The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

CHAPTER 7

"Now what do we do?" Qwilleran asked his companions. He stood in the middle of a dead man's office in total darkness, listening to the rain driving against the house. The darkness made no difference to the Siamese, but Qwilleran was completely blind. Never had he experienced a blackout so absolute.

"We can't stay here and wait for the power lines to be repaired, that's obvious," he said as he started to feel his way out of the room. He stumbled over a leather lounge chair and bumped the computer station, and when he stepped on a tail, the resulting screech unnerved him. Sliding his feet across the floor cautiously and groping with hands outstretched, he kicked a piece of furniture that proved to be an ottoman. "Dammit, Koko! Why didn't you find this room before I bought one!" he scolded.

Eventually he located the door into the living room, but that large area was even more difficult to navigate. He had not yet learned the floor plan, although he knew it was booby-trapped with clusters of chairs and tables in mid-room. A flash of violet-blue lightning illuminated the scene for half a second, hardly enough time to focus one's eyes, and then it was darker than before. If one could find the wall, Qwilleran thought, it should be possible to follow it around to the archway leading to the foyer. It was a method that Lori Bamba's elderly cat had used after losing his sight. It may have worked well for old Tinkertom, who was only ten inches high and equipped with extrasensory whiskers, but Qwilleran cracked his knee or bruised his thigh against every chair, chest, and table placed against the wall.

Upon reaching the archway, he knew he had to cross the wide foyer, locate the entrance to the dining room, flounder through it to the kitchen, and then find the emergency candles. A flashlight would have solved the problem, but Qwilleran's was in the glove compartment of his car. He would have had a pocketful of wooden matches if Dr. Melinda Goodwinter had not convinced him to give up his pipe.

"This is absurd," he announced to anyone listening. "We might as well go to bed, if we can find it." The Siamese were abnormally quiet. Groping his way along the foyer wall, he reached the stairs, which he ascended on hands and knees. It seemed the safest course since there were two invisible cats prowling underfoot. Eventually he located his bedroom, pulled off his clothes, bumped his forehead on a bedpost, and crawled between the lace-trimmed sheets.

Lying there in the dark he felt as if he had been in the Potato Mountains for a week, rather than twenty-four hours. At this rate, his three months would be a year and a half, mountain time. By comparison, life in Pickax was slow, uncomplicated, and relaxing. Thinking nostalgically about Moose County and fondly about Polly Duncan and wistfully about the converted apple barn that he called home, Qwilleran dropped off to sleep.

It was about three in the morning that he became aware of a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes. The bedroom lights were glaring, and both cats were hunched on his chest, staring at him. He chased them into their own room, then shuffled sleepily through the house, turning off lights that had been on when the power failed. Three of them were in Hawkinfield's office, and once more he entered the secret room, wondering what it contained to make secrecy so necessary. Curious about the scrapbook that Koko had discovered, he found it to contain clippings from the Spudsboro Gazette—editorials signed with the initials J.J.H. Qwilleran assumed that Koko had been attracted to the adhesive with which they were mounted, probably rubber cement.

The cat might be addicted to glue, but Qwilleran was addicted to the printed word. At any hour of the day or night he was ready to read. Sitting down under a lamp and propping his feet on the editor's ottoman, he delved into the collection of columns headed "The Editor Draws a Bead."

It was an appropriate choice. Hawkinfield took potshots at Congress, artists, the IRS, the medical profession, drunk drivers, educators, Taters, unions, and the sheriff. The man had an infinite supply of targets. Was he really that sour about everything? Or did he know that inflammatory editorials sold papers? From his editorial throne be railed against Wall Street, welfare programs, Hollywood, insurance companies. He ridiculed environmentalists and advocates of women's rights. Obviously he was a tyrant that many persons would like to assassinate. Even his style was abusive:

"So-called artists and other parasites, holed up in their secret coves on Little Potato and performing God knows what unholy rites, are plotting to sabotage economic growth . . . Mountain squatters, uneducated and unwashed, are dragging their bare feet in mud while presuming to tell the civilized world how to approach the twenty-first century ..."

