The Cat Who Said Cheese

1

Autumn, in that year of surprises, was particularly delicious in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere. Not only had most of the summer vacationers gone home, but civic-awareness groups and enthusiastic foodies were cooking up a savory kettle of stew called the Great Food Explo. Then, to add spice to the season, a mystery woman registered at the hotel in Pickax City, the county seat. She was not beautiful. She was not exactly young. She avoided people. And she always wore black.

The townfolk of Pickax (population 3,000) were fascinated by her enigmatic presence. "Have you seen her?" they asked each other. "She's been here over a week. Who do you think she is?"

The hotel desk clerk refused to divulge her name even to his best friends, saying it was prohibited by law. That convinced everyone that the mystery woman had bribed him for nefarious reasons of her own, since Lenny Inchpot was not the town's most law-abiding citizen.

So they went on commenting about her olive complexion, sultry brown eyes, and lush mop of dark hair that half covered the left side of her face. Yet, the burning question remained: "Why is she staying at that firetrap of a flophouse?" That attitude was unfair; The New Pickax Hotel, though gloomy, was respectable and painfully clean, and there was a fire escape in the rear. There was even a presidential suite, although no president had ever stayed there - not even a candidate for the state legislature on an unpopular ticket. Nevertheless, no one had been known to lodge there for more than a single night, or two at the most, and travel agents around the country were influenced by an entry in their directory of lodgings:

NEW PICKAX HOTEL, 18 miles from Moose County Airport; 20 rooms, some with private bath; presidential suite with telephone and TV; bridal suite with round bed. Three-story building with one elevator, frequently out of order. Prison-like exterior and bleak interior, circa 1935. Public areas unusually quiet, with Depression Era furnishings. Cramped lobby and dining room; no bar; small, unattractive ballroom in basement. Sleeping rooms plain but clean; mattresses fairly new; lighting dim. Metal fire escape in rear; rooms with windows have coils of rope for emergency use. Dining room offers breakfast buffet, luncheon specials, undistinguished dinner menu, beer and wine. No liquor. No room service. No desk clerk on duty after 11 p.m. Rates: low to moderate. Hospital nearby.

Business travelers checked into the New Pickax Hotel for a single overnight because no other lodgings were available in town. Out-of-towners arriving to attend a funeral might be forced by awkward plane schedules to spend two nights. In the hushed dining room the business travelers sat alone, reading technical manuals while waiting for the chopped sirloin and boiled carrots. Forks could be heard clicking against plates as the out-of-town mourners silently counted the peas in the chicken pot pie. And now, in addition, there was a woman in black who sat in a far corner, toying with a glass of wine and an overcooked vegetable plate.

One resident of Pickax who wondered about her was a journalist-a tall, good-looking man with romantically graying hair, brooding eyes, and a luxuriant pepper-and-salt moustache. His name was Jim Qwilleran; friends called him Qwill, and townfolk called him Mr. Q with affection and respect. He wrote a twice-weekly column for the Moose County Something, but he had been a prize-winning crime reporter Down Below-local parlance for metropolitan areas to the south. An unexpected inheritance had brought him north and introduced him to small-town life -a unique experience for a native of Chicago.

Qwilleran was admired by young and old, male and female - not only because he had turned his billion-dollar inheritance over to charity. His admirers appreciated his down-to-earth style: He drove a small car, pumped his own gas, cleaned his own windshield; he walked around town; he pedaled a bike in the country. As a journalist, he showed a sincere interest in the subjects he interviewed. He responded courteously to strangers when they recognized his moustache and hailed him on the street or in the supermarket. Understandably he had made many friends in the county, and the fact that he lived alone - in a barn, with two cats - was a foible they had learned to accept.

Qwilleran's housemates were no ordinary cats, and his residence was no ordinary barn. Octagonal in shape, it was a hundred-year-old apple storage facility four stories high, perched on an impressive fieldstone foundation and topped with a cupola. To make the barn habitable, certain architectural changes had been made. Triangular windows had been cut in the walls. The interior, open to the roof, had three balconies connected by a spiraling ramp. And on the ground floor the main living areas surrounded a giant white fireplace cube with great white stacks rising to the roof. The barn would have been a showplace if the owner had not preferred privacy.

As for the cats, they were a pair of elegant Siamese whose seal-brown points were in striking contrast to their pate fawn bodies. The male, Kao K'o Kung, answered to the name of Koko; he was long, lithe, and muscular, and his fathomless blue eyes brimmed with intelligence. His female companion, Yum Yum, was small and delicate, with violet-blue eyes that could be large and heart-melting when she wanted to sit on a lap, yet that dainty creature could utter a piercing shriek when dinner was behind schedule.

