The Cat Who Played Post Office tcw-6 Read online

  Qwilleran felt at ease with the hospital badinage. It was the same kind of jocular roasting he had enjoyed at the Daily Fluxion. Everyone in Pickax City seemed to like him, and why not? He was an affable companion, a sympathetic listener, and the richest man in the county. He had no delusions on that score. As a feature writer for the Fluxion he had been courted by lobbyists, politicians, businessmen, and media hounds, He accepted their attentions graciously, but he had no delusions.

  After lunch the lab took blood samples, and Qwilleran had an EKG, followed by another nap and another dream.

  Again it was vivid — painfully so. He was climbing out of a ditch near a lonely highway. His clothing was soaked; his pants were tom; his legs were bleeding. Blood was trickling into his right eye as he stumbled onto the highway and started to walk. Soon a red car stopped, and someone in a blue shirt jumped out. It was Junior Goodwinter, the young managing editor of the Pickax Picayune. Junior gave him a ride back to town and talked incessantly on the journey, but Qwilleran could say nothing. He struggled to answer Junior's questions, but he could find no words.

  The dream ended abruptly, and the dreamer found himself sitting up in bed, sweating and shivering. He mopped his face and then reached for the telephone and called the newspaper office.

  "Qwill! You pulled through!" shouted Junior into the phone. "When I picked you up yesterday, you weren't exactly dead, but you weren't alive either. We had the type all set up to print an obit if you kicked off." "Thanks. That was decent of you," Qwilleran said. "Are you hitting on all eight? You sound okay." "They sewed me together, and I look like the Spirit of 76. Where was I when you picked me up, Junior?" "On Ittibittiwassee Road, beyond the Buckshot mineshaft. You were wandering around in the middle of the pavement in a daze — going in the wrong direction. Your clothes were all ripped and muddy. Your head was bleeding. You really had me worried, especially when you couldn't talk." "Did you see my bike?" "Tell the truth, I wasn't looking for it. I just concentrated on getting you to the hospital. I hit a hundred ten." "What were you driving?" "My Jag, luckily. That's why I could kick it up to one-ten so fast." "Thanks, Junior. Let's have lunch next week. I'll buy." Another dream checked out! Even the color of the car was accurate. Qwilleran knew that Junior's Jaguar was red.

  He discussed his dreams with Melinda Goodwinter and Arch Riker that evening when they came to the hospital to have dinner with him in the cafeteria. Without her white coat and stethoscope Melinda looked more like the young woman he had been dating for the last two months.

  Qwilleran asked her, "Do you kiss all your bedridden I male patients?" "Only those of advanced age," she retorted with a sweetly I malicious look in her green eyes.

  "Funny thing," he said, "but some of the details I couldn't remember came back to me in dreams this afternoon.

  There's only one blank left in my memory — the actual circumstances that caused the accident." "It wasn't a pothole," Melinda said. "That's a brand-new highway, smooth as glass." Riker said, "It's my guess that you swerved to avoid hitting something, Qwill, and skidded on the shoulder. A skunk or raccoon, perhaps, or even a deer. I saw a lot of dead animals on the road, coming in from the airport." "We'll never know for sure," Qwilleran said. "How's everything at the house? Did you get some sleep? Did Mrs. Cobb give you lunch? Did you see Koko?" "Everything's fine. Koko met me at the front door and gave me a military inspection. I guess I passed muster, because he allowed me to enter." Late that night, when the hospital corridor was silent, Qwilleran dreamed his final dream. It was the missing link between the macaroni-and-cheese and the red Jaguar. He saw himself pedaling at a leisurely pace along a deserted highway, appreciating the smooth asphalt and the lack of traffic and the gently rolling hills. Pedaling uphill was easy, and coasting down was glorious." He passed the abandoned Buckshot Mine with its rotting shaft house and ominous signs: Danger… Keep Out…

  Beware of Cave-ins. The deserted mines that dotted the lonely landscape around Pickax City were a source of endless fascination for Qwilleran. They were mysterious — silent — dead.

  The Buckshot was different, however. He had been told that, if one listened intently, one could hear an eerie whistling sound coming from the shaft where eighteen miners had been buried alive in 1913.