The man was a mono-maniac, Qwilleran decided. He stayed with the scrapbook, and another one like it, until dawn. By the time he was ready for sleep, however, the Siamese were ready for breakfast, Yum Yum howling her ear-splitting "N-n-NOW!" Only at mealtimes did she assume her matriarchal role as if she were the official breadwinner, and it was incredible that this dainty little female could utter such piercing shrieks.

"This is Father's Day," Qwilleran rebuked her as he opened a can of boned chicken. "I don't expect a present, but I deserve a little consideration."

Father's Day had more significance at Tiptop than he knew, as he discovered when he went to Potato Cove to pick up the four batwing capes.

The rain had stopped, and feeble rays of sun were glistening on trees and shrubs. When he stood on the veranda with his morning mug of coffee, he discovered that mountain air when freshly washed heightens the senses. He was seeing details he had not noticed the day before: wildflow-ers everywhere, blue jays in the evergreens, blossoming shrubs all over the mountains. On the way to Potato Cove he saw streams of water gushing from crevices in the roadside cliffs—impromptu waterfalls that made their own rainbows. More than once he stopped the car, backed up, and stared incredulously at the arched spectrum of color.

The rain had converted the Potato Cove road into a ribbon of mud, and Qwilleran drove slowly, swerving to avoid puddles like small ponds. As he passed a certain log cabin he saw the apple peeler on the porch again, rocking contentedly in her high-backed mountain rocker. Today she was wearing her Sunday best, evidently waiting for someone to drive her to church. An ancient straw hat, squashed but perky with flowers, perched flatly on her white hair. What caused Qwilleran to step on the brake was the sight of her entourage: a black cat on her lap, a calico curled at her feet, and a tiger stretched on the top step. Today the shotgun was not in evidence.

Slipping his camera into a pocket, he stepped out of his car and approached her with a friendly wave of the hand. She peered in his direction without responding.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he called out in his most engaging voice. "Is this the road to Potato Cove?"

She rocked back and forth a few times before replying.

"Seems like y'oughta know," she said with a frown. "I see'd you go by yestiddy. Road on'y goes one place."

"Sorry, but I'm new here, and these mountain roads are confusing." He ventured closer in a shambling, non-threatening way. "You have some nice cats. What are their names.

This here one's Blackie. That there's Patches. Over yonder is Tiger." She recited the names in a businesslike way as if he were the census taker.

"I like cats. I have two of them. Would you mind if I take a picture of them?" He held up his small camera for her approval.

She rocked in silence for a while. "Iffen I git one," she finally decided.

Til see that you get prints as soon as they're developed." He snapped several pictures of the group in rapid succession. "That does it! ... Thank you . . . This is a nice cabin. How long have you lived on Little Potato?"

"Born here. Fellers come by all the time pesterin' me to sell. You one o' them fellers? Ain't gonna sell."

"No, I'm just spending my vacation here, enjoying the good mountain air. My name's Jim Qwilleran. What's your name?" Although he was not prone to smile, he had an ingratiating manner composed of genuine interest and a caressing voice that was irresistible.

"Ev'body calls me Grammaw Lumpton, seein' as how I'm a great-grammaw four times."

"Lumpton, you say? It seems there are quite a few Lumptons in the Potatoes," Qwilleran said, enjoying his unintentional pun.

"Oughta be!" the woman said, rocking energetically. "Lumptons been here more'n a hun'erd year—raisin' young-uns, feedin' chickens, sellin' eggs, choppin' wood, growin' taters and nips, runnin' corn whiskey . . ."

A car pulled into the yard, the driver tooted the horn, and the vigorous old lady stood up, scattering cats, and marched to the car without saying goodbye. Now Qwilleran understood—or thought he understood—the reason for the shotgun on the porch the day before; it was intended to ward off land speculators if they became too persistent, and Grammaw Lumpton probably knew how to use it.

