The Cat Who Smelled a Rat

fourteen

Qwilleran was roused early by a phone call from his next-door neighbor. “Bad news, Qwill! A guy at the station who belongs to the curling club and knows I do-he just phoned to say that Cass Young fell down those stone steps to the lower level and killed himself! May have hit his head on that curling stone on display … He was waiting for the technician, you remember. Could have been passing the time with a beer. Could have been in too much of a hurry to get to the restroom … Are you there? Are you awake?”

“I’m listening,” Qwilleran said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It’ll be on the next hourly news. Just thought I’d alert you. … Had a good time last night.”

“Sodid I.”

It was too late to go back to bed and too early to get up, and as Qwilleran pushed the button on the coffee-rnaker, he thought, forget the beer… . Forget the restroom. His moustache was twitching, and he tamped it with his knuckles. Koko knew something murderous had happened, and Koko was never wrong. The public would prefer to think it an accident: Crime was something they wanted to think “did not happen here.” How soon they forgot the unsavory incidents of the past!

Within minutes the phone rang again. It was Susan, speaking without her usual flippancy. “Qwill! We’ve had a tragedy on River Road! Early this morning I was awakened by vehicle lights and voices outside my window. The sheriff’s car was next door. I went out in my robe, thinking something dreadful had happened to Jeffa, but they were notifying her that her son had suffered a fatal accident at the curling club! I phoned Dr. Diane, and she came rushing over, and Jeffa asked me to call her daughter in Idaho… . Isn’t it awful, Qwill?”

“Is there anything at all that I could do?”

“Well, Jeffa had me call Mac MacWhannell, and he’s going to take charge of everything, but you could pick up the daughter at the airport. She’ll arrive on the five-thirty shuttle. Her name is Angela Parsons.”

“Jeffa strikes me as a strong woman,” Qwilleran said.

“Yes, she’s not one to collapse, but Diane gave her a light sedative, and she’s sleeping. A caregiver will stay with her till Angela arrives… . Isn’t it terrible? She lost her husband this year-and now this!”

Qwilleran suppressed the urge to go downtown for breakfast and eavesdrop on the gossip about

Cass Young’s faults as a builder and his friendship with the second Mrs. Exbridge. He chose to work on his Friday column, announcing the winners of the haiku contest. Yum Yum, always filled with contentment when he was reading or writing, dozed on the blue cushion atop the refrigerator. Koko was restless, pushing things off tables. Pencils, books, and the bowl of wooden apples landed on the floor.

At two o’clock Qwilleran picked up his newspaper at the gatehouse and found full details of the “accident” with statements from the technician (who had found the body and reported it) and the medical examiner and the officers of the club. The last person to see him alive was quoted. A sidebar described the clubhouse, and an engineer explained the equipment necessary to maintain the quality of ice. The sports page went into the history of curling.

“Everything,” Qwilleran muttered, “except the salient question: Who pushed him?”

Working on Friday’s “Qwill Pen” column was a welcome respite after the disturbing implications of Koko’s midnight message. Most contest entrants squeezed a personal note as well as a short poem on a postal card. Eight winners had been chosen by the three judges: Polly Duncan, Junior Goodwinter, and Rhoda Tibbitt.

A fifth-grader wrote: “If I win, I’ll give my yellow pencil to my two cats, Nippy and Tucky.”

Catnap

The entries ranged from whimsical to thought-provoking. A retired nurse explained, “I worked for a large industrial firm Down Below, and one of the bookkeepers died after being on the payroll for thirty years. Her obituary in the employee newspaper consisted of only eleven words. It made me cry.”

Obituary

Birdling

Another nature-lover wrote, “This actually happened to me twenty years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

Monarch

A student in her senior year in high school submitted this moody reverie:

Listen

A man wrote, “I’m the dad of a two-year-old and a four-year-old who are both bursting with energy. Can I submit two poems?”

Only one entry was submitted anonymously.

When Qwilleran handed in his copy to Junior, the managing editor-who was a father of two-said that his favorite verses were submitted by the father of two.

“That figures,” Qwilleran said. “My favorite was a non-winner. Apparently a fifth-grade teacher in Sawdust City assigned her class to enter the contest-or else. One rebellious youth submitted: ‘My teacher wears thick glasses … and makes us do things … we don’t want to do.’ I think I’ll send him a yellow pencil for honesty and bravery.”

