“Really?” said Mildred. “How does Koko react to the designer?”
“He ignores her. He’s too busy sniffing glue.”
Over the coffee Mildred said, “Confidentially, Qwill, is Roger doing all right at the paper?”
“He’s doing fine. He has a history teacher’s nose for accurate facts, and he writes well.”
“I worried about his giving up a good teaching position—with a new baby in the family and Sharon not working. But I guess his generation is more daring than ours.”
“Speak for yourself, Mildred. I, for one, like to make daring decisions.”
“Have you decided to get married again?” she asked hopefully.
“Not that daring!”
After she said good night, adding that she wanted to be home before dark, Qwilleran moved to a stool at the bar. He had been there before, and Gary Pratt remembered his drink: Squunk water with a dash of bitters and a slice of lemon.
“How do you explain your policy on paper napkins?” Qwilleran asked him.
“Everything costs money,” Gary said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. “The bank stopped giving me free checks, and the gas station stopped giving me free air. Why should I give them free napkins?”
“I admire your logic, Gary.”
“The thing of it is, when I kept the dispensers full of napkins they were always disappearing. My customers used them to blow their nose, clean their windshield, and God knows what else.”
“You’ve convinced me! Here’s my nickel. I’ll take a napkin,” Qwilleran said. He nodded toward the mounted bear at the entrance. “I see you’ve employed a new bouncer.”
“That’s Wally Toddwhistle’s work. He’s the best in the business.”
“I’m interviewing Wally tomorrow for the paper.”
“Mention the Black Bear Café, will you?” Gary said. “Give us a plug. Tell them the hotel is over a hundred years old, with the original bar.” He ran a towel over its scarred surface with affection. “My old man let the place run down, but I’m fixing it up. Not too fancy, you know. We get a lot of boaters, and they like the beat-up look.”
Qwilleran glanced around the room and noticed boaters with striped jerseys and tanned faces, farmers in feed caps, men and women in business suits, and elderly folks with white hair and hearing aids. All were eating boozeburgers and strawberry pie and looking happy—with one exception. A sandy-haired man seated a few stools down the bar was drinking alone, hunched over his beer in a posture of dejection. Qwilleran noticed he was wearing expensive-looking casual clothes and a star sapphire on his little finger.
“How long has the big sign been on the roof?” Qwilleran asked Gary.
“Since 1900, as far as I can trace it. It’s visible from the lake. In fact, if sailors line up the steeple of the Brrr church with the Z in ‘Booze,’ it’ll guide ’em straight through the channel west of the breakwall.” He filled an order for the barmaid and returned to Qwilleran. “Some folks in town object to ‘Booze’ in such big letters, but, the way I see it, it’s a friendly word. Boozing means sitting around, talking and taking it easy while you sip a drink. It goes back to the fourteenth century, only it was spelled b-o-u-s-e in those days. I looked it up.”
Gary had professional aplomb. His black eyes roamed about the café constantly, all the while he talked and worked. He would pour a shot of whiskey, greet a newcomer, ring up a tab, nudge a boisterous customer on the shoulder, wipe the bar, mix a tray of martinis for the barmaid, draw a pitcher of beer, caution a masher, wipe the bar again.
“The thing of it is,” he explained to Qwilleran, “Brrr is a harbor of refuge for boats, the only one this side of the lake. I want the café to be a place where everyone can come and feel comfortable and at home.”
“I understand you’re a sailor yourself.”
“I’ve got a catamaran. She’s been in a few races. I used to sail with Harley Fitch, but those days are over. Too bad! Harley and David used to come in here a lot, and we’d talk boats. Not David so much; he’s a golf nut. Shoots in the low seventies. Ever see Harley’s model ships?”
“No, but I’ve heard about them. Pretty good, I guess.”
“I tried to buy one of his America’s Cup racers for the café, but he wouldn’t part with it. The thing of it is, he was getting kind of funny toward the end.”
“How do you mean—funny?”
