The Cat Who Said Cheese

9

The electronic chimes of the Little Stone Church clanged their somber summons on Monday morning as hundreds of mourners flocked to the memorial service for Anna Marie Toms. Many were strangers. It was Moose County custom to attend funerals, for whatever reason: sympathy for the survivors, neighborly compassion, curiosity, grim sociability, or just something to talk about all week. Qwilleran walked to the Park Circle to see what was happening. The traffic jam was more than the local police could handle, and state troopers were assisting.

The crowd overflowed the church. Onlookers clustered on adjoining lawns and filled the circular park that divided Main Street into northbound and southbound lanes. Among them were persons that Qwilleran thought he identified as plainclothes detectives from the SBI. He also noticed a misplaced apostrophe in signs carried by Anna Marie's fellow students from Moose County Community College.

ANNA MARIE WE LUV YA

LENNY WER'E WITH Y A

He had his camera and took snapshots to show Polly. A detective asked for his identification. Photographers from the Moose County Something and the Lockmaster Ledger were busy. The afternoon papers would carry their first coverage of the Friday bombing, and they would go all out.

From there Qwilleran walked downtown to the newspaper office and handed in his Tuesday copy. He said to Junior Goodwinter, "I saw Roger and Bushy at the memorial service. The Ledger was covering it, too."

"Yeah, we're giving it the works. But, do you know what? You'll never believe this, Qwill. Franklin Pickett, the florist, was in here an hour ago, trying to make a deal. He's the one who sold the flowers to the bombing suspect, and he wanted us to buy his story! I told him no thanks and suggested he try the Ledger!" The young managing editor exploded with laughter. "I even gave him the address. I told him to ask for the editor in charge of checkbook journalism. He wrote it all down."

"You have a wicked sense of humor," Qwilleran said. "Well, the Ledger is always dumping their rejects on us, you know. They sent us the guy with the talking pig - right after we'd carpeted the city room! Everyone knows how pigs are!"

Qwilleran chuckled at the recollection. "So... what are you doing on the front page, Junior?"

"Police releases are minimal, as usual, but we've got man-on-the-street stuff, photos, and a computer sketch of the suspect based on witnesses' descriptions and supplied by the SBI. He's a white, fortyish, clean-shaven male, Qwill, so that lets you off the hook."

"Thanks. I was worried."

"Then we've got a sidebar on the history of the hotel, courtesy of good old Homer. Jill is at the memorial service right now, trying to get a sappy feature story. Roger went to the hospital, hoping to get an interview with Gustav Limburger, but the old crab threw a bedpan at him. Roger also contacted the realty firm in Lockmaster that manages the hotel, but they weren't talking to the media."

"What about the mystery woman? Wasn't her room the target?"

"Yeah. Ona Dolman, her name is. At least, that's the way she registered. She's skipped, though. Left without checking out. Didn't have any luggage to come back for, that's for sure. Owes for five nights. Ona Dolman is also the name she used at the car rental and the library and on traveler's checks. There's no evidence that she used a credit card or personal checks anywhere... So we've been busy! How did you spend your weekend?"

"Just scrounging material for my column. Did you talk to any hotel employees?"

"We buttonholed Lenny at the scene, but the police wouldn't let him talk. The chef was chummy with Ona Dolman, according to one of the waitresses. After the blast he picked himself up off the floor, grabbed his knives, and took off! Probably went back to Fall River, Massachusetts. Sounds as if he knows something about Dolman that the rest of us don't know. Anyway, the police will be checking him out. Frankly, I hope he stays in Fall River."

After talking with Junior, Qwilleran made the rounds of the newspaper offices, where his twice-weekly visits were always welcomed as if he were handing out ten-dollar bills. He wanted to have words with Arch Riker, but the publisher was still at lunch. His secretary, Wilfred, said, "He's been gone a couple of hours, so he should be back soon. Are you sponsoring anybody in the bike-a-thon, Mr. Q?"

"If you're riding, I'm sponsoring. I always back a winner," Qwilleran said as he signed a green pledge card for a dollar a mile.

