The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts

-21-

WHEN QWILLERAN EMERGED from the barn with his sackful of pink towels and yowling cat, Mitch Ogilvie cupped his hands and yelled across the barnyard, "Your phone's ringing!"

For two hours Qwilleran had been on hands and knees with hunched back, and he responded stiffly. Nevertheless, he made his way to the apartment quickly enough to catch the caller before she hung up.

"Oh, there you are, Qwill!" said Carol Lanspeak. "I let it ring fifteen times because I thought you were outdoors on a nice day like this. Were you outdoors?"

"Yes," he said, breathing hard.

"I've been to the hospital to see Verona. Baby is going to make it - and Verona's pregnant."

"I didn't know. How is she?"

"Not too good. She wants to go 'down home' and have Baby convalesce there. Larry's taking care of her expenses and giving her something to live on. Vince left her without a cent! That brute!"

"Have they found him?"

"I don't think so. The police have been talking to Verona, and Larry has asked his attorney to advise her."

"I feel sorry for Verona."

"So do I. We never really got to know her. She was so quiet and retiring. She volunteered for our cleaning committee and was very reliable. The reason I'm calling, Qwill - she has something she wants to tell you. She says it's important. Do you think you could go to the hospital tonight? I'm taking her to the airport tomorrow."

"I'll go. Thanks for letting me know."

"By the way, the board has voted to give Mitch the job," said Carol.

Polly Duncan was the next to call. "They've found him!" she said without any formalities. "Somewhere in Ohio. My assistant's mother-in-law heard it on the air and phoned the library."

"He's guilty of more than just killing a hophead, I surmise."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd like to drop in to see you tonight - and discuss a few things," Qwilleran said.

"Come for dinner, and I'll whip up a curry."

"Uh... thanks, Polly, but I have an appointment in Pickax. See you after eight o'clock."

"Don't have dessert," she said. "We'll have pumpkin pie and coffee."

On the way to Pickax Qwilleran experienced a pang of remorse that he had not allowed Baby to visit the cats; it was pure selfishness on his part, he admitted. And now it wouldn't ever happen. It was perhaps a need for penance that led him to have dinner at the Dimsdale Diner. After some watery soup and oversalted cabbage rolls and unrecognizable coffee, he drove to the hospital.

He found Verona in a private room, sitting in a chair and picking at a meal tray. "I'm, sorry to interrupt your dinner," he said.

"I don't feel like eatin' any thin'," she said, pushing the tray away. "Have they caught him?" Her soft voice had lost its lilt and was now a dreary monotone.

"They found him somewhere in Ohio."

"I'm glad."

"Cheer up. Baby is going to be all right, and your eye is - looking better. The bruise is fading."

She touched her face. "I didn't bump into a door. We were arguin' and he hit me."

"When did it happen?"

"When he was leavin' - Monday night."

"You told me he left Monday noon."

"That's what he told me to say." She turned away and looked out the window.

"Carol Lanspeak said you have something you want to tell me, Mrs. Boswell."

"That's not my name. I'm Verona Whitmoor."

"I like that better. It has a pleasant musical sound, like your speaking voice," he said.

She looked flustered and lowered her head. "I'm so ashamed. I was cleanin' the museum, gettin' it ready for Sunday, and I went in Iris's kitchen when you weren't there and took the cookbook."

"I knew you were the one," said Qwilleran, "after you sent me the meatloaf. It was her recipe."

"Vince liked her meatloaf so much, and I was tryin' to please him."

"I'm surprised you could read her handwriting."

"It was hard, but I figured it out. I meant to take it back, but then every thin' happened." She looked pitifully vulnerable and undernourished.

"Ms. Whitmoor, shouldn't you have something to eat? That apple pudding looks good."

"I'm not hungry."

"How did you happen to meet Vince?" Qwilleran asked. "I was workin' in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, and he used to come in. I felt sorry for him because he was always in pain - with his bad leg, you know. He was wounded in Vietnam."

Qwilleran huffed scornfully into his moustache. Verona went on. "We got friendly, and he invited me to come up here on a vacation. He said I could bring Baby. He didn't tell me about the money - not then."

"What money?"

"His mother came from here, and she told him about some money hidden under the barn, but he had to dig for it. His grandfather knew all about it. But the diggin' was hard, and he was always afraid someone would find out what he was doin'. That's why he killed the man in the barn." Verona put her face in her hands, and her thin shoulders shook with her sobbing. Such an outburst of emotion over the murder of a tramp caused Qwilleran to ask:

"Did you know the man who was killed?"

