The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare tcw-7 Read online

  When the two newsmen boarded the twin-engine plane for the first leg of their journey, they were smart enough to avoid personal conversation. There were fifteen other passengers, and thirty ears would be listening. Moose County had a grapevine that disseminated more news than the Picayune and transmitted it faster than WPKX. Judiciously, Qwilleran and Junior talked about sports until the small plane bumped to a landing in Minneapolis and they boarded a jet.

  "I hope they serve lunch on board," Junior said. "What are we having for dinner at the Press Club?"

  "I've ordered French onion soup, prime rib, and apple pie."

  "Oh, wow!"

  There was a layover in Chicago before they took off on the final leg of the journey. By the time they landed and rode the coach to the Hotel Stilton and tuned in the weather reports, it was time to go to the Press Club.

  "Will the sportswriters be there?" Junior asked.

  "Everyone — from the top executives to the newest copyboy. I suppose they're called copy-facilitators now."

  "Will they think it's corny if I ask for autographs?"

  "They'll be flattered," Qwilleran said.

  At the club Qwilleran was treated as a returning hero, but he reminded himself that anyone would be a hero if he staked the entire staff to dinner and an open bar. A photographer gave him a chummy poke in the ribs and asked how it felt to be a millionaire.

  "I’ll let you know next year, on April fifteenth," Qwilleran replied.

  The travel editor wanted to know how he enjoyed living in the outback. "Isn't Moose County in the Snow Belt?"

  "Absolutely! It's the buckle of the Snow Belt."

  "Well, anyway, you lucky dog, you've escaped the violence of the city."

  "We have plenty of violence up north," Qwilleran informed him. "Tornadoes, lightning, hurricanes, forest fires, wild animals, falling trees, spring floods! But nature's violence is easier to accept than human violence. We never have any mad snipers picking off kids on the school bus, like the incident here last week."

  "Do you still have the cat that's smarter than you are?" Around the Press Club, Qwilleran had a reputation as an amateur detective; it was also known that Koko was somewhat responsible for his success.

  Qwilleran explained to Junior, "Maybe you didn't notice, but Koko's picture is hanging in the lobby, along with the Pulitzer Prize winners. Someday I'll tell you about his exploits. You won't believe it, but I'll tell you anyway."

  During the happy hour Junior met the columnists and reporters whose copy he read in the outstate edition of the Fluxion, and he could hardly control his excitement. The guest of honor, on the other hand, was noticeably subdued. Arch Riker was glad to cut loose from the Fluxion, but the occasion was saddened by the recent breakup of his marriage.

  "What are your plans?" Qwilleran asked.

  "Well, I'll spend Thanksgiving with my son in Denver and Christmas with my daughter in Oregon. After that, I don't know."

  After the prime rib and apple pie, the executive editor presented Riker with a gold watch, and Qwilleran paid a tribute to his longtime friend. He concluded with a few words about Moose County.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, most of you have never heard of Moose County. It's the only underground county in the state. Cartographers sometimes forget to put it on the map. Many of our legislators think it belongs to Canada. Yet, a hundred years ago Moose County was the richest in the state, thanks to mining and lumbering. Today it's a vacation paradise for anyone interested in fishing, hunting, boating, and camping. We have two unique features I'd like to point out: perfect temperatures from May to October, and a newspaper that hasn't changed since it was founded over a century ago. Junior Goodwinter, the youngest managing editor in captivity, writes all the copy himself. In an age of satellite communication it's not easy to write with a goose quill and cuttlefish ink... May I introduce Junior and the Pickax Picayune!"

  Junior snatched his baseball cap and sack of papers and dashed about the dining room shouting, "Wuxtree! Wuxtree!" while throwing a clutch of papers on each table. The guests grabbed them and started to read first with chuckles, then with guffaws. One page 1, in column 1, they found the classified ads:

  FOR SALE: Used two-by-fours in good shape. Also a size 14 wedding dress, never been worn.

  HURRY! If your old clunker won't make it through another winter, maybe you'll find a better clunker at Hackpole's Used Car Lot, or maybe you won't. Can't tell till you look 'em over.

