Dear Junior,
Ship all my health books right away. I teach a class in breathing twice a week. These old people could solve half their problems if they knew how to breathe. Also send my photo albums. I think they’re on the shelf with the Britannica. I’ll pay the postage. Thank you for sending the clippings of Mr. Q’s column. I like his style. No one down here has the slightest knowledge of how to write. Perhaps you should start a subscription to the paper for me. Send me the bill.
—Grandma
The letter, dated two weeks previously, hardly sounded like a potential suicide, and Qwilleran wondered, Had something drastic happened to change her lifestyle or her outlook? It could be sudden illness, sudden grief, personal catastrophe . . .
Two photo albums were exactly where she had said they would be, and he turned the pages to find the highlights of her life, all captioned and dated as if she expected some future biographer to publish her life. He found a tiny Euphonia in a christening dress two yards long, propped up on cushions; a young girl dancing on the grass in front of peony bushes; a horsewoman in full habit, with the straightest of spines; and a bride in a high-necked wedding dress with an armful of white roses. In none of the photos was there a glimpse of her bridegroom, daughter, parents, or grandchildren—only an unidentified horse.
Qwilleran narrowed the collection down to ten suitable pictures and telephoned Riker at the office. “Got ’em!” he announced. “How about lunch?”
At noon he walked downtown and tossed the photos on the publisher’s desk. Riker shuffled through the pack, nodded without comment, and said, “Where shall we eat?”
“First I want to use your gluepot,” Qwilleran said. “Do you have a five-by-seven index card?”
“No. What for?”
“Never mind. Just give me a file folder, and I’ll cut it down. I want to paste Hixie’s cuesheet on a card for durability.”
“Apparently you’re expecting a long run,” the publisher said with satisfaction.
“Yes, and I’m charging the paper for mileage.”
They drove in Riker’s car to the Old Stone Mill on the outskirts of town, the best restaurant in the vicinity.
“Have you heard from Junior?” Qwilleran asked.
“Give him a break! His plane left only an hour ago.” They were passing the impressive entrance to Goodwinter Boulevard. “How do you and the cats enjoy rattling around in that big house?”
“We’re adaptable. Actually, I live in three rooms. I sleep in the housekeeper’s old bedroom on the main floor. I make coffee and feed the cats in a huge antiquated kitchen. And I hang out in the library, which still has some furniture—not good, but not too bad.”
“Is that where you found the dope on the forest fire?”
“No, it was in an upstairs closet. The house is honeycombed with closets, all filled with junk.”
“That’s the insidious thing about ample storage space,” Riker said. “It sounds good, but it turns rational individuals into pack rats. I’m one of them.”
“But Koko is having a field day. Old doors in old houses don’t latch properly, so he can open a closet door and walk in.”
Riker—who had once had a house and wife and children and cats of his own—nodded sagely. “Cats can’t stand the sight of a closed door. If they’re in, they have to get out; if they’re out, they want in.”
“The Rum Tum Tugger syndrome,” Qwilleran said with equal sagacity.
In the restaurant parking lot they crossed paths with Scott Gippel, the car dealer. “I heard on the radio that old Mrs. Gage died down south. Died suddenly, they said. Is that true? Suicide?”
“That’s what the police told Junior,” Riker said.
“Too bad. She was a peppy old gal. I took her Mercedes in trade on a bright yellow sports car. She had me drop-ship it to Florida.”
When they entered the restaurant, the hostess said, “Isn’t that sad about Mrs. Gage? She had so much style! Always came in here wearing a hat and scarf. The barman kept a bottle of Dubonnet just for her . . . Your usual table, Mr. Q?”
The special for the day was a French dip sandwich with skins-on fries and a cup of cream of mushroom soup. Riker ordered a salad.
“What’s the matter?” Qwilleran inquired. “Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Just trying to lose a few pounds before the holidays. Do you have plans for Christmas Eve?”
“That’s two months away! I’ll be lucky if I survive Thursday afternoon at Mooseland High.”
