The Cat Who Saw Stars

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World-shaking news was seldom broadcast by WPKX, the radio station serving Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere. Local baseball scores, another car accident, a fire in a chicken coop, and death notices were the usual fare. In late June, listeners snapped to attention, then, when a Sunday evening newscast included this bulletin:

“An unidentified backpacker of no known address mayor may not be a missing person, according to Moose County authorities. The Caucasian male, thought to be in his early twenties, stowed his camping gear on private property in the Fishport area three days ago and has not returned. He is described as fair-haired with blue eyes and of medium build. When last seen, he was wearing cut-off jeans, a white T-shirt, and a camera on a neck strap. Anyone seeing an individual of this description should notify the sheriff’s department.”

Since the description might fit any number of vacationers in Moose County, the listening audience ignored the matter until the next day, when it was reported in the local newspaper. A detailed story - written in folk-style by Jill Handley, feature editor of the Moose County Something - made sense of the incident.

Wheres David?

MISSING HIKER BAFFLES F’PORT by Jill Handley

Magnus Hawley of Fishport, a veteran on the commercial fishing boats, flagged down a sheriff’s patrol car on Sunday and told a curious tale. Hawley and his wife, Doris, live in a trailer home surrounded by flower beds on Lakeshore Road near Roaring Creek. “T’ other night,” Hawley said, “me and m’wife had just ate supper and was watchin’ TV when there come a knock on the door. I goes to the door, and it’s a young feller with a big backpack, wantin’ to pitch his tent down by the crick for a coupla nights. He says he’s gonna do some hikin’ on the beach. He’s kinda sweaty and dusty, y’know, but he has a reg’lar haircut and talks decent.” Doris Hawley approved of the stranger. “He reminded me of our grandson - nice smile, very polite. I asked if he would be hunting for agates on the beach, because I could suggest a good spot, but he said he was mostly interested in taking pictures. His camera looked expensive, and I thought maybe he was a professional photographer. We told him he could camp near the picnic table at the bottom of the hill, so long as he didn’t throw trash in the creek or play loud music.” The stranger said his name was David. “I never knew a David who wasn’t trustworthy,” she said. She gave him some of her homemade gingersnaps and filled a jug with fresh water from the well. Her husband told David it was okay to take a dip in the creek but warned him about slippery rocks and strong current. Shortly after, they saw the young man heading for the lakeshore with his camera. “Funny thing, though,” said Hawley. “After that we di’n’t see hide or hair of the feller. I went down to the crick in a coupla days to see if he’d cleared out. The water jug-it was still on the picnic table, full up! And his pack was underneath, all strapped and buckled. On’y thing gone was the cookies. We talked about it, Doris and me. I said he could’ve took up with somebody he met on the beach. There’s no tellin’ what kids’ll do these days, y’know. But m’wife was worried about him slippin’ on the rocks and gettin’ drowned, so I hailed the patrol car.” A sheriff’s deputy and a state trooper inspected the campsite but found no identification of any kind. A description of the hiker, as given by the Hawleys, was broadcast Sunday night, but no response to the bulletin had been received at press time.

Following the appearance of the story, the local gossip mill started grinding out idle speculations and inventing sensational details. Abduction was a possibility, many said, nodding their heads wisely. A few busybodies suspected the Hawleys of foul play. “Don’t eat any gingersnaps” was the popular quip in bars and coffee shops.

One who listened to the gossip without contributing to it was Jim Qwilleran, a longtime journalist now writing a twice-weekly column for the Something. Only recently he had interviewed Hawley and other commercial fishermen, even spending time on the lake with a hard-working crew and a half-ton of slippery fish, and he resented the malicious whispers. Yet, that was to be expected in a community polarized between boaters and landlubbers. Qwilleran’s own reaction to the backpacker’s disappearance was an educated curiosity. Formerly a crime reporter in major cities around the United States, he had retained a Sherlockian interest in solving mysteries.

