The Cat Who Went Into the Closet Read online

  Everything on the checklist was accounted for, with one exception: Hixie’s cuecard. He unpacked the three cases, thinking it might have slipped in accidentally, but it was not there. He remembered gluing the cuesheet on a card in the newspaper office; could he have left it there? He phoned Riker.

  “You took it when we went to lunch,” Riker said. “I saw it in your hand.”

  “Go and see if it’s still in the car,” Qwilleran said urgently. “And hurry! We have a show in half an hour! I’ll hold.” While holding he appraised the calamitous situation. How could Hixie operate the sound system and lighting without her cuecard? There were six cues for music, eight for voices, five for lights—all numbered to correlate with digits on the stereo counter. With more experience she might be able to wing it, but this was only their second performance.

  Riker’s search of the car was fruitless. Without even a thank you Qwilleran banged down the receiver and returned to the ballroom, where he paced the floor and looked wildly about the four walls.

  The Siamese watched his frantic gyrations calmly, sitting on their briskets and wearing expressions of supreme innocence.

  Their very pose was suspect. “Did you devils steal the card?” he shouted at them.

  The thunder of his voice frightened them into flight.

  Now he knew! It was the glue! He had used rubber cement, and Koko had a passion for adhesives.

  In desperation Qwilleran figured it would take twenty minutes to drive to the school, nine minutes to set up; that left eleven minutes to find the cuecard in a fifteen-room house with fifty closets, all of which looked like dumpsters. Impossible!

  Take it easy, he told himself; sit down and think; if I were a cat, where would I . . . ?

  He dashed upstairs to the kitchen. It was their bailiwick, and the six-foot table was a private baldachin sheltering their dinner plate, water dish, and Koko’s closet treasures. Among them was the cuecard with two perforations in one corner.

  Muttering words the Siamese had never heard, Qwilleran raced back downstairs and repacked the equipment while keeping one eye on his watch. He was cutting it close. He had to drive to the school, find the right entrance, unload the suitcases, carry them to the gym, set up the stage, test the speakers, focus the lights, change clothes, and get into character as a twentieth-century radio announcer in a nineteenth-century situation. Hixie would be waiting for him, worried sick and unable to do anything until he arrived with the equipment.

  He exceeded the speed limit on Sandpit Road and parked at the front entrance where a yellow curb prohibited parking. As he was opening the trunk of the car, a short, stocky man in a baggy business suit came running from the building, followed by a big, burly student in a varsity jacket.

  “Mr. Qwilleran! Mr. Qwilleran!” the man called out.

  “We thought you’d forgotten us! I’m Mr. Broadnax, the principal. This is Mervyn, our star linebacker. He’ll carry your suitcases. It’s a long walk to the gym.”

  The three of them hustled into the building and walked rapidly down one long corridor after another, and all the while the principal was saying, “Will it take you long to set up? Mervyn will help. Just tell him what to do . . . The classes change in eight minutes. Everyone’s looking forward to this. Lyle Compton raved about it . . . Don’t give up! We’re almost there. The custodian built a special platform. Is there anything you need? Is there anything I can do?”

  Qwilleran thought, Yes, shut up and let me figure out how to set up in eight minutes.

  “Is Miss Rice going to be here today?” the principal asked.

  “Is she going to be here? She’s half the show! Hasn’t she arrived? I can’t go on without her!” Qwilleran’s forehead started to perspire profusely. What could have happened to her? Why hadn’t she phoned? He’d give her ten minutes. Then he’d have to cancel. It would be embarrassing.

  They finally arrived at the gym—Mr. Broadnax chattering and waving his arms, Mervyn lugging the three suitcases, Qwilleran mopping his brow. The custodian had constructed a platform—rough wood, three feet high, plywood surface supported by two-by-fours and reached by a short flight of wooden steps at the rear. On it were two small folding tables and two folding chairs.

  “Now, is everything all right?” asked Mr. Broadnax. “Are the tables big enough? Would you like larger ones from the library? Mervyn will bring them in . . . Mervyn, go to the library—”

  “No! No! These are fine,” Qwilleran said absently. He was worrying about other things.

  “Shall we help you unpack? Where do you want the tripods? Do you need a mike? We have a good PA system . . . Mervyn, get Mr.—”

  “No! No! I don’t need a mike.” He pointed to a door behind the stage. “Where does that lead? I need a door for entrances and exits.”

  “That’s a tackroom for gym equipment. It’s locked, but I’ll get the key . . . Mervyn, go to the office and bring me the key to the tackroom. Hep!”

  Mervyn plunged out of the gym like a linebacker blitzing a quarterback. Meanwhile, Qwilleran mounted the shaky steps to position the furniture and speakers. The floor of the stage, he discovered, bounced like a trampoline. Walking gingerly, he placed the speakers at the front corners of the stage, beamed the two spotlights on the announcer’s table, and situated the engineer’s table at one side so that Hixie—if she ever arrived—would have more stability underfoot. Where, he asked himself, could she possibly be? Glancing frequently at his watch, he tested the two speakers, tested the two lights (one white, one red), and tested his own voice.

