The Cat Who Brought Down the House

Chapter 21

On the opening night, Qwilleran and Polly were among those absent. He had explained to Thelma that it was more important to sell their seats to enthusiastic first-nighters. She understood.

Actually they were more interested in the following week’s offering—the 1930 talkie release of Eugene O'Neill’s prize-winning drama, Anna Christie. It was the film in which Garbo’s throaty voice was heard on the silver screen for the first time, saying, Give me viskey, baby, and don’t be stingy.

Qwilleran observed opening-night amenities, however, by sending Thelma a long telegram to the theatre and a dozen red roses to her home.

He and Polly dined at the Grist Mill—at a second seating following one for early show-goers. Derek Cuttlebrink seated them at the table beneath the scythe. He said, “The lobster curry’s good tonight.”

Qwilleran said, “Does that mean it’s usually bad? Or did you sell too little at the first seating—and you’re stuck with it?”

Derek smirked and said, “For that remark you get a fly in your soup.”

Polly said, “I hope the boss doesn’t overhear this exchange of pleasantries.”

Elizabeth Hart, the owner, was heading for their table. “Polly, so good to see you! I know you love curry. Try the Lobster Calcutta!... Qwill, thank you for sending Thelma to us! She’s delivering the hats Sunday, because she’s involved with her Film Club till then. We’ll open the exhibit the following Saturday. A whole fleet of yachts will be coming over from Grand Island. The media will love it. And we’re having a New York model here to model the hats and pose for photographs!”

Both Qwilleran and Polly ordered Lobster Calcutta and enjoyed it. Then he told her about finding the silver tray. “Where was it?” she asked with concern.

“In a plastic shopping bag.”

“That’s a good idea. Mrs Fulgrove knows what she’s doing. It will keep the tray from tarnishing so fast. Every time you use metal polish on your tray, you know, it loses a minuscule bit of the silver surface.”

Then he told her about his pleasant visit with Thelma’s Mr Simmons—but not what they talked about. He said, “His first name is Mark.”

“I'm very fond of that name,” she said. “My father used to say that anyone named Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John has a built-in advantage over the Georges and Walters. His name was Orville.”

Qwilleran said, “I've often thought I should write a column on the naming of offspring: Why parents give them the names they do... how many persons go through life with a name they don’t like. My mother named me Merlin! One man I know narrowly escaped being named Melrose. And how about the fashions in names that change from generation to generation. No girl babies are named Thelma in the twenty-first century. Yet there was once a vogue for female names with "th" in the spelling: Martha, Bertha, Dorothy, Edith, Faith, Ethel, Samantha, Judith . . .

Polly said, “Sometimes, Qwill, you sound exactly like my father!”

The next day was a workday, and so Qwilleran took Polly home directly after dinner. By the time he arrived at the barn, Koko was doing his grasshopper routine, meaning a message was on the answering machine.

It was from Janice. “Qwill, I need to talk to you. Important. Call me anytime before midnight.”

He phoned her immediately. “Is something wrong, Janice?”

“Very sad!” she said in a sorrowful voice. “A message came for Mr Simmons while he was at the club. His daughter in California was in a car crash and is hospitalized in critical condition. He’s flying home tomorrow.”

“What a shame!” Qwilleran said. “Shall I drive him to the airport?”

“That would help. I'd drive him, but I have to be available for Thelma. There are problems at the club, you know, during its first week. So it’s very kind of you, Qwill.”

“Not at all. It’s the least I can do.”

This would be his last chance to talk with Thelma’s confidant, adviser, and self-appointed watchdog.

Early Friday morning Qwilleran picked up the troubled father and asked, “Any news from the hospital?”

“I can’t get any information. What happened? Where did it happen? Whose fault was it? She’s always been a careful driver. What’s the nature of her injuries? I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I have a thirty-two-year-old daughter with two kids—who is hospitalized two thousand miles away. I can’t worry about an eighty-two-year-old woman with all the money in the world, who’s going to leave it to a relative who’s a nogoodnik.”

“Forget about Thelma,” Qwilleran said. “I'll step in and do what needs to be done. But I'll need information from you.”

“For one thing, she’s given me power of attorney in California, and I told her to name a local person. But so far nothing has been done. When she came here, full of family feeling and generosity, she made a new will, leaving everything to Smiley! A big mistake! It should be changed before it’s too late. She admires you, and you could talk some sense into her head! She’s a smart, successful, independent, opinionated woman, but she has this simpering sentimentality about her "dear Bud" who played the flute and loved animals and was so good to his son, giving him everything he wanted... and her "dear Pop" who invented a new kind of potato chip and was so good to his children. He left her his gold Rolex wristwatch, and she kept it wound for forty years. It has always been on her dressing table. It disappeared recently. Go figure.”

