The Cat Who Said Cheese

3

Friday started with a whisper and ended with a bang! First, Qwilleran fed the cats. He watched in fascination as they groomed themselves from whisker to tail tip. They seemed to sense, Qwilleran thought, that a prize-winning professional photographer was coming and that they might become famous calendar cats. The female was dainty in her movements; the male brisk and business-like. He had extremely long, bold whiskers, and Qwilleran wondered if they accounted for his remarkable intuition. Koko was also a master of one-upmanship, and he had proved more than once that he had John Bushland's number.

Bushy, as the balding young man liked to be called, arrived without noticeable photo equipment-just a small, inconspicuous black box dangling around his neck.

Qwilleran met him at the door. "Come in quietly and make yourself at home. Avoid any sudden movements. Don't touch your camera. I'm making coffee, and we'll sit around and talk as if nothing is going to happen."

Bushy wandered into the library area and looked at titles on the shelves. "Wow!" he said softly. "You have a lot of plays. Were you ever an actor?"

"I was headed in that direction before I discovered journalism. A little acting experience, in my opinion, is good preparation for almost any career."

"Shakespeare... Aristophanes... Chekhov! Do you read this heavy stuff?"

"Heavy or light, I like to read them aloud and play all the roles myself."

"Do you realize how many plays have food in the title? The Wild Duck, The Cherry Orchard, The Corn Is Green, Raisin in the Sun, Chicken on Sunday, A Taste of Honey..."

Qwilleran brought a tray to the coffee table. "Sit down, Bushy, and have some coffee and shortbread from the new bakery on Stables Row. It'll remind you of our trip to Scotland. Ignore the cats."

They were warming themselves in a triangle of sun- light on the pale Moroccan rug. Koko had struck his leonine pose, with lower body lying down and upper body sitting up, like the fore and aft halves of two different animals.

Bushy said, "Junior wants me to pull a paparazzi stunt and get some candids of the mystery woman. He thinks they'll be useful to the paper and/or the police if she turns out to be a spy or a fugitive from the FBI or whatever. What do you think about her wig? I think it's a man in drag."

"I think everyone's overreacting," Qwilleran said.

"Tell me about the Celebrity Auction. I hear you're on the committee."

"Yeah... well... the Boosters Club is raising money to aid needy families at Christmastime. People will bid against each other to have a dinner date with a celebrity, such as the mayor. I volunteered to take someone out on my cabin cruiser for a picnic supper. I'm no celebrity, but I'll throw in a portrait sitting in my studio."

Roguishly Qwilleran asked, "Is this outing going to be chaperoned?"

"Well, now that you mention it, we expect some flak from the conservative element, but what the heck! If they can stage an auction Down Below with a few million strangers, we can have one up here, where everybody is always watching everybody."

Meanwhile the Siamese were rehearsing every pose known to calendar cats. Yum Yum lounged seductively, extending one long, elegant foreleg. Koko sat regally with his tail curled just-so and turned his head in a photogenic profile. The intense rays of the sun heightened the blue of their eyes and highlighted their fur, making every guard hair glisten.

Bushy said under his breath, "Don't speak. They're lulled into a false sense of security. It's the moment of truth... Say cheese, you guys." He stood up in slow motion, moved stealthily to the right vantage point, lowered himself gradually to one knee, and furtively raised his camera. Immediately Koko rolled over and started grooming the base of his tail, with one hind leg raised like a flagpole. Yum Yum rocked back on her spine and scratched her right ear, with eyes crossed and fangs showing.

The photographer groaned and stood up. "What did I do wrong?"

"It's not your fault," Qwilleran said. "Cats have a sly sense of humor. They like to make us look like fools, which we are, I guess. Sit down and have another cuppa."

Now the cats turned their backs, Yum Yum in a contented bundle of fur, while Koko crouched behind her. He was staring at her backbone and lashing his tail in slow motion. Then, with body close to the floor, he moved closer, wriggling his hindquarters. She seemed quite oblivious of his curious pantomime.

"What's that all about?" Bushy asked.

