The Cat Who Sniffed Glue

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “Oh, my God,” Qwilleran moaned. To Alacoque he explained, “Mrs. Fitch had a massive stroke after her son was murdered.”

  “Yeah,” said Derek. “Her husband was there at the hospital when she died, and he went out to the parking lot and sat in his car and shot himself.”

  SCENE TWELVE

  Place:

  Editorial offices of The Moose County Something

  Time:

  Saturday evening

  The readers had given their mandate. With the publication of the weekend issue, The Moose County Something became the official name of the newspaper, although the decision grated on Arch Riker’s better judgment and caused him acute embarrassment. He said, “I always wanted to be an editor in chief, but I never wanted to be editor in chief of something called The Moose County Something! Already I’m getting the raspberry—by mail, phone, and carrier pigeon—from the guys Down Below, and I’m afraid it’s only the beginning.”

  Nevertheless he hosted the victory celebration on Saturday night with gracious hospitality. Desks in the city room were pushed together to serve as a bar and a buffet, and the former was dispensing everything from beer to champagne. Milling around the open bar were editors, reporters, columnists, one part-time photographer drinking enough for three, stringers from outlying towns, office personnel, adpersons, and the circulation crew.

  Although exhausted after putting together the first forty-eight-page Something, the staff had managed to produce a weekend issue of thirty-six pages. It had gone to press too soon, however, to cover the deaths of Margaret and Nigel Fitch, and the banner headline on page one read: WILD TURKEYS RETURN TO MOOSE COUNTY.

  Kevin Doone, who had been a pallbearer at the funeral of Harley and Belle, was doing justice to the open bar. “I need this,” he said to Qwilleran, raising his martini glass. “Carrying that casket was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Harley was my cousin, you know, and a super guy! When Brodie started playing the bagpipe as we were coming down the church steps, I really fell apart! David wanted a piper at the church and the cemetery because Harley always liked that kind of music. God! It sounded mournful! And now Aunt Margaret’s gone. And Nigel! . . . I’ve got to get a refill.”

  Kevin dashed away to the bar, and the writer of social news, Susan Exbridge, caught Qwilleran’s eye. “Darling, why are we here?” she cried, waving her arms and spilling her drink. Since getting a divorce and joining the Theatre Club she had become overly dramatic. “We should all be at home, privately mourning for Nigel—that beautiful man!”

  Qwilleran agreed that the bank president was distinguished looking: tall, straight, perpetually tanned, with polished manners and affable personality. “How could he do it?” he asked Susan.

  “He couldn’t face life without Margaret,” she said. “They were devoted! And, of course, everyone knows that she made him a success. He was a sweet man, but he would have been nothing without Margaret’s push. She directed the whole show.”

  Qwilleran, carrying his glass of ginger ale on the rocks, moved amiably among the convivial drinkers, all complimenting each other on their contributions to the new paper. One of them was Mildred Hanstable, the buxom teacher from the Pickax high school, where she taught art and home economics, directed the senior play, and coached girls’ volleyball. Now she was writing the food pages for the Something.

  Qwilleran said, “Mildred, I read every word of your cooking columns, even though cubing and dicing and mincing are Greek to me. Everything sounded great, especially the Chinese chrysanthemum soup.”

  “When are you going to learn to cook, Qwill?”

  “Sorry, but I’ll never have the aptitude to boil an egg, understand an insurance policy, or file my own tax return.”

  “I could teach you to boil eggs,” she said with her hearty laugh. “I give private lessons!”

  Qwilleran’s expression changed from genial to doleful. “This was the night there was supposed to be a house-warming party for Harvey and Belle. Tell me something, Mildred. Teachers and cops in small towns know everything about everybody. What do you know about Belle Urkle?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say she dropped out of school. She said she wanted to work for rich people and live in a big house. You could hardly blame her, if you’d seen how people live in Chipmunk. She was a maid in the Fitch house, but I can’t understand what notivated Harley to marry her.”

  “Love? Lust? Biological entrapment?”