“How would you like to be best man at a Christmas Eve wedding?”
Qwilleran stopped nibbling breadsticks. “You and Mildred? Congratulations, old stiff! You two will be happy together.”
“Why don’t you and Polly take the plunge at the same time? Share the expenses. That should appeal to your thrifty nature.”
“The chance to save a few bucks is tempting, Arch, but Polly and I prefer singlehood. Besides, our respective cats would be incompatible . . . Have you broken the news to your kids?”
“Yeah, and right away they wanted to know how old she is. You know what they were thinking, that she’ll outlive me and collect their inheritance.”
“Nice offspring you begot,” Qwilleran commented, half in sympathy and half in vindication. For years Riker had chided him for being childless. “Are they coming for the wedding?”
“If the airport stays open, but I doubt it. Fifty inches of snow are predicted before Christmas.”
The two men talked about the forthcoming election (the incumbent mayor had a drinking problem) and the high cost of gasoline (when one lives 400 miles north of everywhere), and a good place for a honeymoon (not the New Pickax Hotel).
When coffee was served, Qwilleran brought up the subject that was bothering him. “You know, Arch, I can’t understand why Mrs. Gage would choose to end her life.”
“Old folks often pull up stakes and go to a sunny climate away from family and friends, and they discover the loneliness of old age. My father found it gets harder to make new friends as years go by. Mrs. Gage was eighty-eight, you know.”
“What’s eighty-eight in today’s world? People of that age are running in marathons and winning swimming meets! Science is pushing the lifespan up to a hundred and ten.”
“Not for me, please.”
“Anyway, when Junior phones, ask him to call me at home.”
The call from Junior came around six o’clock that evening. “Hey, Qwill, whaddaya think about all this? I can’t believe Grandma Gage is gone! I thought she’d live forever.”
“The idea of suicide is what puzzles me, Junior. Was that just a cop’s guess?”
“No, it’s official.”
“Was there a suicide note?”
“She didn’t leave any kind of explanation, but there was an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her bed, plus evidence that she’d been drinking. Her normal weight was under a hundred pounds, so it wouldn’t take much to put her down, the doctor said.”
“Did she drink? I thought she was a health nut.”
“She always had a glass of Dubonnet before dinner, claiming it was nutritious. But who knows what she did after she started running with that retirement crowd in Florida? If you don’t sow your wild oats when you’re young, my dad told me, you’ll do it when you’re old.”
“So what was the motive?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Who found the body?”
“A neighbor. Around Monday noon. She’d been dead about sixteen hours. This woman called to pick her up for lunch. They were going to the mall.”
“Have you talked with this neighbor?”
“Yes, she’s a nice older woman. A widow.”
“Yow!” said Koko, who was sitting on the desk and monitoring the call.
“Was that Koko?” Junior asked.
“Yes, he’s always trying to line me up with a widow who’ll make meatloaf like Mrs. Cobb’s . . . So, what happens now, Junior?”
“I’m appointed as personal
rep, and Pender Wilmot has told me what to do. She’d sold her condo and was living in a mobile home in a retirement complex called the Park of Pink Sunsets.”
“Very Floridian,” Qwilleran remarked.
“It’s a top-of-the-line mobile home. She bought it furnished from the park management, and they’ll buy it back, so I don’t have that to worry about. I have to get some death certificates, round up her personal belongings, and ship the body to Pickax. She wanted to be buried in the Gage plot, Pender says.”
“When do you expect to be home?”
“Before snow flies, I hope. Sooner the better. I don’t care for this assignment.”
“Let me know if you want a lift from the airport.”
“My car’s in the long-term garage, but thanks anyway, Qwill.”
Qwilleran replaced the receiver slowly. No known motive! The news was a challenge to one who was tormented by unanswered questions and unsolved puzzles. He had known suicides motivated by guilt, depression, and fear of disgrace, but here was a healthy, spirited, active, well-to-do woman who simply decided to end it all.
