The Cat Who Said Cheese

12

The WPKX bulletin reporting a homicide in downtown Pickax struck Qwilleran like the bomb that wrecked the hotel. In horror his mind raced through a roster of his friends who were merchants on Main Street: the Lanspeaks, Fran Brodie, Susan Exbridge, Bruce Scott, and more. He knew virtually everyone in the central business district.

First he called the newspaper, and the night editor said, "Roger is camping out at police headquarters, waiting for them to release the victim's name. An entire block of Main Street is taped off, between Elm and Maple, if that's a clue."

"It isn't," Qwilleran said. "That block has the highest concentration of retail stores." As a wild shot he then phoned the police chief's home.

"Andy isn't here," Mrs. Brodie said. "He got a phone call and took right off. There's been a murder. Isn't that terrible?"

"Did he say who was killed?"

"Only that it wasn't our daughter, thank the Lord. I don't know when he'll be back. He told me not to wait up. If he calls, I'll tell him you phoned."

Qwilleran tried to read, but the radio was blaring soccer scores, weather reports, and country music; the murder had put an abrupt end to the street dance. Hoping for another news bulletin, he was afraid to turn it off. Even the eleven o'clock newscast had no further information on the crime. That meant the police were having trouble locating next of kin. The Siamese sensed that he was upset and knew not to bother him; they merely comforted him with their calm presence. Around midnight the telephone rang, and he sprang to lift the receiver.

"Brodie here," the chief barked. "Did you hear the news? They took out one of our witnesses."

"No! Which one?"

"I'll stop by the barn on my way home, if you're gonna be up. I could use a drink, and that's no lie!"

Within a few minutes, Koko's ears swiveled, and he ran to the kitchen to look out the window. Seconds later, headlights could be seen bobbing through the woods. Qwilleran turned on the exterior lights and went out to meet his friend.

"They got Franklin Pickett," were Brodie's first words. "Poor guy died with flowers clutched in his hand."

Qwilleran poured a Scotch and a glass of Squunk water, and they sat at the bar within reach of a cheese platter.

"The cash drawer was rifled," Brodie went on, "but the robbery was a red herring. The real motive was obviously to silence a witness. Notice the timing! Nobody was looking or listening. The fireworks were shooting off, and everybody was gawking at the sky. You could shoot a cannon down Main Street. They were all at Stables Row or the big parking lot. The SBI detectives flew up again, second time in a week."

"Who discovered the crime?"

"Danny was on patrol, cruising Main Street. The stores were supposed to be locked up and lights out, except for security night-lights. Pickett's lights were on full blast. Danny checked and found the door unlocked - nobody in sight - no answer to his shout. Then he saw the cash register open and found Pickett in the backroom, face down in front of the flower cooler. The cooler door was open."

Qwilleran said, "If the killer had bought flowers on the day of the bombing, shouldn't Pickett have recognized him?"

"He could've worn a disguise, or it could have been his local accomplice on a mopping-up mission. We already decided there was a local connection. That would account for the timing. Somebody around here would know the schedule of events and when to hit. Might even be somebody Pickett knew. He could mingle with the crowd until nine o'clock, then go into the flower shop and take a long time making up his mind. Might even have bought a fifty-cent birthday card. That would take time, too, and Pickett wasn't one to pass up a fifty-cent sale, even if he had to stay open all night."

"What kind of flowers was the victim clutching?" Qwilleran asked with grim curiosity.

"Something dark red."

"Have some cheese, Andy."

"Is it the good stuff you gave me last time? I forget what you called it."

"It's a kind of Swiss cheese called GruyŠre."

"YOW!" came a startlingly loud comment from under the bar. Koko knew by experience where to wait for crumbs.

Qwilleran said to Brodie, "If it's witnesses they're after, what about Lenny Inchpot? He's riding in the bike-a-thon Sunday. The three medalists are riding. The paper printed their names and shirt numbers in today's paper - also the route."

"We're trying to find him. He was seen at the street dance tonight but didn't go home, apparently. His mother's visiting her sister in Duluth, and you can bet Lenny's crashing with his bike buddies. We may have to nab him at the starting gate Sunday and ship him off to Duluth. He won't like being grounded. I hear he's got a lot of sponsors."

"Has the SBI come up with any leads on the bombing suspect?"

"Well, with no name and no car license and no fingerprints, they're working against odds, you might say, but... if you hang in there long enough, something usually happens to bust the case wide open. The homicide tonight may be the thin edge of the wedge." Brodie downed one more quick Scotch and said it was time to go home, adding, "Why doesn't your smart cat come up with some clues?" It was half in jest and half in wonder at Koko's past performances.