Next he picked up his fan mail from the office manager, who delighted in handing it to him personally. He knew her only as Sarah, a small woman with steel-gray hair and thick glasses, who had never married. Junior called her "Qwill's number one fan." She memorized chunks of the "Qwill Pen" and quoted them in the office; she knew the names of his cats; she crocheted catnip toys for them. For his part, Qwilleran treated Sarah with exaggerated courtesy and suffered good-natured ribbing in the cityroom about his "office romance."

"Would you like me to slit the envelopes for you, Mr. Q? There are quite a few today." She kept a record of his columns according to topic, plus a tally of the letters generated by each one. She was able to say that cats and baseball were his most popular topics.

"Sarah," he said sternly, "if you don't stop calling me Mr. Q, you'll lose your job. It's a condition of employment here that you call me Qwill."

"I'll try," she said with a happy smile.

"And yes, I'd appreciate it if you'd slit the envelopes."

Next, Hixie Rice beckoned to him from the promotion department. "Sit down," she said. "We have a problem to discuss. Did you see the teasers on the Food Forum in last week's editions? We haven't been getting any results - not one!"

"I remember seeing them," he said. "Show me a copy to refresh my memory." The announcement, which looked more like an ad than a news item, read:

ATTENTION! FOODlES!

Do you have questions about food, cooking, or nutrition?

Are you hunting for a particular recipe?

Would you like to share one of your own? Do you have any pet peeves about food, or food stores, or restaurants?

THE FOOD FORUM IS FOR YOU!

Send us your queries, quips, beefs, and suggestions.

We want to hear from you.

They'll be printed in the

Food Forum on the food page every Thursday.

Hixie said, "Is there something wrong with our readers? Or is there something wrong with us?"

Qwilleran considered the questions briefly. "Well, first of all, our readers may not know what a foodie is. Second, they may not want to be called foodies. Third, you don't state whether their names will be used. Mostly, I would say, they don't quite get the idea, or they're waiting for someone else to start it. This is not Down Below; this is four hundred miles north of everywhere."

"What are you saying, Qwill? That we should run a dummy column on the first food page?"

"Something like that - to prime the pump... Why are you looking at me like that, Hixie? I see a sudden happy expression of premeditated buck-passing."

"Would you do it, Qwill? Would you write some fake letters with fake signatures? You'd be good at it."

"Are you implying that fakery is my forte? I've always left that to the advertising profession."

"Ouch! I don't care. Hit me again. Just do this one favor for me, and I'll be forever grateful. The Food Forum was my idea, and I'd hate to have a complete flop."

At that point Wilfred interrupted; the boss had returned.

"Okay, Hixie, I'll see what I can do," Qwilleran said. "And don't let anyone on the staff know," she cautioned him.

"No problem. I'll hand in my copy disguised as a box of chocolates."

He was still in a bantering mood when he went into the publisher's office. "Were you having another power lunch?" he asked. "Or was it a three-Scotch goof-off?"

Riker rebuked him with a frown. "I was having an important luncheon with the editor in chief of the Lockmaster Ledger."

"At the Palomino Paddock? Who paid?"

There was another scowl. "The Ledger is giving full coverage to the bombing, and we both think it's a two-county story. We're sharing sources. We also discussed the hostility and prejudice that exists between the two counties. We should be working for the same goals instead of sniping at each other at every opportunity."

"Let's not get too brotherly," Qwilleran said. "Sniping is the spice of life."

"Since you're feeling so good," Riker said, "how'd you like to take on an extra assignment - in a pinch?"

Qwilleran's flippancy switched to wariness. "Like what?"

"Wednesday night's the opening session of Mildred's series of cooking classes for men only, and the course is a sellout. We should have a reporter there."

"What's the matter with Roger? He's on nights this week." Roger MacGillivray was a general assignment reporter married to Sharon Hanstable, Mildred's daughter.

"Sharon is assistant demonstrator for the course, so Roger has to stay home and baby-sit Wednesday night," Riker explained. Then his usually bland expression changed to a roguish one. "However, Roger could cover the story, and you could baby-sit. Or Sharon could stay home with the kids, and you could help Mildred with the demonstration."