One Thursday morning in September, Qwilleran was closeted in his private suite on the first balcony, the only area in the barn that was totally off-limits to cats. He was trying to write a thousand words for his Friday column, "Straight from the Qwill Pen."

Emily Dickinson, we need you!

"I'm nobody. Who are you?" said this prolific American poet.

I say, "God give us nobodies! What this country needs is fewer celebrities and more nobodies who live ordinary lives, cope bravely, do a little good in the world, enjoy a few pleasures, and never, never get their names in the newspaper or their faces on TV."

"Yow!" came a baritone complaint outside the door.

It was followed by a soprano shriek. "N-n-now!"

Qwilleran consulted his watch. It was twelve noon and time for their midday treat. In fact, it was three minutes past twelve, and they resented the delay.

He yanked open his studio door to face two determined petitioners. "I wouldn't say you guys were spoiled," he rebuked them. "You're only tyrannical monomaniacs about food." As they hightailed it down the ramp to the kitchen, he took the shortcut via a spiral metal staircase. Nevertheless, they reached the food station first. He dropped some crunchy morsels on two plates; separate plates had been Yum Yum's latest feline-rights demand, and he always indulged her. He stood with fists on hips to watch their enjoyment.

Today she had changed her mind, however. She helped Koko gobble his plateful; then the two of them worked on her share.

"Cats!" Qwilleran muttered in exasperation. "Is it okay with you two autocrats if I go back to work now?"

Satisfied with their repast, they ignored him completely and busied themselves with washing masks and ears. He went up to his studio and wrote another paragraph:

We crave heroes to admire and emulate, and what do we get? A parade of errant politicians, mad exhibitionists, wicked heiresses, temperamental artists, silly risk-takers, overpaid athletes, untalented entertainers, non-authors of non-books...

The telephone interrupted, and he grabbed it on the first ring. The caller was Junior Goodwinter, young managing editor of the Moose County Something. "Hey, Qwill, are you handing in your Friday copy this afternoon?"

"Only if the interruptions permit me to write a simple declarative sentence in its entirety," he snapped. "Why?"

"We'd like you to attend a meeting."

Qwilleran avoided editorial meetings whenever possible. "What's it about?"

"Dwight Somers is going to brief us on the Great Food Explo. He's spent a few days in Chicago with the master-minds of the K Fund, and he'll be flying in on the three-fifteen shuttle."

Qwilleran's petulance mellowed somewhat. The K Fund was the local nickname for the Klingenschoen Foundation that he had established to dispense his inherited billion. Dwight Somers was one of his friends, a local public relations man with credentials Down Below. "Okay. I'll be there."

"By the way, how's Polly?"

"She's improving every day. She's now allowed to walk up and down stairs - a thrill she equates with winning the Nobel Prize." Polly Duncan was a charming woman of his own age, currently on medical leave from the Pickax Public Library, where she was chief administrator.

"Tell her Jody and I were asking about her. Tell her Jody's mother had a bypass last year, and she feels great!"

Thanks. She'll be happy to hear that."

Qwilleran returned to his typewriter and pounded out another few sentences:

Collecting nobodies makes a satisfying hobby. Unlike diamonds, they cost nothing and are never counterfeited. Unlike first editions of Dickens, they are in plentiful supply. Unlike Chippendale antiques, they occupy no room in the house.

The telephone rang again. It was a call from the law firm of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter, and Qwilleran groaned. Calls from attorneys were always bad news.

The quavering voice of the senior partner said, "I beg forgiveness, Mr. Qwilleran, for interrupting your work. No doubt the Qwill pen is penning another quotable column."

"No apology needed," Qwilleran said courteously.

"I trust you are enjoying these fine autumn days."

"There's no better season in Moose County. And you, Mr. Hasselrich?"

"I savor every moment and dread the onslaught of winter. And how, pray, is Mrs. Duncan?"

"Progressing well, thank you. I hope Mrs. Hasselrich is feeling better."

"She recovers slowly, one day at a time. Grief is a stubborn infection of the spirit." Eventually the attorney cleared his throat and said, "I called to remind you that the annual meeting of the Klingenschoen Foundation will be held in Chicago at the end of the month. Mr. Barter will represent you as usual, but it occurred to me that you might like to accompany him, since you have never appeared at one of these functions. You would be warmly welcomed, I assure you."

To Qwilleran, corporate meetings were worse than editorial meetings. "I appreciate the suggestion, Mr. Hasselrich. Unfortunately, commitments in Pickax will prevent me from leaving town at that time."

