The Cat Who Saw Stars

-5-

Friday was a gala day in Mooseville, as vacationers and locals looked forward to opening night of the barn theater. Qwilleran had promised to review the play and would first have dinner at Owen’s Place; he wished Polly could be with him.

Meanwhile, he had to finish a “Qwill Pen” column and take it to the bank to be faxed before noon. He found Main Street in the throes of a holiday weekend. Throngs of vacationers sauntered along the sidewalks, looked in shop windows, licked ice cream cones, and were mesmerized by the waterfront: the lake lapping against pilings, boats gently nudging the piers, screaming seagulls catching stale bread crusts on the fly.

Next on his schedule was a drive to Fishport. What would Doris Hawley have to say about the grim task of identifying the backpacker? As soon as he crossed the Roaring Creek bridge, however, he realized it was the wrong time to ask prying questions about the condition of the corpse. Two police cars were parked in the driveway - one from the sheriff’s department and the other from the state troopers’ post. Furthermore, the sign on the front lawn was covered with a burlap sack, a signal that there were no baked goods for sale. He made a U-turn and returned to Mooseville.

Back in town he went into the post office and found some more postcards from Polly. He had complained, while driving her to the airport, that she never kept in touch while on vacation. She had replied, with a cryptic smile, that she would do something about it. “Doing something about it” meant mailing six cards a week-a kind of playful overkill.

In the lobby of the post office he saw a young woman he knew, unlocking a rental box and scooping handfuls of mail into a tote bag.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t” you be at home? Homeschooling your brats around the kitchen table?”

She was Sharon Hanstable - plump, good-natured, and wholesomely pretty - a young version of her mother, Mildred Riker. She was also the wife of Roger MacGillivray, a reporter for the Moose County Something.

“I work part time at the Great Dune Motel,” she explained, “and Roger’s home with the kids today. He takes the weekend shift at the paper so he can have two weekdays free.”

Both parents were former teachers. Sharon, after leaving that career to raise a family, was always popping up in part-time roles - as a cashier or salesclerk or short-order cook. This was an aspect of small-town life that still astounded Qwilleran.

“If you’re on your way to work,” he said, “I’ll walk with you and carry your

mail… Are you still enthusiastic about homeschooling?” he asked as they headed for Sandpit Road.

“It’s a big job and a serious responsibility, but also a challenge and a joy,” she replied. “We spend more time with our kids in positive ways. Would you like to try a session of teaching some afternoon, Qwill?”

“No, thanks. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Mother takes a day once in a while, so Roger and I can get away.”

“Your mother is a former teacher. What’s more, she has a heart of gold and the patience of a saint. She probably enjoys being a grandmother.”

They had pushed through the heavy pedestrian traffic on Main Street and were walking down Sandpit Road. Sharon said, “Did you hear that they found the backpacker? It’ll be in today’s paper. Roger’s been on the story since Wednesday, and he happens to know they’ve sent the body to the state pathologist, although they’re not releasing the information. There’s something unusual about the death.” She lowered her voice. “Mother and Roger and I think it has something to do with the Visitors from outer space.”

“Is that so?” he murmured.

“Don’t mention it to Arch. You know how he is. Couldn’t you gently talk some sense into his head, Qwill?”

“I doubt whether I’m the one to try,” Qwilleran said with tact. “How do you explain all this to your youngsters?”

“We tell them the universe has room for many worlds, some with intelligent life. Alien beings are curious about our planet, just as we’re interested in getting to Mars and beyond.”

“Have your kids sighted any of these… Visitors?”

“No, we’re away from the water and don’t stay up late - Mother says two A.M. is the best time for sightings.”

They had reached the Great Dune Motel, and he handed over the tote bag. “Have you been to lunch at Owen’s Place?”

“Too expensive. I carry my lunch. Also, my boss is miffed because they’re staying at the hotel instead of with us.”