"They're just playing. It's a boy-girl thing."

"I thought they were fixed."

"It doesn't make any difference."

Suddenly, with a single swift leap, Koko pounced, but before he landed, she was gone, whizzing up the ramp with Koko in pursuit.

"Well, I've got to get back to the studio," Bushy said. "Thanks for coffee. Tell the cats I haven't given up!"

Before going to Black Creek for his interview with Gustav Limburger, Qwilleran had breakfast at Lois's Luncheonette. At that hour she was hostess, waitress, cook and cashier. "The same?" she mumbled in his direction. In a few minutes she banged down a plate of pancakes and sausages and sat down across the table with a cup of coffee.

"I hear your son won the silver in the bike race," he said.

"It ain't real silver," she said, jerking her head toward the bulletin board behind the cash register. It displayed the silverish medal, a green and white helmet, and a green and white jersey with a large "19" on the back. "You know what? He's in college now, and he's tellin' me all the things I been doin' wrong for the last thirty years. I bet those professors don't teach 'em about all the headaches in the hash-slingin' business. I should be teachin' at the college!"

"Does he plan to take over this place when he finishes this course?"

"Nah. His ambition is to be manager of the New PIckax Hotel! My God! That fleabag! He's outa his bleepin' mind."

"Do you know the old gentleman who owns it?" Qwilleran asked.

"Gentleman? Hah!" Lois made a spitting gesture. "He'd come in here for breakfast when you could get four pancakes, three sausages, and five cups o' coffee for ninety-five cents, and he'd leave a nine-cent tip! Talk about cheap! One day he had the nerve to ask if I'd like to marry him and run his mansion like a boarding house! Did I ever tell him off! I said he was too old and too tight and too smelly. All my customers heard me. He stomped out without payin' for his breakfast and never come back. I di'n't care. Who needed his nine cents?"

"I was under the impression he was well off," Qwilleran said.

"If he ain't, he should be! They built the state prison on his land! He made out like Rockefeller on that deal!"

The town of Black Creek, not far inland from Mooseville, had been a boomtown when the river was the lifeline of the county, and it flourished again when the railroad was king. After that, the mines closed and the forests were lumbered out, and it became a ghost town.

When Qwilleran drove there on Friday, it still looked like a no-man's-land. All that remained of downtown was a bar, an auto graveyard, and a weekend flea market in the old railroad depot. In the former residential area, all the frame houses had burned down or been stripped for firewood, leaving only the Limburger mansion rising grotesquely from acres of weeds. Victorian in style, with tall, narrow windows, a veranda and a turret, it had been a landmark in its day, being constructed of red brick. Local building materials were wood or stone; brick had to be shipped in by schooner and hauled overland by ox cart. The Limburgers had spared no expense, even importing Old-World craftsmen to lay the brick in artful patterns. Now one of the stately windows was boarded up; paint was peeling from the wood trim and carved entrance door; the lawn had succumbed to weeds; and the ornamental iron fence with spiked top was minus an eight-foot section.

When Qwilleran drove up, an old man was sitting on the veranda in a weathered rocking chair, smoking a cigar and rocking vigorously.

"Are you Mr. Limburger?" Qwilleran called out as he mounted the six crumbling brick steps.

"Yah," said the old man without losing a beat in his rocking. His clothes were gray with age, and his face was gray with untrimmed whiskers. He wore a shapeless gray cap.

"I'm Jim Qwilleran from the Moose County Something. This is an impressive house you have here."

"Wanna buy it?" the man asked in a cracked voice. "Make an offer."

Always ready to play along with a joker, Qwilleran said, "How many rooms does it have?"

"Never counted."

"How many fireplaces?"

"Don't matter. They don't work. Chimney blocked up."

"How many bathrooms?"

"How many you need?"

"Good question," Qwilleran said. "May I sit down?" He lowered himself cautiously into a splintery rocking chair with a woven seat that was partly unwoven. A dozen stones as big as baseballs were lined up on the railing. "Do you know what year this house was built, Mr. Limburger?"