  In the dream he pedaled slowly and silently past the Buckshot. Only a tick-tick in the rear wheel and a grinding sound in the sprocket broke the stillness. He turned his head to gaze at the gray ghost of the shaft house… the sloping depression at the site of a cave-in… the vibrant green weeds that smothered the whole scene. He was staring so intently that he was unaware of a truck approaching from the opposite direction — unaware until its motor roared. He looked ahead in time to see its burst of speed, its sudden swerve into the eastbound lane, a murderous monster bearing down upon him. In the dream he had a vivid picture of the grille, a big rusty thing that seemed to be grinning. He yanked the handlebars and plunged down toward the roadside ditch, but the front wheel hit a rock and he went sailing over the handlebars. For an interminable moment he was airborne.

  Qwilleran wrenched himself from sleep in a fright and found himself sitting up in bed, sweating and shouting.

  An orderly hurried into the room. "Mr. Q! Mr. Q! What's the problem? A bad dream?" Qwilleran shook himself in an effort to dispel the nightmare. "Sorry. Hope I didn't disturb the other patients." "Want a drink of water, Mr. Q?" "Thanks. And will you raise the bed? I'd better sit up for a while." Qwilleran leaned back against his pillow, reliving the dream. It was as graphic as the others. The sky was blue. The weeds around the deserted mine were poison green. The truck had a rusted grille.

  Like the other dreams, it had actually happened, he realized, but there was no one he could phone for verification.

  One thing was clear. What happened on Ittibittiwassee Road was no accident. He thought, I'm well liked in Pickax… but not by everyone.

  2

  It was midsummer when the richest man in Moose County fell off his antiquated bicycle. Two months before that incident he was far from affluent. He was an underpaid feature writer working for a large midwestem newspaper noted for its twenty-four-point bylines and meager wage scale. As a frugal bachelor he lived in a one-room furnished apartment and was making payments on a used car. He owned a fifty-year-old typewriter with a faulty shift key, and his library consisted of the odd titles found on the twenty-five-cent table in secondhand bookstores. His wardrobe, such as it was, fitted comfortably in two suitcases. He was perfectly content.

  Jim Qwilleran's sole extravagance was the care and feeding of two Siamese cats who shunned catfood, preferring beef tenderloin, lobster, and oysters in season. Not only did they have aristocratic sensibilities and epicurean appetites, but Koko, the male, showed unusual intelligence. Tales of his extrasensory perception had made him legendary at the Daily Fluxion and the Press Club, although nothing of the cat's remarkable attribute was mentioned outside the profession.

  Then, without ever buying a lottery ticket, Qwilleran became a multimillionaire virtually overnight. It was a freak inheritance, and he was the sole heir.

  When the astonishing news reached him, Qwilleran and his feline companions were vacationing in Moose County, the northern outpost of the state. They were staying in a lake shore cabin near the resort town of Mooseville. As soon as he recovered from the shock he submitted his resignation to the Daily Fluxion and made arrangements to move to Pickax City, the county seat, thirty miles from Mooseville.

  But first he had to clean out his desk at the Fluxion office, say goodbye to fellow staffers, and have one last lunch with Arch Riker at the Press Club.

  The two men walked to the club, mopping their brows and complaining of the heat. It was the first hot spell of the season.

  Qwilleran said: "I'm going to miss you and all the other guys, Arch, but I won't miss the hot weather. It's ninety-five degrees at City Hall." "I suppose the photographers are frying their annual egg on the sidewalk," Arch remarked.

  "In Moose County t
here's always a pleasant breeze. No need for air-conditioning." "That may be, but how can you stand living four hundred miles from civilization?" "Are you under the impression that today' s cities are civilized?" "Qwill, you've spent less than a month in that northern wilderness," Arch said, "and already you're thinking like a sheep farmer… Okay, I'll rephrase that question. How can you stand living four hundred miles from the Press Club?" "It's a gamble," Qwilleran admitted, "but those are the terms of Miss Klingenschoen's will: Live in Moose County for five years or forfeit the inheritance." At the club, where the air conditioner was out of commission, they ordered corned beef sandwiches, gin and tonic for Riker, and iced tea for Qwilleran.

