The Cat Who Played Post Office tcw-6 Read online

  Qwilleran stopped the porters. "Take it all back except the mattress. Put everything in one of the garage stalls until we can sort it out." Mrs. Cobb was weak with shock and excitement. "What a narrow escape," she said, over a cup of tea. "You know, there was a period when Americana wasn't appreciated. These people must have moved their heirlooms to the garage when they bought their French and English antiques. It's strange that your decorator didn't recognize their current value." Maybe she did, Qwilleran thought. Later in the afternoon he conducted the prospective housekeeper on a walking tour of downtown Pickax. "How do you like the French suite?" he asked.

  "I've never seen anything so grand! There's a Norman bonnet-top armoire that must be early eighteenth century!" Hesitantly she added, "If I come to work here, would you mind if I did a few appraisals for other people on the side?" "Not at all. You can even open a tearoom in the basement and tell fortunes." "Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you're such a joker." Downtown Pickax was a panorama of imitation Scottish castles, Spanish fortresses, and Cotswold cottages. "All real stone," he pointed out, "but somehow it looks fake, like a bad movie set." They passed Amanda's studio (pure Dickens) and the offices of the Pickax Picayune (early monastery). Then he steered her into the office (Heidelberg influence) of Goodwinter and Goodwinter.

  The junior partner was conferring with a client but consented to step out of her private office for a moment.

  Qwilleran said, "I want to introduce Iris Cobb. I've convinced her to move up here from Down Below and manage our household. Mrs. Cobb, this is Penelope Goodwinter, attorney for the estate." "Pleased to meet you," said the housekeeper, extending her hand. Penelope, glancing at the rhinestone-studded I glasses, was a fraction of a second slow in shaking hands: and saying, "How nice." Qwilleran went on. "Mrs. Cobb is not only experienced in household management, but she's a licensed appraiser and will catalogue the collection for us." His former landlady beamed, and Penelope said, "Oh, really? We must discuss salary, of course. When do you wish to start your employment, Mrs. Cobb?" "Well, I'm flying home tomorrow, and I'll drive up here in my van as soon as I pack my reference books." "I suggest," the attorney said, "that you defer your arrival until your apartment is redecorated. At present it's in deplorable condition." "No problem," Qwilleran interjected. "Mrs. Cobb will have the French suite in the house. I plan to fix up the garage apartment for myself." The attorney's reaction started with shock, faded into disapproval, and recovered enough to muster a half smile. "I hope you will both be comfortable. Let us talk about terms and contracts tomorrow." "I'm taking Mrs. Cobb to dinner at the Old Stone Mill tonight," Qwilleran said. "Would you care to join us?" "Thank you. Thank you so much, but I have a previous engagement. And now… if you will excuse me…" "Oh my!" Mrs. Cobb said afterward. "She's a very smart dresser, isn't she? I didn't know they had clothes like that in Pickax." Qwilleran reported the incident to Melinda Goodwinter after putting the housekeeper on the plane the next day. The young doctor with green eyes and long eyelashes telephoned to invite him to dinner.

  "My treat," she said. "I'd like to take you to Otto's Tasty Eats." "Never heard of it. How's the food?" "Ghastly, but there's lots of it. It's a family restaurant — no liquor — and you can sit in the smoking section or the screaming section, depending on whether you want to ruin your lungs or your eardrums." "You make the invitation irresistible, Melinda." "To tell the truth, I have an ulterior motive. I want to see your house. I've never seen the interior. The Klingenschoens and the Goodwinters weren't on the same wavelength socially. Could you meet me at Otto's at six-fifteen? I'll reserve a booth." At the appointed hour Qwilleran was wedging his green economy-model car into the crowded parking lot when Melinda pulled up in a silver convertible.

  "When are you going to buy a gold-plated Rolls?" she greeted him.

  "Do I look like a sheikh? Don't let the moustache mislead you." "You really made a hit when you proposed giving away your money," she said. "There's a rumor that Pickax will be renamed Qwillville. All the women in Moose County will be chasing you, but remember — I found you first." Otto's Tasty Eats occupied a former warehouse in the industrial area of Pickax. The wrinkled carpet suggested old army blankets. Long institutional tables — at least an acre of them — were covered with sheets of stiff white paper. Lights glared. Noise reverberated. Customers flocked in by the hundreds.