Qwilleran was a popular man-about-town in Pickax City, the county seat (population 3,000). His column, “Straight from the Qwill Pen,” was said to rate ninety percent readership - more than the daily horoscope. Wherever he went in the county, he drew attention, being a good-looking fifty-plus and a well-built six-feet-two with a moustache of outstanding proportions. It had a droop that accentuated his melancholy demeanor, and his eyes had a brooding intensity. Yet friends knew him to be amiable, witty, willing to do favors, and fond of taking them to dinner.

There was something else in Qwilleran’s favor: He was a philanthropist of incredible generosity. Earlier in life he had been a hard-working journalist Down Below, as locals called the high-population centers around the country. He lived from paycheck to paycheck with no thought of accumulating wealth. Then a happenstance that was stranger than fiction made him the most affluent individual in the northeast central United States; he inherited the Klingenschoen estate. The fortune had been amassed when the area was rich in natural resources - and no one paid income tax. As for the original Klingenschoen, he had operated a highly profitable business.

To Qwilleran the very notion of all that money was a burden and actually an embarrassment… until he thought of establishing the Klingenschoen Foundation. Now financial experts at “the K Fund” in Chicago managed the fortune, distributing it for the betterment of the community and leaving him free to write, read, dine well, and do a little amateur sleuthing. Townfolk of every age and income bracket talked about him at clubs, on the phone, in supermarkets. They said:

“Swell fella! Not stuck up at all. Always says hello. Never know he was a billionaire.”

“He sure can write! His column’s the only thing in the paper I ever read.”

“That’s some moustache he’s got! M’wife says it’s sexy, ‘specially when he wears sunglasses.”

“Wonder why he stays single. They say he lives in a barn - with two cats.”

“You’d think he’d get a proper house - and a dog - even if he doesn’t want a wife.”

Qwilleran’s oversized moustache was a virtual landmark in Moose County, admired by men and adored by women. Like his hair, it was turning gray, and that made it more friendly than fierce. What no one knew about was its peculiar sensitivity. Actually, it was the source of his hunches. Whenever faced with suspicious circumstances, he felt a nudge on his upper lip that prompted him to start asking questions. Frequently he could be seen patting his moustache or grooming it with his fingertips or pounding it with his knuckles; it depended on the intensity of the nudge. Observers considered the gesture a nervous habit. Needless to say, it was not something Qwilleran cared to explain - even to his closest friends.

With the disappearance of the backpacker, a nagging sensation on his upper lip was urging him to visit Fishport, a modest village near the resort town of Mooseville, where he had a log cabin and a half-mile of lake frontage. The cabin, part of his inheritance, was small and very old but adequate for short stays in summertime. Only thirty miles from Pickax, its remoteness was more psychological than geographic. Mooseville, with its hundred miles of lake for a vista, and with its great dome of sky, was a different world. Even the pair of Siamese with whom he lived responded to its uniqueness.

A propitious fate had brought the three of them together. The female had been a poor little rich cat abandoned in a posh neighborhood when Qwilleran found her. Because of her sweet expression and winning ways, he named her Yum Yum. The sleek muscular male had simply moved in - at a time when Qwilleran was trying to get his life together. Kao K’o Kung had been his name before being orphaned. Now called Koko, he had a magnificent set of whiskers and remarkable sensory attributes. In fact, he and Qwilleran had developed a kind of kinship - the one with a feline radar system and the other with an intuitive moustache.

The day after the newspaper story about the backpacker, Qwilleran drove downtown to the Something office to announce his vacation plans and hand in his copy for the “Qwill Pen” column. He had written a thousand words about the Fourth of July from the viewpoint of Benjamin Franklin. (How would Poor Richard react to backyard barbecues and high school majorettes in silver tights?) He found the managing editor’s office decorated with crepe-paper streamers and a sign daubed with the message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNIOR… TODAY YOU ARE 16! Junior Goodwinter was past thirty, but slight stature and boyish features gave him the look of a perennial schoolboy.