Owen’s Place stood alone on the west side of the highway, although its stained cedar siding matched that of the motel, antique shop, fudge kitchen, and other enterprises on the east side. It had been a coin-operated laundry for several seasons before becoming an unsuccessful Chinese restaurant. Now, in the large front windows, the red velvet draperies of its bok choy period had been replaced with white louvered shutters. With the parking lot paved, and the Great Dune as a noble background, it looked quite elegant, and Qwilleran looked forward to dining there before the theater.

The chamber of commerce must have offered Bowen a good deal, Qwilleran thought. Otherwise, why would a man with contempt for country folk choose to spend the summer 400 miles north of everywhere? Evidently the lake was the attraction, since he had a boat. A recreation vehicle with a boat hitch could be seen around the rear of the restaurant, as well as a white convertible, both with Florida tags.

Walking back toward Main Street, Qwilleran passed Arnold’s Antique Shop - and stopped short. There in the window was the kind of spindly, high-backed antique chair that had been on the float with the sheep. It was a chair design with character, and it aroused his curiosity. He went into the shop.

There were several customers, either buying or browsing: According to their dress and mannerisms, Qwilleran could classify them as campers, or wives of sport fishermen, or boaters from the Grand Island Club who had just lunched at Owen’s Place.

The lunch crowd was raving about the chef, the quiche, the skewered potatoes, and the “perfectly darling” maitre d’. Arnold himself was everywhere at once. He was an ageless man with tireless energy, but he had a weathered face that looked like the old woodcarvings he sold. Peering over rimless glasses, he sorted the idle browsers from the potential customers and kept an eye on the former.

A longhaired white-and-black dog wagged a plumed tail at the latter. “Good dog! Good dog!” Qwilleran said to him.

“Hi, Mr. Q! Do you like our pooch?” Arnold asked. “He just wandered in one day. A friendly soul! Brings in more business than an ad in your newspaper!”

“What’s his name?”

“Well, you see, we bought a job lot of china that included a dog dish with the name Phreddie on it, so we named the dog to match the dish… Excuse me.”

Arnold went off to take a customer’s money. A man was buying a rusty iron wheel, four feet in diameter but delicate in its proportions, with sixteen slender spokes.

“Beautiful rust job, smooth as honey,” the dealer told the purchaser. “It threshed a lot of wheat in its day.”

Meanwhile, Qwilleran poked through baskets of arrowheads, Civil War bullets, and old English coins. “What’s that guy going to do with the wheel?” he later asked Arnold.

“Hang it over the fireplace in his lodge on Grand Island.”

“Hmmm… I could use one of those myself.” He was thinking of the gable end above his own fireplace, a large blank wall that had originally displayed a mounted moosehead; its dour expression had been a depressing reminder of animal rights. Later, the wall showcased a collection of lumberjack tools: axes, a peavey, and crosscut saws with murderous two-inch teeth - equally discomforting. A wheel, on the other hand…

“There were two of them, from a field combine,” Arnold said. “The other one’s in my main store in Lockmaster. I’ll have it sent up here, but it’ll take a couple, three days.”

“No rush… I’d also like to inquire about the chair in the window. What is it? There were eight of them on a float in yesterday’s parade.”

“That’s a pressed-back dining chair, circa 1900, sometimes thought of as a kitchen chair. In the country, a lot of dining was done in the kitchen. In 1904, or thereabouts, the Sears catalogue offered this chair for ninety-four cents. Did you hear me right? Ninety-four cents! They must’ve sold millions of ‘em… Pretty thing, ain’t it?”

“There’s something debonair about it,” Qwilleran said.

It was golden oak, heavily varnished, with a hand-caned seat and nine turned spindles - almost pencil-thin - and a deep top rail that had a decorative design pressed into it. Two turned finials on top, like ears, gave it a playful fillip but would be practical handgrips.

