“To make it worse, my dog howled all night.”
“Whole family wore earplugs. Only way we could get any sleep.”
“It was like living under Niagara Falls.”
Qwilleran would open his column with the dictionary definition of rain: “water falling in drops condensed from vapor in the atmosphere. Also the descent of such drops. See: FOG, MIST.”
Shortly after two o’clock he went to Elizabeth’s to have Polly’s vest gift wrapped. There were quite a few customers buying skewers and raving about the potatoes and the personable young man who dressed them at tableside. “There he is!” they cried when he burst in the front door. They applauded, and he bowed graciously before striding to the rear of the store.
Qwilleran followed. “How was the kickoff?”
“Great! There’s nothing like a mystery or a scandal to attract customers. We had more orders for potatoes than we had skewers, so we cheated. We stuck skewers into ordinary baked potatoes. Nobody knew the difference.”
“Was Ernie pleased with the turnout?”
“Sure was! And she was bug-eyed over the flowers from a well-wisher. I knew they were from you, but I didn’t tell. I put them at the entrance on the maitre d’s desk. They look swell!” Derek glanced toward the front of the store. “Here comes Bad News Barb. Something’s wrong with her; I think she’s been jilted again—Don’t be too sympathetic, Qwill; she goes for older men.”
“How do you know?”
“We were in high school together, and she was always coming on to the science teacher, who was twice her age, and the principal, who was a grandfather.”
The knitter walked solemnly toward the two men, carrying a box of goofy socks. “These need price tags,” she said to Derek.
He took them into the stockroom, and Qwilleran asked her, “Do you knit vests for men? I wouldn’t mind having one for myself in olive green—with some kind of interesting knit.”
“There are lots of stitches,” she said. “I could show you samples. Do you want me to dye some yarn samples, too?”
Before he could reply, there was a moment of silence in the store as the building vibrated. Then came a thunderous boom followed by crashing and screaming.
“Earthquake!” Derek yelled, charging out of the stockroom. “Get out! Get out! Everybody out!”
He ran through the store, waving his arms and shoving customers toward the exit. There were cries of disbelief, bewilderment, fear.
“Stay calm!” Elizabeth shouted as she locked the cash drawer.
Oak Street was in turmoil. Frightened customers and workers streamed from the various stores and offices and huddled in the middle of the street, not knowing what had happened or where to run. On Main Street, half a block away, sirens were wailing and emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights were speeding eastward. From somewhere came an amplified voice of authority: “Evacuate all buildings! Police order! Evacuate all buildings!” The honking of medical and firefighting equipment added to the anxiety on Oak Street.
Then there were shouts of “Look! Look!” among the evacuees, and fingers pointed to the east where a cloud of dust or smoke billowed upward.
Qwilleran made a dash for Main Street with a double purpose: to identify the nature of the disaster and to phone the newspaper. He found official vehicles turning into Sandpit Road, while scores of individuals fled away from the Great Dune Motel and surrounding establishments. Yellow tape defining danger zones was stretched in all directions. He showed his press card to a deputy guarding the entry.
“Sorry, Mr. Q,” she said. “Security orders.”
“Is it an earthquake?”
“Sinkhole . . . Step aside, please.” A sheriff’s car with a dog cage in the backseat drove through.
Among the many flustered persons swarming up to Main Street was the antique dealer, and Qwilleran shouted, “Arnold! Where is it? Where’s the sinkhole?”
“Back of the restaurant! Huge cave-in! Cars swallowed up!”
At the same time the earth rumbled like thunder, and the east end of the Great Dune crumbled, engulfing the rear of Owen’s Place. Giant trees in full leaf, with enormous trunks and root systems, came tumbling end-over-end.
Qwilleran ran to his van and called the newspaper. Thank God, he thought, that the restaurant was closed! Then the question struck him: Where was Ernie?
In the milling crowd he spotted Derek, head and shoulders above the rest. He yelled, “Derek! Was she in the RV?”
“I’m positive! I told the police! They took an S-and-R dog in!” He pushed his way through the crowd to Qwilleran’s side.
