The Cat Who Smelled a Rat

nine

Hanging anything on a wall was not one of Qwilleran’s talents, but suddenly the chimney breast looked obscenely nude without its three-by four-foot batik. He unrolled the new one, without worm, and brought a stepladder from the basement. The mantel was high; the hanging seemed enormous; the ladder was wobbly; and the two assistants were incompetents who wanted only to inspect the ladder.

“Get away!” he said. “Your job is to stand back and tell me if it’s level.”

As soon as he reached the fourth step, the phone rang.

“Yow!” said Koko.

“Letitring.”

“YOW!”

“They can leave a message.”

“Yow-ow-ow!”

Qwilleran thought, It could be important! It could be urgent! He lobbed the batik at the hook in the wall as if shooting a basket from mid-court, and jumped off the ladder. His helpers scattered.

It was only Susan Exbridge. “Darling! I have something for you, and I’ll drop it off on my way home from work, if you’ll be there about five-thirty. It’s the natal chart-for your friend Ronald.”

“I was hoping it would be a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream. Will you come in for a drink?”

He climbed up and straightened the hanging, returned the ladder to the basement, tidied the coffee table, and checked his martini ingredients. Plenty of gin, three kinds of olives, no dry vermouth. Nevertheless, he was famous for his fourteen-to-one mix, and Susan wouldn’t notice if he served it fourteen-to-zero.

Susan arrived waving a sealed document envelope. “Here it is! I paid Jeffa for it, so you can write a check payable to me, and your anonymity will be secure.”

She flung herself onto the sofa with a sigh. “I had a hard day at the cash register! Mind if I take off my shoes? This rug is positively degenerate! … Is that one of the batty batiks everyone’s talking about? The robin should be pulling a worm out of the lawn.”

“I had one like that,” Qwilleran said, “but public outrage forced me to exchange it for the wormless version.”

“It isn’t quite level.”

“We had a minor earthquake today. Nothing serious.” He served his guest a martini and himself some white grape juice in a martini glass.

She took a sip. “Superb! You’re wasting your time as a journalist, Qwill. You should be a bartender.”

“I’ve considered switching. Bartending pays better.”

“Oh! … You have one of those martini pitchers from a French liner! Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift.”

“Maggie has one just like it.”

“It came from a large ship. They had two.”

She ignored his arch remark. “Let me know if you ever want to sell it.”

Qwilleran asked, “Did you see your ex-husband’s letter to the editor-in praise of shafthouses?”

“I did! And was that ever a joke! He’s always hated those shafthouses! Either he’s cracking up or falling in love again. His second wife has filed for divorce, you know, and now he’ll have to write two big alimony checks.”

“Will he attend Amanda’s rally Sunday?”

“Notlikely. He and the mayor will be having their last golf game before snow flies. The astrologer will be there, though, and you must meet her! She has a phenomenal mind for mathematics and a degree in accounting. Astrology is her hobby.” Susan drained her glass. “Will you excuse me? I have to dress for dinner.”

He said, “I’ll let you know, Susan, what I think about my horoscope.”

“Please, darling! We call it a natal chart.”

“I stand corrected.”

On the way out she noticed the glove box in the foyer. “Where did you find that? It’s old but not antique-probably 1920s.”

“It was a gift, and it’s not for sale.”

Qwilleran sprawled in a deep-cushioned chair and propped his feet on an ottoman, as he proceeded to read about himself. The chart consisted of two dozen pages in a plastic binder, with a frontispiece of a twelve-spoked wheel filled with arcane symbols and mathematical notations. First, it told him he was a Gemini.

You are constantly investigating, asking questions, communicating, wanting to know “why?” You have a talent for writing and speaking.

Qwilleran thought, Mildred would fall for this stuff. But how do they do it? Then came a description of his past, leaving him somewhat flabbergasted.

You have been deprived of one parent but doubly fortunate in the one remaining. Your early career involved much traveling… . An early marriage has been Short-lived… . Material possessions come late in life. … A previous acquaintance comes back into your life, bringing great benefits.

“Incredible!” he said aloud. “That’s Fanny Klingenschoen!”

Physically, your weakness is in your knees.

That had been true until he moved to Moose County and started walking and hiking.

Family life passes you by, but animals are a great comfort.

“This is too much!” he protested.

Other persons perceive you as wise, generous, helpful, and trustworthy.

“Yow!” came a clarion comment from another part of the condo.

It was all convincing and comforting to his ego, but it overlooked one of his traits: skepticism. It stopped him from accepting his “natal chart” without a quibble. Before he could marshal his objections, however, Derek Cuttlebrink called. “Hi, Mr. Q! Are you going to Amanda’s rally?”

“I wouldn’t miss it!”

“They want me to take my guitar.”

“Not to play the puppy song, I hope.”

“They thought I could write a campaign song,” Derek said hesitantly. “Could you help me out?”

It was Qwilleran’s turn to hesitate. “Does anyone suspect I was responsible for the puppy song?”

“Not even Elizabeth.”

“If it ever gets out that I’m your underground lyricist, I’ll have your guitar confiscated-and your driver’s license revoked!” Then he thought, Her campaign slogan will fit “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.”

Derek said, “You wouldn’t have to pull any punches. She’s tough. Everybody knows she’s been to rehab. If she hadn’t dried out, she wouldn’t be challenging hizzoner.”

“Tell you what, Derek. Get me a reservation tomorrow night-for two-and when you seat us, I’ll slip you a folded piece of paper.”

“Gee thanks, Mr. Q. I know it’s short notice-“

“That’s the best kind.”