“There was his marriage, for one thing. That was all wrong. But there were other things. When he went to work for the bank, I tried to get a loan to improve this place. If I’m gonna rent the rooms, I gotta put in an elevator and bring everything up to code. All that takes money—a lot of money. His father was president of the bank, you know, and I thought we were good friends and could work out a deal.”
The barkeeper moved away to refill a glass. When he returned, Qwilleran said, “Did the loan go through?”
Gary shook his shaggy black hair. “No dice. I was really teed off about that, and I gave it to him straight from the shoulder. We had a row, and he never came in here again . . . I didn’t care. The thing of it is, he was never the same after he came home.”
“Came home from where?” Qwilleran asked with a display of innocence. “From college?”
“No, he was, uh . . . David came home and went into the bank with his father, but Harley spent a year in the east before he came home.”
Qwilleran ordered another Squunk water and then leisurely inquired what Harley was doing in the east.
Gary’s black eyes roamed the room. “The family didn’t want anybody to know, and people made a lot of wild guesses, but Harley told me the truth. When you get out there on the lake with a blue sky full of sail and only the whisper of a breeze, it’s easy to talk. It’s like going to a shrink. That was before things turned sour between us, you know. I promised to keep mum about it.”
Qwilleran sipped his drink and glanced idly at the backbar with its nineteenth-century carvings and turnings and beveled mirrors.
Gary said, “I didn’t say anything about it when the police were here. After the murder they were talking to everybody that knew him.”
Qwilleran said, “Do you think Harley’s secret mission may have had some bearing on the murder?”
Gary shrugged. “Who knows? I’m no detective.”
“Personally,” Qwilleran said in his best confidential manner, “I’m not convinced the Chipmunk kids were responsible for the crime, and I think we should do everything we can to bring the real criminals to justice. At the moment I’m wondering if Harley made enemies during his year away from home. Did he get mixed up in gambling or drugs?”
“Nothing like that,” said the barkeeper. “I could tell you, I suppose. It doesn’t make any difference now that he’s dead, and his folks are dead.”
Qwilleran’s mournfully sympathetic eyes were fixed on Gary’s shifting black ones.
Gary said, “But I’d be crazy to tell a reporter. I know you’re writing for the paper. Are you digging up some dirt about the Fitches?”
“Nothing of the kind! I’m concerned because Carol and Larry Lanspeak are good people, and I hate to see their boy falsely linked to the murder.”
Gary was silent and thoughtful as he wiped the bar for the twentieth time. He glanced around the room and lowered his voice. “Harley’s folks said he was traveling out of the country. The thing of it is . . . he was doing time.”
“He was in jail?”
“In prison—somewhere in the east.”
“On what charge?”
“Criminal negligence. Car accident. A girl was killed.”
“Did Harley tell you this?” Qwilleran asked.
“We were still friendly then, and he wanted to get it off his chest, I guess. It’s tough living with a secret in a tight little place like Moose County.”
“And there’s always the chance that someone from outside will come into town and reveal it.”
“Or some skunk of a newspaper reporter will dig it up and make trouble.”
“Please!” Qwilleran protested.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“In the first place, I don’t consider myself a skunk of a reporter, Gary, and in the second place, my only concern is to find a clue to the identity of the killer—or killers.”
“Can you make anything out of it—the way it stands now?”
“One possibility comes immediately to mind,” Qwilleran said. “The victim’s family may have thought Harley paid too small a price for his negligence. They obviously knew he was affluent. So they came gunning for him. An eye for an eye . . . and a little jewel robbery on the side. I understand the Fitch jewels are missing.”
“If you talk to anybody about it,” Gary said, “don’t get me involved. I can’t afford to stick my neck out. When you have a bar license, you know, you have to walk on eggs.”
“Don’t worry,” Qwilleran said. “I protect my sources. Actually, I suspect the police already know about Harley’s prison term, but I’m glad you told me . . . It is a far, far better thing that you do than you have ever done—to paraphrase a favorite author of mine.”