Gruffly Qwilleran said, "Tell Roger to stay home. What time does the class start? Where's it being held?"

"Seven-thirty at the high school, in the home ec department. Take a camera."

"What's the deadline?"

"Thursday noon, firm. Earlier if possible."

"What is Mildred going to teach these guys? How to make grilled cheese sandwiches?"

Riker ignored the remark. "Most men who signed up want to master one or two specialties, like barbecued spare ribs or Italian spaghetti. If I do say so myself, I make a memorable stuffed cabbage, but nothing else."

"How come I've known you since kindergarten and never tasted your memorable stuffed cabbage?"

Shrugging off the question, Riker went on. "Some of the requests made by the class are meatloaf, Oriental stir-fry, pan-fried trout, Swiss steak, and so on."

"Okay, Arch. If I do this for you," Qwilleran said, "you owe me one."

"Any time you say, friend."

On the way out of the building, Qwilleran picked up a paper from a bundle that had just come from the printing plant. The headline read: SEARCH TWO COUNTIES FOR BOMB MURDERER. He planned to read it with his lunch at Lois's.

Lois herself was waiting on tables. "Is that today's paper?" she asked. "Is Lenny's picture in it?"

Qwilleran scanned the front page, the carry-over on three, and the photo spread on the back page. "Doesn't look like it," he said, "but Lenny had his picture in the paper when he won the silver, and I imagine he looks better in a helmet than a bandage. How's he doing?"

"Not good. He's down in the dumps. Him and Anna Marie were gonna get married, you know... What'll it be for you today, besides three cups of coffee?"

He ordered a Reuben sandwich and reserved a piece of apple pie, one of Lois's specialties that sold out fast. While waiting for the sandwich, he perused the paper. There were photos of the shattered interior of room 203; the fallen chandelier lying on the reservation desk; the hotel exterior, windowless and draped with debris. There was also a photo of Anna Marie copied from her driver's license, found in her handbag in the employees' locker room.

Of unusual interest was the computer-composite of the suspect's probable likeness, this being the first time such a technical advance had appeared in the local paper. It would also be running in the Lockmaster Ledger, and the good folk of two counties would carry it around and peer suspiciously into every passing face.

The lead story was set in large type, giving it importance and concealing the embarrassing truth that there was little to report that was not already generally known:

Law enforcement agencies are combing two counties in their search for the suspect who allegedly planted a bomb in the New Pickax Hotel, killing one employee, injuring two others, and causing extensive property damage. The explosion occurred Friday at 4:20 P.M.

No guests were on the premises at that time.

Pronounced dead at the scene was Anna Marie Toms, 20, of

Chipmunk, a part-time housekeeping aide at the hotel and nursing student at Moose County Community College.

Desk clerk Leonard Inchpot, 23, of Kennebeck sustained a head injury when a chandelier dropped from a ceiling above the registration desk. Manager

Isabelle Croy of Lockmaster was thrown to the floor in her second-floor office. Both were treated at the

Pickax Hospital and released.

"Several members of the staff were shaken up," said Croy. "Because it was late Friday afternoon, all the commercial travelers had checked out, and the dinner hour hadn't started yet. We feel terribly upset about Anna

Marie. She was new and trying so hard to do a good job."

Major damage occurred at the front of the building on the second floor, with the bomb allegedly planted in room 203.

A police spokesperson said that a white, middle aged, clean-shaven man entered the hotel at approximately four o'clock to deliver what he said was a birthday gift and also a bouquet of flowers for the occupant of 203. Shortly after, Toms was seen entering the room with a vacuum cleaner "because the flowers had made a mess on the rug," Croy said. The explosion occurred within minutes.

PPD chief Andrew Brodie said, "A couple of thousand bombings are reported in the U.S. every year. Dynamite and blasting caps and other components of homemade bombs are easy to buy, and too many nuts out there have the know-how. You can even make a bomb with fertilizer."

