“How much for the Beavertails?” Qwilleran asked. “I’ll write you a check.”
“It’s hard to get a check cashed. Do you have the . . . uh . . .”
“I don’t keep money in the house, but if you’ll drive me to the east-side drug store, they’ll cash a check for me. Then you can drop me off at the rehearsal hall.”
He helped Chad carry the snowshoes down the narrow stairs and into the decrepit truck. It was a terrain vehicle, riding high on huge tires. As they started off, he remarked, “There’s nothing wrong with this truck that couldn’t be improved with a muffler, some springs, a coat of paint, and a new motor.”
“It’s okay,” Chad explained. “It’s what I need when I go setting my traps. Ever do any trapping?”
“I’m a city boy,” Qwilleran said. “I don’t trap or hunt or fish, but I know they’re popular sports around Moose County.”
“You can earn good money trapping. You can go shoeing with me when snow flies, if you want, and I’ll show you how to use your Beavertails. Maybe you’d like to see my traps.”
The idea of trapping wild animals repelled Qwilleran. He had heard that a beaver caught in the jaws of a trap would chew off its own leg to get free. Since he had shared living quarters with the Siamese he had become highly sensitive about cruelty to animals. Even the thought of hooking a fish disturbed him, although he enjoyed trout amandine at the Old Stone Mill.
“I’d appreciate a lesson in shoeing in actual snow,” he said, trying to speak the lingo, “but I’m not sure I could warm up to the idea of trapping. Where do you go?”
“I get rabbits and squirrels in the Hummocks, and foxes out Ittibittiwassee Road. I use live traps mostly. That way the pelts aren’t damaged.”
Qwilleran stared ahead through the dirty windshield and said nothing. He didn’t want to know what happened to the animals after they were trapped live.
“I got a skunk a couple of weeks ago. They’re the trickiest. The safest thing is to drown them.”
Qwilleran was glad when they arrived at the drug store. After the check was cashed and the Beavertails were paid for, they started off for the rehearsal hall with a rumble, a jolt, and a backfire, and he said casually, “What do you think of the vandalism in Pickax, Chad? It’s getting pretty bad.”
They had reached the main intersection and stopped for the traffic light—it was the only one in town—and Chad leaned out of the window and yelled “Hiya!” to the occupants of a noisy rustmobile. He didn’t answer the question.
“When I was young,” Qwilleran went on, “we used to overturn garbage cans in Chicago. For some strange reason that I can’t remember at this stage of my life, we thought it was fun. What fun do they get out of breaking into the school and clobbering a computer?”
“I guess they didn’t like school, and they’re getting even,” Chad said.
“And they didn’t like having a tooth drilled so they set fire to the dental clinic. Is that the way it works?” Qwilleran asked him. “I don’t understand it. You’re young; maybe you can explain it to me.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near that place when it happened,” Chad said defensively. “I was at a party in Chipmunk.” He pulled up in front of the community center, jamming on the brakes hard.
“Thanks for the lift, fella. I’ll get in touch with you when snow flies.”
Chad nodded in sulky silence.
Qwilleran glanced at his watch; he was a half-hour late for rehearsal. The transaction had taken longer than he expected, and the detour to the drug store had wasted another twenty minutes. Francesca was strong on punctuality; she would not be happy.
When he walked into the rehearsal hall, the situation was worse than he expected. Several of the cast were absent without phoning in an excuse. Several, besides Qwilleran, had been tardy. Fran was vexed, and the general mood was tense. Reacting to her irritation the actors lost their concentration and missed their cues or fluffed their lines. In Qwilleran’s vital scene he oozed up the stairway instead of charging like a madman. Eddington spoke his lines in a terrified stage whisper. The propman had forgotten to bring a sword, and Harley Fitch had never arrived with his grandfather’s World War I bugle.
At one point the exasperated director waved them off the stage and tried coaching Eddington. The Lanspeaks took this opportunity to chat with Qwilleran. Larry said, “Our prodigal son paid us a surprise visit last weekend—in that truck he holds together with Band-Aids. He picked up all his snowshoes and said you wanted to buy a pair. He seemed almost human in spite of his alien genes.”