  FREE: Three gray kittens, one with white boots. Almost housebroke.

  JUST ARRIVED: New shipment of long johns at Bill's Family Store. Quality ain't what it used to be, and prices are up from last year, but what the heck! Better buy before snow flies.

  Sharing the front page with these examples of truth-in-advertising were news items with headlines an eighth of an inch high.

  RECORD NEARLY BROKEN There were 75 cars in Captain Fugtree's funeral procession last week-longest since 1904, when 52 buggies and 37 carriages paraded to the cemetery to bury Ephraim Goodwinter.

  BRIDAL SHOWER GIVEN

  Miss Doreen Mayfus was honored at a shower last Thursday. Games were played and prizes awarded. The bride-to-be opened 24 presents. Refreshments included sausage rolls, pimiento sandwiches, and wimpy-diddles.

  ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED

  Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Toodle celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary at a dinner given by seven of their 11 children: Richard Toodle, Emil Toodle, Joseph Toodle, Conrad Toodle, Donna Toodle, Dorothy (Toodle) Fugtree, and Estelle (Toodle) Campbell. Also present were 30 grandchildren, 82! great-grandchildren, and 13 great-great-grandchildren. The dinner was held at the Toodle Family Restaurant. The sheet cake was decorated by Betsy Ann Toodle.

  During the uproar (everyone was reading aloud) the Press Club manager sidled up to the head table and whispered in the host's ear. "Long distance for you, Qwill. In my office."

  Before hurrying to the phone, Qwilleran shouted, "Thanks for coming, everyone! The bar's open!"

  He was absent from the dining room long enough to make a few phone calls of his own, and when he returned he dragged Junior away from a group of editors and reporters.

  "We've gotta get out, Junior. We're going home. I've changed our reservations... Arch, tell everyone goodbye for us, will you? It's an emergency...Come on, Junior."

  "What? ... What?" Junior spluttered.

  "Tell you later."

  "My sack — "

  "Forget your sack."

  Qwilleran hustled the young man down the steps of the club and pushed him into the cab that waited at the curb with motor running.

  "Hotel Stilton on the double," he yelled to the driver as the cab shot forward, "and run the red lights."

  "Oh, wow!" Junior said.

  "How fast can you throw your things in your duffel, kid? We've got seven minutes to pack, check out, and get up to the heliport on the hotel roof. "

  Not until they had piled into the police helicopter did Qwilleran take time to explain. "Urgent phone call from Pickax," he shouted. "The Big One is moving in. Gotta beat it — personal emergency. Get ready to run. They're holding the plane."

  When they finally buckled up on the jet, Junior said, "Hey, how did you swing that deal? I've never been on a chopper."

  "It helps if you've worked at the Fluxion," Qwilleran explained, "and if you've cooperated with Homicide and plugged the Police Widows' Fund. Sorry to spoil the rest of our plans."

  "That's okay. I don't mind missing the other stuff."

  "We can make a fast connection in Chicago and then catch the TGIF commuter out of Minneapolis. We're lucky it worked out that way."

  For the rest of the flight Qwilleran was reluctant to talk, but Junior couldn't stop. "Everybody was great! The sportswriters said they'd get me into the press box any time I'm in town... The guy that runs the "Newsroom Mouse" column is going to write up the Picayune on Tuesday, and that's syndicated allover the country, you know. How about that? ... Mr. Bates said I could have a job any time I wa
nt n to leave Pickax."

  Qwilleran reserved comment. He was familiar with the managing editor's promises; the man had a short memory.

  Junior chattered on. "They hire a lot of women at the Fluxion, don't they? On the desk, general assignment, heads, of departments, photographers. Do you know that redheaded photographer — the one with green stockings?"

  Qwilleran shook his head. "She's new since I left the paper.”

  "She's a photojournalist, and she free-lances for national magazines. She might come up to Moose County next spring and do a picture story on the abandoned mines. Not bad!"

  "Not bad," Qwilleran echoed quietly.

  He was still abnormally quiet when they boarded the tiny commuter after midnight. He occupied the window seat, and when he turned to listen to Junior he could see a man sitting across the aisle, holding an open magazine. The passenger stared at the same page throughout the flight.