The old man shook his head and rubbed his nose with a fist as if to relieve an itch. "My grandfader built it. My fader was born here, and I was born here. My grandfader come from the Old Country."

"Is he the one who built the original Pickax Hotel?"

"Yah."

"Then it's been in the family for generations. How long have you been the sole owner?"

"Long time."

"How large a family do you have now?"

"All kicked the bucket, 'cept me. I'm still here."

"Did you ever marry?"

"None o' yer business."

A blue pickup drove onto the property and disappeared around the back of the house. A truck door slammed, but no one made an appearance. Thinking of the uncounted bedrooms, Qwilleran asked, "Do you take roomers?"

"You wanna room?"

"Not for myself, but I might have friends coming from out of town - "

"Send 'em to the hotel."

"It's an interesting hotel, no doubt about it," Qwilleran said diplomatically. "Lately I've noticed a fine looking woman there, dressed in black. Is she your new manager?"

"Don't know 'er." Limburger rubbed his nose again.

Qwilleran had an underhanded way of asking questions that were seemingly innocent but actually designed to goad an uncooperative interviewee. "Do you dine at the hotel frequently? The food is said to be very good, especially since you brought in that chef from Fall River. Everyone talks about his chicken pot pie."

The old man was rocking furiously, as he lost pa- tience with the nosy interviewer. He replied curtly, "Cook my own dinner."

"You do?" Qwilleran exclaimed with feigned admiration. "I envy any man who can cook. What sort of thing - "

"Wurst... schnitzel... suppe..." "Do you mind if I ask a personal question, Mr. Limburger? Who will get the hotel and this splendid house when you... kick the bucket, as you say?"

"None o' yer business."

Qwilleran had trouble concealing his amusement. The whole interview resembled a comic routine from vaudeville days. As he turned away to compose his facial expression and consider another question, he saw a large reddish-brown dog coming up the brick walk. "Is that your dog?" he asked.

For answer the old man shouted in his cracked voice, "Get outa here!" At the same time he reached for a stone on the railing and hurled it at the animal. It missed. The dog looked at the stone with curiosity. Seeing that it was inedible, he came closer. "Mis'rable mutt!" Limburger seized a stick that lay ready at his feet and struggled to stand up. Brandishing the stick in one hand and clutching a stone with the other, he started down the brick steps.

"Careful!" Qwilleran called out, jumping to his feet.

The angry householder went down the steps one at a time, left leg first, all the while yelling, "Arrrrgh! Get outa here! Filthy beast!" Halfway down the steps he stumbled and fell to the brick sidewalk.

Qwilleran rushed to his side. "Mr. Limburger! Mr. Limburger! Are you hurt? I'll call for help. Where's your phone?"

The man was groaning and flailing his arms. "Get the man! Get the man!" He was waving feebly toward the front door.

Qwilleran bounded to the veranda in two leaps, shouting "Help! Help!"

Almost immediately the door was opened by a big man in work clothes, looking surprised but not concerned.

"Call 911! He's hurt! Call 911!" Qwilleran shouted at him as if he were deaf.

The emergency medical crew responded promptly and proceeded efficiently, taking the old man away in an ambulance. Qwilleran turned to the big man. "Are you a relative?"

The answer came in a high-pitched, somewhat squeaky voice that seemed incongruous in a man of that size. He could have been a wrestler or football lineman. Also incongruous was his hair: long and pre- maturely white. The journalist's eye registered other details: age, about thirty... soft, pudgy face... slow-moving... unnaturally calm as if living in a daze. Here was a character as eccentric as Limburger.

The caretaker was saying, "I'm not a relative. I just live around here. I kinda look after the old man. He's gettin' on in years, so I keep an eye on him. Nobody else does. I go to the store and buy things he wants. He don't drive no more.

They don't let him drive. That's bad, when you live way out here like this. He's got a bad temper, but he don't get mad at me. He gets mad at the dog that comes around and dirties the sidewalk. I told him he'd fall down them steps if they wasn't fixed. I could fix 'em if he'd spend some money on mortar and a few bricks. All it would take is about ten new bricks."