Despite the muddy conditions in Potato Cove, the artists and shopkeepers were opening for business. Chrysalis Beechum met him on the wooden sidewalk in front of her weaving studio. What she was wearing looked handwo-ven but as drab as before; her attitude had mellowed, however.

"I didn't expect you to drive up here in this mud," she said.

"It was worth it," Qwilleran said, "if only to see the miniature waterfalls making six-inch rainbows. What are the flowers all over the mountain?"

"Mountain laurel," she said. They entered the shop, stepping into the enveloping softness of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling textiles.

"Was this place ever an old schoolhouse?" he asked.

"For many years. My great-grandmother learned the three Rs here. Until twenty years ago the Taters were taught in one-room schools—eight grades in a single room, with one teacher, and sometimes with one textbook. The Spuds got away with murder! . . . Here are your capes. I brought six so you'll have a color choice. What are you going to do with them, Mr. . . ."

"Qwilleran. I'm taking them home to friends. Perhaps you could help me choose. One woman is a golden blond; one is a reddish blond; one is graying; and the other is a different color every month."

"You're not married?" she asked in her forthright way but without any sign of personal interest.

"Not any more . . . and never again! Did you have a power outage last night?"

"Everybody did. There's no discrimination when it comes to power lines. Taters and Spuds, we all black out together."

"Where's your mother today?"

"She doesn't work on Sundays."

With the weaver's help Qwilleran chose violet for Lori, green for Fran, royal blue for Mildred, and taupe for Hixie. He signed traveler's checks while Chrysalis packed the capes in a yarn box.

"I never saw this much money all at once," she said.

When the transaction was concluded, Qwilleran lingered, uncertain whether to broach a painful subject. Abruptly he said, "You didn't tell me that J.J. Hawkinfield was the man your brother was accused of murdering."

"Did you know him?" she asked sharply.

"No, but I'm renting his former home."

She gasped in repugnance. "Tiptop? That's where it happened—a year ago today! They called it the Father's Day murder. Wouldn't you know the press would have to give it a catchy label?"

"Why was your brother accused?"

"It's a long story," she said with an audible sigh.

"I want to hear it, if you don't mind."

"You'd better sit down," she said, kicking a wooden crate across the floor. She climbed onto the bench at the loom, where she sat with back straight and eyes flashing.

Qwilleran thought, She's not unattractive; she has good bones and the lean, strong look of a mountaineer and the lean, strong hands of a weaver; she needs a little makeup to be really good-looking.

"Forest went to college and studied earth sciences," she began boldly, as if she had recited this tale before. "When he came home he was terribly concerned about the environment, and he resented the people who were ruining our mountains. Hawkinfield was the instigator of it all. Look what he did to Big Potato! And he set up projects that will continue to rape the landscape."

"Exactly what did Hawkinfield plan?" Qwilleran asked in tones of concern. His profession had made him a sympathetic listener.

"After developing Tiptop Estates and making a pile of money, he sold parcels of land and then organized syndicates to promote condos, a motel, a mobile home park, even a ski lodge! Clear-cutting has already begun for the ski runs. Isn't it ironic that they're naming a scenic drive after that man?"

"What did your brother do about this situation?"

"Perhaps he was a little hotheaded, but he believed in militant action. He wasn't the only one who wanted to stop the desecration, but Hawkinfield was a very powerful figure in the valley. Owning the newspaper and radio station, you know, and having money and political influence, he had everybody up against the wall. Forest was the only one who dared to speak out."

"Did he have a forum for his opinions?"

"Well, hardly, under the circumstances. All he could do was organize meetings and outdoor rallies. He had to pass out handbills to get an audience. At first nobody would print them, but a friend of ours worked in the job-printing shop at the Gazette and volunteered to run off a few flyers between jobs. Unfortunately he got caught and was fired. We felt terrible about it, but he didn't hold it against us."

