The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

-5-

News of the Mudville scandal broke in mid-morning, enabling the Moose County Something to remake the front page. Arch Riker phoned Qwilleran for help with rewrites and phones. "And listen, Qwill: Stop at Toodles' and pick up a few bottles of champagne."

Suffused with a newsman's urge to disinter the story behind the story, Qwilleran left in a hurry, although not without waving good-bye to the Siamese. He told them where he was going and when he might return, as if they cared. After their breakfast they could be infuriatingly blas‚. Yum Yum merely sat on her brisket and gave him a glassy stare; Koko walked away and was heard scratching in the commode.

At the newspaper office the mood was one of jubilation. Rarely did breaking news break on their deadline. Ordinarily the public heard it first from the electronic media - sketchily, but first. Not until the next day would the newspaper come in a poor second. True, they were able to publish photos, sidelights, background facts, quotes from individuals involved, and opinions from casual observers. After all, the Moose County Something claimed to be the north- country newspaper of record. "Read all about it" was their slogan, recalling the cry of the old-time corner newshawker.

When the presses were finally rolling, the champagne corks popped in celebration. If Qwilleran remembered his own exuberant days of champagne-squirting Down Below, it was without any wishful pangs of yearning. He was simply glad to be where he was when he was - and who he was.

Eventually Riker's booming voice announced, "Enough hilarity! Back to reality!" The staff calmed down and went to work, and Qwilleran went on his way, leaving his car in the parking lot and walking around town to do his own snooping.

First he went to the police station to see his friend Andrew Brodie, but the chief was absent - probably meeting with state and county lawmen to organize a manhunt, and woman-hunt.

Qwilleran's next stop was Amanda's Studio of Interior Design on Main Street. Amanda was not there, but Fran Brodie was holding the fort attractively, sitting at a French writing table with her long slender legs crossed and her double-hoop earrings dangling. She had been one of the seductive young women who pursued Qwilleran when he arrived in Pickax to claim his inheritance. Only Polly Duncan remained in the running; in this case, he had done the pursuing. Fran was still a friend and confidante, however. He admired her talent as a designer, her dedication to the theatre club, and her strawberry blond hair. Also, she was the daughter of the police chief and an occasional source of privileged information.

When he entered the shop, she saw him immediately and turned her face away, groaning loudly - a bit of theatre-club pantomime.

"Is it as bad as all that?" Qwilleran asked. He knew that the studio had handled the renovation of the Party Train.

"That rat owes us tens of thousands!" she wailed. "Amanda's at the attorney's office right now. Floyd had signed a contract for the work, and we never dreamed he'd run out on it."

"Were the rail coaches the only work you'd done for him?"

"No. The first was the Lumbertown office, and he liked it. Maybe you've seen how we duplicated the atmosphere of an old railway depot. He had just sold his construction firm to XYZ Enterprises and had tons of money. He paid the bill in thirty days."

"And what about his house in West Middle Hummock? I had a glimpse of it when I interviewed him about the model trains. The interior didn't look like you; it looked like Mudville thrift shop."

"Well, he said his wife didn't want any professional help with the house. That meant one of two things: Either he'd rather spend the money on model trains, or Mrs. T was too ill to care. We accepted that. Apparently Floyd himself didn't care how the house looked as long as the bar was well stocked. I don't know who drinks all that stuff. I think they never have company. Maybe Floyd has drinking buddies from Sawdust City.... But then, he commissioned us to do the interiors of the PV and the diner and the club car, and believe me, they needed a lot of doing!"

"You did a beautiful job, Fran."

"Well, why not? He was willing to spend a fortune..."

"And you thought you were on the gravy train," Qwilleran said sympathetically.

Fran groaned again. "I'm afraid Amanda will have a stroke. You know how excitable she is."

"Did you work directly with Floyd on the cars?"

"No. With his secretary - or assistant - or whatever she is. Nice person. Good to work with. Nella Hooper has fine taste. When Floyd wanted something flashy, she toned him down."

"I saw her on the Party Train. Very attractive. Know anything about her background?"

"Only that she's from Texas. She never wanted to talk about herself, and I know when not to ask questions. Floyd had me do her apartment in Indian Village and gave me carte blanche to spend money. She wanted a south-western theme."