With rapt attention, Qwilleran listened to the rush of.I words that answered his simple question.

The caretaker went on. "Last Halloween some kids come around beggin' like they do, and he chased 'em away with a stick, like he does the dog. Same night, a brick come through the front window. Somebody took a brick outa the front steps and threw it right through the window. I'm not sayin' it was the kids, but..." He shrugged his big shoulders.

Since they were on the subject of damaged property, Qwilleran asked, "What happened to the section of fence that's missing? Did someone drive a truck through it?"

The bland face turned to the gaping space. "Some lady wanted to buy a piece of it, so the old man sold it. I dunno what she wanted it for. I hadda deliver it in my truck, and she give me five dollars. She di'n't have to do that, but it was nice. D'you think it was nice? I thought it was nice, but the old man said she shoulda give me ten." Limburger's helper never referred to his boss by name.

"By the way, I'm Jim Qwilleran from the Moose County Something." He held out his hand. "I was interviewing Mr. Limburger about the hotel."

The fellow wiped his hand on his pants before shaking Qwilleran's. His eyes were riveted on the famous moustache. "I seen your picture in the paper. The old, man don't take the paper, but I read it at Lois's. I go there for breakfast It's yesterday's paper, but that don't matter. I like to read it. Do you eat at Lois's? Her flapjacks are almost as good as my mom's. D'you know my mom?"

Genially Qwilleran said, "I don't even know you. What's your name?"

"Aubrey Scotten. You know the Scotten Fisheries? My granddad started the business, and then my dad and uncles ran it. My dad died five years ago. My brothers run it now. I got four brothers. D'you know my brothers? My mom still lives on the Scotten farm on Sandpit Road. She grows flowers to sell."

"Aubrey is a good Scottish name." "I don't like it. My brothers got pretty good names- Ross, Skye, Douglas, and Blair. I asked my mom why she give me such a dumb name, and she di'n't know. She likes it. I think it's a dumb name. People don't even spell it right. It's A-u-b-r-e-y. In school the kids called me Big Boy. That's not so bad."

"It's appropriate," Qwilleran said. "Do you work with your brothers?"

"Nab, I don't like that kinda work no more. I got me some honeybees, and I sell honey. I'm startin' a real job next week. Blair got me a job at the new turkey farm. Maintenance engineer. That's what they call it. I don't hafta be there all the time. I can take care of my bees. The hives are down by the river. D'you like bees? They're very friendly if you treat 'em right. I talk to 'em, and they give me a lot of honey. It was a good summer for honey flow. Now they're workin' on goldenrod and asters, and they're still brooding. I re-queened the hives this summer."

"I'm sure the bees appreciated that." It was a flip remark intended to conceal ignorance. Qwilleran had no idea what the man was talking about. He recognized possibilities for the "Qwill Pen," however. "This is all very interesting, and I'd like to hear more about your friendly bees. Not today, though; I have another appointment. How about tomorrow? I'd like to write about it in the paper."

The garrulous beekeeper was stunned into silence.

On the way back to Pickax, Qwilleran rejoiced in his discoveries: two more "characters" for the book he would someday find time to write. Both were worthy of further acquaintance. The good-hearted fellow who didn't like his name had the compulsive loquacity of a lonely person who yearns for a sympathetic audience. It was easy to imagine a comic dialogue between the talkative young man and the grumpy oldster who was stingy with words as well as money. It was less easy, however, to imagine Aubrey Scotten as a maintenance engineer.

Qwilleran knew about the turkey farm, underwritten by the K Fund. His friend, Nick Bamba, had been hired as manager-with option to buy in two years. They had sent him to a farm in Wisconsin to learn the ropes. At last Nick could quit his unrewarding job at the state prison near Mooseville. While the original Hanstable turkey farm would continue to supply fresh turkeys to the prison and to local markets, the new "Cold Turkey Farm" would raise birds, fast-freeze them, and ship to markets Down Below.

Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Lori, had submitted an idea to the K Fund which was accepted, and she would open a small restaurant in Stables Row. Details had not been announced.