“Was anyone working in the kitchen when you left?”
“The prep cook and the dishwasher. But I’m sure they’d get out when the pavement caved in, or the building began to shake . . . Ernie, though, went to the RV to plot the dinner procedure.” Derek’s face was pale and drawn. “The dog will find her, dead or alive. I wish I could be optimistic, but I’ve got this gut feeling that she’s gone.”
Qwilleran stroked his moustache with a heavy hand. “Let’s go into the hotel for a cup of coffee.”
In the coffee shop they sat in a dark booth instead of a sunny window overlooking the harbor; it seemed more appropriate. They sat weighted with silence for a while. Qwilleran was thinking about Mildred’s rune stones and her prediction of disaster. Then he thought about Derek’s loss. The young man admired Ernie tremendously, and they had developed a rapport. He had also lost a good position that would launch him on a serious career.
Finally Derek said, “I wish I’d taken a picture of Ernie in her chef’s toque and that tunic with buttons on the side. It was neat! . . . She was so professional . . . I’m the only one in town who got to know her. I thought she was swell. So did the kitchen staff.”
“Did she talk about her training?”
“Yeah. I asked her. She had two years at a good culinary institute. What a curriculum! Besides basic cooking she got to study baking and pastry arts, international cuisine, and nutrition. There were courses like knife skills, menu-planning, wine, purchasing, and I don’t know what else. She wasn’t stingy with her know-how either. She liked to teach. Do you know the two most important things in the chef business? Learning to taste, and learning to make a good sauce. That’s what she said, anyway.”
“Were you tempted to get into cooking?” Qwilleran asked.
“Nah. I like being out front, meeting people, and managing the service . . . Qwill, I can’t believe she’s gone!”
“Let’s not give up hope. Miracles can happen.”
The radio that provided country music and local commercials as background noise for the coffee shop was interrupted by a news bulletin.
“Turn it up!” Qwilleran yelled to the cashier.
“What was thought to be an earthquake in Mooseville this afternoon was the sudden opening of a deep sinkhole behind a restaurant on Sandpit Road, destroying two parked vehicles and causing a major sandslide at the east end of the Great Dune. When it occurred, the restaurant was closed to customers, but it’s not known at this time whether the kitchen staff escaped. Police, fire, and rescue squads are at the scene.”
Qwilleran, summing up what he had heard about the Bowens, was led to ask, “Do you think she really grieved about losing her husband?”
“Well . . . she went through the motions, but . . . I don’t know.”
“People grieve in different ways—some only in private, keeping up a brave front in public.”
“Yeah, well, to tell the truth, I didn’t get any good vibes between those two.” Derek jumped up. “I should go and try to find Liz.” He shuffled out of the coffee shop with none of the bursting energy that was his style.
EIGHTEEN
When Derek left the coffee shop, Qwilleran suddenly remembered his dinner date with Polly . . . at Owen’s Place! He paid for the coffee and phoned her from a public booth in the lobby. “Have you heard the news on WPKX?” he asked.
“I haven’t been listening to
the radio. What is it? Not too bad, I hope.”
“Very bad. A sinkhole behind the restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner! And it caused a catastrophic sandslide—the east end of the Great Dune.”
“Qwill! I can’t believe this!” she said in horror. “Are you exaggerating?”
“Not at all. I was there when it happened. I was on Oak Street, a block away.”
“I hope there was no loss of life.”
“That hasn’t been announced, but I have fears for the chef—a young, talented, dedicated woman.”
“How dreadful!”
“So where shall we have dinner? I haven’t had time to move back to Pickax as yet, but I could pick you up, and we could go to the Old Stone Mill, or Tipsy’s Tavern.”
“I don’t know, Qwill . . . This is such depressing news! Do you mean the Great Dune itself is destroyed?”
“Tons of it! Trees and all!”
There was a pause at the Indian Village end of the line. “Perhaps we should postpone it until tomorrow night. I go back to work tomorrow, and you could pick me up at the library.”
“And I’m definitely moving back to Pickax tomorrow morning. I’ll call you at the library as soon as I get in.”