"I understand," said the attorney, "but I would be remiss if I were to allow the invitation to go untendered."

There were a few more polite words, and then Qwilleran hung up the receiver with smug satisfaction; he had avoided one more boring meeting with the financial big-wigs. Upon first inheriting the Klingenschoen fortune, his financial savvy was so scant that he needed to consult the dictionary for the number of zeroes in a billion. Wealth had never interested him; he enjoyed working for a living, cashing a weekly paycheck, and practicing economies. When the billion descended on him, he considered it a burden, a nuisance and an embarrassment. Turning the vast holdings over to a foundation was a stroke of genius on his part, leaving him happily unencumbered. He returned to the typewriter:

How do you recognize a nobody? You see a stranger performing an anonymous act of kindness and disappearing without a thank

-you. You hear spontaneous words of wit or wisdom from an unlikely source. I remember an elderly man walking with a cane in downtown Pickax when the wind velocity was forty miles an hour, gusting to sixty. We sheltered in a doorway, and he said, "The wind knocked me down in front of the courthouse, but I don't mind because it's part of nature."

When the telephone rang for the third time, Qwilleran answered gruffly but changed his tune when he heard the musical voice of Polly Duncan. "How are you?" he asked anxiously. "I phoned earlier. but there was no answer."

"Lynette drove me to the cardiac clinic in Lockmaster," she said with animation, "and the doctor is astonished at my speedy recovery. He says it's because I've always lived right, except for insufficient exercise. I must start walking every day."

"Good! We'll walk together," he said, but he thought, That's what I've been telling her for years; she wouldn't take my advice. "I'll see you tonight at the usual time, Polly. Anything you need from the store?"

"All I need is some good conversation - just the two of us. Lynette is going out. A bient“t, dear."

"A bient“t." Before returning to his treatise on nobodies, Qwilleran took a moment to relish Polly's good news. He still remembered her late-night call for help, her frightened eyes as the paramedics strapped her onto a stretcher, his own uneasy moments outside the Intensive Care Unit, and his long wait in the surgery wing of a Minneapolis hospital. Now she was convalescing at the home of her sister-in-law but yearning for her own apartment. After preparing a cup of coffee, he wrote:

I began my own collection of nobodies Down

Below, my first being a thirteen-year-old boy who did all the cooking for a family of eight. The next was a woman bus driver who set her brakes, flagged down another bus, and escorted a bewildered passenger onto the right one.

The next interruption was a call from John Bushland, the commercial photographer. "Say, Qwill, do you remember the time I tried to shoot your cats in my studio? We couldn't even get them out of their carrying coop."

"How could I forget?" Qwilleran replied. "It was the battle of the century - between two grown men and two determined cats. We lost."

"Well, I'd like to take another crack at it - at your house, if you don't mind. There's another competition for a cat calendar. They'd feel more comfortable on their own territory, and I could try for candids."

"Sure. When do you want to try it? In daylight or after dark?"

"Natural light works better for eye color. How about tomorrow morning?"

"Make it around nine o'clock," Qwilleran suggested. "Their bellies will be full, and they'll be at peace with the universe."

Eventually he was able to stretch his thesis to a thousand words, ending with:

One word of caution to the novice collector of nobodies: Avoid mentioning your choice collectibles to the media.

If you do, your best examples will become celebrities overnight, and there's no such thing as a prominent nobody.

Having worked against odds, the writer of the "Qwill Pen" finished in time for the meeting at the newspaper office. He said goodbye to the Siamese as he usually did, telling them where he was going and when he would return. The more one talks to cats, he believed, the smarter they become. His two Mensa candidates responded, however, by raising groggy heads from their afternoon nap and giving him a brief glassy stare before falling asleep again.

He walked downtown. No one in Pickax walked, except to a vehicle in the parking lot. Qwilleran' s habit of using his legs instead of his wheels was considered a quaint eccentricity - the kind of thing one could expect of a transplant from Down Below. He walked first to Lois's Luncheonette for a piece of apple pie.

The proprietor - a buxom, bossy woman with a host of devoted customers - was taking a mid-afternoon break and chattering to coffee-drinking loiterers. She talked about her son, Lenny, who worked the evening shift on the desk at the hotel and also attended classes at the new college. She talked about his girlfriend, Anna Marie, who was enrolled in the nursing program at MCCC and also worked part-time at the hotel. Students, she said, were glad to work short hours, even though the skinflint who owned the hotel paid minimum wage without benefits.