"He's working on it, Andy." Qwilleran was thinking about the cat's frenzy during the fireworks... his trashing of the dark red mums... his ominous howl at one particular moment. Were his psychic senses registering a gunshot on Main Street?

Now Lenny Inchpot was in danger. He was Lois's youngest. She'd crack up if anything happened to him.

Qwilleran checked his green pledge cards for the bike-a-thon and found only two. There had been three of them - for Gary, Wilfred and Lenny - on the telephone desk under the brass paperweight. The missing card was Lenny's. A search turned it up in the foyer - on the floor - well chewed. Neither cat was in sight.

Saturday was the day of the Pasty Bake-off. As Qwilleran fed the cats that morning, he said, "You guys have it made. You don't have to judge contests, go on the auction block, or write a thousand words twice a week when there's nothing to write about!"

At one-thirty he reported to the exhibit hall at the fairgrounds, the site of the Food Fair and Pasty Bake-off. At the door, he identified himself as a judge and was directed to a room at the rear; the directions could hardly be heard above the din of amplified music and reverberating voices in the great hall. Local cooks were exhibiting and selling homemade baked goods, preserves, and canned garden produce. Some of the items had already been honored with blue ribbons. Fairgoers wandered through the maze of edibles, stunned into silence by the ear-piercing music.

The judges' chamber was a bleak, ill-furnished cubicle, but Mildred Riker's greetings and light-hearted banter warmed the environment. She welcomed Qwilleran with a hug and a judge's badge. "Qwill, it's good of you to donate so much of your valuable time to Explo!" she shouted above the recorded noise.

"Think nothing of it," he said loudly. "I'm a food freak. But couldn't we turn down the volume, or disconnect the speaker, or shoot the disc jockey?"

Without another word, Mildred hurried from the room; the music faded to a whimper; and she returned with a triumphant smile.

"Now," Qwilleran began, "tell me how many hundred pasties I have to sample today."

"I hate to disappoint you," she said cheerfully, "but the preliminaries have narrowed the field down to fifteen. First the crust judges eliminated about a third of the entries. I feel sorry for the cooks who got up at four o'clock this morning to bake, and were scratched in the first heat. The next group of judges checked ingredients and correct prep of the filling. No ground meat! No disallowed vegetables! We'll do the final testing for flavor and texture."

"How many judges have been nibbling at the fifteen pasties before we get them?" he asked.

Before she could reply, a tall, gangling youth shuffled into the room. He threw his arms wide and announced, "Guess what! You got me instead of chef-baby."

"Derek! What happened to Sigmund?" Mildred cried in disappointment and some annoyance. Derek, after all, was only a waiter.

"He slipped on a sun-dried tomato and sprained his ankle. The sous-chef had to take over lunch, and the prep cooks are working on dinner already, so you're stuck with everybody's favorite wait-person."

"Well, I'm sure you're a connoisseur of anything edible," she said dryly. "Let's all sit down at the table and discuss the procedure. First I'll read some guidelines. The purpose of the competition is to preserve and encourage a cultural tradition, thus forging a spiritual link with the past and celebrating an eating experience that is unique to this region of the United States."

"Who wrote that?" Derek asked. "I don't even know what it means."

"Never mind. Just taste the pasties," she said sharply.

She went on: "Entries are limited to twelve inches in length, with traditional crust and ingredients."

"What about turnips?" Qwilleran asked. "I hear the anti- turnip activists are quite vocal."

"We're awarding two blue ribbons - for pasties with and without."

"I must confess: I hate turnips" he said. "And parsnips. Always have."

"Taste objectively," Mildred advised. "A great pasty transcends its ingredients. It's an art, requiring not only culinary skill but an act of will!"

"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Derek said impatiently. "I'm starved, and I've got a four-o'clock shift."

Mildred opened the door and gave the signal, whereupon the no-turnip pasties were brought into the room. Reduced by the preliminaries to half their size, they were cut into bite-sized chunks and served to the judges, whose comments were brief and emphatic: "Too much onion... Rather dry... Good balance... Flat; needs seasoning... Too much potato... Excellent flavor." After some retasting, Number 87 was named winner in the no-turnip category.

Next came a tray of pasties identified with a T for turnip. One in particular was praised by the two male judges, but Mildred tasted it and said indignantly, "This is turkey! Dark meat of turkey! It's disqualified. How did it slip past the other judges?"

Qwilleran said, "But it deserves some kind of recognition. I detect a superior act of will in its fabrication. I wonder who baked it."

"I bet it was a guy," Derek said.

"Well, we can't accept it," Mildred said firmly. "Rules are rules when you're judging a contest. Emphasis is on tradition, and tradition calls for beef or pork."