  "If you forfeit the inheritance," Riker went on, "who gets it?" "Some outfit in New Jersey. I don't mind telling you, Arch, it was a tough decision for me to make. I wasn't sure I wanted to give up a job on a major newspaper for any amount of money." "Qwill, you're unique — if not demented. No one in his right mind would turn down millions." "Well, you know me, Arch. I like to work. I like newspapering and press clubs. I've never needed a lot of dough, and I've never wanted to be encumbered by possessions. It remains to be seen if I'll be comfortable with money — I mean Money with a capital M." "Try!" Riker advised. "Try real hard. What are the encumbrances that might ruin your life?" "Some complicated investments. Office buildings and hotels on the East Coast. A couple of shopping malls. Acreage in Moose County. Half of Main Street in Pickax City. Also the Klingenschoen mansion in Pickax and the log cabin in Mooseville where we spent our vacation." "Rotten luck." "Do you realize I'll need a housekeeping staff, gardeners, maintenance men, and probably a secretary? Not to mention an accountant, a financial adviser, two attorneys, and a property management firm? That's not my style! They'll expect me to join the country club and wear tailor-made suits!" "I'm not worried about you, Qwill. You'll always be your own man. Anyone who's convinced his cat is psychic will never conform to conventional folkways… Here's the mustard. Want horseradish?" Qwilleran grunted and squirted a question mark of mustard on his corned beef.

  Riker went on. "You'll never be anything but what you are, Qwill — a lovable slob. Do you realize every one of your ties is full of moth holes?" "I happen to like my ties," Qwilleran countered. "They were all woven in Scotland, and they're not moth-eaten. Before Yum Yum came to live with us, Koko was frustrated and started chewing wool." "Are those two cats playing house? I thought they were both neutered." "Yes, but Siamese crave companionship. Otherwise they get neurotic. They do strange things." "If you ask me," Riker said, "Koko is still doing some very strange things." At that moment two photographers from the Fluxion stopped at the table to commiserate with Qwilleran. "Man, do you know what you're getting into up north?" one of them said. "Moose County is a low-crime area!" "No problem," Qwilleran replied. "They import an occasional felon from down here, just so the cops won't get bored." He was accustomed to being ribbed about his interest in crime. Everyone at the Press Club knew he had helped the police crack a few cases, and everyone knew that it was Koko who actually sniffed out the clues.

  Qwilleran applied his attention to his sandwich again, and Riker resumed his questioning. "What's the population of Pickax?" "Three thousand persons and four thousand pickup trucks. I call it Pickup City. The town has one traffic light, fourteen mediocre restaurants, a nineteenth-century newspaper, and more churches than bars." "You could open a good restaurant and start your own paper, now that you're in the bucks." "No thanks. I'm going to write a book." "Any interesting people up there?" "Contrary to what you think, Arch, they're not all sheep farmers. During my vacation I met some teachers and an engineer and a lively blond postmistress (married, unfortunately) and a couple of attorneys — brother and sister, very classy type. Also there's a young doctor I've started dating. She has the greenest eyes and longest eyelashes you ever saw, and she's giving me the come-on, if I'm reading the signals right." "How come you always attract women half your age? Must be the overgrown moustache." Qwilleran stroked his upper lip smugly. "Dr. Melinda Goodwinter, M.D… not bad for a Saturday night date." "Sounds like a character in a TV series." "Goodwinter is the big name in Moose County. There's half a page of them in the telephone directory, and the whole phone book is only fourteen pages thick. The Goodwinters go back to the days when fortunes were being made in mining." "What supports the economy now?" "Commercial fishing and tourism. A little farming. Some light industry." Riker chewed his sandwich in somber silence for a while. He was losing his best writer as well as his lunchtime companion. "Suppose you move up there, Qwill, and then change your mind before the five years are up? What happens then?" "Everything goes to the people in New Jersey. The estate is held in trust for five years, and during that time all I get is the income…" "Which amounts to…" "After taxes, upwards of a million, annually." Riker choked on the dill pickle. "Anyone should… be able to… scrape by with that." "You and Rosie ought to come up for a week. Fresh air — no hustle — safe environment. I mean, they don't have street crime and random killings in Pickax." He signaled the waitress for the check. "Don't expect me to pay for your lunch today, Arch. I haven't seen a penny of that inheritance yet. Sorry I can't stay for coffee. Gotta get to the airport." "How long does it take to fly up there?" "Forever! You have to change planes twice, and the last one is a hedgehopper." After some quick handshaking and backslapping with denizen of the Press Club, Qwilleran accepted a sizable doggie bag from the kitchen and said a reluctant farewell to his old hangout. Then he caught the three o'clock plane.