Qwilleran, always entertained by Lois's discourses, arrived at the newspaper conference in good humor.

The Moose County Something was a broadsheet published five days a week. Originally subsidized by the K Fund, it was now operating in the black. The office building was new. The printing plant was state-of-the-art. The staff always seemed to be having a good time.

The meeting was held in the conference room. Its plain wood-paneled walls were decorated with framed tear sheets of memorable front pages in the history of American journalism: Titanic Meets a Mightier... War in Europe... Kennedy Assassinated. Staffers sat around the large teakwood conference table, drinking coffee from mugs imprinted with newspaper wit: "If you can't eat it, don't print it"... "Deadlines are made to be missed"... "A little malice aforethought is fun."

"Come on in, Qwill," the managing editor said. "Dwight isn't here yet. Since we hate to waste time, we're inventing rumors about the mystery woman."

There were six staffers around the table:

Arch Riker, the paunchy publisher and editor in chief, had been Qwilleran's lifelong friend and fellow journalist Down Below. Now he was realizing his dream of running a small-town newspaper.

Junior Goodwinter's boyish countenance and slight build belied his importance; he was not only the managing editor but a direct descendent of the founders of Pickax City. In a community 400 miles north of everywhere, that mattered a great deal.

Hixie Rice, in charge of advertising and promotion, was another refugee from Down Below, and after several years in the outback she still had a certain urbane verve and chic.

Mildred Hanstable Riker, food writer and wife of the publisher, was a plump, good-hearted native of Moose County, recently retired from teaching fine and domestic arts in the public schools.

Jill Handley, the new feature editor, was pretty and eager but not yet comfortable with her fellow staffers. She came from the Lockmaster Ledger in the neighboring county, where the inhabitants of Moose County were considered barbarians.

Wilfred Sugbury, secretary to the publisher, was a thin, wiry, sober-faced young man, intensely serious about this job. He jumped up and filled a coffee mug for Qwilleran. It was inscribed: "First we kill all the editors."

Also present, watching from the top of a file cabinet, was William Allen, a large white cat formerly associated with the Pickax Picayune.

Qwilleran nodded pleasantly to each one in turn and took a chair next to the newcomer. Jill Handley turned to him adoringly. "Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, I love your column! You're a fantastic writer!"

Sternly he replied, "You're not allowed to work for the Something unless you drink coffee, like cats, and call me Qwill."

"You have Siamese, don't you... Qwill?"

"Loosely speaking. It's more accurate to say that they have me. What prompted you to leave civilization for life in the wilderness?"

"Well, my kids wanted to go to Pickax High because you have a larger swimming pool, and my husband found a good business opportunity up here, and I wanted to write for a paper that carries columns like the "Qwill Pen." That's the honest truth!"

"Enough!" said the boss at the head of the table. "Any more of this and he'll be asking for a raise... Let's hear it for our gold-medal winner!"

Everyone applauded, and Wilfred flushed. He had come in first in the seventy-mile Labor Day Bike Race, yet no one at the newspaper knew that he even owned a bike- such was his modesty and concentration on his work.

Qwilleran said, "Congratulations! We're all proud of you. Your pedaling is on a par with your office efficiency."

"Thanks," said Wilfred. "I didn't expect to win. I just signed up for the fun of it, but I decided to give it my best shot, so I trained hard all summer. I was confident I could go the entire route, even if I came in last, but everything turned out right for me, and after the first sixty miles I suddenly thought, Hey, chump, you can win this crazy race! That was between Mudville and Kennebeck, with only a few riders ahead of me, so I gave it an extra push to the finish line. Nine bikers finished, and they all deserve credit for a great try. They were as good as I was, only I had something going for me - luck, I guess. I'm hoping to compete again next year."

This was more than the quiet young man had said in his two years of employment, and all heads turned to listen in astonishment. Only Qwilleran could think of something to say: "We admire your spirit and determination, Wilfred."

Riker cleared his throat. "While we're waiting for the late Mr. Somers, let us resume our deliberations." Then he added in a loud, sharp voice, "Who is the mystery woman and what is she doing here?"

Mildred said, "She always wears black and is inclined to be reclusive. I think she's in mourning, having suffered a great loss. She's come to this quiet town to deal with her grief. We should respect her need for privacy."

Qwilleran stroked his moustache, a sign of purposeful interest. "Does she ever venture out of the hotel?"

"Sure," Junior said. "Our reporters in the field have seen her driving around in a rental car with an airport sticker, a dark blue two-door."

"And," Hixie added, signaling news of importance, "one day when I was getting an ad contract signed at the Black Bear Cafe, I saw her in the hotel lobby with a man! He was wearing a business suit and tie, and he was carrying a briefcase."