“One question, Simmons. Did you hear about the kidnapping of the parrots shortly after Thelma arrived?”

“No!” was the thundering reply. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She was afraid—or embarrassed. I wormed it out of her assistant. It happened on the Sunday of the big welcoming party. Two days before, she had been pictured with two parrots on the front page of the Something. But I say that had nothing to do with it. I say it was an inside job. Someone knew about her intense fondness for those birds. Someone knew the family would be out of the house—in fact, all of Pleasant Street was attending the party... with one exception. The O'Dells left early, and they saw a delivery van drive around behind the Thackeray house and leave a few minutes later.

“Someone knew that large, talkative birds require caging and covering. Someone knew about Thelma’s fabulous jewelry collection, hidden on the premises. The ransom demand specified an instant payoff—or else! Dick made himself a hero by making the transaction and bringing the parrots back alive.”

“And the girls didn’t suspect him?”

“If they did, Thelma chose to forget it... but there’s more to the story. On that same night, two vans met on a country road in Bixby County, and large square containers were transferred from one to the other. The sheriff decided they must have been TV sets stolen in a recent burglary at a television store. Before leaving, the driver of the loaded van shot and killed the other. I maintain that the shooter was Dick, and he drove off with the ransom as well as the birds. No doubt he knows a fence who handles stolen jewelry”

Simmons said, “Someone’s got to warn that woman!”

“It would be more logical for a longtime friend and security aide to break the news,” Qwilleran said. “If you agree, I'll give you some more ammunition... When Bud Thackeray fell to his death in the Black Creek Gorge, it was ruled officially to be an accident. But there was a discrepancy between what Dick told the police and what Bud wrote in his last letter to Thelma. Dick, visiting his father, agreed to go hiking with him and would even buy some hiking boots. Yet, the newspaper clippings have Dick waiting for his father to come home from hiking, so they could go out to lunch.”

“If I wanted to be a devil’s advocate, Qwill, I could say that the reluctant hiker changed his mind. But, from what I know of this particular devil, he has mud on his boots.”

The day after Simmons’s sudden departure, two days after the opening of the Film Club, and three days after the great electrical storm, Bushy phoned Qwilleran’s barn. “I'm in your neighborhood. Want to hear the latest installment in the Bushland-Thackeray story?”

Qwilleran knew the photographer had sent Thelma glossy prints of her and the parrots.

He knew Bushy had further ingratiated himself by making a print of her brother’s portrait—on matte paper suitable for framing.

He knew she had sat for her own portrait in Bushy’s studio, after which she said, “It’s the best likeness I've ever had. He captured the way I feel!”

Now what?

When Bushy arrived, they went to the gazebo with a thermal coffeepot and a plate of shortbread from the Scottish Bakery.

Bushy said, “There’s nothing wrong with shortbread that couldn’t be improved with chocolate frosting and chopped walnuts.”

“They’ll never let you into Scotland again, mon! Are you still wowing the potato chip heiress, Bushy?”

“Well, she told me she thinks balding men are sexy. I call her Lady Thelma, and she calls me Mr Bushy. And yesterday she asked me to do a strange favor. She gave me a green card to the late-night show at the Film Club and asked me to do a little spying. That’s my word for it. She wanted to know what kind of people attend and how they behave. She said everyone at the early show was appreciative and well mannered.”

“Did you go?”

“I told her I'd be tied up yesterday but I'd go tonight. She told me not to talk to anyone at the club... What d’you think, Qwill? Doesn’t it sound like she suspects some kind of monkey business at the late show?”

“I believe the apartment dwellers across the street have complained about noise and rowdyism at three in the morning. I'll be curious to know what you find out... By the way, has she seen the prints of the hat shots?”

“Yeah, and she flipped over them!”

“Her nephew and Janice are transporting the hats up to Mooseville tomorrow, and I'm driving Thelma. So maybe I'll have something to report”

The twenty-four hatboxes were wedged tightly into Thelma’s van on Sunday afternoon. Thelma was as excited as a fond parent seeing her child play the lead in a high-school production of My Fair Lady. They took off with the van in the lead; Janice had driven up there before and knew the route. Once they were on Sandpit Road, it was straight going to Mooseville.

