The Cat Who Went Up the Creek

chapter seven

“Good news!” were the first words Qwilleran heard Thursday morning. Nick Bamba called to say that the police had released Cabin Five. “The housecleaning crew is down there now, giving it a thorough once-over.”

“Not too thorough, I hope,” Qwilleran said. “Koko likes a few lingering odors. He might detect a clue that has been overlooked by the detectives. I’m not contending that cats are smarter than people, but some cats are smarter than some people—with all due respect to the constabulary. . . . When can we move down there?”

“Give them another hour. Also, there’s a postcard here for you.”

Hanging up the phone, Qwilleran said to the cats, “Pack your bags!” They seemed to know what was afoot. Koko pranced around on his long elegant legs. Yum Yum cowered.

Polly’s card proved to be from Colonial Williamsburg. Pictured was a company of British redcoats marching down Duke of Gloucester Street.

Dear Qwill—The Governor’s Palace is gorgeous! Heard a wonderful concert at the church. Mona okay. Met interesting antique dealer from Ohio.

Love, Polly

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache and wondered what made an antique dealer “interesting.” Especially . . . one from Ohio.

Just as Qwilleran was approaching his French toast and sausage patties with gusto, the server came to the table with a cordless phone. “Call for you, Mr. Qwilleran. Will you take it at the table?”

“No. I disapprove of using a phone while operating a knife and fork. Get the name and phone number, and I’ll call back after my second cup of coffee.”

The number Qwilleran was given to call was Roger MacGillivray’s home phone. It was Thursday. He worked weekends at the newspaper in order to have Wednesdays and Thursdays off for home-schooling his youngsters. And on those two days Sharon did freelance bookkeeping for the motel in Mooseville. It was a neat arrangement.

“Roger! You called!” Qwilleran said when his friend answered. “What’s up?”

“Would you like to attend a rehearsal of the Reenactors Club? They’re doing a reenactment of an 1860 event, and they’ve hired me as a history consultant. It’s been a challenge. A performance will be given every Saturday night in July as a tourist attraction.”

“Does the show have a name?” Qwilleran asked.

“ ‘Saturday Night Brawl at the Hotel Booze.’ ”

“Does the sheriff know about it? He may close it down after the first performance.”

“It’s a clean show—historic, educational.”

“What time is the rehearsal?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Why not come and have dinner with me at the Nutcracker, Rog? I want to hear more about this.”

Now came the job of moving to Cabin Five. As soon as Qwilleran produced the first item of luggage, Yum Yum disappeared under the bed. A flashlight showed her huddled under the exact center of the king-sized bed. Cats have an innate spatial sense. Yum Yum knew she was safe. Even the magic word (“Treat!”) had no effect. She stayed where she was, and Koko polished off her portion. Her eyes glowed like electric lights when she faced the flashlight.

Then Trent, the porter, arrived to take everything down on the elevator. “All set to go, Mr. Qwilleran?”

“All except one cat.”

“No problem! That bed’s on casters. Just roll it out from the back wall.”

The bed rolled forward, and Yum Yum moved with it; she was still in the exact center.

“What’s your next clever suggestion, Trent?” Qwilleran asked.

“Tear gas. Stun gun.”

“How about a broom? You make a few swipes under the bed, and I’ll catch her when she runs out.”

It was a good idea that didn’t work. She shot out from the foot of the bed like a cannonball into the turret room and up the spiral staircase.

Trent, hot on her trail, yelled “Gotcha!” and made a grab, just before she launched into space with all four legs spread like a flying squirrel. But Qwilleran knew her flight pattern and caught her like a receiver catching a pass on the ten-yard line. She went limp and was dropped into the cat carrier.

“That little devil!” Qwilleran said. “She likes to make us look like fools. . . . Thanks, Trent. I’ll call you again when I need an expert cat-catcher.”

Qwilleran unloaded the van at the back door of Cabin Five. Koko, who had been there before, walked in with catly insouciance. Qwilleran showed them the location of their commode and water bowl and served a token treat.

A knock on the porch door sent both cats into hiding.