The dealer said, “This may have been a knock-off of an earlier and more expensive design - with the top rail carved, and a price tag more like two fifty. The ones I’ve seen around here are all in the ninety-four-cent class. The seat on this one has been recaned. I’ll make you a good price if you’re interested.”

“I’ll think about it,” Qwilleran said, meaning that he had no intention of buying. “But I’ll definitely come back for the wheel in a couple of days… What do you know about the restaurant across the way?” he added as Arnold accompanied him to the door.

“I hear the food’s good.”

“Have you had contact with Owen Bowen?”

“Only through Derek. He’s working there part time, you know. Derek said the entry - where customers wait to be seated - needed some spark. So we put our heads together, and I lent them a setup for the summer months - some Waterford crystal in a lighted china cabinet. We brought it up from the Lockmaster store. And that so-and-so from Florida never picked up the phone to say thank-you, let alone send over a piece of pie. Phreddie has better manners than Owen Bowen!”

Qwilleran’s watch told him that the lunch hour had ended at Owen’s Place, and his intuition had told him that Derek would be heading for Elizabeth’s Magic to relax and report on events.

Qwilleran headed in the same direction, stopping only for a hot dog and two copies of the Moose County Something. On the way he thought about another reader-participation stunt: He could take a census of pressed-back chairs in Moose County! … Run a photograph of the one at Arnold’s… Ask, “Do you own one or more of these historic artifacts? Send us a postcard.” Arch Riker chaffed Qwilleran about his postcard parties, although he knew very well that subscribers looked forward to the monthly assignments and talked about them allover the county.

On Oak Street there were three contiguous storefronts, each with a windowbox of petunias: Elizabeth’s Magic in the center, flanked by a realty agent and a hair stylist. When Qwilleran opened the door, an overhead bell jangled, and three persons turned in his direction: Elizabeth and two customers of retirement age, one tall and one short. They had been his neighbors in Indian Village.

“Ladies! What brings you to the haunts of coot and hem?” he asked.

They greeted him happily. “That’s Tennyson!” said the tall one.

“My favorite poem: The Brook,” said the other. They were the Cavendish sisters, retired from distinguished teaching careers Down Below. Qwilleran had rescued one of their cats when it became entangled in the laundry equipment. “I hear you’re living in Ittibittiwassee Estates,” he said.

“Yes, they gave us an apartment with pet privileges.”

“We’d never go anywhere without Pinky and Quinky.”

“We’re here to see the play tonight.”

“They have an activities bus that takes residents on day-trips.”

“How is Koko?”

“And how is that dear Yum Yum?”

“They find the beach stimulating,” he said, “and the screened porch is their university. Koko studies the constellations at night and does graduate work in crow behavior during the day.”

“He’s such an intellectual cat!” said the tall sister.

“Yum Yum is majoring in entomology but yesterday distinguished herself by saving a life.”

“Really?” the sisters said in unison.

“You know how birds knock themselves groggy by trying to fly through a window screen or pane of glass… Well, a hummingbird flew into the porch screen and got its long beak caught in the mesh. It was fluttering desperately until Yum Yum jumped to a nearby chairback and gave the beak a gentle push with her paw.”

“She’s so sweet!” the short sister said.

“Wouldn’t you know she’d be a humanitarian?” the other one said.

More likely, she thought it was a bug on the screen, Qwilleran mused.

The bell over the door jangled, and they all turned to see Derek Cuttlebrink barging into the shop. “Just got off work,” he announced. “Five hours till curtain time. Got any coffee?” He loped to the rear of the store. Qwilleran followed after exchanging pleasantries

with the sisters and giving Elizabeth one of his newspapers.

The two men sat in the black nylon sling chairs with plastic cups of coffee. “I never touch the stuff when I’m on duty,” Derek said.

“How’s business?”

“Great at lunchtime. I’m not there at night, so I don’t know what kind of crowd they get for dinner.”

“Do you and your boss hit it off well?”