Qwilleran admired the energy and ambition of the young couple, who were rearing a family of three as well as tackling new challenges. He questioned the wisdom, however, of hiring Aubrey Scotten as maintenance engineer of the Cold Turkey Farm. As soon as he returned to the bam, he called directory assistance for the number of the new enterprise and phoned the manager.

After a few pleasantries, Qwilleran said, "Nick, I just met a man who says he's been hired as your maintenance engineer."

"Aubrey Scotten? Yeah, aren't we lucky?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's a genius at repairing things - anything! Refrigeration, automated machinery, automotive equipment - anything! He has a God-given talent, that's all."

"Well!" Qwilleran said, "I'm surprised, to say the least."

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when I see you," Nick said. "And what do you think about Lori's venture?"

"I haven't heard any details."

"Call her! Call her at home. She'll be tickled to fill you in."

The golden-haired Lori Bamba had been Mooseville postmaster when Qwilleran first met her. Since then she had started a secretarial service and, later, a bed-and-breakfast inn on Breakfast Island, all the while parenting three children and five cats. Now she was opening a restaurant!

"How's it going?" he asked her on the phone.

"Super! We'll be ready to open next Friday."

"What's the name of your restaurant?"

"First, I have to ask you a question. What does spoon-feeding mean to you, Qwill ?"

"Being sick in bed when I was a kid."

"Well, smarty, the dictionary says it means pampering and coddling. My family loves any kind of food that can be eaten with a spoon, so I'm opening a high-class soup kitchen called the Spoonery."

"You mean you'll serve nothing but soup?"

"Soups and stews - whatever can be eaten with a spoon. Eat in or take out. How does it sound?"

"Daring! But if it's good enough for the K Fund, it's good enough for me."

"You 'II like it! I've got dozens of exciting recipes."

"Well, I wish you luck, and I'll be your first customer. Just don't serve turnip chowder or parsnip bisque!"

Koko was antsy that afternoon. First, he walked away from the feeding station when the midday treat was served; he drove Yum Yum crazy by pouncing on her and chasing her up to the rafters; he pushed several books off the library shelves. When he started rattling the handle of the broom closet, Qwilleran got the message. As soon as the door was opened, Koko bounded into the closet and sat on top of the cat-carrier.

"You rascal!" Qwilleran said. "You want to roll on the concrete!"

During the summer he had taken the Siamese to the cabin at the beach on several occasions, where their chief pleasure was rolling on the concrete floor of the screened porch. They writhed and squirmed and flipped from side to side in catly bliss that Qwilleran failed to understand. Yet, he indulged their whims. Soon they were driving to the log cabin he had inherited from the Klingenschoen estate.

It was a thirty-mile jaunt to the lake. In cat-miles it was probably perceived as a hundred and thirty, although the Siamese rode in privacy and cushioned comfort in a deluxe carrier on the backseat. Thoughtfully, Qwilleran used the Sandpit Road route to avoid heavy truck traffic; eighteen-wheelers disturbed Yum Yum's delicate digestive system. Both cats raised inquisitive noses when they passed the Cold Turkey Farm and again when they reached the lakeshore with its mingled aromas of fish, seagulls, and aquatic weeds.

At the sign of a letter K on a post, a relic of the Klingenschoen era, they turned into a narrow dirt lane that wound through several acres of woods, up and down ancient sand dunes, and between oaks and pines and wild cherry trees. That was when Koko became excited; bumping around in the confines of the carrier and rumbling internal noises that alarmed his partner.

Qwilleran recognized the performance; the cat was sensitive to abnormal situations; something unusual lay ahead. He himself noticed recent tire tracks and was annoyed when he found another car parked in the clearing adjoining the cabin. He imagined insolent trespassers, surf-fishing and building illegal fires on the beach and throwing beer cans in the beach grass. When he parked behind the unauthorized vehicle, however, he noted a local license plate and a rental car sticker in the back window of a dark blue two-door.

His reaction was a gradual buildup of dumb disbelief, then amazement, then challenge and triumph! What a coup! He was about to come face-to-face with that woman! And he had her trapped!