"How about your father, Fran? Has he had anything to say about the embezzlement?"

"It's too soon."

"Or the disappearance of the principals?"

"Too soon."

The way it worked: The police chief would come home from his shift and talk shop with his wife at the kitchen table; then, when Fran made her daily phone call to her mother, Mrs. Brodie would pass along some tidbit of information in strict confidence; later, if Qwilleran dropped into the studio looking genuinely concerned and utterly trustworthy, Fran would feel free to confide in him. She was aware that he had helped the police on several occasions, behind the scenes.

"It's too early for any scuttlebutt," Fran said, "although I haven't called home yet. Why don't you come to rehearsal tonight? By that time I might have heard something."

"Will Derek Cuttlebrink be there?" Qwilleran asked. "He's on my list of leads to interview."

"He'll be there. So will his latest girlfriend."

"You mean - Elizabeth Appelhardt?"

"She prefers to be called Elizabeth Hart now."

"I must say they're an odd couple."

"But they're good for each other," Fran said. "She's talked him into enrolling at the college, and Derek is gradually nudging her into the mainstream. When you first brought her from the island, she was in a world of her own."

"Please! I didn't bring her here," Qwilleran said gruffly. "She happened to be on the same boat."

"Whatever," the designer said with raised eyebrows. "She's started wearing natural makeup and patronizing my hairdresser, and now she looks less like a character in a horror movie."

"I hear she's joined the club. That'll be good for her."

"Good for us, too! She has some fresh ideas for costumes and staging, although I expect some opposition from our older members."

"Any other news?"

"I'm doing an apartment in Indian Village for Dr. Diane - country French, lots of blue. She seems to have replaced Hixie in Dr. Herbert's life, but here's an off-twist: When Hixie broke her foot, she stayed with Dr. Herbert's mother until she could walk, and now Dr. Diane is staying with his mother until her apartment is ready."

Qwilleran said, "I'm sure there's some underlying significance to that fact, but it escapes me.... I like that paperweight. What is it supposed to be?" He pointed to a fanciful chunk of tarnished brass on Fran's desk.

"That's Cerberus," Fran told him. "The three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades in ancient mythology. Amanda picked it up at an estate sale in Chicago. It belonged to a wealthy meatpacker."

The detail was meticulous, even to the snakes that formed the dog's mane and tail. Qwilleran often bought a small object in the design studio; it pleased Fran, and it was advantageous to please the daughter of the police chief.

"If you like it," she said, "I'll give you a price on it and shine it up for you."

"I like it," he said, "but I have some other stops to make. How about shining it up and bringing it to the rehearsal tonight?"

As Qwilleran left the studio, he was chuckling to himself in anticipation of the cats' reaction to the grotesque bauble. They were always aware of any new item that arrived in their territory.

His next stop was the office of MacWhannell & Shaw. There was a question he wanted to ask an accountant.

Big Mac, as he was called, met him with a welcoming hand. "Just thinking about you, Qwill. We're planning Scottish Night at the lodge, and we'd like you to be our guest again."

"Thank you. I enjoyed it last year - even the haggis."

"I was telling the committee that your mother was a Mackintosh, and Gordie Shaw said you ought to join the clan officially, as a tribute, you might say, to her memory. The Shaws had Mackintosh connections, you know."

The suggestion hit Qwilleran in a tender spot. He had grown up with a single parent, and now that he was maturing he realized how much she had done for him. He could forget the piano lessons, and drying the dishes, and two- handed games of dominoes; he owed her a great deal. "What would it entail?" he asked.

"According to Gordie, you apply for membership, pay your dues, and receive a periodic newsletter. After that you probably start attending Scottish Gatherings and Highland Games."

"Sounds okay," said the writer of the "Qwill Pen" column, sensing a source of material. "Ask Gordie to send me an application."

"But I've been doing all the talking," the accountant said. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Just answer a question, Mac. How do you react to the Lumbertown fraud - or alleged fraud?"

"Fortunately, I have no clients who would be affected, but I sympathize with the Sawdusters. When a white-collar crime is committed in a blue-collar community, it seems particularly reprehensible - to me, that is. Don't ask me why."