“That’s from an old movie,” Gary said.
“Ronald Colman said it. Dickens wrote it.”
The barkeeper became affable. “Do you sail?”
“You’re looking at a one hundred-percent landlubber.”
“Any time you want to go out, let me know. There’s nothing like sailing.”
“Thanks for the invitation. What’s my tab? I’ve got to be going.”
“On the house.”
“Thanks again.” Qwilleran slid off the bar stool and then turned back to the bar. “Did anyone ever tell you, Gary, that you look like a pirate?”
The barkeeper grinned. “The thing of it is, I’m descended from one. Ever hear of Pratt the Pirate? Operated in the Great Lakes in the 1800s. He was hanged.”
On the way out of the café Qwilleran gave the black bear a formal salute. Then he sauntered out of the hotel, pleased with the information he had gleaned. He ambled to the parking lot, unaware that he was being followed. As he unlocked the car door he was startled by the shadow of someone behind him. He turned quickly.
The man standing there was the blond barfly with the star sapphire and the melancholy mood. “Remember me?” he asked sullenly.
“Pete? Is that you? You startled me.”
“Wanted to talk to you,” the paperhanger said.
“Sure.” When Pete made no move to begin, Qwilleran said, “Your car or mine?”
“I walked. I live near here.”
“Okay. Hop in.” They settled in the front seat, Pete slumped in an attitude of despair. “What’s bothering you, fella?”
“Can’t get her off my mind.”
“Belle?”
Pete nodded.
“It will take time to get over that horrible incident,” Qwilleran said, going into the sympathy routine that he did so well. “I understand your grief, and it’s healthy to grieve. It’s something you have to muddle through, one day at a time, in order to go on living.” He was in good form, he thought, and he felt genuinely sorry for this hulk of a man whose tears were beginning to trickle down his face.
“I lost her twice,” Pete said. “Once when he stole her away from me . . . and once when he got her murdered. I always thought she’d come back to me some day, but now . . .”
“The shooting wasn’t Harley’s fault,” Qwilleran reminded him. “Both of them lost their lives.”
“Three of them,” Pete said.
“Three?”
“The baby.”
“That’s right. I had almost forgotten that Belle was pregnant.”
“It was my kid.”
Qwilleran was not sure he had heard correctly.
“That was my kid!” Pete repeated in a loud and angry voice.
“Are you telling me that you were sleeping with Belle after her marriage?”
“She came to me,” Pete said with a glimmer of pride. “She said he wasn’t doing her any good. She said he couldn’t do anything.”
Qwilleran was silent. His fund of sympathetic sentiments was not equipped for this particular situation.
“I’d do anything to get the killer,” said Pete, snapping out of his dejected mood. “I heard you talking in the bar. I’d do anything to get him!”
“Then tell me anything you know—anyone you suspect. Frankly, it might save your hide. You’re in a sticky situation. Were you doing any work for Harley and Belle at the time of the murder?”
“Papering a bedroom for a nursery.”
“Were you working that day?”
“Just finishing up.”
“What time did you leave?”
“About five.”
“Was Harley there?”
“She said he was out sailing. He did a lot of sailing. He had a boat berthed at Brrr—a twenty-seven-footer.”
“Who was with him? Do you know?”
Pete shook his head. “He used to go out with Gary from the Booze. Then Gary got his own boat, and Harley stopped coming into the bar. I saw him at the Shipwreck Tavern a coupla times, though—with a woman.”
Qwilleran remembered Mildred’s tarot cards. A deceitful woman involved! “Do you know who she was?”
Pete shrugged. “I didn’t pay that much attention.”
“Okay, Pete. I want you to think about this. Think hard! Think like a cop. And if you come up with anything that might throw suspicion in any direction, you know how to reach me. Now I’ll drive you home.”
Qwilleran dropped the paperhanger at a terrace apartment halfway down the hill and waited until the man was indoors. Then he drove home, wondering how much of the story was true.