In an attempt to calm Thelma’s nerves, Qwilleran tried to entertain her with legends of Mooseville: the Sand Giant who lives in the dune overlooking the town and can be heard to grumble when angered... and the mysterious fate of the Jenny Lee, a fishing boat owned by Bushy’s ancestors... and-

“Why are those ditches filled with water?” she asked.

“Those are drainage ditches that keep the farmers’ fields from being flooded after a heavy rain. You’ll notice a lot of farm equipment on this road.”

A large tractor was lumbering ahead of them at twenty miles an hour.

“You learn to be patient when you drive through farming country, and you don’t complain about mud on the road. This tractor won’t be with us long; it’s just transferring from one field to another.”

It was a two-lane country road, paved but muddy from the treads of farm equipment.

Qwilleran was following the Thackeray van, in front of which was the slow tractor.

Dick Thackeray, driving the van, was not patient. Several times he pulled into the southbound lane in an attempt to pass the slow-moving vehicle, but there was always a southbound vehicle that forced him back in line.

Qwilleran stopped talking and watched the maneuvering with apprehension. “Don’t try it, buddy,” he said under his breath. Dick tried it. He pulled out of line and accelerated. The tractor driver, from his high perch, waved him back. There was a pickup coming south. Its driver leaned on his horn. Dick kept on going—faster.

Thelma cried, “ What is that fool doing?”

At the last minute, realizing he couldn’t make it, Dick veered left onto the southbound shoulder. It was muddy. The van slid toward the ditch, then toppled over into the water.

“Oh my God!” Thelma screamed. “My hats!... Janice!”

All traffic had stopped. Thelma was fumbling with her safety belt.”

“No! Stay here!” Qwilleran was calling 911 on the cell phone. The truck driver could be seen doing the same. Thelma was fumbling for the door handle, and he grabbed her left forearm so tightly that she cried out in pain.

The farmer had jumped down and was heading for the van, which was upside down and half submerged. The truck driver waved all approaching traffic to the northbound lane—to keep the road open for emergency vehicles. In a minute or two their sirens could be heard; the First Responders... a sheriff’s patrol... the Rescue Squad... two ambulances, one from each direction... another patrol car... a tow truck with a winch.

Qwilleran had released his grip, and Thelma covered her face with her hands and moaned, “That fool! That fool!”

What could he say? How could he comfort her? He had seen the alligator-print boxes float away in the muddy ditch, then sink. He spoke her name, and there was no answer. Fearing she was in shock, he called to a deputy:

“She saw the accident. Family members are in the van. I'm worried. She’s in her eighties.”

A medic came to check her vital signs.

“She’s okay,” he reported to Qwilleran. “She’s angry that’s all. Madder’n a wet hen!”

The accident victims were lifted from the wreck and put on stretchers, to be whisked by ambulance to the Pickax hospital.

Qwilleran said to Thelma, “They both seemed to be conscious. I'll call the hospital after a while. Meanwhile I should make a few phone calls. Excuse me’ He stepped out of the car, taking the cell phone and a county phone book from the pocket in the door.

First he called Elizabeth Hart, who was shocked, then concerned about Thelma, then dismayed over the ruined plans.

He notified Thelma’s physician, Diane Lanspeak, at home in Indian Village.

He also called Celia O'Dell, who had been a volunteer care-giver and knew exactly what to do and say. She said she would be standing by. She was waiting for them when they returned to Pleasant Street. She asked Thelma if she would like a cup of cocoa.

“All I want is to sit in my Pyramid for a while.”

Soon, Dr Diane phoned. She had called the hospital and learned that the two accident victims were being treated and released.

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. He was not eager to face Thelma’s fool nephew and mouth the usual polite claptrap, and he was glad when Celia said her husband would pick them up.

It had not been Qwilleran’s idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon in May.

And it was not over!

When he returned to the barn, the self-appointed monitor of the answering machine was going wild. It was mystifying how that cat could tell the difference between an important message and a nuisance call. Could he sense urgency in the tone of voice?

The first message was from Simmons: “Sorry to miss your call. I've been baby-sitting with the grandkids. My daughter has a fractured pelvis. Painful, but could be worse. As soon as things straighten out, I'll read the riot act to Thelma—tell her what I learned from you about the kidnapping and her brother’s so-called accident. She should dump that guy!”

Qwilleran thought, Wait till he hears about the hats!

The message from Bushy was his espionage report. “The late-night film ended at midnight. Half the audience went home. The others went backstage for booze, slot machines and—believe it or not—a porno film on a smaller screen. It was that real sick stuff! How can I tell Thelma about this? She’ll have a stroke! I checked vehicle tags in the parking lot. Mostly from Bixby County.”