Polly was having a dinner meeting with her board of directors, so Qwilleran thawed something for his dinner and was at work on Amanda’s battle hymn when Koko staged his someone’s-coming tizzy. He was as good as an electronic sensor.

Qwilleran went outdoors in time to find Wetherby Goode driving home in his van. He called out, “How’s everything on the fire watch, Joe?”

“Not many alerts. I’m on standby. I go out if there’s a cancellation…. Say, I have a question to ask. You probably hear a lot of jokes. I heard a good one the other day about a pastor who thought his bicycle had been stolen, but-“

“You’ve forgotten the punch line,” Qwilleran guessed.

“I remember the punch line. I’ve forgotten the joke. I thought you might know it.”

“Try me!”

“Then I remembered where I’d left my bicycle.” Seeing the blank look on his friend’s face, Wetherby said, “If you hear it, call me at any hour of the day or night. … Hey, your phone’s ringing.”

“Where were you? Asleep?” Arch Riker asked when Qwilleran came to the phone.

“Who’s calling? Big Brother?”

“If you’re not busy, I’d like to walk over there and discuss something.”

Qwilleran said, “I’ll have to ask the boss. He’s right here, sitting on the desk… . Koko, your uncle Arch wants to come over for a while.”

“Yow!” said Koko, reacting to a friendly poke in the ribs.

“He says it’s okay, but he wants the lights out at eleven.”

Riker arrived with a manila envelope, which he threw on the coffee table. “Where’d you get the glass pitcher?” he asked. “Are those real apples? Do you know that thing over the mantel is crooked?”

“That ‘thing’ is a batik, and it’s more dynamic when hung crooked.”

Riker looked at the deep-pile rug. “Is it safe to step on it? I don’t want to turn my ankle.” He stepped carefully across it and sank into the deep-cushioned contemporary sofa. “I’d hate to have to get out of this mantrap if there’s fire.”

Qwilleran served him a glass of cider.

“A kachug of rum wouldn’t hurt it, pal.”

“Okay, what’s on your mind, Arch?”

“You saw Don Exbridge’s Pollyanna letter in Monday’s paper. What was your reaction?”

“A-he can’t be sincere, and B-what’s his motive?”

“Well, since then, there’s been a backlash. We’ve had a dozen letters in opposition. They’ll run Monday and create controversy. I wanted you to have a preview and give an opinion.” He drew proofs from the manila envelope and handed them over. “The originals were written on fancy stationery, lined sheets from school notebooks, copy paper, and one greeting card leftover from Easter.”

Qwilleran scanned them, frequently touching his moustache. The letters were signed with names he did not recognize and came from the larger towns in the county.

Why the big fuss about shafthouses? They’re just ugly old shacks, and the fences with barbed wire on top look like concentration camps waiting for another war. My advice is-fill in the mineshafts, chop up the shafthouses for firewood, and give us some family parks with playground equipment, picnic tables and a few shade trees. And don’t forget restrooms….

All that hoopla about shafthouses, and Pickax is in bad need of cemetery space. We honor the early settlers who died a hundred years ago and don’t provide burial space for today’s loved ones… .

Moose County has never had a zoo. Let’s close up one of the mines and have a petting zoo where kids can see baby goats and lambs, calves and colts, and little piglets. It would be fun for the whole family, and the kids would learn something… .

All that space wasted on forests and minesites, and some of us don’t have a place to live. Give us mobile home parks. …

Where the old mines are now would make wonderful vegetable gardens for poor families who don’t have enough space to plant a turnip. Or turn the land over to the schools and let the kids raise vegetables, sell them, and use the money for band instruments and athletic equipment… .

Who wants to drive around looking at dumb shafthouses? Sports and recreation-that’s the ticket. Every community should have a softball diamond and a soccer field. Put the minesites to work….

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “They were all composed by the same person and copied by different individuals. There are little clues in the sentence structure and vocabulary.”

“You’re probably right,” Arch said. “There were no return addresses on the envelopes-not one of them! We checked signatures in the phone book, and none was listed. Not one, mind you.”

Qwilleran chuckled. “Remember, Arch, when we were teens and crazy about baseball? A Chicago Cubs catcher told a sportswriter he never received fan mail; pitchers and sluggers got it all. So I wrote him eight letters, supposedly from a truck driver, an old man, a young girl, and so forth.”

“You composed them, and we copied them in different handwriting. My grandfather copied the old man’s letter.”

“And the catcher told the sportswriter he’d suddenly received a bushel of mail, but I think it was only our eight.”

“We felt we’d done a good deed,” Arch said. “We’ll consult our lawyer about these… . Meanwhile remember the geologist who phoned to tell us about subterranean fires? We checked his credentials before quoting him. But he was a fraud. The real geologist wrote us a letter, which we’ve turned over to our attorney… . There’s always something!”

“Especially at the Something,” Qwilleran said sympathetically.

There was something more that night.

Sometime after midnight, as Qwilleran was trying to read himself to sleep, the stillness was broken by a tortured wail ending in a shriek. He ran into the cats’ room and found Koko sitting on the TV and howling at the ceiling. It meant bad news. And it meant bad news close to home.

Qwilleran called the night desk at the Something. “Any trouble on the police beat?”

“We don’t know the details, but there’s been a shooting. We don’t know who, where, or if it’s fatal.”

Koko knew it was fatal.

The night editor added, “I believe it was a volunteer.”

With a shudder Qwilleran thought of Wetherby, always taking a patrol if another driver had to cancel. They had talked a few hours before… . Then he heard the toilet flush next door, and for the first time he gave thanks instead of cursing the thin walls.