“Oh, sure. We get along. He needs me, and he knows it. I don’t have to take any of his guff.” He lowered his voice. “I know more about the food business than he does. At least I’ve cracked a book or two. He’s just a joe who likes to eat and thinks it would be a kick to own a restaurant. They’re wrong! It’s one of the hardest, most complicated businesses you could pick. Owen happened to latch on to a great chef. She’s a creative artist, trained at one of the best chef schools. She’s really dedicated! Besides that, she’s a nice person - much younger than he is. And not as stuffy. He expects to be called Mr. Bowen. She says, ‘Call me Ernie.’ Her name is Ernestine. She works like a dog in the kitchen while he goofs off and goes fishing.”

“Whatever he happens to reel in, I suppose, goes on the menu as catch-of- the-day. At market price.”

“Well… no. It’s a funny thing, but Owen says Ernie isn’t comfortable with lake fish, being a Floridian, so he fishes for the sport. Whatever he catches, he throws back. The guy’s nuts!”

“Hmmm,” Qwilleran said, smoothing his moustache. “What’s your bestseller at lunchtime?”

“Skewered potatoes, hands down.”

“I’ve heard people talk about them. What are they?”

Derek yelled, “Liz, got any skewers left?”

“A few,” she said. “I’ve placed another order, and Mike’s turning them out as fast as he can, but we can hardly keep up with the demand.”

She showed Qwilleran a set of the foot-long needles of twisted iron with sharp points. At the opposite end each had a decorative medallion for a fingergrip. She said, “If you bake potatoes on skewers, the baking time is shortened, and they’re flakier, more flavorful, and more nutritious.”

“Who says so?” Qwilleran said. “It sounds like a scam to me.”

“I don’t know how it originated, but it seems to be an accepted fact. It was Derek’s idea to put skewered potatoes on the menu, and Ernie bought a dozen to start. Now she wants more.”

“Here’s why they’re popular,” Derek said. “The potatoes are un skewered and dressed at tableside for dramatic effect. Dining in a fine restaurant is part showbiz, you know. People like the special attention they get with tableside service, like fileting a trout or tossing a Caesar salad or flaming a dessert. I do the ritual myself. I put on a good show. Come and have lunch some day.”

“I’ll do that. Meanwhile, I’m having dinner there tonight before the play.”

“That reminds me …” He jumped out of his chair and headed for the front door.

“Break a leg !” Qwilleran shouted after him.

“Qwill, have you seen today’s paper?” Elizabeth asked. “Look at the announcement on page five.”

He unfolded the newspaper he had been carrying and read a boxed announcement: YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET, HARDLY

Do you like the way folks speak in Moose County? Do you have pet peeves about English as she is spoken? Do you think “whom” should be eliminated from the English language? Are you confused about him-and-me and he-and-I? ASK MS. GRAMMA Her column stars next week on this page. Write to her at the Moose County Something. Queries and complaints will receive her attention.

“Well, that’s a surprise, to say the least,” Qwilleran said. “Readers have been clamoring for editorial comment on the sloppy English common in Moose County, but it remains to be seen whether a column on good grammar will accomplish anything. What’s your reaction, Elizabeth?”

“Frankly, I think the people who need it most won’t read it, and what’s more, they see nothing wrong with the way they speak. Their patois was learned from their parents and is spoken, most likely, by their friends.”

Qwilleran said, “My question is: Who will write it? Jill Handley on the staff could do it, or some retired teacher of English. But that’s Junior Goodwinter’s problem. We’ll wait and see.”

Before going home, Qwilleran drove to Fishport once more. The burlap sack was still covering the sign on the lawn, but there were no police cars in the drive. Qwilleran thought he could knock on the door and ask, as a friend, how things were going. “Is there anything I can do?” was always a key to unlocking confidences.

He knocked on the door, and no one answered. He knocked again. Someone could be seen moving around inside the house - someone who obviously did not want to be bothered. He drove away.