  “But he didn’t have to marry her and embarrass the family, did he? As soon as I heard about the murders, I got out the tarot cards and did a couple of readings. There’s a deceitful woman involved!”

  “Hmmm,” Qwilleran said politely. He was skeptical of tarot cards. “May I replenish your drink, Mildred?”

  When he returned with her Scotch and his ginger ale, he inquired casually about Harley’s scholastic record.

  “Both boys were good students—and so talented!” she said. “David did excellent pen-and-ink sketches, and Harley built model ships with exquisite detail. They were both in school plays, and I guess they became quite serious about drama in college. You may not know this, Qwill,” she said, stepping closer, “but Harley disappeared for a year!”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Both boys were expected to come home after graduating from Yale—to work in the bank. Harley didn’t show up.”

  At that moment Junior Goodwinter interrupted. “Don’t you guys want any food? We’ve got turkey and corned-beef sandwiches.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Qwilleran assured him. “Mildred is divulging some cooking secrets.”

  “I always put a teaspoon of bitters in my lime pie,” she said, picking up her cue, and when Junior moved away she said to Qwilleran, “No one really knows what happened to Harley. The family said he was traveling for a year, but of course there were many rumors.”

  There was another intrusion. Mildred’s son-in-law said, “What are you two subversives plotting?”

  “We’re helping the police solve the Fitch case,” Qwilleran informed him.

  “Excuse me,” Mildred said, “I’m going to get another drink.”

  Roger said, “I heard something interesting this afternoon, Qwill. A few hours before Nigel shot himself, he dictated letters of resignation from the bank—for David as well as himself. His suicide was evidently premeditated.”

  “But why would David have to resign?” Qwilleran asked.

  Before Roger could think of an answer, Hixie breezed into their midst with her usual breathless enthusiasm. “You’ll never believe what happened this afternoon. I was having my hair done at Delphine’s, and a huge deer crashed through the front window. He ran right through the shop and out the back window. Broken glass everywhere! And utter panic!”

  Qwilleran looked doubtful. “Do you have this story copyrighted, Hixie?”

  “It’s true! Ask Delphine! The windows are boarded up now, and a sign says, THE BUCK STOPPED HERE. I can’t understand why he didn’t gore a couple of customers.”

  Roger said, “Why don’t these things happen on our deadline? All we get is a flock of wild turkeys.”

  Arch Riker was circulating and playing the genial host. Amanda was there, too, drinking bourbon and scowling and complaining. She was wearing a conspicuous diamond ring on her left hand.

  Riker, beaming, took Qwilleran aside. “We’re taking the plunge, old sock. She may be cantankerous, but I admire her. She ran a successful business for twenty-five years and served on the city council for the last ten. And she doesn’t take guff from anyone!”

  “She’s a remarkable woman,” Qwilleran said.

  Amanda stepped forward, frowning. “Who called me a remarkable woman?” She demanded belligerently. “You never hear of a remarkable man! He’s successful or intelligent or witty, but if a woman is any of those things, she’s ‘a remarkable woman’ like some kind of female freak.”

  “I apologize,” Qwilleran said. “You’re absolutely right, Amanda. It’s a lazy
cliché, and I’m guilty. You’re not a remarkable woman. You’re successful and intelligent and witty.”

  “And you’re a liar!” she growled. Riker grinned and dragged her away, confiscating her glass of bourbon.

  Qwilleran looked around for Mildred. He wanted to hear the rest of her story about Harley’s disappearance, but she was in earnest conversation with the stringer from Mooseville, so he went to the buffet. While he was eating his second corned-beef sandwich, he spotted Homer Tibbitt, official historian for the Something, leaving the city room. “Homer! Where are you going? The party’s only begun!”

  “I’m going home. It’s 8:30—past my bedtime,” said the ninety-four-year-old retired school principal in a high-pitched reedy voice. “My days keep getting shorter. When I’m a hundred, I’ll be going to bed before I get up.”

  “I just wanted to know how well you knew the Fitch family.”