“What’s your topic for next Tuesday?”

“I haven’t decided. That’s four days away. The way things are going in this town, someone might bomb the Moose County Something.”

Before leaving the building, he went into the Ready Room and found Roger MacGillivray sitting with his feet on the table, waiting for another assignment-and probably hoping he could get home to dinner. It had been his byline on the banner story.

“Compliments on your Cass Young coverage. It was very thorough.”

“My coverage is always thorough,” Roger said. “It’s the editors who cut it down.”

“Is there a story behind the story?”

“Only that Cass had a slider on his left foot that should have been covered with a gripper-a rash oversight for someone known for preaching safety.”

Qwilleran smoothed his moustache. “Unless someone removed the gripper after the so-called accident.”

“Hey! That’s an interesting angle! Stick around for a while. There’s some coffee left,” Roger said with sudden animation.

“Ican’t. I’m picking up his sister at the airport.”

When the shuttle flight arrived from Minneapolis, Qwilleran scanned the passengers in search of a tall, straight, dark-haired counterpart of Jeffa Young. No one fitted the description. There were business day-trippers with briefcases or laptops, hikers with backpacks, shoppers with tote bags from the best stores. One woman disembarked slowly, casting disapproving glances left and right.

“Mrs. Parsons?” he guessed.

She nodded.

“I’m to drive you to your mother’s house. I’m Jim Qwilleran, a neighbor of hers. Do you have luggage?”

“A black zipper overnight.”

She was shorter than her mother and of less striking appearance. “How far is it?” she asked, as if it mattered.

“About a fifteen-minute ride. You’re not seeing us at our best, because you’re too late for the autumn color and too early for the winter wonderland. We’re expecting the storm called the Big One any day now. How long do you plan to stay?”

“Just long enough to convince her to move to Idaho. She should have come to us in the first place. We can offer a more congenial environment, you know-a family situation with grandchildren, birthday cakes, Thanksgiving dinners, and all that.”

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “In the short time Mrs. Young has been here she seems to have enjoyed making friends, pursuing her hobby, and finding an outlet for her professional skills.”

“She can do all that in Idaho.”

He cleared his throat. “I met your brother for the first time at the curling club last night and was shocked to hear about his accident. You have my deepest sympathy.”

“What do they say caused the accident?” she asked coolly.

“A fall down a flight of stone stairs after everyone else had left. He had graciously offered to wait for a technician who was traveling a long distance to make emergency repairs. The man found Cass at the foot of the stairs.”

“Did they say whether he’d been drinking?” she asked sharply.

“It wasn’t a consideration, apparently … . How many grandchildren does Jeffa have, Mrs. Parsons?”

“We have two girls and a boy, between four and eight. They’re all excited about meeting their grandmother for the first time.” •’.’

“What attracted you to Idaho? I presume you’re a native of Maryland.”

“I’m interested in the preservation of the environment, and I went vacationing in the northwest part of the state and fell in love with it! You should visit the area. If you like it around here, you’ll like Idaho ten times more.”

“Thank you for the suggestion. It’s something to keep in mind.”

When they arrived in Jeffa’s driveway, he told her to go in and he would bring the luggage. Mother and daughter were embracing in the doorway when he pulled away.

“I didn’t see any tears,” Qwilleran told Polly when he reported to her condo later in the evening. She had invited him to a soup supper and had

prepared his favorite baked potato soup-a cream base flavored with cheese and bacon bits and loaded with chunks of yesterday’s baked potatoes, skins and all. It was another of Polly’s leftover masterpieces.

“What was the daughter like?” she asked.

“Not as handsome or sophisticated as Jeffa. She doesn’t expect to stay long, judging by the size of her overnight bag. She didn’t show any signs of mourning for her brother. I wonder what the funeral arrangements will be.”

“My spies at the library know all the particulars,” Polly said. “Mac MacWhannell is taking care of everything according to Jeffa’s wishes: cremation, no funeral, but a memorial service to be planned by the two curling clubs. … I hope Jeffa stays here. Big Mac is depending on her help with the tax rush. He was being very solicitous at Amanda’s rally. One can’t help wondering … You know, his wife is terminally ill.”

Qwilleran said, “I’ll be willing to bet that Jeffa stays here.”