  In the center of the room was a veritable shrine to gluttony: twelve-gallon crocks of watery soup, bushels of tom iceberg lettuce, mountains of fried chicken and fried fish, tubs of reconstituted mashed potatoes, and a dessert table that was a sea of white froth masquerading as whipped cream.

  "Do you come here often?" Qwilleran asked.

  "Only when I entertain supercilious urban types." Overstuffed diners were making three or four trips to the buffet, but Melinda insisted on ordering from the menu and having table service.

  "I don't imagine," Qwilleran said, "that your cousins from the law office are frequent diners at Otto's Tasty Eats." He described the meeting between the attorney and Mrs. Cobb. "Penelope was a trifle perturbed when I told her the housekeeper would occupy the French suite and I'd live over the garage." Melinda's green eyes brimmed with merriment. "She probably went into shock. She and Alex are the last of the hard- line Goodwinter snobs. They consider themselves the superior branch of the family. Did you know that Penny is the one with brains? Alex is just a tiresome bore with an inflated ego, and yet she defers to him as if he were the mastermind." "He's a good-looking guy. Is he involved in politics? He seems to go to Washington a lot." "Well, it's like this," Melinda explained. "There's a lot of Old Money in Moose County, and Alex steers campaign donations to friendly pols. He loves the importance it gives him in the Capitol and at Washington parties. Have you met any other Goodwinters?" "Junior at the newspaper, for one. He's a bright kid, and he majored in journalism, but he's wasted at the Picayune. It looks like an antebellum weekly. I told him he's got to get the classified ads off the front page." "I hear that cousin Amanda is going to redecorate your garage apartment. Did she kick you in the shins or just call you a twelve-letter word?" "I don't understand how that woman stays in business. She has the personality of a hedgehog." "She has a captive clientele. There's no other decorator within four hundred miles." They could talk freely. Their booth was an island of privacy in a maelstrom of ear-splitting noise. The animated conversation of happy diners and the excited shrieks of children bounced off the steel girders and concrete walls, and the din was augmented by the Tasty Eats custom of pounding the table with knife handles to express satisfaction with the food.

  The waiter was deferential. Melinda was not only a Goodwinter; she was a doctor. He brought a lighted candle to the table-a red stub in a smoky glass left over from Christmas. He persuaded the kitchen to broil two orders of pickerel without breading, and he found a few robust leaves of spinach to add to the sickly salad greens.

  Qwilleran said to Melinda, "I wish you would do me a favor and explain the Goodwinter mystique." "It's simple," she said. "We've been here for five generations. My great-great-grandfather was an engineer and surveyor. His four sons made fortunes in the mines. Most speculators grabbed their money and went to live abroad, so their daughters could marry titles, but the Goodwinters stayed here, always in business or the professions." "Too bad none of them ever opened a good restaurant. Are there any black sheep in the family?" "Occasionally, but they're always persuaded to move to Mexico or change their name." "Change it to Mull, I suppose." Melinda gave him an inquiring glance. "You've heard about the Mulls? That's an unfortunate social problem. They worked in the mines a hundred years ago, and their descendants have lived on public assistance for the last three generations. They lack motivation-drop out of school — can't find jobs." "Where did they emigrate from originally?" "I don't know, but they were miners when the pay was a dollar and a half a day. They worked with candles in their caps and had to buy their own candles from the company store. The miners were exploited by the companies and by the saloons. You can read about
it in the public library." "Did any of the Mulls ever break out of the rut?" "The young ones often leave town, and no one ever hears about them again — or cares. There's a lot of poverty and unemployment here. Also a lot of inherited wealth. Have you noticed the cashmeres at Scottie's Men's Store and the rocks at Diamond Jim's Jewelry? Moose County also has more private planes per capita than any other county in the state." "What are they used for?" "Mostly convenience. Commercial airlines have to route passengers in roundabout ways through hub cities. My dad flew his own plane before he became diabetic. Alex Goodwinter has a plane. The Lanspeaks have two — his and hers." Melinda bribed the waiter to find some fresh fruit for dessert, and after coffee Qwilleran said, "Let's go to my place. I'd like to show you my graffiti." Melinda brightened, and she batted her long lashes. "The evening begins to show promise." They drove both cars to the K mansion, and she asked if she might park the silver convertible in the garage. "It would be recognized in the driveway," she explained, "and people would talk." "Melinda, haven't you heard? This is the last quarter of the twentieth century." "Yes, but this is Pickax," she said with raised eyebrows.