Room 203 had been occupied for the last two weeks by a woman registered as Ona

Dolman of Columbus, OH. She has not been seen since the bombing. A spokesperson at the airport reported that a woman using that name returned a rental car at 5:20 P.M. Friday and boarded the shuttle flight to Minneapolis.

The Moose County Something has not been able to locate anyone of that name in Columbus, OH.

Local police are being assisted in the investigation by detectives, bomb experts, and forensic technicians of the SBI, as well as the sheriff departments of Moose and

Lockmaster counties.

The photo of room 203 was a scene of incredible destruction: walls gouged, doors ripped off, ceiling panels hanging down, and furnishings shredded and flung about the room like confetti. Qwilleran read the lead story twice; there was no mention that the desk clerk allowed the stranger to take the gift upstairs himself. Then Qwilleran wondered, If the "clean-shaven" stranger had worn a shaggy beard and long hair, and if he had been carrying a six-pack of beer instead of flowers, would he have been allowed to go up to 203? He also wondered about the manager's remark that commercial travelers checked out Friday afternoon. Did that fact have anything to do with the timing of the explosion? If the Lockmaster management firm had indeed plotted the incident, as some believed, did the in-house manager (from Lockmaster) suggest the best time to pull it off?

There was more on the front page. A bulletin stated: "Do not open gifts or other unexpected packages delivered to your home or place of business-if the sender is unknown. Play it safe! Contact the police!"

A human interest anecdote with an ironic twist was included as a sidebar:

After the "birthday gift" had been delivered to room 203, the desk clerk notified the kitchen that it was Dolman's birthday, and the chef, Karl Oskar, prepared to bake her a birthday cake. He was mixing the batter when the bomb exploded, and both he and the batter ended up on the floor.

Qwilleran finished his lunch and went to Amanda's Design Studio to speak with Fran Brodie. The designer was cloistered in a consultation booth with an indecisive client and a hundred samples of blue fabric. Fran saw him and made a grimace of desperation, but he signaled no-hurry and ambled about the shop. He liked to buy small decorative objects once in a while, partly to please the daughter of the police chief.

When Fran finally appeared at his elbow, he was examining a pair of carved wooden masks painted in garish colors. "That woman!" she muttered. "She's a sweet little lady, but she can never make up her mind. She'll come back tomorrow with her mother-in-law and again on Saturday with her husband, who couldn't care less. He'll point to a sample at random and say it's the best, and she'll place the order.... What do you think of my Sri Lanka masks?"

"Is that what they are? I'd hate to meet one of them in a dark alley," They were mythical demons with wicked fangs, bulging eyes, rapacious beaks, and bristling headdresses.

"By the way," Fran said, "you made a big hit with the new banker's wife. She came in this morning, and all she could talk about was you and your barn. She thinks you're charming. She loves your voice. She loves your moustache. Don't let Polly hear about Danielle; she'll have a relapse. But thanks for giving me credit for the barn, Qwill. She'll be a good customer. She hates blue."

"Did you sign her up for the theatre club? I hear she's had stage experience."

"Well... yes. She was a night-club entertainer in Baltimore. Her stage name was Danielle Devoe... Is that today's paper you're carrying?"

"Take it. I've read it. There's nothing new," he said. "You probably know more than the newspaper."

"I know they've run a check on Ona Dolman. Her driver's license is valid, but there's no such address as the one she gave the hotel. The suspect was described as wearing a blue nylon jacket and a black baseball cap with a 'fancy' letter D on the front. He got into a blue pickup behind the hotel."

Qwilleran thought, Nine out of ten males in Moose County drive blue pickups and wear blue jackets; they also wear high-crowned farm caps advertising fertilizer or tractors. Baseball caps are worn chiefly by sport fishermen from Down

Below. The suspect's black one sounds like a Detroit Tigers cap; the letter D is in Old English script.

To Fran he said, "I think I'll take these hideous masks. Would you gift-wrap them and deliver them to Polly on Gingerbread Alley? I'll write a gift card."

Dubiously the designer said, "Will she like them? They don't represent her taste in decorative objects."

"Don't worry. It's a joke." On the card he wrote: "A pair of diet deities to bless your kitchen: Lo Phat and Lo Psalt."