim. If he planned to steal the jewels, wouldn’t it be logical to eliminate the one person who knew his identity? Could he have slipped her some kind of drug that would stop her heart? This was a technical detail he would have to check with Dr. Melinda—an undertaking he hardly relished. To phone her on a Sunday afternoon would give rise to sociable invitations, such as, “Come over for a drink, and we’ll discuss it,” or “Let’s have dinner.” To visit her clinic on Monday would lead to other undesirable developments, such as, “Remove everything except your socks and shoes, and the doctor will be right with you.” No, he decided, it would be safer to meet her “accidentally” in some crowded or busy place, where they could exchange a few words without getting involved in anything personal.
Qwilleran found himself walking with clenched teeth. It annoyed him to be in this awkward position with Melinda after three years of an easy relationship with Polly. He resented being hounded by an overzealous female. He had terminated other liaisons without embarrassment, and he had been jilted himself without creating a rumpus. Somehow he had to get rid of that woman! Koko had never liked her. Did the cat’s uncanny prescience foretell this course of events? It was not beyond the realm of imagination.
At the drug store, Qwilleran picked up several out-of-town newspapers—his way of keeping in touch with the turmoil Down Below.
“How was Scotland, Mr. Q?” asked the cashier.
“Okay.”
“I heard about Ms. Hasselrich.”
“Yes, it was too bad.”
“Did you see the Loch Ness monster?”
“No, we were there on his day off.”
On the way home Qwilleran’s mind turned to the subject of Irma’s address book. If he could learn the whereabouts and/or phone number of th
e pivotal Katie, he could turn the whole matter over to Andrew Brodie and let him make a case of it, if he wished. Andy would be interested in Koko’s startling reaction to the obituary, being one of the few who knew about the cat’s sensitivity to the scent of crime. A detective from Down Below had told him about it in all seriousness. To the Pickax police chief, Koko was the town psychic.
Qwilleran walked home with his newspapers via the back road, hoping to avoid questions from well-meaning townsfolk. There was little traffic on Trevelyan Road, but eventually a car stopped and the driver called to him, “Want a lift, Qwill?” It was Scott Gippel, the used-car dealer.
“No, thanks. I’m walking for my health,” Qwilleran said with a comradely salute.
“How was Scotland?”
“Fine.”
“Sorry about Irma Hasselrich.”
“Very unfortunate.”
“Bring back any Scotch?”
Arriving home with several pounds of newsprint under his arm, Qwilleran all but stumbled over a moving hump in the foyer rug. It was a familiar occurrence, meaning that a cat had hidden stolen goods and was trying to retrieve the loot. He threw back a corner of the rug and exposed Yum Yum huddled over a playing card. It was face down, and when he turned it over, he recognized a card from Mildred’s tarot deck. He also recognized the two perforations in the corner. Koko had been the thief; he always left his mark, like the Black Hand.
The picture on the card was a pleasant scene: a grape arbor with a woman in flowing robes, a bird perched on her wrist. They were surrounded by nine gold circles, each with a five-pointed star in the center. Qwilleran remembered the card from Mildred’s reading prior to the Scottish venture. Dropping his stack of newspapers, he found his recording of the episode and slipped it into a player. The following familiar dialogue unreeled:
The Cat Who Wasn't There Page 9