  He isn't reading, Qwilleran thought. He's listening. And he doesn't belong up here. No one in Moose County has that buttoned-down cool.

  At the airport terminal the stranger went to the counter to rent a car.

  "Junior ," Qwilleran muttered, "who's the guy in the black raincoat?"

  "Never saw him before," Junior said. "Looks like a traveling salesman."

  The man was no traveling salesman, Qwilleran told himself. There was something about his walk, his manner, the way he appraised his surroundings...

  As they drove back to Pickax in the early hours of the morning, Junior finally showed signs of running out of exuberance, and he noticed Qwilleran' s preoccupied silence. "Anything wrong at your house, Qwill? You said it was an emergency."

  "It's an emergency, but not at my house. Your mother called my housekeeper, and Mrs. Cobb phoned the Press Club. You're needed at home in a hurry. There's no storm moving in; I lied to you about that." Qwilleran made a right turn at the traffic light.

  "Hey! Where are you going? Aren't you dropping me at the farm?"

  "We're going to the hospital. There's been an accident. A car accident."

  "My dad?" Junior shouted. "How serious?"

  "Very bad. Your mother's waiting for you at the hospital. I don't know how to say this, Junior, but I've got to tell you. Your dad was killed instantly. It was on the bridge — the old plank bridge."

  They pulled up at the side door of the hospital. Junior jumped out of the car without a word and bolted into the building.

  2

  Monday, November eleventh. “Heavy cloud cover throughout the country, with promise of snow before nightfall. Present temperature in Pickax, twenty-two degrees, with a windchill factor of ten below.” — So said the WPKX meteorologist.

  On Monday morning the schools, stores, offices, and restaurants of Pickax were closed until noon — for the funeral. The day was cold, gray, damp, and miserable. Yet, crowds milled about the Old Stone church on Park Circle. Other onlookers huddle din the little circular park — shivering, stamping feet, swinging arms, clapping mittened hands together, anything to keep warm, and that included a furtive swig from a half-pint bottle in desperate cases. They were expecting to see a record broken: the longest funeral procession since 1904.

  Police cars blockaded downtown Main Street to facilitate the formation of the procession. Cars bearing purple flags on the fender were lined up four abreast from curb to curb.

  Qwilleran, moving through the crowd in the park, watched faces and listened to the low, respectful hum of voices. Small boys who climbed on the fountain for a better view were shooed away by a police officer and admonished if they shrieked or raced through the crowd.

  Gathered inside the church were the numerous branches of the Goodwinter clan, as well as city officials, members of the Chamber of Commerce, and the country club set. Outside the church were the readers of the Picayune: businessmen, housewives, farmers, retirees, waitresses, laborers, hunters. They were witnessing an event they would remember all their lives and describe to future generations, just as their grandparents had described the funeral of Ephraim Good winter.

  Among them was one man who was obviously foreign to the scene. He wandered through the crowd, glancing alertly in all directions, studying faces. He was wearing a black raincoat, and Qwilleran hoped it had a heavy lining; the cold was bone chilling.

  A hunter in orange-and-black camouflage was mumbling to a man who wore a feed cap and had a cheek full of snuff. “Gonna be a long one. Longer than Captain Fugtree’s, looks like.”

  The farmer shifted his chew. “Near a hundred, I reckon. The captain had seventy-five, they said in the paper.”

  “Lucky they could bury him before snow flies. There’s a big One headed this way, they said on radio.”

  “Can’t believe nothin’ they say on radio. That storm from Canada blowed itself out afore it got anywheres near the border.”

  “Where’d it happen?” the hunter asked. “The accident, I mean.”

  “Old plank bridge. It’s a bugger! We been after the county to get off their duff and widen the danged thing. They say he rammed the stone rail, flipped head over tail, landed on the rocks in the river. Car caught fire. It’s a closed casket, I hear.”

  “They should sue somebody.”

  “Prob’ly goin’ too fast. Mebbe hit a deer.”

  “Or coulda been he was on a Friday night toot,” the hunter said with a sly grin.