“What happened?” he asked Koko, who was sitting on the desk, a self-appointed censor of incoming phone calls. The cat sat tall with his forelegs primly together and his tail curved flat on the desktop. At Qwilleran’s question he shifted his feet nervously and blinked his eyes. Then, abruptly, he jerked his head toward the library door. In a blur of fur he was off the desk and out in the hallway. Qwilleran, alarmed by the sudden exit, followed almost as fast. The excitement was in the kitchen, where Yum Yum was already sniffing the bottom of the back door.
Koko’s tail bushed, his ears swept back, his whiskers virtually disappeared, and a terrible growl came from the depths of his interior.
Qwilleran looked out the back window. It was dusk, but he could make out a large orange cat on the porch, crouched and swaying from side to side in a threatening way. The man banged on the door, yanked it open and yelled “Scat!” The intruder swooshed from the porch in a single streak and faded into the dusk. Yum Yum looked dreamily disappointed, and Koko bit her on the neck.
“Stop that!” Qwilleran commanded in a gruff voice that was totally ignored. Yum Yum appeared to be enjoying the abuse.
“Treat!” he shouted. It was the only guaranteed way to capture their immediate attention, and both cats scampered to the feeding station under the kitchen table, where they awaited their reward.
Returning to the library, Qwilleran phoned Lori Bamba, his free-lance secretary in Mooseville, who not only handled his correspondence but advised him on feline problems. He described the recent scene.
“It’s a male,” Lori said. “He’s a threat to Koko’s territory. He’s interested in Yum Yum.”
“Both of mine are neutered,” he reminded her.
“It makes no difference. The visitor probably sprayed your back door.”
“What! I won’t stand for that!” Qwilleran stormed into the phone. “Isn’t there some kind of protection against marauding animals, invading and vandalizing private property—an ordinance or whatever?”
“I don’t think so. Do you have any idea where he lives?”
“When I chased him, he headed for the attorney’s house next door. Well, thanks, Lori. Sorry to bother you. I’ll see my own attorney about this tomorrow.”
Blowing angrily into his moustache, Qwilleran strode through the main hall and glared out the front window, where autumn leaves smothered sidewalks, lawns, pavement, and the median. Then, smashing his fist in the palm of his hand, he returned to the library and phoned Osmond Hasselrich of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter. Only someone with the nerve of a veteran journalist would call the senior partner at home during the dinner hour, and only someone with Qwilleran’s bankroll could get away with it. The elderly lawyer listened courteously as Qwilleran made his request concisely and firmly. “I want an appointment for tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Hasselrich, and I want to consult you personally. It’s a matter of the utmost secrecy.”
FOUR
WHILE WAITING FOR his Wednesday afternoon appointment with Mr. Hasselrich, Qwilleran tuned in the WPKX weather report several times, hoping for an update—hoping to hear that dire atmospheric developments in the Yukon Territory or Hudson Bay would close in on Moose County, depositing eighteen inches of snow and closing the schools. No such luck! The meteorologist, who called himself Wetherby Goode, had a hearty, jovial manner that could make floods and tornadoes sound like fun, and on this occasion he was actually singing:
“Blow, blow, blow the leaves/Gently in the street./Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,/Fall is such a treat! . . . Yes, folks, the mayor—who is running for re-election—has promised leaf pickup before Halloween. The vacuum truck will be operating east of Main Street on Friday and west of Main Street on Saturday. So lock up your cats and small dogs, folks!”
By the time Qwilleran walked downtown to the office of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter, the whine of leaf blowers paralyzed the eardrums like a hundred-piece symphony orchestra playing only one chord.
At the law office he sipped coffee politely from Mr. Hasselrich’s heirloom porcelain cups, inquired politely about Mrs. H’s health, and listened politely to the elderly attorney’s discourse on the forthcoming snow—all this before getting down to business. When Qwilleran finally stated his case, Mr. Hasselrich reacted favorably. As chief counsel for the Klingenschoen Foundation, he had become accustomed to unusual proposals from the Klingenschoen heir, and although he seldom tried to dissuade Qwilleran, his fleshy eyelids frequently flickered and his sagging jowls quivered. Today the august head nodded without a flicker or a quiver.