With that matter settled, Qwilleran went out on Main Street again—to listen. The tourists were concerned only with the disruption of their vacations, but the locals had explanations to exchange. They blamed the sand-mining that was unwisely contracted during the Great Depression . . . the local commissioners for steadfastly ignoring the potential dangers . . . the short-sighted taxpayers who voted down a safety study . . . interplanetary Visitors for tampering with the weather and causing the abnormal rain . . . and greedy developers who had enraged the Sand Giant.
For news-on-the-hour, Qwilleran returned to his van and tuned in WPKX. He heard this:
“One casualty has been reported in the Mooseville disaster. Ernestine Bowen was killed in her recreation vehicle when it dropped into the sinkhole and was burried under tons of sand. She was the chef at Owen’s Place. Her husband disappeared a week ago in a freak accident on the lake. The couple had come from Florida to open a restaurant for the summer.”
Parked near Qwilleran’s vehicle was John Bushland’s green van. The photographer was obviously getting ground photos while aerial shots were being taken from the hovering helicopter. Qwilleran wrote a note on the back of his business card and wedged it under Bushy’s windshield wiper. Then he spotted Phil Scotten in the crowd and said, “Did the boats go out today?”
“They went, but got a late start,” the fisherman said. “I don’t work the boats every day; I do the accounting for the fisheries. I heard the news on the air and had to come and see for myself. Never thought it would happen—not in my lifetime, anyway.”
Qwilleran nodded soberly. “The sheriff’s dog was on the job, and a victim was found in the rubble.”
“That’s Dutch, a German shepherd, trained for search-and-rescue. He’s highly intelligent, has a good sense of sight and smell, and never gives up! That’s the beauty of an S-and-R. Einstein is trained as an all-purpose dog. In his five-year career he sniffed out millions of dollars’ worth of contraband. But all they need around here is an S-and-R. Dutch found a deer-hunter who went into the woods alone, tripped, and broke a leg . . . and he found an old lady who wandered away from Safe Harbor in a snowstorm.”
Qwilleran said, “If I had a dog, it would be a German shepherd.”
“You couldn’t do any better than a shep. Remember the bloody riot at the soccer game between Sawdust City and Lockmaster? After that, Dutch and his handler attended the games and—no more trouble! The dog’s presence alone was enough to keep the enthusiasm within bounds. My old college roommate Down Below is a handler on a police force, and I’ll tell him to watch for a shep going into retirement, if you want me to.”
“Uh . . . do that!”
“Are you covering the disaster for the newspaper?”
“No, I was here when it happened. I’ve been waiting for them to open the lake highway to eastbound traffic.”
When Qwilleran arrived at the cabin, the Siamese met him with expressions of concern; they knew something was wrong.
“Bad scene down there,” he told them. “There’s nothing we can do to help, so we’re heading for home first thing in the morning.”
He fed them and gave them a good brushing to calm their apprehensions. They were basking in the late afternoon sun on the porch when the green van pulled into the clearing.
Bushy jumped out, waving the card. Qwilleran had written: “Good for G and T at the K ranch. Signed: Q.”
“I need one,” Bushy said. “I’ve exposed a lot of film in the last hour. They’re giving the story most of the front page tomorrow, and most of the picture page.”
“Well, I’ve got the gin and tonic. Have you got the lens?”
“I’ve got the lens. Have you got the cats?”
“They’re on the porch in the sun, freshly fed and brushed, so they should be receptive. We’ll take our drinks out there and talk about anything but cats and cameras. Don’t even think about taking a picture; they read minds.”
The two men took porch chairs facing the lake. To their left, visible from the corner of an eye, were the Siamese: Koko striking aristocratic poses on his pedestal; Yum Yum stretched full-length on the warm glass top of the snack table.
Bushy asked, “Where were you when it happened?”
“At Elizabeth’s Magic. They thought it was an earthquake, and we rushed out into the street. We saw the dune collapse.”
“It buried the rear of the restaurant and killed the chef,” Bushy said, “and—strange enough—it was her husband who disappeared in his boat a week ago. I have a theory about that.”