  “Not him! She’s the one that’s the barfly. With him it was never nothin’ but work work work. Fell asleep at the wheel, betcha. Whole family’s jinxed. Y’know what happened to his old man.”

  “Yeah, but he probl’ly deserved it, from what I hear.”

  “And then there was his uncle. Somethin’ fishy about that story!”

  “And his grandfather. They never got the lowdown on what happened to him. What’ll they do with the paper now?”

  “The kid’ll take over,” the farmer said. “Fourth generation. No tellin’ what he’ll take it into his head to do. These young ones go away to school and get some loony ideas.”

  Voices hushed as the bell began to toll a single solemn note and the casket was carried from the church, followed by the bereaved family. The heavily veiled widow was accompanied by her elder son. Junior walked with his sister from Montana. On the sidewalk and in the park the townspeople crossed themselves and men removed their headgear. There was a long wait as the mourners moved silently to their cars, directed by young men in black car coats and ambassador hats of black fur. At a signal, men in uniform fell into rank and hoisted brass instruments. Then, with the Pickax Funeral Band playing a doleful march, the long line of cars started to move forward.

  Qwilleran pulled down the earflaps of his winter hat, turned up his coat collars, and headed across the park to the place he now called home.

  The Klingenschoen residence that Qwilleran had inherited was one of five important buildings on the Park Circle, where Main Street divided and circumvented a little grassy plot with stone benches and a stone foundation. On one side of the circle were the Old Stone Church, the Little Stone Church, and a venerable courthouse. Facing them across the park were the public library and the K mansion, as Pickax natives called it. A massive cube of fieldstone three stories high, the mansion occupied its spacious grounds with the regal assurance that it was the most impressive edifice in town, and the costliest.

  For a man who had chosen to spend his adult life in apartments and hotels, always on the move like a gypsy, the palatial residence was a discomfort, an embarrassment. Eventually Qwilleran would deed it to the city as a museum, but for five years he was doomed to live with the Klingenschoen brand of conspicuous consumption: vast rooms with fourteen-foot ceilings and ornate woodwork; crystal chandeliers by the ton and Oriental rugs by the acre; priceless French and English antiques, and art objects worth millions.

  Qwilleran solved his problem by moving into the old servants’ quarters above the garage, while the housekeeper occupied a sumptuous French suite in the main house.

  Housekeeper
was a misnomer for Iris Cobb. A former antique dealer and appraiser from Down Below, she now functioned as house manager, registrar of the collection, and curator of an architectural masterpiece destined to become a museum. She was also an obsessive cook who liked to putter about the kitchen — a dumpy figure in a faded pink smock. Despite her career credentials the widowed Mrs. Cobb baked endless cookies and pies with which to please the opposite sex, and she was inclined to gaze at men worshipfully through her thick-lensed eyeglasses.

  Mrs. Cobb had a hearty oyster stew waiting for Qwilleran when he returned from the funeral. "I looked out the window and saw all the cars," she said. "The procession must be half a mile long!"

  "Longest in Pickax history," Qwilleran said. "It's not only the funeral of a man; it may turn out to be the funeral of a century-old newspaper."

  "Did you see the widow? She must be taking it terribly hard." Mrs. Cobb related emotionally to any woman who lost a husband, having experienced two such tragedies herself.

  "Mrs. Goodwinter's three grown children were with her — also an older woman, probably Junior's Grandma Gage. She was tiny, but as straight as a brigadier general... Any phone calls while I was out, Mrs. Cobb?"

  "No, but a busboy from the Old Stone Mill brought over some pork liver cupcakes. It's a new idea, and the chef would like your opinion. I put them in the freezer."

  Qwilleran grunted in disgust. "I'll give that clown an opinion — fast! I wouldn't touch a pork liver cupcake if he paid me!"

  "Oh, they're not people food, Mr. Q! They're for the cats. The chef is experimenting with a line of frozen gourmet dinners for pets."

  "Well, take a couple out of the freezer, and the spoiled brats can have them for supper. By the way, have you noticed any books on the floor in the library? Koko is pushing them off the shelf, and I don't approve of his new hobby."

  "I tidied up this morning and didn't notice anything."