"What kind of response did you get to your announcements?" Qwilleran asked.

"Pretty good the first time, and there was a reporter in the crowd from the Gazette, so we thought we were going to get publicity—good or bad, it didn't matter. It would be exposure. But we were so naive! There was not a word reported in the paper, but he photographed everyone in the audience! Is that dirty or isn't it? Just like secret police! People got the message, and only a few brave ones with nothing to lose showed up for the next rally. This environmental issue has really separated the good guys from the bad guys in this county."

"In what way?"

"Well, for one thing, the board of education wouldn't let us use the school auditorium or playfield, and the city wouldn't let us use the community house, but one of the pastors stuck his neck out and let us use the church basement. I'll never forget him—the Reverend Perry Lump-ton."

"Is he the one with the contemporary-style building on the way to the golf club?"

"No, he has the oldest church in town, sort of a historic building."

"And what was Hawkinfield's reaction?"

"He wrote an editorial about 'church interference in secular affairs, in opposition to the economic welfare of the community which it pretends to serve.' Those were the very words! But that wasn't the end of it. The city immediately slapped some code violations on the old church building. Hawkinfield was a real stinker."

"If your brother is innocent," Qwilleran asked, "do you have any idea who's guilty?"

Chrysalis shook her head. "It could be anybody. That man had a lot of secret enemies who didn't dare cross him. Even people who played along with him to save their skins really hated his guts, Forest said."

"Were there no witnesses to the crime?"

"No one actually saw it happen. The police said there was a struggle and then he was pushed over the cliff. All the evidence introduced at the trial was circumstantial, and the state's witnesses committed perjury."

Qwilleran said, "I'd like to hear more about this. Would you have dinner with me some evening?" One of his favorite diversions was to take a woman to dinner. Beauty and glamor were no consideration, so long as he found her interesting, and he was aware that women were equally enthusiastic about his invitations. Chrysalis hesitated, however, avoiding his eyes. "How about tomorrow night?" he suggested. "I'll pick you up here at closing rime."

"We're closed Mondays."

"Then I'll pick you up at home."

"You couldn't find the house," she said.

"I found it once," he retorted.

"Yes, but you weren't looking for it, and when you got there, you didn't know where you were. I'd better meet you at Tiptop."

Qwilleran, before returning home with his four batwing capes, decided to drive to the valley to have his Sunday dinner ahead of the Father's Day rush. After he parked he looked up at the mountains. Little Potato, though inhabited, looked lushly verdant, while Big Potato was blemished with construction sites, affluent estates carved out of the forest, and Hawk's Nest Drive zigzagging through the wooded slopes. He found himself being drawn into a controversy he preferred to avoid; he had come to the Potatoes to think about his own future, to make personal decisions.

At the Five Points Cafe the Father's Day Special was a turkey dinner with cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, and nips. "Hold the nips," he said when he ordered, but the plate came to the table with a suspicious mound of something gray alongside the scoop of mashed potatoes. He was in Turnip Country, and it was impossible to avoid them. As he wolfed the food without actually tasting it, his mind went over the story Chrysalis had told him. He recalled Koko's initial reaction to the Queen Anne chair and the French door at the scene of the crime. How would Koko react to the veranda railing that the carpenter had been called in to repair? It overhung a hundred-foot drop, straight down except for projecting boulders on its craggy facade. Qwilleran could reconstruct the scene: a chair thrown through the glass door and a violent struggle on the veranda before Hawkinfield crashed through the railing and fell to his death.

Upon returning to Tiptop he conducted a test, buckling Koko into his harness and walking him around the veranda on a leash. The cat pursued his usual order of business: indiscriminate tugging, balancing on the railing, examining infinitesimal specks on the painted floorboards.

When they reached the rear of the house, however, he walked cautiously to the repaired railing, then froze with tail stiffened, back arched, and ears flattened. Qwilleran thought, He knows something happened here and exactly where it happened!