“I believe it can be accomplished without arousing suspicion,” he said.
“With complete anonymity, of course,” Qwilleran specified.
“Of course. And with all deliberate haste.”
Qwilleran walked home with a long stride.
That evening, when he took Polly Duncan out to dinner, she asked casually, “What did you do today?”
“Walked downtown . . . Made a few phone calls . . . Ran through my script . . . Brushed the cats.” He avoided mentioning his meeting with Hasselrich.
They were dining at Tipsy’s, a log cabin restaurant in North Kennebeck, Polly with her glass of sherry and Qwilleran with his glass of Squunk water. “Guess what’s happening on Christmas Eve!” he said. “Arch and Mildred are tying the knot.”
“I’m so happy for them,” she said fervently, and Qwilleran detected a note of relief. He had always suspected that she considered Mildred a potential rival.
“Arch suggested we might make it a double wedding,” he said with a sly sideways glance.
“I hope you disabused him of that notion, dear.”
He gave their order: “Broiled whitefish for the lady, and I’ll have the king-size steak, medium rare.” Then he remarked, “Did you read the obituary in today’s paper?”
“Yes. I wonder where they found those interesting pictures.”
“Did you know Mrs. Gage very well?”
“I believe no one knew her very well,” said Polly. “She served on my library board for a few years, but she was rather aloof. The other members considered her a snob. At other times she could be quite gracious. She always wore hats with wide brims—never tilted, always perfectly level. Some women found that intimidating.”
Qwilleran said, “I detect a lingering floral perfume in one of the upstairs bedrooms at the house.”
“It’s violet. She always wore the same scent—to the extent that no one else in town would dare to wear it. I don’t want to sound petty. After all, she was good enough to rent the carriage house to me when I was desperate for a place to live.”
“That was no big deal,” Qwilleran said. “No doubt she wanted someone around to watch the main house while she was in Florida.”
“You’re always so cynical, Qwill.”
“Were you surprised that she’d take her own life?”
Polly considered the question at
length before replying. “No. She was completely unpredictable. What was your impression when you interviewed her, Qwill?”
“She came on strong as a charming and witty little woman, full of vitality, but that may have been an act for the benefit of the press.”
“What happens now?”
“Junior is in Florida, winding up her affairs and trying to get home before snow flies.”
“I hope the weather is good for the trick-or-treaters. Are you all ready for Halloween?”
“Ready? What am I supposed to do?”
“Turn on your porch light and have plenty of treats to hand out. Something wholesome, like apples, would be the sensible thing to give, but they prefer candy or money. They used to be grateful for a few pennies, but now they expect quarters.”
“Quarters! Greedy brats! How many kids come around?”
“Only a few from the boulevard, but carloads come from other neighborhoods. You should prepare for at least a hundred.”
Qwilleran grunted his disapproval. “Well, they’ll get apples from me—and like it!” He was quiet when the steak was served; Tipsy’s specialized in an old-fashioned cut of meat that required chewing. Eventually he said, “We put the show on the road tomorrow. Mooseland High is our first booking, unless we’re fortunate enough to have an earthquake.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, dear. Do they have a good auditorium?”
“They have a gym. They’re building a platform for us. Hixie made the arrangements. I’ve practiced packing the gear, and I can set up in nine minutes flat and strike the set in seven.”
The afternoon at Mooseland High School was better than he expected, in one way; in another, it was worse. In preparation for the show he packed the lights, telescoping tripods, cables, props, and sound equipment in three carrying cases and checked off everything on a list: script, mike, telephone, extension cords, double plugs, handkerchief for the announcer to mop his sweating brow, and so forth. In college theatre there had been a backstage crew to handle all such details; now he was functioning as stage manager, stagehand, and propman as well as featured actor. It was not easy, but he enjoyed a challenge.
The Cat Who Went Into the Closet Page 4