  “The Fitches? The boys came along after I retired, but I had Nigel in math and history when I was teaching. I knew Nigel’s father, too. Cyrus was a character!”

  “Is he the one who built the big house in Middle Hummock?”

  “Cyrus? Yes indeed! He was a big spender, a big-game hunter, a big collector, a big bootlegger, a big everything.”

  “Did you say bootlegger?”

  “That was something he did on the side,” Homer explained plausibly. “The family money came from mining. Cyrus built his house in West Middle Hum-mock so he could see the big lake from the top of one of the hills. Rumrunners brought the stuff over from Canada and landed on his beach.”

  “How did he get away with it?”

  “Get away with it? One night he didn’t get away with it! The sheriff confiscated the whole shipment and poured it on the dump in Squunk Corners. That’s why Squunk water is so good for you! . . . Well, it’s past my bedtime. Good night.”

  Qwilleran watched the old man making his exit with vigorous maneuvers of angular arms and legs. Then he caught Mildred alone at the bar. “You were telling me something interesting about Harley when we were interrupted,” he said.

  “Was I?” She paused to think. “I’ve had a few drinks . . . Was it about the tarot cards?”

  “No, Mildred. It was something about Harley’s disappearance after his graduation from Yale.”

  “Oh! . . . Yes . . . He was traveling . . . That’s what the family said . . . Nobody believed it.”

  “Why didn’t they believe it?”

  “Well . . . you know . . . people around here . . . gossipy.”

  “Where did they think he was?”

  “Who?”

  “Harley.”

  “Oh! . . . Let’s see . . . Ask Roger . . . I’ve got to sit down.”

  Qwilleran guided her to a chair and offered to bring her a sandwich and coffee. “How do you like it?”

  “What?”

  “The coffee.”

  “Oh! . . . Black.”

  When he returned with the food, someone told him that Mildred had gone to lie down in the staff lounge, so he ate the sandwich himself and sought out her son-in-law. “Better look after Mildred, chum. She’s had too much to drink.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Lying down for a while. She was mentioning Harley’s mysterious disappearance a couple of years ago. Know anything about that?”

  “Oh, sure. The family said he was traveling, but you know how we are up here. We get bored with the truth and have to invent something. Some people thought he was doing undercover work for the government. I thought he shipped out as a deckhand on a tramp steamer. He liked boats, and that’s the kind of offbeat thing he’d do—probably grow a beard, wear a patch over one eye and stomp around like Deadeye Dick.”

  “He married Belle in Las Vegas. Was he a gambler?”

  “I’ve never heard anything to that effect. If he had one consuming passion, it was sailing. The Fitch Witch was a neat boat—twenty-seven feet. He and Gary Pratt used to sail her in races and win trophies.”

  “Hmmm,” Qwilleran said, as suspicion tickled the roots of his moustache. In the last few days—since Harley’s murder, to be exact—Koko had taken a sudden interest in things nautical. Several times he had tilted the gunboat picture that hung over the sofa, sometimes violently. And the titles he had started sniffing on the bookshelves were sea stories. First it was Moby-Dick and then Two Years Before the Mast. Most recently it was Mutiny on the Bounty. Qwilleran had explained to himself and others that all cats tilt and sniff; they like to rub a jaw on the sharp corners of picture frames and smell the glue used in bookbinding.

  Nevertheless, the nautical connection was a curious coincidence, he thought. And there was another mystifying detail: Koko had been excessively attentive to Harley at the birthday party . . . less than twenty-four hours before his murder—almost as if he knew something was going to happen.

  SCENE THIRTEEN

  Place:

  Qwilleran’s apartment

  Time:

  Early Monday morning . . . and TOO early Tuesday morning

  Introducing:

  PETE PARROTT, a paperhanger from Brrr

  The phone rang early. It was Francesca. “Is Pete there yet?” she inquired.

  “Who?”

  “Pete, the paperhanger. He has the wallcovering for your studio, and he’s going to deliver it this morning. He can install it today or hold off for a couple of days if you wish.”

  “The sooner the better,” Qwilleran decided. “I’ll be needing to use my studio the rest of the week. What’s Pete’s last name?”