Carol said, “And at the store today he was actually civil to customers. Everyone thought he must be sick.”
It was the first time the Lanspeaks had ever mentioned their youngest, although they frequently boasted about the other two, who won math prizes, played the saxophone, captained the tennis team, and edited the yearbook.
Qwilleran said, “Chad brought the whole caboodle to my apartment and gave me a crash course in snowshoeing. I bought a pair of Beavertails.”
“Quiet back there!” Fran shouted. “We’re trying to rehearse.” Later, when Carol got the hiccups and Susan got the giggles, she called out, “Break! That’s all for tonight. We’ll try again tomorrow, and if everyone isn’t here at seven sharp, and if you don’t know your lines and take the rehearsal seriously, there’ll be no show!”
Qwilleran had never seen her so perturbed, and he mentioned the fact to Wally as they left the building.
“My mother would say it’s because there’s a full moon,” said the taxidermist.
SCENE FIVE
Place:
Office of the new Moose County newspaper
Time:
Later the same evening
Cast:
ARCH RIKER, publisher and editor in chief
JUNIOR GOODWINTER, managing editor
HIXIE RICE, advertising manager
ROGER MACGILLIVRAY, reporter
The stone buildings of downtown Pickax gleamed blue-white in the light of the full moon. Following the disastrous rehearsal, Qwilleran started to walk home but detoured by way of the newspaper office. It was the eve of the publication of the first issue, and he was as nervous as a prospective father. At his suggestion the Klingenschoen Fund had made the venture possible. At his urging his longtime friend, Arch Riker, had come up from Down Below to run the operation. Eventually a printing plant and office complex would be built; meanwhile, the paper was being job-printed, and the editorial and business functions were housed in a rented warehouse.
Qwilleran knew the staff had been working twelve or more hours a day, and he had stayed out of their way, but now it was the countdown; the new publication would be in the hands of readers Wednesday afternoon. He felt envious. It was a moment of excitement and tension, and he was an outsider.
As he expected, the lights were still on in the building, a former meat-packing warehouse, and he found Riker and Junior Goodwinter in the office they shared—with beer cans in their hands and with their feet propped on their desks. It was nothing like the slick, color-coordinated, acoustically engineered, electronically equipped work-station environment Riker and Qwilleran had known at the Daily Fluxion. In this temporary situation executives and cub reporters alike sat at secondhand desks and poked old manual typewriters in a barnlike workplace that still smelled of bacon, although Junior enjoyed the distinction of a rolltop desk that had been his great-grandfather’s.
“The coffee’s still hot,” Riker said. “Grab a cup, Qwill, and find a chair. Put your feet up.”
“Are you getting antsy?” Qwilleran asked.
“Everything’s locked up except page one; we’re still hoping for a banner headline for the kick-off. After the radio spots we got eighteen thousand subscriptions, and we’ve given a print order of thirty thousand. Hixie and her crew sold so many ads that we’re going to forty-eight pages, twice what we expected.”
Qwilleran had never seen him so animated. At the Fluxion Riker was the epitom
e of the jaded editor—a little paunchy, a little bored. Here, his ruddy face glowed with satisfaction and excitement.
The young, fresh-faced managing editor said, “We’ve got a lot of copy in type. Stories poured in from the stringers, but we still needed boilerplate to fill the holes. Roger MacGillivray quit his teaching job, and he’s covering city hall, police, and general assignment. His mother-in-law is handling the food page; she teaches home ec, you know.”
“I’m blissfully aware of her blueberry pies,” Qwilleran said.
“Kevin Doone is writing a garden column for us. Do you know Kevin? He runs a landscape service.”
“I know Kevin well. ‘Call Doone to Prune!’ I could live for a year on what he charged to prune a few apple trees on my property. Are you doing anything about the vandalism issue?”