That Pete hated Harley for stealing his girl was undoubtedly a fact. That Pete hated Belle for deserting him was a possibility. That Harley proved to be impotent and that Belle turned to Pete for solace might be a wild fantasy in the mind of a disappointed lover. In that case, Pete was a logical suspect. He had the motive and the opportunity, and in Moose County everyone had the means. Belle was the first to be killed, according to the medical examiner. She and Pete might have argued in the bedroom, and he might have shot her in a fit of passion. But he was cool enough to wreck the room and make it look like burglary. One would suppose that he was about to leave the house with the smoking gun and a few jewels in the pocket of his white coveralls, when Harley returned from sailing. They met in the entrance hall. Perhaps they had a few words about the fine weather for sailing and the difficulty of hanging wallpaper in an old house with walls out-of-square. Then Pete presented his bill and Harley wrote him a check. Perhaps Harley offered him a drink, and they sat in the kitchen and had a beer, after which they said “Seeya next time” and Pete pulled out his gun and eliminated Harley.
There was a flaw in this scenario, Qwilleran realized. Harley would be wearing sailing clothes, and the newspaper account stated that both victims were in their “rehearsal clothes.” Also, it was 7:30 when David and Jill approached the mansion and saw a vehicle speeding away on the dirt road, creating a cloud of dust.
More likely, Pete was innocent. He left at five o’clock with his ladders and paste buckets. Harley came home and changed into rehearsal clothes while Belle (who was also in rehearsal clothes for some unexplained reason) put a frozen pizza in the microwave. And then the murder vehicle arrived.
Qwilleran was too tired to figure out how the murderers first killed Belle upstairs and then killed Harley downstairs. Furthermore, there was the possibility that Roger’s information from the medical examiner had been distorted by the Pickax grapevine. Slowly and thoughtfully he mounted the stairs to his apartment. At the top of the flight the Siamese were waiting for him, sitting side by side in identical attitudes, tall and regal, their tails curled around their toes—counterclockwise this time. He wondered if the direction had any significance.
SCENE FOUR
Place:
The Toddwhistle Taxidermy Studio in North K
ennebeck
Time:
The next morning
Introducing:
MRS. TODDWHISTLE
In making his appointment with Wally Toddwhistle, Qwilleran asked for directions to the studio.
“You know how to get to North Kennebeck?” Wally asked. “Well, we’re east of Main Street . . . I mean west. You know Tipsy’s restaurant? You go past that till you get to Tupper Road. I think there’s a street sign, but I’m not sure. If you get to the school, you’ve gone too far, and you’ll have to turn around and come back and turn right on Tupper—or left if you’re coming from Pickax. You go quite a ways down Tupper. There’s a shortcut, if you don’t mind a dirt road—not the first dirt road; that one dead-ends somewhere. There’s another dirt road . . .”
A woman’s voice interrupted—a throaty voice with a great deal of energy behind it. “I’m Wally’s mother. If Wally stuffed owls the way he gives directions, he’d have the feathers on the inside. Got a pencil? Write this down: Two blocks past Tipsy’s you turn left at the motel and go nine-tenths of a mile. Turn left again at the Gun Club and we’re the third farmhouse on the right—with a sign out in front. Pull in the side drive. The studio’s out back.”
On the way to North Kennebeck Qwilleran visualized Mrs. Toddwhistle as a large woman with football shoulders, wearing army boots. Wally himself always looked hollow-eyed and undernourished, but he was a nice kid—and talented.
He allowed an hour for lunch at Tipsy’s and even had time to stop at the Gun Club. The pro shop, open to the public, was stocked with rifles, shotguns, handguns, shells, scopes and camouflage clothes. Here and there were mounted pheasants, ducks, and other game birds.
“Help you, sir?” asked the brisk man in charge.
“Just passing by and stopped for a look,” Qwilleran said. “Are the birds Wally Toddwhistle’s work?”
“Yes, sir! Certainly are!”
“The sign in the window says you teach the use of firearms.”
The Cat Who Sniffed Glue Page 13