"At the risk of sounding financially naive, may I ask how a guy like Trevelyan can abscond with millions belonging to his customers? I'm sure he doesn't carry it out in a suitcase."

"Basically, he has to be a crook," said MacWhannell, "but if you're talking about ways and means, well... there are such practices as juggling the books, forging documents, falsifying financial statements, and so forth."

"Floyd is, or was, a carpenter by trade," Qwilleran pointed out. "Would he have such educated tricks in his toolbox?"

"Sounds as if there was an accomplice, doesn't it? This will be an interesting case. With today's crime information networks, he'll be found soon enough."

Leaving the accountant's office, Qwilleran passed the department store and saw Carol Lanspeak on the sidewalk, waving her arms and shouting. She was directing the setup of a clothing display in the main window, giving terse but loud instructions to an assistant inside the glass, while the young woman mouthed replies.

Catching Qwilleran's reflection in the plate glass, Carol turned and explained, "The one inside the window can hear the one outside, but not vice versa." She waved to her helper and told her to take a break. "This is our last window before back-to-school, Qwill. How time flies! And oh! Weren't you shocked by the news from Sawdust City? Some of our employees live there, and they're Lumbertown depositors. What will happen? When this has occurred elsewhere in the country, it's been a real disaster."

Qwilleran said, "If the guy is a swindler and a fugitive, can't his assets be liquidated to cover debts and embezzled funds? He has a big house in the Hummocks near you, and a model train layout that's worth a mint, and the Party Train. That alone must be valued in the millions."

"But the justice system is so slow, Qwill! And the victims are families with children, and factory workers subject to layoffs, and retirees with nest eggs on deposit. What will they do when emergencies arise?"

"Well, let me tell you something surprising," Qwilleran said. "This morning I was helping to man the phones at the paper, when our reporters were calling in man-on-the-street opinions, and the victims, as you call them, weren't blaming Trevelyan; they were blaming the government for deception and injustice! They called it a plot, a conspiracy, a dirty trick! They refused to believe that Floyd would take their money and skip. They said he'd been a high school football hero and a good carpenter; his picture hung in the lobby of the credit union; he paid daily interest; he was crazy about trains."

Carol shook her head. "Everyone in Sawdust City must be nutty from exposure to industrial pollution."

Before leaving for the rehearsal that evening, Qwilleran started to read the first few scenes of A Midsummer Night's Dream aloud. Both cats enjoyed the sound of his voice, whether he was reading great literature or the baseball scores. On this occasion Koko was particularly attentive and even got into the act a few times.

The first scene opened with an indignant father hauling his disobedient daughter before the duke for reprimand. Full of vexation am I, with complaint against my daughter, Hermia.

"Yow!" said Koko.

"That's not in the script," Qwilleran objected.

After the father had raved and ranted, the duke argued with gentle reasonableness. What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.

"Yow!" Koko said again.

The young woman was being forced by law to marry a man of her father's choosing, or enter a convent, or die. Therefore, Hermia, question your desires.

"Yow!"

Qwilleran closed the book. He said, "This is getting monotonous, if you don't mind my saying so." Later, as he walked through the Black Forest to the theatre, he construed Koko's responses as infatuation with a certain sound. To a cat, "Hermia" might have a secret meaning. Then again, Koko might be playing practical jokes; he had a sense of humor.

The K Theatre, originally the Klingenschoen mansion, was a great three- story mass of fieldstone, transformed into a two-hundred-seat amphitheatre. From the lofty foyer a pair of staircases curved up to the lobby, from which the seating sloped down to the stage. When Qwilleran arrived, the cast was doing a run-through without the book, while the director watched from the third row and scribbled notes. Other cast members were scattered throughout the auditorium, waiting for their scenes. Quietly he took a seat behind Fran Brodie.

The "rude mechanicals" were onstage: tinker, tailor, joiner, bellowsmaker, carpenter, and the six-foot-eight weaver, who delivered the final line of the scene: Enough: Hold, or cut bowstrings.

"Break! Take five!" Fran called out. Qwilleran tapped her on the shoulder. "That line about bowstrings - I've never quite understood it."

"I take it to mean 'cooperate - or else,' but I don't know its origin. Ask Polly. She'll know."