"Who did it, Koko?" Qwilleran asked. "Tater or Spud?"

The cat merely pranced in circles with distasteful stares at the edge of the veranda.

The experiment was interrupted by the telephone; answering it, Qwilleran heard a woman's sweet voice saying, "Good afternoon, Mr. Qwilleran. This is Vonda Dudley Wix, a columnist for the Gazette. Mr. Carmichael was good enough to give me your phone number. I do hope I'm not interrupting a blissful Sunday siesta."

"Not at all," he said in a monotone intended to be civil but not encouraging.

"Mr. Qwilleran, I would dearly love to write a profile of you and your exploits, which Mr. Carmichael tells me are positively prodigious, and I'm wondering if I might drive up your glorious mountain this afternoon for an impromptu interview."

"I'm afraid that would be impossible," he said. "I'm getting dressed to go out to a party."

"Of course! You're going to be tremendously popular! A journalistic lion! And that's why I do so terribly want to write about you before all the best people engulf you with invitations. I promise," she added with a coy giggle, "to spell your name right."

"To be perfectly frank, I don't plan to be social while I'm here. My purpose is to do some necessary work in quiet seclusion, and I'm afraid any mention in your popular column would defeat my purpose."

"Have no fear, Mr. Qwilleran. I would cover that aspect in my profile and even envelop you in a protective air of mystery. Perhaps I might run up to see you tomorrow."

As a columnist himself, Qwilleran knew his reaction when a subject declined to be interviewed; he considered it a personal affront. Yet, he had no intention of being peeled as one of Vonda Dudley Wix's potatoes. He said, "I'm still in the process of getting settled, Ms. Wix, and tomorrow I have another appointment downtown, but I could meet you somewhere for a cup of coffee and talk for a few minutes. Just tell me where to meet you."

"Oh, please come to my house and have tea!" she cried. "I live on Center Street in a little Victorian gingerbread cottage. Tell me when it's convenient for you."

"How about ten-thirty? I have an appointment at eleven-fifteen, but I can give you half an hour."

"Delightful! Beyond my wildest dreams!" she said. "May I have a Gazette photographer here?"

"Please—no photos," Qwilleran said.

"Are you sure? You're such a handsome man! I saw you lunching at the club, and I adore your moustache! It's so romantic!"

"No pictures," Qwilleran said firmly. Why, he wondered, did strangers feel free to talk to him about his moustache? He never said, "I like the size of your nose . . . Your ears are remarkably flat. . . You have an unusual collarbone." But his moustache was considered in the public domain, to be discussed without permission or restraint.

When he concluded his conversation with the columnist, he found Koko sitting on Lord Fitzwallow's sideboard with ears askew, waiting for a recap.

"That was Vonda Tiddledy Winks," Qwilleran told him as he unbuckled his harness.

"Yow," said Koko, who never wasted words.

"And you're having an early dinner tonight because I'm going to a cocktail party. Maybe I'll bring you some caviar.

Shortly after five o'clock Qwilleran walked down Hawk's Nest Drive, past the Wilbank house, to Seven Levels. There were half a dozen cars parked there, and Dolly Lessmore greeted him at the door, carrying a double old-fashioned glass and wearing something too short, too tight, and too red, in Qwilleran's opinion.

"We were going to have it around the pool," she said, "but everything is so wet after last night's rain. Come into the family room, Jim, and meet your neighbors from Tiptop Estates. May I call you Jim? Please call me Dolly."

"My friends call me Qwill," he said.

"Oh, I like that! What will you have to drink?"

"What are you having?"

"My downfall—brandy and soda."

"I'll have the same—on ice—without the brandy."

"Qwill, you remember my husband, the golf nut."

"Hi there," said Robert with a handshake that was more athletic than cordial.

"Are you getting comfortably settled at Tiptop?" Dolly asked.