"You can't convince me," Qwilleran said, "that the early settlers didn't make pasties with wild turkey - or venison or rabbit or muskrat or anything else they could shoot or trap."

"That may be true, but if we break the rules, all future competitions will lose significance. And do you realize what a controversy we'll have on our hands?"

Derek said, "Take a chance. Start a war."

Qwilleran had a suggestion. "Throw the superpasty out of the running, but find out who baked It and do a Special feature on him or her on some future food page."

Mildred agreed. The crisis was past, but another crisis was yet to develop. When they emerged from the judges' chamber and handed the two winning numbers to the chairperson of the bake-off, he stepped to the microphone.

"Attention, please," he announced on the public address system. "Two blue ribbon winners in the Pasty Bake-off have been selected by our esteemed judges, and each will receive a prize of one hundred dollars, but we have a slight foul-up here. In order to preserve the anonymity of contestants during the judging, their names were deposited in the safe at our accountant's office, MacWhannell & Shaw, and since their office is closed until Monday, we regret we cannot identify the winners at this time. They will be notified, however, on Monday morning, and the winning names will be announced on WPKX and in the Moose County Something."

As the judges left the exhibit building, Mildred said to Qwilleran, "Weren't you shocked by last night's murder? It was a case of armed robbery, they said. We've never had anything like that in Moose County!"

Qwilleran knew more than he wanted to disclose to the publisher's wife. He said, "The SBI is on the case, and we can assume it's a criminal element from Down Below that's responsible - not some bad boy from Chipmunk... By the way, the cats want to express their gratitude for Bird One. The carcass is getting thinner, and Koko and Yum Yum are getting fatter." That was not quite true, but it sounded good. Actually, Qwilleran monitored their in- take, believing that Siamese were intended to be sleek. Even when he gave them a crumb of cheese for a treat, it was no larger than a grape seed. Yet, they chomped and bobbed their heads and washed their whiskers and ears for ten minutes, as if it had been a

Delmonico steak.

For Qwilleran, one more Explo commitment remained: the Celebrity Auction. He dressed for the event with care. In his days as a hard-working journalist Down Below, there had been neither time nor money to waste on sartorial splendor. His new lifestyle supplied both, and the owner of Scottie's Men's Store was his mentor. For the auction, Scottie recommended a bronze, silk-blend sports coat, olive green trousers, and a silk shirt in olive, to be worn open-neck.

On the way to the high school auditorium, Qwilleran drove to Gingerbread Alley to obtain Polly's okay on his outfit. She said he looked distinguished and romantic. "Call me when it's over, no matter how late," she requested. "I won't sleep until I know who gets you."

The crowd that gathered for the auction had paid plenty for their tickets and were convinced they were going to have a good time. The auctioneer, Foxy Fred, circulated in his western hat and red jacket, whipping up their enthusiasm. His spotters, also in red jackets, handed out numbered flash cards to those intending to bid. Poster-sized photographs of the celebrities were displayed on stage, either hanging on the back wall or displayed on easels.

The celebrities themselves were assembled in the Green Room backstage, where they would be able to hear the proceedings on the P A system. Besides Qwilleran, there were the mayor, the WPKX weatherman, the town's leading photographer, and the ubiquitous Derek Cuttlebrink, plus five attractive women: the heiress from Chicago, the personable young doctor, the glamorous interior designer, the theatre club's popular ingenue, and the chic vice president of the Moose County Something.

Qwilleran said to them, "I expect Foxy Fred to hawk me as 'a gen-u-wine old news-hound in fair condition, with the patina of age and interesting distress marks.' Then the bidding will start at five dollars."

The balding John Bushland said, "You're bananas! They'll hock their teeth to bid on you, Qwill. You have more hair than all the rest of us put together."

Hixie Rice assured them all, "Dwight has some shills in the audience to liven up the action if it's too slow, or if the bids are too low."

Fran Brodie muttered to Qwilleran, "Wouldn't you know the mayor would have the chutzpa to wear a dinner jacket and paisley cummerbund? You're dressed just right, Qwill! If I were in the audience, I'd bid a month's commissions on you. Danielle Carmichael was in the studio yesterday, looking at wallpaper. They're both here tonight. Willard is going to bid on me, and she's going to bid on you, although he won't let her go over a thousand."

"Have you heard any more about the shooting?"

"Only that they know what kind of handgun was used, but it happened less than twenty-four hours ago. Give them a break!"