“Welcome to Creektown,” said Wendy, carrying a jug of iced tea.

“Where are the wonderful kitties?” asked Hannah, who had a plate of cookies.

They sat on the screened porch, and Qwilleran inquired about Doyle.

“When he isn’t biking he takes a canoe up the creek and shoots pictures of wildlife.”

“And what do you do, Wendy?”

“I play stereo recordings of classics and work on the family history I’m writing. My great-grandmother left a trunkful of correspondence going back to the Civil War: hardships, love affairs, disasters, war heroes, and one who disgraced the family by being a bounty-jumper—on both sides! Before the telephone, people wrote long letters in fine handwriting, usually very formal and sometimes poetic, as if they expected their words to be saved for publication. They would say, ‘Once more, dear, dear cousin, I take pen in hand and wing my thoughts to you across the miles.’ It’s an eye-opening adventure for me!”

“I wish someone would write a history of the Scotten and Hawley families,” Hannah said, looking hopefully at Qwilleran.

Don’t volunteer, he told himself, although he would like nothing better. The great body of water off the coast of Moose County, where the fisheries made their livelihood, was a vast source of drama. Someday he would write a book . . .

“Yow!” came a loud comment from indoors, and the visitors took it as a cue to take their jug and plate and go home.

Cabin Five was compact but well planned, mixing a rustic efficient ambiance with space-saving modern builtins and plenty of storage space. The bunk room, for example, had two built-in bunks on opposite walls, a closet with no door but plenty of hooks and hangers, open shelves in every spare corner, and a bank of drawers operating on nylon rollers. Easy-gliding drawers were also a feature of the tiny kitchen, dinette, and entertainment center. Table and benches for dining were built-in, as was the upholstered seating in the living room. Altogether, it was snug but comfortable and efficient, like the cabin of a boat. The Siamese seemed to prefer it to 3FF.

As Qwilleran was finding appropriate places for his belongings, he became aware of scurrying sounds under one of the bunks, as if a cat were playing with a mouse.

“Koko! What are you doing?” he demanded, as he beamed a flashlight under a bunk.

The cat was fussing with a pair of shoes, apparently the same pair that had attracted him on his previous tour of inspection. Dislodging them with a broom, Qwilleran found them to be the same brown oxfords, fairly new. “Sorry. Not my size,” he said as he sat down to think.

He had attributed Koko’s earlier fascination with the shoes to . . . foot powder? Or new leather? Obviously the cat had stashed the shoes away for future reference. Did he sense he was going to return? That cat’s ability to predict events was unnerving. . . . And now he had a sudden interest in the area behind the cabins. Apparently he knew that the airport limousine was coming down the hill and would deliver Mrs. Truffle to Cabin Four.

Qwilleran went on unpacking and putting things away: typewriter and writing materials on the dinette table, books on a wall-hung shelf over the sofa, Koko’s harness and leash in a kitchen drawer, the brown oxfords in a drawer under the TV. He was meeting Roger at five-thirty, and he had to freshen up and feed the cats.

At the inn Roger’s gray van was pulling into the parking lot, and they went to the dining room together.

The hostess who seated them seemed to know Roger, and he said, “Cathy! Will you be able to get to rehearsal tonight?”

“Yes. Mrs. Bamba is letting me leave at seven-thirty.”

Qwilleran’s curiosity was piqued. “You’ll have to tell me what this reenactment is all about. How is Cathy involved?”

“She’s one of our dance hall girls. . . . That’s what we’re calling them, anyway.”

Roger was a young man with a growing family who seldom went out to dinner except to “Grandma’s,” meaning Mildred Riker. So Qwilleran urged him to order from the high end of the menu, saying, “It’ll go on my expense account, Rog.”

Gradually the scenario for the “Saturday Night Brawl” evolved. Roger said, “The year is 1860, and the community of North Cove, now the town of Brrr, is a world of lumber camps, log drives, sawmills, and tall-masted sailing ships. It’s a Saturday night in spring, and the saloon at the Hotel Booze is filled with lumberjacks, sawyers and sailors. Upstairs they can stay overnight for a quarter, in a room without a bed but with enough floor space for a dozen men.