Actors wandered up the aisle to get a drink of water in the lobby or stopped to ask Fran a question. As soon as she and Qwilleran were alone, she said in a low voice, "They've picked up Floyd's car. It was in that meadow where car-poolers park. It had been there all week, and the sheriff was aware of it, but Floyd wasn't on the wanted list then."

"Do you suppose someone tipped him off about the audit? Who could it be?"

"It looks as if an accomplice drove in from Indian Village and picked him up - Nella, for example. They're both missing."

"But how would she know about the audit?"

"Interesting question."

"If they're headed for Mexico," he said, "they've had a headstart of three days. She'd know a lot about Mexico, being from Texas."

"Wherever they went, they'll be found easily enough." Fran looked at her watch. "Time for the next scene. Don't go. I have more to report.... And do you know what? I brought your paperweight and left it in my car."

"Why don't you drive down to the barn when you're through here. I'll pour. You can bring the paperweight."

"Elizabeth Hart will be with me. Do you mind? I'm her ride tonight."

"That's fine. She's never seen the barn.... Is it okay to interview Derek now?"

"Sure. He won't be called for fifteen minutes."

Before interviewing the young actor, Qwilleran checked his bio in the most recent playbill:

DEREK CU1TLEBRINK. Veteran of five productions. Best-remembered roles: the porter in Macbeth and the villain in The Drunkard. Lifelong resident of Wildcat. Graduate of Pickax High School, where he played basketball. Currently employed as a waiter at the Old Stone Mill. Major interests: acting, camping, folk-singing, girls.

The last of these was only too true. At performances in the K Theatre there was always claque of Derek's girlfriends and ex-girlfriend and would-be girlfriends, ready to applaud a soon as he walked on stage. Whatever the source of his magnetism, his turnover in female companions was of more interest than the Dow Jones averages in Pickax. Tonight Derek was sitting with his latest, Elizabeth Hart, in the back row, where they could whisper without disturbing the proceedings on stage.

Qwilleran asked her if he might borrow Derek for a brief interview in the lobby.

"May I listen in?" she asked.

"Of course."

The eccentric young woman he had met on Breakfast Island had improved her grooming, but her taste for exotic clothing had not changed. While other club members were in grungy rehearsal togs, Elizabeth wore an embroidered vest and skullcap, possibly from Ecuador, with a balloon-sleeve white silk blouse and harem pants. Their bagginess camouflaged her thinness. The interview was taped:

QWILLERAN: You're playing the role of Nick Bottom, the weaver. How do you perceive Mr. Bottom?

DEREK: You mean, what's he like? He's a funny guy, always using the wrong words and doing some dumb thing, but nothing gets him down. People like him.

ELIZABETH: (interrupting) His malapropisms are quite endearing.

DEREK: Yeah. Took the words right outa my mouth.

QWILLERAN: How does Bottom fit into the plot?

DEREK: Well, there's a wedding at the palace, and for entertainment they've got a bunch of ordinary guys to put on a play. Bottom wants to direct and play all the roles himself.

ELIZABETH: His vanity would be insufferable, if it weren't so ingratiating.

DEREK: Yeah. You can quote me. The players rehearse in the woods, and one of the little green men turns me into a donkey from the neck up. The joke of it is: the queen of the greenies falls in love with me.

ELIZABETH: She's a bewitcher who is bewitched.

DEREK: That's pretty good. Put it in.

QWILLERAN: How do you feel about little green men in a Shakespeare play?

DEREK: No problem. He called 'em fairies; we call 'em greenies. They're all aliens, right?

QWILLERAN: What is your favorite line? DEREK: I like it when I roar like a lion... Arrrrgh! Arrrrgh! And at the end I have a death scene that's fun. Now die, die, die, die, die. That always gets a laugh.

Qwilleran, having completed his mission, more or less, returned to the barn through the Black Forest, listening for Marconi. It was still daylight, however, and Marconi was a night owl.

Yum Yum was waiting at the kitchen door. He picked her up and whispered affectionate words while she caressed his hand with her waving tail. Koko was not there. Koko was in the foyer, looking out the window.