"Gradually. Sabrina Peel is coming tomorrow to throw a few things around and liven it up. Is it okay if I have a carpenter build a gazebo in the woods?"

"Sure! Anything you like ... as long as you pay for it and don't take it with you when you leave," she added with a throaty laugh. She steered Qwilleran into a cluster of guests. "These are your nearest neighbors, Del and Ar-dis Wilbank. Sheriff Wilbank, you know . . . And this is Dr. John and Dr. Inez Wickes, veterinarians . . . Qwill has two cats," she explained to the Wickes couple. "John and Inez have a perfectly enchanting house over a waterfall, Qwill. It's called Hidden Falls. Perhaps you've seen the sign."

"We thought it was a good idea," said Inez with chagrin, "but honestly, it runs all the time, like faulty plumbing. There are nights when we'd give anything to shut it off, especially after all the rain we've had this spring."

"The water table is dangerously high," said her husband, whose sober mien was emphasized by owl-like eyeglasses. "We have unstable slope conditions here, and we have to worry about mudslides. I've never known the ground to be so saturated."

The hostess introduced several other couples living on Hawk's Nest Drive, and their conversation followed the usual formula: "When did you arrive? . . . How long are you staying? . . . How do you like our mountain? . . . Do you play golf?"

Qwilleran was glad that no one mentioned his moustache, although the women stared at it with a look of appreciation that he had come to recognize. There were two other moustaches there, but neither of them could equal his—in luxuriance or character.

It was a stand-up cocktail party, for which he was grateful. He liked to wander in and out of chatty groups or draw one guest aside for a moment of private conversation. He was curious by nature and an interrogator by profession. Catching Del Wilbank standing alone, nursing a drink and staring out at the pool, he went to him and said, "I've admired your house, Sheriff. It's an ingenious design."

"We like it," said Wilbank gruffly, "but it's not everybody's idea of a house. Look at those diagonal boards long enough and you start leaning to one side. Our property is three-point-two acres. Ardis wanted to see the sunsets, so we cleared out about fifty trees. The TV reception's not very good."

"I presume you knew Hawkinfield," Qwilleran said.

"Everyone knew J.J."

"It was an unfortunate end to what I understand was a distinguished career."

"But not totally unexpected," the sheriff said. "We knew something was going to erupt. J.J. was an independent cuss and didn't pull any punches. It was a crime waiting to happen."

"I hear he went over the cliff," Qwilleran ventured.

Wilbank nodded grimly. "That's a long way down! There was a violent altercation first."

"What time of day was it?"

"About two in the afternoon. Ardis and I were at home, waiting for our son to call from Colorado."

"Were there witnesses?"

"No. J.J. was home alone. His daughter was visiting from out of town for Father's Day, and she went down to Five Points for groceries. When she got back, she saw broken glass and a broken railing on the back porch. She screamed for her dad and couldn't find him. Then she heard their Doberman howling at the bottom of the cliff. She came running down the hill to our house, hysterical. That was a year ago today. I was just standing here, thinking about it."

"Were there many suspects?"

"All you need is one, if you've got the right guy. We traced him through his vehicle. When J.J.'s daughter went down the hill for groceries, she saw this old army vehicle coming up. When she got back, it was gone. Good observation on her part! It led us right to Beechum. He'd been a troublemaker all along."

"Did he have a record?"

"Nothing on the books, but he'd threatened J.J. He was apprehended, charged with murder, brought to trial, and convicted—open-and-shut case. These Taters, you know . . . some of them have a murderous streak. You've heard of the Hatfields and McCoys? Well, that crew didn't live in the Potatoes, but we have the same breed around here. Hot-tempered . . . prone to hold grudges . . . quick with the shotgun."

Qwilleran said, "That's odd. I've been to Potato Cove a couple of times, and I didn't get that impression at all. They come across as amiable people, totally involved with their handcrafts."

"Oh, sure! But don't look at one of them cross-eyed, or you might get the top of your head blown off.