“Happy sixteenth!” Qwilleran said. “You don’t look a day over fifteen!” Dropping into a chair, he propped his right ankle on his left knee. “Any coffee left?”

The editor swiveled in his chair and poured a mugful. “Did you see our story on the backpacker, Qwill? A teacher in Sawdust City called and laid us out for quoting the fisherman verbatim instead of correcting his grammar. What we printed is exactly how he said it. Jill had it all on tape.”

“Pay no attention. She’s a crank,” Qwilleran said. “There’s nothing wrong with a little local color to relieve the monotony of good English.”

“I’m with you,” Junior said. “Then a guy called and complained because Hawley’s wife was quoted as speaking better than her husband. He called it gender bias.”

“I’ve met them both! That’s the way they speak, for Pete’s sake! I’m glad I don’t have your job, Junior.”

“The Sawdust City woman wants us to start running a column on correct speech instead of wasting so much space on sports.’ I quote.”

“No one would read it.”

“It would have to be chatty, like Ann Landers… Well, anyway, what are you doing for the Fourth?”

“Leaving for a month’s vacation at the beach.”

“Are you taking the cats?”

“Of course! The beach is Cat Heaven! The screened porch is their Cloud Nine! I go up there for peace and quiet. They go for sounds and sights: squawking gulls, peeping sandpipers, cawing crows, chipping chipmunks! And everything moves: birds, butterflies, grasshoppers, waving beach grass, splashing waves…”

“Sounds like fun,” Junior said. “And what will you be doing?”

“Reading, loafing1 biking, walking on the beach…”

“Can you file your copy from up there?”

“What?”

“Does anyone have a fax machine you can use?”

“You forget I’m going on vacation. I haven’t had one since God-knows-when.”

“But you know the readers have fits if your column doesn’t run… And you boast you can write it with one hand tied behind your back.”

“Well… only because it’s your birthday.”

“Did you read Jill’s piece about the new restaurant up there?”

“Yes, and I’m looking forward to checking it out. The new summer theater, too.”

“Friday is opening night,” Junior said. “How’d you like to review the play for us?” He caught Qwilleran’s dour glance. “I know it’s your vacation, but you’re a writer, and writers write - the way other people breathe. How about it, Qwill? You can review a play blindfolded.”

“Well… I’ll think about it.”

Before leaving the building, Qwilleran stopped in the publisher’s office. He and Arch Riker had been lifelong friends and fellow journalists Down Below. Both had adapted to country living, but Arch had gone so far as to marry a local woman. Now his naturally florid face glowed with midlife contentment, and his paunchy midriff was getting paunchier. Mildred Riker was food writer for the paper.

Qwilleran asked, “Have you two moved to your beach house?”

“Sure have! It’s a longer commute but worth it. There’s something about the lake air that’s invigorating.”

And intoxicating, Qwilleran thought; the locals are all a little balmy, and the summer people soon get that way. He said, “I’m packing up the cats and moving up there myself this afternoon. Polly will be gone all month, you know.”

Riker had his Mildred, and Qwilleran had his Polly Duncan. She was the director of the Pickax Public Library, and the possibility of their marriage was widely discussed in the community. Both preferred their individual lifestyles, however, and let it be known that their cats were incompatible.

Riker said, “Why don’t you come and have dinner with us tonight? The Comptons will be there, and Mildred is doing her famous coddled pork chops.”

“What time?”

“About seven… What do you think about the Fishport mystery? Have you heard the rumor about the Hawleys?”

“Yes, and I won’t dignify it with a comment.” “Personally,” Riker said, “I think it’s all a publicity stunt trumped up by the chamber of commerce to promote tourism.”

Qwilleran could never leave downtown without stopping at the used bookstore. He collected pre-owned classics as others in his financial bracket collected Van Goghs. Currently he was interested in Mark Twain. Coming from bright sunlight into the gloomy shop, he saw dimly. There was movement on a tabletop; that was Winston, the dust-colored longhair, flicking his tail over the biographies. There were sounds in the back room and the aroma of frying bacon; that was Eddington Smith preparing his lunch.