“In the saloon there is drinking and gambling and flirting with girls who hang around. Arguments lead to fistfights. Drunks are carried out to sober up on the wooden sidewalk.”

“And you’re staging this in the Black Bear Café?” Qwilleran asked.

“Yep! The audience sits in the booths on three sides of the restaurant. The action takes place at the long bar and at the tables in the center of the room. The cast is divided into teams of two or three at the bar . . . three or four at the tables. Each team does its thing: card playing, crap-shooting, womanizing, Indian wrestling—whatever . . . Got it, Qwill?”

“Got it!”

“Thornton Haggis worked out the staging and plays the saloonkeeper. During the performance he subtly directs the action, so that each team has its moment, and it isn’t total chaos.”

“Who are the members of the club?”

“Mostly young men, plus a few sisters and girlfriends. My job is to acquaint them with life as it was lived, when this whole area was nothing but dense forest. French traders were the first explorers. Then logging companies came from Maine and Canada. They set up lumber camps in the backwoods, felled trees, floated them down the creeks to sawmills that were set up wherever there was water power.”

“What kind of trees did they cut?” Qwilleran asked, thinking of black walnut.

“Pine was king in those days! Pine boards were shipped Down Below because of the building boom in cities. Also, the straight, slender trees, more than a hundred feet tall, made great masts for schooners. Do you realize that winter is when trees were harvested? Lumberjacks lived in primitive camps in the backwoods, felled the trees, dragged them out of the woods to ice-covered ‘skid roads,’ where they were loaded on sledges drawn by ox-teams, and stockpiled on the bank of a frozen creek. When the spring thaw came, they were floated downstream to the sawmills.”

Steaks and baked potatoes were served, and the men concentrated on eating, with scraps of information surfacing between bites: “Sawdust cities consisted of a sawmill, boarding house, saloon and undertaker. . . . ‘River-drivers’ were the daredevils who rode the logs down rushing streams. . . . Danger was everywhere.”

Dinner was interrupted when Nick Bamba rushed into the dining room and whispered in Qwilleran’s ear.

Jumping to his feet, Qwilleran blurted, “Something’s happened to Yum Yum!” He hurried from the room.

“I’ll go with you!” Nick said.

“How did you find out?”

“Someone phoned. The Underhills, I think.”

The two men were running down the back road—the shortcut.

“What did they say?”

“A cat howling bloody murder.”

Qwilleran had the door key in his hand. There was not a second to lose. The howls could be heard.

Then—when they approached the cabin, there was sudden silence.

“What . . . happened?” Nick gasped.

“Don’t know.”

Qwilleran jabbed the key into the lock and burst into the silent cabin. For a few seconds he looked about wildly.

Nick, at his heels, shouted, “Where are they?”

Yum Yum was sitting comfortably atop the television. Koko was in the side window, sitting tall on the sill, gazing through the screen toward Cabin Four.

At the same time a raucous voice drifted across from the neighbor:

“I don’t care who you are! I want to speak to the manager! . . . Hello! Are you the manager? Don’t ask me what’s wrong! You know very well what’s wrong! You moved a screaming hyena into the cabin next to me! I won’t stand for it! Get me out of here fast! Or I’ll call the sheriff! . . . No more apologies. Just find me an accommodation at a decent hotel. And a taxi to move my things! And don’t think I’m paying for the taxi! . . .”

Nick said, “I’d better get back to the office and help Lori. I’ll explain to your dinner guest.”

It was not long before the Nutcracker van drove to the back door of Cabin Four, and a porter loaded luggage and numerous cartons of Mrs. Truffle’s belongings.

That was Qwilleran’s cue to call the office. Lori answered.

“Where did you send her?” he asked.

“We were able to get her a suite at the Mackintosh Inn.”

“That’s good. Barry Morghan will know how to handle her. He’ll send flowers to her room. He’ll even take them up himself.”

“She’ll throw them at him! She’s allergic to flowers.”

“I’m sorry Koko created a problem, Lori.”