  In flight his thoughts went to Arch Riker. They had been friends long enough to have genuine concern for each other, and today Arch had been unduly morose. The editor usually exhibited the detached cool of a veteran deskman, punctuated with good-natured raillery, but today something was bothering him. Qwilleran sensed that it was more than his own departure for the north country.

  The flight was uneventful, the landing was smooth; and in the pasture that served as the airport's long-term parking lot, his car was waiting as he had left it. No one had slashed the tires or jimmied the trunk. Driving from the airport he knew he was back in Moose County; pickup trucks — many of them modified for rough terrain — outnumbered passenger cars two to one.

  The temperature was ideal. Qwilleran was glad to escape the city heat and city traffic. As he neared Mooseville, however, he began to feel the familiar anxiety: What might have happened in his absence?

  He had left Koko and Yum Yum alone in the cabin on the lakeshore. A cat-sitter had promised to visit twice a day to feed them, give them fresh drinking water, and make polite conversation. But how reliable was the woman? Sup- pose she had broken a leg and failed to show up! Would the cats have enough water? How long could they live without food?

  Suppose she had carelessly let them out of the cabin and they had run away! They were indoor cats — city cats. How would they survive in the woods? What defense would they have against a predatory owl or hawk? Suppose there were wolves in the woods! Koko would fight to the death, but little Yum Yum was so timid, so helpless…

  It was a highly nervous man who arrived at the cabin and unlocked the door. There they were — both cats sitting on the hearth rug, rump to rump, like bookends. They looked calm and contented and rather fat around the middle.

  "You scoundrels!" he shouted. "You conned her into giving you too much food! You've been gorging!" It was July, and the strong evening sun slanted into the cabin, backlighting the cats' fur and giving each of the reprobates an undeserved halo. With brown legs tucked confidently under fawn bodies, with brown ears cocked at an impudent angle, with blue eyes gazing inscrutably from brown masks, Koko and his accomplice defied Qwilleran to criticize their Royal Catnesses.

  "You don't intimidate me in the slightest," he said, "so wipe that superior look off your face-both of you! I have news for you two characters. We're moving to Pickax in the morning." The Siamese were staunch supporters of the status quo and always resented a change of address. Nevertheless, early the n
ext morning Qwilleran packed them and their belongings into the car and drove them — protesting at the rate of forty howls per mile — to the Klingenschoen mansion, thirty miles inland.

  The historic K mansion, as the locals called it, was situated on the Pickax Circle, that bulge in Main Street that wrapped around a small park. On the perimeter were two churches, the Moose County Courthouse, and the Pickax Library, but none was more imposing than the hundred-year-old Klingenschoen residence.

  Large, square, and solidly built of glistening fieldstone, it rose regally from well-kept lawns. A circular driveway served the front entrance, and a side drive led to the carriage house in the rear, also built of fieldstone with specks of quartz that sparkled in the sun.

  Qwilleran drove to the back door of the house. He knew it would be unlocked, according to the friendly Pickax custom.

  Hurriedly he carried two squirming animals into the big kitchen, placed their blue cushion on top of a refrigerator, and pointed out the adjoining laundry room as the new location of their drinking water and their commode. Cautioning them to be good, he closed both kitchen doors and then brought in the rest of the baggage, glancing frequently at his watch. He carried his two suitcases upstairs, and piled his writing materials on the desk in the library, including his ancient typewriter and a thirteen-pound unabridged dictionary with a tattered cover.

  Previously Qwilleran had been impressed by the lavish furnishings of the mansion, but now he saw it with a proprietary eye: the high-ceilinged foyer with grandiose staircase; the dining room that could seat sixteen; the drawing room with its two fireplaces, two giant crystal chandeliers, and ponderous antique piano; the solarium with its three walls of glass. The place would cost a fortune to heat, he reflected.

  Precisely at the appointed hour the doorbell rang, and he admitted the attorneys for the estate: Goodwinter and Goodwinter, a prestigious third-generation law firm. The partners — Alexander and his sister Penelope — were probably in their mid-thirties, although their cool magisterial manner made them appear older. They shared the patrician features and blond hair characteristic of Goodwinters, and they were conspicuously well dressed for a town like Pickax, dedicated to jeans, T-shirts, and feed caps.