"The plot thickens," Riker said. "Was he checking out or checking in?"

Qwilleran said, "I haven't seen her. Is she good-looking? Is she young? Is she glamorous?"

"Why don't you have dinner at the hotel, Qwill, and see for yourself?"

"No thanks. The last time I went there, a chicken breast squirted butter allover my new sports coat. I considered it a hostile attack on the media."

Wilfred said shyly, "Lenny Inchpot told me she looks foreign."

"Very interesting," said Junior. "We have a foreign agent in our midst, a scout for some international cartel planning to come up here and pollute our environment."

"Or she's a government undercover operator, casing the area as a possible site for a toxic waste dump," Riker suggested.

The new woman on the staff listened in bewilderment, uncertain how to react to the straight-faced conjectures.

"Or she's a visitor from outer space," Mildred said merrily. "We had a lot of UFO sightings this summer."

"You're all off-base," Hixie declared. "I say the man with a briefcase is her attorney, and she's Gustav Limburger's secret girl friend, now suing him for patrimony."

Laughter exploded from all except Qwilleran and the new editor. She asked, "What's so funny?"

"Gustav Limburger," Mildred explained, "is a short, bent-over, mean-spirited, eighty-year-old Scrooge, living in seclusion in Black Creek. He owns the New Pickax Hotel."

"Well, what's wrong with my theory?" Hixie demanded. "He's rich. He's got one foot in the grave. He has no family. It wouldn't be the first time a dirty old man made a deal with a young woman."

There was more laughter and then a knock on the door, and Dwight Somers walked into the conference room, saying, "Let me in on the joke." The PR man had looked better before he shaved off his beard, but what he lacked in handsome features he made up in enthusiasm and personality. He nodded to each one at the table and nodded twice to Hixie. "Sorry to be late, gang. The plane lost its left wing somewhere over Lockmaster. Enemy fire is suspected."

"No problem," Riker said, motioning him to a chair. "The K Fund will buy the airline a new wing."

"Welcome to the Moose County Dumbthing!" Junior said, while Wilfred scurried to fill a coffee mug imprinted: "First we kill all the PR people."

The publisher asked, "Was this your first visit to Klingenschoen headquarters, Dwight? I hear it's impressive."

"Man! It's staggering! You're talking about an operation that occupies four floors of an office building in the Loop. They have a think tank of specialists in investments, real estate, economic development, and philanthropy. Their thrust is to make Moose County a great place to live and work without turning it into a megalopolis. They're for saving the beaches and forests, keeping the air and water clean, creating businesses that do more good than harm, and zoning that discourages high-density development."

"Sounds Utopian. Will it work?"

"If it works, it'll be a prototype for rural communities throughout the country-that is, if they want to thrive and still maintain their quality of life."

"What about tourism?" Junior asked.

"The K Fund soft-pedals the kind of tourism that alters the character of the community. They're bankrolling country inns that operate on a small scale, serve fine food, appeal to discriminating travelers, and get high-class publicity. For tourists on a budget they're promoting small campgrounds that don't clear-cut the woods."

Someone asked about business opportunities.

"Now we come to the point," Dwight said. "If there's one industry that's clean, indispensable, and positive in image, it's food! The county's already known for fisheries, sheep ranches, and potato farms. Now the K Fund is backing enterprises such as a turkey farm and a cherry orchard, ethnic restaurants, and food specialty shops. The Great Food Explo will be a festival of all kinds of happenings related to food." He opened his briefcase and handed out fact sheets. "The Explo opens with a bang a week from tomorrow. Any questions?"

Someone said, "It sounds like it could be fun."

"The trend is to food as entertainment," Dwight said. "There are a lot of foodies out there! People are dining out more often, talking about food, buying cookbooks, taking culinary classes, watching food videos, joining gourmet clubs. Some of the new perfumes on the market smell like vanilla, raspberry, chocolate, nutmeg, cinnamon..."

Riker said, "I wouldn't mind having a Scotch aftershave."

"Don't worry! They'll get around to that."

"Starting next week," Junior said, "we're expanding our food coverage to a full page."

Qwilleran asked, "I suspect the mystery woman is part of a publicity stunt for the Explo."

"No! I swear it on a stack of cookbooks," Dwight said. He closed his briefcase. "I want to thank you, gang, for this opportunity to cue you in. I hope you'll jump on the bandwagon and call me if I can help."

"It's an appetizing prospect," Riker said. "Let's send Wilfred out for burgers and malts!"