“We’re running a tough editorial,” Riker said, “with a strong pitch for community involvement, parental responsibility, and more prowl cars after dark, even if they have to hire part-time officers. And the sheriff’s got to keep an eye on those kids in Chipmunk. They think Pickax is a shooting gallery. It’s time to turn off the indulgent grin and the sentimental attitude that boys will be boys.”
“What happened at the dental clinic this morning?”
“They were apparently looking for narcotics and cash, and when they were disappointed they trashed the office and started a fire.”
“I envy you guys. It’s tough to be on the outside, looking in.”
“I told you we could use your skills, Qwill,” said Riker, “but you’re busy writing that damned novel.”
Qwilleran smoothed his moustache regretfully. “I’m beginning to think I’m miscast as a novelist. I’m a journalist.”
“I could have told you that, you donkey!”
“And I don’t have the temperament for free-lance work. I need the discipline of assignments and deadlines.”
“Do you want to come on in?”
“What could I do?”
“Features. The kind of meaty, informative stuff you did for the Fluxion. We have a lot of space to fill and a lot of amateurs writing for it. We need all the professionalism we can get.”
The front door slammed, and Hixie Rice suddenly appeared. “Quick, you guys! I need a beer, coffee, anything! I’m punchy! I’ve been hitting the restaurants all over the county. They all want to buy ads in the food section. These flat heels are killing me!” She kicked off her skimmers and turned to Qwilleran. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be rehearsing or writing a novel or feeding your cats.”
“If I haven’t forgotten how,” he said, “I’m going to write a column about interesting people who do interesting things.”
“We’re assuming,” said Riker, “that such individuals exist in this outpost of civilization.”
“There are no dull subjects,” Qwilleran reminded him. “Only dull reporters who ask dull questions.”
“Okay, so that’s all settled! Now all we need is some hot-breaking news for page one. The opening issue is going to be a collector’s item, and I want it to look like a newspaper.”
Junior said, “Roger’s at city hall covering the zoning-board meeting tonight, and if we’re lucky, it’ll break up in a fistfight, or something good like that.”
“Don’t you guys ever try any creative journalism?” Hixie taunted them. “Kidnap the mayor! Bomb city hall! Pull the plug on the Ittibittiwassee dam and flood Main Street!”
The three serious journalists scowled at her.
Qwilleran said to Riker, “What name have you picked for the paper?”
“That’s got me stymied. I want it to be something like Moose County Chronicle or Clarion or Crier or Caucus. We’ve got to make a decision fast.”
“You newspaper types have no imagination,” Hixie objected. “Why not the Moose County Cannonball or Crowbar or Corkscrew?”
The three serious journalists groaned.
Qwilleran suggested, “Let the readers pick the name. Print a ballot on page one.”
“But we’ve got to have some kind of flag for the first issue,” Riker insisted. “We’ve got to call it something.”
“Call it the Moose County Something,” Hixie said. “I dare you!”
The front door slammed again.
“That’s Roger,” Junior guessed.
A young man with a camera bag slung over his shoulder burst into the office. Roger had a pale complexion and stark black beard, and tonight he was paler than usual. He was also breathing hard. He stared at the four waiting staffers.
“What’s the trouble, Roger?” asked Riker.
He gulped. “Murder!” His voice cracked on the word.
“Murder?!” Riker took his feet off his desk.
“Who?” demanded Junior, jumping to attention.
“Where?” Hixie put her shoes on quickly.
“At city hall?” Qwilleran asked, touching his moustache nervously.
Roger gulped again. “In West Middle Hummock! Two people shot! Harley Fitch and his wife!”
SCENE SIX
Place:
The newspaper office
Time:
The afternoon following the Fitch murder
Cast:
Staff members
The first copies of the Moose County Something were coming off the press, and it should have been a time of hilarity and popping champagne corks in the city room, but the front-page news had deadened everyone’s spirit. In a small town like Pickax, murder could not be an impersonal tragedy. Everyone was a friend or neighbor or relative or customer of the victim. Even Arch Riker, relatively new in town and a veteran of a thousand, big-city murder stories, was gloomy. “I wanted a sensational banner for page one,” he said, “but I didn’t want it that bad.”