“So have I,” said Qwilleran. “It was his boat that was in conference with Fast Mama, the day you and I were out on the lake. I say there’s got to be some connection.”
“I say it was an abduction. Do you know, Qwill, that Mooseville has an ordinance on the books going back more than a hundred years—an ordinance about UFOs? It’s never been enforced and never been rescinded.”
“What’s the nature of it?”
“Anyone having contact with a ‘flying boat’ must report the incident to the town constable within twenty-four hours. Would they have enacted such a law if there hadn’t been any ‘flying boats’ in the sky?”
“Well . . .” Qwilleran thought, How can I tell him that his ancestors weren’t quite sane? He said, “How did you find out about it?”
“My grandfather told me when I was a kid. He’d seen several flying boats himself, when out with the fishing fleet. Recently I got the . . . idea of . . .” His voice trailed off. He stood up slowly, raised his camera, and clicked it while facing the lake.
Qwilleran turned his head cautiously. Yum Yum was lounging on the table, and nestled between her forelegs was Gertrude with a tipsy expression embroidered on her calico face. Yum Yum, without knowing it, was facing the camera with a contented look of fulfilled motherhood.
“That does it!” Bushy announced with satisfaction. “If that doesn’t win a prize, I’m going to give up photography.”
“What about Koko?” Qwilleran asked.
“Forget that tyrant! He’s missed his chance. He’ll never be famous.”
Having heard the click-click-click, Koko had jumped from the pedestal to the floor and—as the poet delicately phrased it—was kicking up behind.
Qwilleran said to him, “I’m going to trade you in on a German shepherd!”
Wednesday was moving day, and the sooner they left the cabin, the better Qwilleran would like it. Packing had to be done surreptitiously; although Koko was usually eager to jump into the carrier, the sight of it sent Yum Yum scurrying to places unknown. Once she was found on the top shelf of the pantry, behind the supply of paper towels; another time it was under the red blanket in the bunk-room, where she flattened herself like an omelette; then again she turned up among
the wires behind the stereo amplifier. Qwilleran’s strategy was to lock them on the lake porch until the van was loaded, then grab Yum Yum and pop her into the carrier before she knew what day it was.
On this occasion she was captured and caged, but Koko—instead of panting to join the expedition—vanished suddenly and utterly, like the legendary Jenny Lee. Impatiently, Qwilleran checked all possible hiding places while Yum Yum’s wailing in the carrier added to his frustration. He yelled “Treat!” That was a password guaranteed to bring Koko stampeding into view. Instead, there was only a faint murmur in the upper reaches of the cabin. Twenty feet above the floor, in the peak of the roof, the cat had elongated himself on a narrow shelf created by the ridgepole and rafters.
After shouting the magic word again and hearing another nonchalant murmur, Qwilleran sat down to think. There was no ladder in the toolshed capable of reaching the peak. He was reluctant to call out the volunteer firefighters on such a mission. At that moment the phone rang, and he answered with a curt “Yes?”
It was Polly, sounding frantic. “Qwill, I’m back at work and calling an emergency meeting of the library board tonight. We have a mess on our hands.”
Grouchily, he muttered, “Did Mac and Katie throw up?” They were newly acquired library cats.
Ignoring the feeble quip, she said, “My assistant has resigned; the new roof is leaking; and someone tore a page from Webster’s Unabridged! We’ll have to postpone our dinner date again.”
“I was getting the message.”
“Are you moving back to the barn today?”
“That was my intention, but we have a crisis here, too. I’ll keep in touch.”
Replacing the receiver, he heard a thump, thump, THUMP as Koko descended from his perch in three stages. Back on the floor he licked his right paw calmly and thoroughly.
“Okay, young man, you’ve had your little joke. Now let’s go!”
As Qwilleran rattled the latch of the carrier, the phone rang again, and Koko flew up to the peak of the roof as if jet-propelled.
Three Complete Novels: The Cat Who Tailed a Thief/the Cat Who Sang for the Birds/the Cat Who Saw Stars Page 17