The formal entrance to the barn was a double door flanked by tall, narrow windows. These sidelights had sills about twenty inches from the floor, a convenient height for a cat who wanted to stand on his hind feet and peer through the glass. There was something out there that fascinated Koko. With his neck stretched and his ears pricked, he stared down the orchard trail. Surveyors had been there and lumberyard trucks and carpenters' pickups and a cement mixer, but that was daytime activity, and there was no action after four-thirty. Yet Koko watched and waited as if expecting something to happen. His prescience was sometimes unnerving. He could sense an approaching storm, and a telephone about to ring. He often knew what Qwilleran was going to do before Qwilleran knew.

Koko also had a sense of right and wrong. The decoys on the fireplace cube, for example, were lined up facing east. One day Mrs. Fulgrove came to clean and left them facing west. Koko threw a fit!

On this summer evening he watched and waited, while Qwilleran listened to the tape of Derek's interview; to make an eight-inch think-piece out of it would require all his fictive skills. Only once was Koko lured away from the window, and that was when Derek roared like a lion.

A run-through without the book was always a long rehearsal, and it was dark when Qwilleran's guests arrived. As soon as the car headlights came bobbing along the wooded road, he floodlighted the exterior of the barn to play up its striking features: a fieldstone foundation ten feet high, three stories of weathered shingle siding, and a series of odd-shaped windows cut in the wall of the octagonal building. Visitors were usually awed.

Qwilleran put on his yellow cap and went to meet the two women, and as he opened the passenger's door Elizabeth stepped out and looked around. "You have an owl," she said. "It sounds like a great horned owl. They hoot in clusters. We had one in our woods on the island, and we used to count the hoots. The pattern varies with the season and the owl's personal agenda."

"Shall we go indoors? I'm thirsty," Fran said impatiently.

The interior was aglow. Indirect lighting accented the balconies and the beams high overhead; downlights created mysterious puddles of light on the main floor; a spotlight focused on a huge tapestry hanging from a balcony railing. Appropriately, the design was an apple tree.

As Fran gazed around in admiration, Elizabeth went looking for the cats.

Fran said, "I've been here a hundred times, and I never cease to marvel at Dennis's genius. His death was a flagrant waste of talent. If he had lived, would he have stayed in the north?"

"I doubt it," Qwilleran said. "His family was in St. Louis."

"I can't find Koko and Yum Yum," Elizabeth complained.

"They're around here somewhere, but we have an abundance of somewhere in this place. Shall we go into the lounge area and have a glass of wine or fruit juice?"

Koko, having heard his name, suddenly appeared from nowhere, followed by Yum Yum, yawning and stretching her dainty hindquarters.

"They remember me from the island!" Elizabeth said with delight, as she dropped to her knees and extended a finger for sniffing.

Fran followed Qwilleran into the kitchen to watch him prepare wine spritzers.

"What did you want to tell me?" he asked quietly.

In a low voice she said, "The police have been questioning Floyd's associates, and they've discovered something that I consider bizarre. Have you heard of the Lockmaster Indemnity Corporation? They were supposed to be private insurers of depositors' funds in the Lumbertown Credit Union, but they're broke! They can't cover the losses!"

"How can that be? Sounds to me as if they're part of the scam."

"I don't know, but they'd transferred their assets to their wives' names. They call it estate planning. Dad calls it dirty pool."

"I'd say your dad is right. If they get away with it," Qwilleran said, "there's something radically wrong in this state!"

As he carried the tray into the lounge area two spritzers and one club soda - Elizabeth rose gracefully from the floor. "We've been having a significant dialogue," she said. "They're glad to see me."

All five of them sat around the large square coffee table, where Qwilleran had placed three small bowls of Kabibbles. There was also a copy of that day's Moose County Something. Fran commented on the in-depth coverage of the scandal, and Qwilleran gloated over the journalistic feat, while Elizabeth listened politely. She was known to have a high I.Q. and an interest in esoteric subjects, as well as a sizable trust fund, but she had no idea what was happening in the world. She avoided reading newspapers, finding them too depressing.

After a few minutes the host steered the conversation to her realm of interest. He said, "I hear you're working on costumes for the play. What do you have in mind for the fairies?"