A bell had tinkled on the door, and the old gray bookseller came out eagerly to meet a customer. “Mr. Q! I’ve found three more for you, all with good bindings: Connecticut Yankee, A Horse’s Tale, and Jumping Frog. Mark Twain lectured up here once, my father told me, so his books were popular. Two or three show up in every estate liquidation.”

“Well, keep your eyes peeled for the titles I want, Ed. I’m going on vacation for a few weeks.”

“Do you have plenty to read? I know you like Thomas Hardy, and I just found a leatherbound edition of Far from the Madding Crowd. My father used that expression often, and I never knew that he got it from Thomas Hardy.”

“Or Thomas Gray,” Qwilleran corrected him. “Gray said it first - in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Eddington, always glad to learn a new fact. “I’ll tell my father tonight when I talk to him.” Then he added in response to a questioning glance, “I talk to him every night and tell him the events of the day.”

“How long has he been gone?” Qwilleran asked.

“He died peacefully in his sleep fourteen years ago next month. We were in the book business together for almost forty years.”

“A rare privilege.” Qwilleran had never known his own father. He bought the Thomas Hardy book as well as the others

and was leaving the store with his purchases when the bookseller called after him. “Where are you going on vacation, Mr. Q?”

“Just up to Mooseville.”

“That’s nice. You’ll see some flying saucers.”

Qwilleran bristled at the suggestion but said a polite maybe. Both he and Arch Riker, professional skeptics, scoffed at the UFO gossip in Mooseville. The chamber of commerce encouraged it, hoping for an incident that would make the town the Roswell of the North. Tourists were excited at the prospect of seeing aliens. Friendly locals referred to them as Visitors; others blamed them for every quirk of weather or outbreak of sheep-fly.

Qwilleran, to his dismay, had found several believers in the interplanetary

origin of UFOs - among such persons as Riker’s wife, the superintendent of schools, and a sophisticated young heiress from Chicago… or else they were playacting to preserve a local tradition, like adults pretending to believe in Santa Claus.

The last stop on his morning round was Amanda’s design studio, where Fran Brodie, second in command, was back from vacation. She was one of the most attractive young women in Pickax, as well as one of the most talented, and now she had the added glamor that seems to come with foreign travel.

He said, “I don’t need to ask if you had a good time. You look spectacularly happy.”

“It was fabulous!” she cried, tossing her strawberry-blond hair. “Have you been to Italy?”

“Only as a foreign correspondent for papers Down Below.”

“You must go there for a vacation and take Polly! The cities! The countryside! The art! The food! The people!” She rolled her eyes in a way that suggested she was not telling the whole story about… the people. “Sit down, Qwill, we have things to discuss.”

She had done a small design job for him and was redesigning the interior of the Pickax Hotel, but her greatest passion was the Pickax Theater Club. It had been her idea to do summer theater in a barn near Mooseville. They were opening with a comedy, Visitor to a Small Planet.

“Are you going to review our opening night, Qwill?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“For the first time in club history we’re getting reviewers from neighboring counties: the Lockmaster Ledger and Bixby Bugle! Do you know the play?”

“Only that Gore Vidal wrote it and it opened on Broadway a long time ago.”

“It’s a fun production,” Fran said. “A flying saucer lands in front of a TV commentator’s house, and a Visitor from outer space proceeds to stir things up.”

“Who’s playing the Visitor? Were you able to draw from a pool of small green actors?”

“That’s our big joke, Qwill. We’ve purposely cast actors under five-feet- nine for all the earthlings, so the Visitor comes as a shock. He’s six-feet- eight!”

“Derek Cuttlebrink!”

“Isn’t that a hoot? Larry’s playing the commentator, and Scott Gippel is perfect for the overbearing general… Shall I have two tickets at the box office for you on Friday?”