“Not at all! He came up with a solution! No one else could get rid of her.”

Qwilleran hung up the phone and went looking for Koko. The cat was in the middle of the living room, hunched over a man’s brown shoe—for the left foot. Both shoes had been stowed for safekeeping in the entertainment center, but one drawer had been opened—with a touch of a paw, thanks to the nylon rollers. Yet, only the left shoe had been removed.

Qwilleran tapped his moustache. There was a reason why Koko was interested in it. He had a reason for everything he did—often obscure and sometimes questionable. But the gears were always operative in that small cranium.

Removing the other shoe from the drawer, Qwilleran sat down to study the situation. Both shoelaces had been well chewed at one time or another; that had been Yum Yum’s contribution. The right and left shoes seemed to be perfectly mated, although . . . when hefted, one in each hand, the left seemed just . . . slightly . . . heavier. Could that be a fact? Could Koko have detected it? Or was it happenstance?

As Qwilleran stared at the cat in speculation, a long-forgotten memory came into focus. He was fresh out of J school on his first day—at his first job—facing his first assignment. He was to go to the Superior Shoe Company, get a good feature story and hand in his copy by the three o’clock deadline. There was no limit on length. “Write what it takes,” the editor said.

The longer the piece, the cub reporter felt, the more editorial attention it would command, provided he was not guilty of padding.

The address was in a commercial district—a building occupied by tailors, wholesale jewelers, theater costumers, custom shirtmakers and the Superior Shoe Company. For the first time he took a taxi on an expense account. For the first time he flashed his brand new press card, and the conversation went like this:

“I’m Jim Qwilleran, here to get a feature story. Did the editor notify you?”

“Yep. Have a chair.” He was a leathery man of middle age who obviously worked with his hands. He was surrounded by an assortment of small machines.

“May I have your name, sir?”

“Just call me Bill. Don’t need any publicity. Just glad to see a good story in the paper. . . . I’ve got a nephew workin’ for The New York Times.”

“Interesting shop. How long have you been making shoes?”

The man shrugged. “Twenty years, give or take.”

“Do you have a specialty?”

“Yep.” He brought a shoe from underneath the counter and casually peeled away the heel lining and other inner mysteries, revealing a cavity in the heel.

“What’s the purpose of this kind of construction?” The trick was to ask questions in a matter-of-fact way as if already knowing the answer.

“It’s handy for hiding diamonds, gold coins, spare change,” he said with a grin.

There had been more to the interview, and Qwilleran rushed back to the office in excitement. Although he sweated blood over the story, he handed it in with a cool swagger, and the editor received it with a cool nod. It was never printed, of course, being an initiation ritual for cub reporters. He never mentioned it to anyone, nor did any other victim, but he often wondered how many interviews Bill had given—and whether he really had a nephew at The New York Times.

Now he went to work on Hackett’s left shoe, peeling back the sole lining, removing the heel pad and a metal plate, revealing a heel cavity filled with gold nuggets!

Koko had sensed something abnormal about the shoe. Now, having made his point, the cat was in the kitchen lapping up a drink of water.

Qwilleran reassembled the shoe and hid the pair in his luggage, the only cat-proof enclosure in the cabin—except for the refrigerator. The brown oxfords would have to be turned over to the police as evidence. Should he tell them about the secret heel? Or let them find it themselves?

There were several questions to be asked, and he discussed his puzzlement in his personal journal:

Thursday, June 10

—I don’t know the market value of gold, but the mysterious Mister Hackett had a heelful—and who knows what larger rocks were stashed in the trunk of his forty-thousand-dollar car? . . . Was he a gold prospector posing as a manufacturer’s rep—or a roofing salesman whose hobby was gold-digging? . . . Did someone know about his activity? Or was it an incidental encounter? Did he have a partner—or a competitor—who would consider the booty worth killing for? . . . Where did the clobbering take place? Near the creek, no doubt.

Does that mean Hackett was operating in the Black Forest Conservancy? Is that illegal? Is that why he used an alias and falsified his entry on the inn’s guest register? . . . Tune in tomorrow.