  “Parrott. Pete Parrott. He’s the one who did your living room when you were out of town. He’s the best in the county.”

  “And the most expensive, I suppose.”

  “You can afford it,” she said, with a flippancy that irritated him. He had always disliked being told what to do with his money, whether he had much or little.

  Quickly he started tidying his studio, stuffing papers into desk drawers and removing the debris of bachelor living: two coffee mugs, a tie, waste paper that had missed the basket, a pair of shoes, old newspapers, another coffee mug, a sticky plate, a sweater. He also locked up the cats in their apartment despite their vociferous objections; the busboy had not yet delivered their breakfast.

  Then Qwilleran sat down to listen for the doorbell. When it finally rang at 9 A.M., it ushered in Derek Cuttlebrink, delivering chicken liver pâté and two boned froglegs for the howling Siamese. The busboy was in no hurry to return to his place of employment; he wanted to talk about the Theatre Club.

  “Too bad they canceled the show just because Harley wasn’t in it any more,” he said. “I had a pretty good part—the policeman, you know. I even had my cop’s uniform fitted. They had to lengthen the pants and sleeves.”

  “There’ll be another play in the fall, and you can audition again,” Qwilleran informed him.

  “I’m thinking of going back to school in the fall and getting into law enforcement. It’s a whole lot better than stacking dirty dishes. Wearing a uniform and riding around in a car all day—that’s for me!”

  “There’s more to police work than wearing a uniform and riding around in a car, Derek, but it would be a good idea to complete your education in any event. By the way, how’s our nervous waitress who dropped the tray of cheesecake Friday night?”

  “Sally? She’s okay. She’s getting the hang of the job. But she’s going to school in the fall—art school—somewhere Down Below. I wish I had her luck. Her tuition’s all paid for—by Mr. Fitch.”

  “Harley Fitch?” Qwilleran asked with sudden interest.

  “No, his father. That’s why she was all shook up when he shot himself, although she’s already got the money.”

  In his mind Qwilleran was matching up the suave, sophisticated, handsome banker with the timid, scrawny, stuttering waitress, and trying to imagine some kind of illicit connection.

  As if reading his mind, the busboy explained, “Sally’s dad is janitor at the bank.”

>   “That’s a unique fringe benefit,” Qwilleran said.

  “Perhaps you should consider being a janitor instead of a cop.”

  At 10 A.M. the paperhanger had still not arrived . . . . Eleven o’clock . . . One o’clock . . . Not until 2:30 did the white commercial van pull up to the carriage house. The driver was a burly young man in white coveralls and white visored cap, with thick blond hair bushing out beneath it. Healthy-looking young men with blond hair were in good supply in this north country.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Something came up, and I had to take care of it.”

  “I wish you had phoned.”

  “Tell the truth, I didn’t even think of it. I was sort of messed up in an emergency.”

  At least he’s honest, Qwilleran thought, and he has an honest face.

  “Well, I’d better bring up my gear,” he said.

  The Siamese, released from their apartment hours before, watched with interest as stepladders, a folding table, buckets, and boxes of tools came up the stairs.

  Qwilleran said, “I was out of town when you papered the walls in the living room. You did a first-rate job.”

  “Yeah, I do good work.”

  “How long will it take you to do my studio?”

  Pete appraised the room with a brief, professional glance. “Not long. Just short strips above the dado, and the plaster’s in good shape. A little touch-up with spackle. Sizing dries in nothing flat. And there’s no matching. One job I did was all stripes—even on the ceiling, and they had to be mitered. Worst thing about it, the whole room was out of whack. Not a plumb line anywhere! When I finished I was cock-eyed and walking lopsided.”

  “Was that Fran Brodie’s idea?”

  “Yeah, she comes up with some doozies, but this stuff is easy.” The wallcovering was natural tan cork—thin slices over a rust-colored backing. “Well, I better get started.”

  “I’ll get the cats out of your way.” Koko was inspecting everything, and Yum Yum was studying the paperhanger’s shoes.