  "Sorry." When Qwilleran escorted his guest upstairs to the servants' quarters, she walked into the jungle of daisies in a state of bedazzlement. "Ye gods! This is stupendous! Who did it?" "A former housemaid. One of the Mulls. Worked for Amanda before she came here." "Oh; that one! I guess she was a one-woman disaster at the studio. Amanda fired her for pilfering." "After doing these murals she left town," Qwilleran said. "I hope she found a way to use her talent." "It's really fantastic! It's hard to believe it was done by Daisy Mull." "Daisy?" Qwilleran echoed in astonishment. "Did you: say Daisy Mull?" A melody ran through his mind, and he wondered if he should mention it. Previously he had hinted to Melinda about Koko's extrasensory perception, but a piano-playing cat seemed too radical a concept to share even with a broadminded M.D.

  "You've never met Koko and Yum Yum," he said. "Let's go over to the house." When he conducted his guest into the amber-toned foyer, she gazed in wonder. "I had no idea the Klingenschoens owned such fabulous things!" "Penelope knew. Didn't she ever tell you?" "Penelope would consider it gossip." "The rosewood-and-ormolu console is Louis XV," Qwilleran mentioned with authority. "The clock is a Burnap. Koko is usually sitting on the staircase to screen arriving visitors, but this is his night off." Melinda commented on everything. The sculptured plaster ceilings looked like icing on a wedding cake. The life-size marble figures of Adam and Eve in the solarium had a posture defect caused by a calcium deficiency, she said. The Staffordshire dogs in the breakfast room were good examples of concomitant convergent strabismus.

  "Want to see the service area?" Qwilleran asked. "The cats often hang out in the kitchen." Yum Yum was lounging on her blue cushion on top of the refrigerator, and Melinda stroked her fur adoringly. "Softer than ermine," she said.

  Koko was conspicuously absent, however. "He could be upstairs, sleeping in the middle of a ten-thousand-dollar four- poster-bed," Qwilleran said. "He has fine taste. Let's go up and see." While he hunted for the cat, Melinda inspected the suites furnished in French, Biedermeier, Empire, and Chippendale.

  Koko was not to be found.

  Qwilleran was beginning to show his nervousness. "I don't know where he can be. Let's check the library. He likes to sleep on the bookshelves." He ran downstairs, followed by Melinda, but there was no sign of the cat in any of his favorite places — not behind the biographies, not between the volumes of Shakespeare, not on top of the atlas.

  "Then he's got to be in the basement." The English pub had been imported from London, paneling and all, and it was a gloomy subterranean hideaway." They turned on all the lights and searched the bar, the backbar, and the shadows.

  No Koko!

  5

  Frantically Qwilleran scoured the premises for the missing Koko, with Melinda tagging along and offering encouragement.

  "He'll be in one of four places," he told her. "A soft surface, or a warm spot, or a high perch, or inside something." None of these locations produced anything resembling a cat. Calling his name repeatedly, they peered under sofas and beds, behind armoires and bookcases, and into drawers, cupboards, and closets.

  Qwilleran dashed about with increasing alarm, looking in the refrigerator, the oven, the washer, the dryer, then the oven again.

  "Slow down, Qwill. You're stressing." Melinda put a hand on his arm. "We'll find him. He's around here somewhere.

  You know how cats are." "He's got to be in the house… unless… you know, the back door can't be locked. Someone could come in and snatch him. Or he might have eaten something poisonous and crawled away in a comer." Melinda, wandering in aimless search, stepped into the back entry and called, "What's this stairway? Where does it go?" "What stairway? I never noticed any stairway back there." Hidden by the broom closet and closed off by a door that latched poorly, it was the servants' stairs to the second floor- a narrow flight with rubberized treads. Qwilleran bounded to the top, followed by Melinda, and they emerged in a hallway with a series of doors. Two doors stood ajar. One opened into a walk-in linen closet. The second gave access to another flight of ascending stairs, wide but un- finished and dusty. "The attic!" Qwilleran exclaimed. "It was supposed to be a ballroom. Never finished." Flipping wall switches, he scrambled to the top, sneezing. Melinda ventured up the stairs cautiously, shielding her mouth and nose with her hand.