She shook her head, and the tears continued to pour forth. He placed the tissue box on her lap and waited patiently. What could he say? Perhaps her emotions were a confused combination of grief and relief that she and Baby were free of Vince. It was a long, painful scene. When he finally persuaded her to talk, her faltering voice mumbled a few words at a time.

He described the emotional ordeal when he arrived at Polly's cottage at eight o'clock. Bursting into the house he said, "I knew that guy was a fraud! He was no expert on printing presses, and he lied about his bad leg - told Larry it was polio, told Verona he got it in Vietnam. Actually it was the result of a boyhood escapade. And get this! He and Larry and Susan are second cousins!"

"Sit down and have some pie," Polly said, "and start from the beginning."

"I've just been to the hospital to see Verona," he said. "Did she know anything about the murder of Waffle?"

"Not until the police told her, but she knew what Boswell was doing in the barn. He was digging for Ephraim's gold coins!"

"How naive! Where did he hear that hoary fable?"

"His great-grandfather was Ephraim's hired man, and the story had been handed down in the family. He believed it.

Changed his name so the town wouldn't connect him with the original Bosworth. Cataloguing the presses was only a cover. It happily presented itself when he contacted Larry about a vacation up here with his 'wife and child.' But he was constantly afraid someone would blow his cover. So when Brent Waffle hid out in the stable, I suppose Boswell considered him a threat and killed him with a crowbar."

"What happened to your contraband crate theory, Qwill?" Polly said teasingly.

"Forget it. I was off-base."

In his state of animation Qwilleran failed to notice that the pumpkin pie had been frozen and insufficiently thawed, or that Bigfoot was sitting on his knee. He said, "On the night the body was dumped, the cats heard a noise, and so did I - a rumbling sound. It was Boswell's van, driving around the far side of the barn to pick up the body in the stable. After that, he took off, having instructed Verona "to lie for him. He also gave her a poke in the eye."

Polly offered him more pie, and he declined. "One slice is more than enough, but I'll have another cup of coffee." After a few gulps he said, "Boswell was using a drill in his search for the loot, and the vibration was loosening lightbulbs. I believe it also cracked the plastered wall in the basement. That's where Iris first heard sounds of knocking. He was using a hammer and chisel to gouge out the mortar... Are you ready for the worst?"

"Is there more?"

"Plenty, but it took me awhile to get it out of Verona. She was on a crying jag, and I thought she was upset about Baby and her condition. Actually she was agonizing over Iris's death. I happened to have a small inconspicuous recorder with me. Would you like to hear my conversation with Verona firsthand?"

Polly demurred. "It doesn't seem quite decent. It was a private conversation."

"Would it be more decent if I repeated it verbatim?"

"Well... if you put it that way..."

Verona's faltering speech was punctuated with sniffles and whimpers, but Qwilleran's voice was the first on the tape, and he grimaced when he heard himself repeating Boswell's corny line. "My God! Did I say that?" he said.

Don't be afraid to talk to me about your grief, Ms. Whitmoor. That's what neighbors are for.

I feel terrible about it. When Iris died, I wanted to die, too.

She was a wonderful woman. Everyone loved her.

She was so kind to Baby and me. No one else... (long pause).

Did you know she had a heart condition?

She never talked about herself, but I knew she was worried about somethin'.

Did she tell you about the mysterious noises in the house?

Yes, she did. And when I told Vince he got nervous. He said she was too nosy. He was poundin' and drillin', and she could hear it and thought it was ghosts or somethin'. (Soft crying.)

What did he do about it?

He tried to figure out ways to get her out of the house, so he could work, but she loved the museum and loved her kitchen. She was always cookin' and bakin'. (Long pause.)

Go on, Ms. Whitmoor.

One day he came home with a Halloween cassette - spooky sounds, you know. He said he had an idea. He said she was a silly woman, and he could frighten her enough so she would quit the job, and then we could live in the manager's apartment and he could dig all he wanted to.

Did his idea work?

She got very upset, but she didn't leave. Vince talked about it all the time. He was like a crazy man, and when he got into a tantrum like that, his leg would hurt worse.

Do you remember the night Iris Cobb died?

(Prolonged wailing.) I'll never forget it! Not till I die!

What happened?

(Whimpering.) He gave me a sheet with two holes in it. (Sobs.) He told me to get under the sheet... and stand outside her window... and he would play the spooky sound effects. I didn't want to, but he said... (long pause).