"We call them greenies," she replied, "and the assumption is that they come from outer space. We know, of course, that extraterrestrials have been visiting our planet for thousands of years."

"I see," he said. "For our production they'll wear green leotards and tights, green wigs, and green makeup. We have to get parental approval for the young people to wear green makeup. The effect will be surreal, and Fran is coaching them in body movements that will make them appear amiable and slightly comic."

"How about the king and queen of the... greenies? Oberon and Titania usually wear something regal."

"They'll have glitter: green foil jumpsuits with swirling capes of some gossamer material - and fantastic headdresses. I really love this play," she said with eyes dancing.

Qwilleran remembered how dull her eyes had been when he first met her on the island.

Moose County - or Derek - had a salutary effect. "Do you have a favorite character? If you were to play a role, what would you choose?"

He expected her to choose Titania in green foil. Her reply was prompt. "Hermia."

"Yow!" said Koko, whose ears were receiving the conversation even while his nose was tracking the Kabibbles.

"I can relate to her parent problem," Elizabeth explained, "although in my case it was my mother who insisted on ordering my life."

Fran said, "We'd have the greenies arriving in a spacecraft, if it were feasible, but we don't have the stage machinery. Larry thinks they should appear in puffs of stage smoke. Pickax audiences love stage smoke. But I'd like to see something more high-tech. Elizabeth has an idea, but I can't figure out the logistics. Tell Qwill about your pyramids, Elizabeth."

She turned to Qwilleran. "Do you know about pyramid power?"

"I've read about it - quite a long time ago."

"It's nothing new. It dates back thousands of years, and my father really believed in it. He had little pyramids built for my brothers and me, and we were supposed to sit in them to make wonderful things happen. I thought it was magic, but my mother said it was subversive. She had them destroyed after Father died." Her voice drifted off in a mist of nostalgia and regret.

Fran said, "Wally Toddwhistle can build us a portable see-through pyramid out of poles. For a scene change we'd black out the house briefly, and when the stage lights came on, there'd be a pyramid in the forest. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the poles could be neon tubes?"

Qwilleran questioned whether the audience would understand the magical implications of such a pyramid, and Fran said it would be explained in the playbill.

"How many playgoers read the program notes?" he asked. "Most of them are more interested in the ads for Otto's Tasty Eats and Gippel's Garage. That's been my observation based on preshow chitchat. How does Larry feel about it?"

"He thinks it'll clutter the stage without contributing dramatically, but we haven't given up yet, have we, Elizabeth?"

Qwilleran offered to refresh their drinks, but Fran said it was time to leave. On the way out, she handed him a black felt-tip pen. "Where did you find this?" he asked.

"On the floor near the coffee table." "Yum Yum's at it again! She's an incorrigible cat burglar." He returned the pen to a pewter mug on the telephone table and escorted the women to their car, first putting on his yellow-cap. When they had driven away, he walked around the barn a few times, reluctant to go indoors on this perfect midsummer night. With a little suspension of disbelief one could imagine Puck and the other greenies materializing from the woods in a puff of smoke... A high- pitched yowl from the kitchen window reminded him that he was neglecting his duty.

"Treat!" he announced as he opened the kitchen door.

Yum Yum responded immediately, but... where was Koko? When he failed to report for food, there was cause for alarm. Qwilleran went in search and found him on the large square coffee table - not eating the Kabibbles, not playing with the wooden train whistle, not sniffing the book on the Panama Canal. He was sitting on the Moose County Something with its front-page treatment of the Mudville scandal and two-column photo of the president. It was the same as the portrait hanging in the lobby of the Lumbertown Credit Union.

Koko's attitude indicated something was wrong - and not just the embezzlement. Qwilleran felt a tingling sensation on his upper lip and tamped his moustache with a heavy hand. Koko was trying to communicate. Perhaps the tipoff had been a hoax. Perhaps the auditors were trying to cover up their own mistake. Perhaps Trevelyan was being, so to speak, railroaded.

As if reading the man's mind, Koko slowly rose on four long legs, his body arched, his tail bushed. With whiskers swept back and eyes slanted, he circled the newspaper in a stiff-legged dance that sent shivers up and down Qwilleran's spine. It was Koko's death dance.