  The staircase ended in a large storage room illuminated faintly by fading daylight through evenly spaced windows and by eight low-wattage light bulbs dangling from the ceiling.

  Qwilleran called the cat's name, but there was no answer. "If he's up here, how will we find him among all this junk?" The space was littered with boxes, trunks, cast-off furniture, framed pictures, rolls of carpet, and stacks of old National Geographics.

  "He could be asleep, or sick, or worse," he said.

  "Could we lure him out with a treat?" Melinda suggested.

  "There's a can of lobster in the food pantry. Open it and bring it up." When she had run downstairs, Qwilleran stood still and listened. The floorboards had stopped creaking. The hum of traffic on Main Street seemed far away He held his breath. He could hear a familiar sound. What was it? He strained to listen. It was scratching — the whisper of claws gliding over a smooth surface. He followed the sound noiselessly.

  There, in a far comer of the attic, stood a large carton, and Koko was on top of it with his hind end elevated and his front assembly stretched forward as he scratched industriously.

  "Koko! What are you doing up here?" Qwilleran demanded in the consternation that followed his unnecessary panic.

  Then a prickling sensation on his upper lip caused him to investigate the scene of the action. A corrugated carton that had once contained a shipment of paper towels was tied with twine and labeled with a tag on which was a name in excellent handwriting: Daisy Mull.

  By the time Melinda returned with the lobster, Qwilleran had untied the carton and was tossing out articles of clothing.

  "This is astonishing!" he shouted over his shoulder. "There's something important about this box, or Koko wouldn't have found it." Out of the carton came a musty-smelling jacket of fake fur in black and white stripes unknown to any animal species, along with a woolly stocking hat that had once been white and a pair of high red boots with ratty fur trim. There were faded flannel shirts, well-worn jeans, two maid's uniforms, and a sweatshirt printed with the message: TRY ME. A small item wrapped in a wad of newspaper proved to be an ivory elephant with Amanda's studio label on the bottom of the teakwood base.

  Qwilleran said, "Obviously she went south when she cleared out — to some climate where she wouldn't need winter clothing. Probably California. Dreamers always head for California, don't they? And she left her uniforms behind, so she didn't plan a career as a domestic." "But why would she leave the elephant? If she liked it enough to steal it, wouldn't she like it enough to take it along?

  You can tell it's valuable." "Smart
question," Qwilleran said as he piled the clothing back into the carton. "You take the elephant; I'll carry Koko — if I can find him. Where did he go?" Having finished the can of lobster, the cat was cleaning his mask, whiskers, ears, paws, chest, underside, and tail.

  "Either he was trying to tell us something about Daisy Mull," Qwilleran said, "or he thought of a sneaky way to get an extra meal." The three of them returned to the main floor, carefully closing the door to the attic stairs. It immediately popped open.

  "That's typical of old buildings," Qwilleran complained. "The doors never fit properly. There are too many places for an inquisitive animal to get lost." "He wasn't lost," Melinda said with a smug smile. "It's simply that you couldn't find him." "For that astute observation you'll be rewarded with a nightcap. Would you like Scotch, bourbon, white grape juice, a split of champagne? I also have beer, in case Penelope's maintenance man ever shows up to fix the doors." "What are you drinking?" "Club soda with a twist." "I'll have a split." Qwilleran carried the tray of drinks into the library and slipped the ivory elephant into a desk drawer. "Would you enjoy some music? There's a prehistoric stereo here, and an odd assortment of records that you could use for paving a patio.

  This house came equipped with seven television sets, and I'd like to trade in six of them for a new music system." "Don't you like TV?" "I'm a print man. The printed word does more for me than the small screen." After some grinding and humming and a loud clunk the record changer produced some romantic zither music, and they sat on the blood red leather sofa that Qwilleran had recently shared with Penelope Goodwinter, but there was no briefcase between them and considerably less space.

  He said, "Koko has an uncanny talent for finding objects of significance. I don't usually mention it because the average person wouldn't believe it, but I feel I can confide in you." "Any time," Melinda said with an agreeable inflection in her voice.