A bundle of papers arrived from the job-printer and the staffers grabbed. Blazoned across the front page was the grim news: HARLEY FITCH AND WIFE FOUND SHOT TO DEATH.
In the cities Down Below, Qwilleran reflected, the public would immediately assume it to be a drug-related execution. In Pickax, 400 miles north of everywhere, there was no glimmer of such a thought. Suspicion might come later—in the coffee shops and over back fences—but at this moment the reaction was one of shock and sadness and reluctance to believe it could happen in Moose County.
Early that morning Francesca had phoned. “Oh, Qwill! Isn’t it a beast! I’ve been nauseated all night. I heard it on the midnight news. Dad wouldn’t talk about it. I suppose the paper will be out this afternoon with more details. I’d like to call David and Jill, but I’m afraid. They must be horrified.”
“It’s going to be on the front page,” Qwilleran said. “It’s the banner story with a picture of Harley. No one could find a photo of his wife—at least, not on such short notice.”
“Downtown is crowded with people, all standing around talking about it. Nobody can believe it! With them expecting a baby and everything! Nobody can settle down to business.”
“It’s hard to take. Who could possibly have done it?”
“It’s got to be the Chipmunk gang. The tourist season hasn’t started yet; we don’t have those crazies wandering around the county looking for something to shoot. Yes, it’s definitely those punks from Chipmunk.”
Qwilleran touched his moustache with his knuckles. “When everything went wrong at rehearsal last night I had a feeling there was something in the air. Wally said it was because of the full moon.”
With a whimper Fran said, “And I was cursing Harley and David and Jill for being absent without explanation. Now that I know the reason, I could cut out my tongue. We’ll cancel the show, of course. No one will have the heart to go on with it. God! I can’t work. I can’t do anything! I think I’ll go home and drink up Dad’s supply of Scotch. Do you want to come with me?”
The story on page one was subheaded: BURGLARY OBVIOUS MOTIVE. It carried the byline of Roger MacGillivray.
The scion of a prominent Moose County family and his bride of a few months were found sh
ot to death Tuesday evening at their home in West Middle Hummock. Harley Fitch, 24, and his 21-year-old wife, Belle, were victims of a gunman whose apparent motive was robbery, according to the sheriff’s department. The couple were preparing to leave the house for a Theatre Club rehearsal in Pickax, family members said. The time of death was between 6 and 7 P.M., according to the coroner.
David and Jill Fitch, Harley’s brother and sister-in-law, discovered the bodies at 7:15 P.M., when they arrived to pick up the couple for the drive to Pickax. They live a quarter mile from the Fitch mansion, recently occupied by the newlyweds who were reported to be expecting a child.
Jill Fitch told police, “We’ve been rehearsing five nights a week for a play. We usually share the ride, leaving at 6:30. I tried to phone Harley to say we’d be a little late because of a plumbing problem, but there was no answer. I thought they were probably outdoors and couldn’t hear the phone, so we just hurried as much as we could. When we finally drove up to their house, we tooted the horn, but no one came out, so David went in, and that’s when he found them.”
A spokesman for the sheriff’s department noted that Harley’s body was found lying in the rear entrance hall; his wife’s body was in an upstairs bedroom. There was no sign of a struggle, the spokesman said. The two were wearing jeans and sweat shirts, described as “rehearsal clothes” by family members.
There was evidence, according to the spokesman, that the murderer or murderers had started to ransack the house and either found what they wanted or were interrupted by the arrival of the other couple.
Jill Fitch informed police, “I remember seeing a vehicle pulling away as we approached. It was going fast down the dirt road and throwing up a cloud of dust.” There are no other residences on the road in question.
The 22-room house was the ancestral home of the Fitch family, built in the 1920s by Harley’s grandfather, Cyrus Fitch, and noted for its valuable collection of art objects, books, and curios.
Harley was the son of Nigel and Margaret (Doone) Fitch of Indian Village. Following his graduation from Yale University and a year of travel, he joined the Pickax bank where his father is president. Harley and his brother, David, were recently named vice presidents.
The Cat Who Sniffed Glue Page 5