What did he say?

He said some threatenin' things, and I was afraid for' Baby, so I did what he wanted. (Anguished wailing.) I didn't know what he was goin' to do!... Oh, Jesus forgive me!... I didn't know he was goin' to smother Iris with that pillow! (Hysterical sobs.)

Qwilleran switched off the tape. He said to Polly, "Her; crying went on until I thought she was going into convulsions. In fact, the nurse came in and gave her something to drink and said I'd better leave. So I did, but I waited in the visitors' lounge and after a while I went back. I thanked her and told her she was a good woman and she should go down south and start a new life. I held both her hands, and she almost smiled. Then I asked her a question: Why was Iris's apartment in darkness? That question had been nagging me ever since I found her body on the kitchen floor."

"Did Verona have an answer?"

"She said she was the one who went in and turned off lights and the microwave. Homer Tibbitt had impressed, upon the cleaning volunteers that they should always turn everything off - because of the danger of fire."

Polly said, "I feel limp! This is an unnerving story - and bizarre!"

"You want to hear something really bizarre?" Qwilleran said. "When I first took Koko into the museum, he went directly to a certain bed pillow in the textile collection. I didn't know it at the time, but that pillow had been removed from the exhibit without authorization and then returned... And that's not all. When he ran out to the barn last night he found a litter of kittens on a soiled white sheet with burn holes. Obviously Boswell had stuffed it between the crates; after it had been used to frighten Iris. It had been raining, and the sheet had dragged on the wet ground; the edges were muddy... And one more incredible instance, Polly! Twice - not once, but twice - Koko knocked a novel off the bookshelf in which a character is smothered with a pillow!"

When Qwilleran returned to the farmhouse, the Siamese met him with yowling complaints and bristling fur. It was chilly in the apartment. "Is the thermostat too low?" he asked them, "or has Ephraim's shade been drifting around?" He started a crackling blaze in the parlor fireplace, got into his old Mackintosh bathrobe, and dropped into a lounge chair for contemplation.

He had refrained from telling Polly about Adam Dingleberry's story and about the documents he had found to confirm it. The papers were returned to the false bottom of the old Dingleberry desk, and the secret would be safe for a few more decades. Moose County could go on believing that Ephraim died on October 30, 1904 - one way or the other - and the Noble Sons of the Noose could continue their fraternal shenanigans. Qwilleran suspected that the Noble Sons, thirty-two of them with lights on their caps, staged a ghostly march across the Goodwinter slag heap every year on May 13.

In the blue wing chair, the Siamese were indulging in a mutual grooming session. Had they chosen that chair because it was Mrs. Cobb's favorite or because they knew the upholstery enhanced the blue of their eyes? Qwilleran watched them - beautiful creatures, vain, and mysterious.

He said to Koko, "When you sat in the kitchen window, staring at the barnyard, did you know something irregular was happening out there?"

Koko, intent on flicking a facile tongue around Yum Yum's left ear, paid no attention. Why, Qwilleran asked himself, are cats either smotheringly attentive or infuriatingly indifferent? He went on - doggedly:

"When you tunneled under rugs were you trying to tell me something? Or were you just amusing yourself?"

Koko extended his services to Yum Yum's snowy throat, and she raised her chin in ecstasy. Qwilleran could remember when Koko expected the female to do the laundering. Times had changed.

"And how about all that muttering and mumbling?" he demanded. "Were you talking to yourself or conversing with an invisible presence?"

Both cats settled down with paws tucked under in contentment, totally oblivious.

As Qwilleran sat brooding in his chair and dimly perceiving the blue wing chair opposite, he could almost feel Iris Cobb's presence. At that precise moment two brown: noses lifted, four brown ears swiveled, two sets of whiskers twitched. Something was about to happen. Qwilleran braced himself for a pink apparition, bearing cookies. Ten seconds later, the telephone rang.

Qwilleran took the call in the bedroom. "Hello?... Of course I remember you! How's everything Down Below?... I don't know. What's the proposition?... A penthouse, did you say? Sounds good, but I'll have to discuss it with my bosses. Where can I reach you?..."

He returned to the parlor and addressed the blue wing chair. "How would you guys like to spend the winter in the Crime Belt instead of the Snow Belt?"

The chair was vacant. They had sensed another change of address. Qwilleran's eyes automatically rose to the top of the Pennsylvania German Schrank. Not there. But he noticed a hump in the hearth rug and another hump in the rug before the sofa. Both humps were eloquently motionless.

The End