“One will do,” Qwilleran said. “Polly’s vacationing with her sister in Ontario. They’re seeing Shakespeare in Stratford and some Shaw plays at Niagra-on-the-Lake.”

“Oh, I’m envious!” Fran cried.

“Don’t be greedy! You’ve just seen the Pope in Rome, David in Florence, and all those virile gondoliers in Venice.”

She gave him a Fran Brodie glance - half amusement, half rebuke.

“Where did you find a barn suitable for a theater?” he asked.

“Avery Botts is letting us use his dairy barn for nine weekends. Each play will run three weekends.”

“I see,” said Qwilleran thoughtfully. “And what will the cows do on weekends?”

“Are you serious, Qwill? Avery quit dairy farming a long time ago, when the state built the prison. They gave him a lot of money for his back forty, and he switched to poultry. You must have seen his place on Lakeshore just west of Pickax Road: big white frame farmhouse with a lot of white outbuildings. A sign on the lawn says: FRESH EGGS… FRYERS. Avery tells a funny story about that. Want to hear it?”

“Is it clean?”

“Well, one summer day,” she began, “a city dude and a flashy blonde drove into the farmyard in a convertible with the top down. The guy yelled that he wanted a dozen fryers. Avery told him he had only three on hand but could have the other nine in a couple of hours. The guy slammed into reverse and yelled, ‘Forget it! Sell your three eggs to somebody else!’ And he gunned the car back down the drive in a cloud of dust. When Avery tells the story, he laughs till he chokes.”

“I don’t get it,” Qwilleran admitted, “but I’m a city dude myself.”

“A fryer, Qwill, is a young chicken - not an egg that you fry!”

“Hmmm…learn something every day.”

“We’re going to call our theater the Fryers Club Summer Stage… But I’m doing all the talking,” she said. “What’s your news?”

“Only that the cats and I are moving to the beach for a month.”

“Have you seen your new guest house?”

“Not yet. I hope you didn’t make it too comfortable or too attractive. I don’t want to find myself in the motel business.”

“Don’t worry. I did it in bilious colors with lumpy mattresses, flimsy towels, and framed pictures of drowning sailors.”

“Good!” he said. “See you Friday night. Break a leg!”

Driving back to the barn to collect the Siamese for the Mooseville expedition, Qwilleran considered what he would need to pack in his van. For himself it would be, first of all, the automated coffeemaker. Otherwise he would require only polo: .shirts, shorts, and sandals, plus writing materials and a few books. There was no point in taking the revolutionary high-tech recumbent bike that had been presented to him by the community as a token of their esteem. The rider reclined in a bucket seat, pedaling with elevated feet. Needless to say, it was such a sensation in Pickax that he seldom ventured out on the highway; instead he displayed it in his living room as a conversation piece and even an art object. On this occasion, he decided to leave it where it was; after all, there was a trail bike in the tool shed at the cabin.

The cats’ vacation needs were more complex. He would have to take their blue cushion from the top of the refrigerator; the turkey roaster that served as their commode; several bags of their favorite cat litter that was kind to the toes; grooming equipment; their special dishes for food and water; a month’s supply of Kabibbles, a crunchy treat prepared by a neighbor; and a few cans of their preferred brands of red salmon, crabmeat, lobster, and smoked turkey.

Right now it was time for their midday snack, and they would be waiting for him, prancing on long thin legs, waving eloquent tails, raising eager eyes that were pools of blue in their brown masks. When he unlocked the door, however, both were asleep on the sofa - a tangle of pale fawn fur and brown legs and tails, with heads buried in each other’s underside, except for three visible ears.

“Treat!” he said in a stage whisper. Two heads popped up!

“Yow!” came Koko’s clamoring response.

“N-n-now!” shrieked Yum Yum.

After the luggage was packed and the van loaded, and after Yum Yum had been chased and captured and pushed into the cat carrier, Koko was found sitting in the bucket seat of the recumbent bike, looking wise.

Oh, well, Qwilleran thought, I might as well take it along. I can practice on the back roads.