At that point, Pender Wilmot of the Boosters Club arrived in the Green Room to brief the somewhat nervous celebrities. "Packages will be auctioned in the order that appears in the printed program. Foxy Fred will open the bidding with a suggested starting price. If the bids start low, don't worry; he's a master at milking the audience. When your package is knocked down, the winner will come to the platform, and you'll walk out to meet your dinner date. Relax and have fun. It's all for a good cause."

Foxy Fred banged the gavel, and the bidding commenced. The mayor's package-dinner at the Purple Point Boat Club-was knocked down for $750, and the woman he went onstage to meet was Elaine Fetter-widow, champion volunteer, gourmet cook, and grower of mushrooms.

Fran whispered to Qwilleran, "She's been running after the mayor ever since she lost her husband. She lives in West Middle Hummock. I did her house. She has a fabulous kitchen."

Her own package - dinner at the Palomino Paddock - brought $1,000 from Dr. Prelligate. After meeting him onstage, she said breathlessly to Qwilleran, "He's not at all like a college president; he's quite sexy! I wonder what I should wear for the dinner."

"Maybe you can get a decorating job out of it," he suggested. "Find out if he likes blue."

After Derek Cuttlebrink's motorcycle cook-out brought $325 amid screams from his young adherents in the audience, Jennifer Olsen was heard to complain in the Green Room, 'That's unfair! Those girls pooled their money and drew straws. A hairdresser won, and she had hundreds of dollars to bid. Nobody will have nearly that much to bid on me."

The pretty young actress stopped pouting, however, when her all-you-can-eat package brought $400. She went onstage in a state of shock to meet her dinner date, and the others in the Green Room heard her shriek "Dad!"

"That's parental love!" declared Dr. Diane backstage. "Poor Mr. Olsen will have to eat the Hot Spot's ghastly food and sit through two hours of ear-blasting rock. He'll be at the clinic Monday morning, complaining of deafness and heartburn."

Qwilleran's package - a complete makeup and hair styling, followed by dinner at the Old Stone Mill - was the last to go on the block. While other packages had been greeted with murmurs of interest and a few youthful shrieks, this one brought a storm of clapping, cheering, and stamping of feet.

Foxy Fred shouted, "Who wants to have dinner with a famous journalist?" He had been instructed not to mention money or moustache. "Shall we start with five hundred? Who'll give me five hundred?... Five hundred do I see?... I hear four hundred. No money! Go back to the hills... Who'll make it four-fifty?"

"Hep!" shouted a spotter, pointing at a flashcard.

"Four-fifty I've got. Make it five-fifty. Do I see five-fifty?"

"Hep!"

"That's the ticket! Now we're rollin'. Who'll bid six-fifty? Waddala waddala bidda waddala... Six-fifty I've got. Make it seven! Seven hundred for a thousand-dollar dinner date!... Who'll make it seven?"

"Hep!"

"Make it eight! Chance of a lifetime, folks!... I see eight in the back row. Do I see nine? Waddala waddala bidda waddala bidda bidda... Nine I've got over there at the left. Make it a thou! Let's hear from the heavy artillery! Dinner date you'll never forget!... A thousand I've got! Who'll bid twelve hundred?.. Twelve I've got from the lady in the back row! Make it fifteen! Fifteen? Fourteen is bid. Make it fifteen! Where's that card in the back row?"

Qwilleran and Fran exchanged anxious glances. Had Danielle exceeded her thousand-dollar cap? He passed a hand ruefully over his warm face.

"Do I hear fifteen? Shoot the works! Don't lose him now! Make it fifteen!"

"Hep!"

"Fifteen is bid! Who'll go sixteen? Sixteen? Sixteen?... Fifteen once, fifteen twice!" The gavel banged down. "Sold for fifteen hundred to the lady back there with number 134. Don't faint, ma'am! The red jackets will escort you to the stage."

Qwilleran said, "Oh, God! Who can it be?" A list flashed into his mind: women who had been pestering him for the last five years... women who could afford fifteen hundred dollars... women he liked... women he didn't like. If only Polly could have been in the audience! They could have rigged it: She'd bid; he'd pay.

His colleagues in the Green Room were applauding; the crowd in the auditorium was going wild! Derek and Bushy pulled him to his feet and pushed him toward the stage.

Foxy Fred shouted, "Come on out, Mr. Q. Don't be bashful!"

Theatrically, Qwilleran' s timing was perfect; suspense was building. The auctioneer was bawling, "Here's the lucky lady! Come right up, sister. Feeling a little weak in the knees?" Qwilleran tidied his moustache, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulder. Walking onstage, he bowed modestly toward the bright lights and the hundreds of upturned faces, and the sight of the famous moustache increased the uproar. He looked across the stage to see a red-jacketed spotter assisting a little gray-haired woman up the steps.

"Sarah!" he shouted in astonishment.