  Just as Mervyn returned with the key to the tackroom, a bell rang, and there was instant tumult in the hall.

  “May we stall a few minutes?” Qwilleran asked the principal. “I don’t know what’s happened to my partner. I’m seriously concerned.”

  The uproar in the hall grew louder, like the roar of a rampaging river when the dam has broken. The double doors burst open, and a flood of noisy students surged into the gym. The two men went into a huddle behind the stage.

  “I can’t do the show alone. We’ll be obliged to cancel,” Qwilleran said.

  “Could you just give the students a talk about the fire and answer questions?”

  “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Maybe a talk on journalism as a career choice.”

  “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cancel, Mr. Broadnax.”

  At that moment a side door was flung open, and a distraught Hixie rushed on the scene. “Qwill, you’ll never believe what happened!”

  “I don’t want to know,” he snapped. “Everything’s been tested. Get up there and take over. Walk carefully. The floor bounces.” He ducked into the tackroom, leaving the door ajar in order to hear his cues.

  The principal was saying, “These people from the newspaper have come out here to present an exciting show for you, and I want you to give them your complete and courteous attention. There will be no talking during the program and no moving around!”

  Great! Qwilleran thought; they hate us already, and they’re going to be bored out of their skulls; I should have brought a guitar.

  Mr. Broadnax went on. “The show is about a radio broadcast during a great forest fire in 1869, when your great-great-great-grandparents were alive. It’s all make-believe, because radio hadn’t been invented in those days. I want you to sit quietly and pretend you’re the studio audience.”

  The students became miraculously quiet. A moment later they erupted in cheers and whistles as Hixie, a young and attractive woman, mounted the platform and went to the engineer’s station.

  “Students!” came the sharp voice of the principal, and they were silenced as if by some secret weapon.

  After a few bars of “Anitra’s Dance,” Qwilleran emerged from the tackroom, climbed the shaky steps, and walked across the stage with knees bent to minimize the bounce. “We interrupt this program to bring you a bulletin . . .”

  Perhaps it was the size and magnificence of his moustache or the knowledge that this was
the richest man in the northeast central United States. Or perhaps Qwilleran did indeed have a compelling stage presence. Whatever it was, the young people in the bleachers were spellbound, and they were entranced by the other voices coming from the speakers, especially that of the old farmer. Fleeing the flames in a horse-drawn wagon, he had brought his family to safety in a lakeport town, where he was being interviewed by telephone.

  “Tell me, sir,” said the announcer, “is the fire consuming everything in its path?”

  “No,” said a parched and reedy voice, “it’s like the fire was playin’ leapfrog, jumpin’ right over one farm and burnin’ the next one down to the ground. I don’t know what the Lord is tryin’ to tell us! We picked up one ol’ feller wanderin’ around, blind as a bat. Didn’t even know where he was! His clothes, they was all burned off. He was stark naked and black as a piece o’ coal. We sure had a wagonload when we come into town. We was lucky. They was all alive. Some wagons came into town full o’ corpses.”

  There were gasps and whimpers in the audience as flames were reported to be sweeping across the countryside and consuming whole villages. Suddenly red light filled the stage, and the announcer jumped to his feet.

  “Pickax is in flames!” he yelled. Knocking over his chair, he ran gasping and choking from the stage. In his panic he bounced the plywood floor, and both speakers fell over, facedown, while one leg of the folding table collapsed, sliding the telephone and mike to the floor.

  “Oh, God!” Qwilleran muttered as he dashed into the tackroom and slammed the door. How would Hixie set up the stage again? Would the audience consider it slapstick comedy? There was an excited uproar in the bleachers, rising above the crashing Tchaikovsky fire music. By opening the door an inch, Qwilleran thought, he could get an idea how Hixie was coping, but the door refused to open. He was locked in!

  “Oh, no!” He pounded on the panels with both fists, but the crescendo of the music and the student pandemonium drowned out his appeal for help. His face was already flushed by the emotion of the scene, and now he could hardly breathe in the airless, sweaty closet. He found a dumbbell and hammered on the door; no one heard. Soon the music would signal him to make his entrance, and if he failed to respond on cue, the tape would run out of music, and the disembodied voice of the Irish innkeeper would come from nowhere, answering questions that were not being asked—unless Hixie had the sense to stop the tape. But how would she know he was locked in?

  The music ended, and Hixie realized something was wrong; she pressed the button. The hubbub in the audience subsided. In the momentary silence, Qwilleran pounded on the door frantically with the dumbbell, bringing Mr. Broadnax with the key. It was an overheated but poised radio announcer who mounted the flimsy steps—to deafening applause.

  As the voice of the Irish innkeeper came from the speakers, the students were shocked to hear him say, “There’s plenty o’ sad tales they’re tellin’. One poor man tried to rescue his two children—both of them half suffocated—but he couldn’t carry both of the little ones because his right arm was burned off. Burned clean off, mind you! He had to choose between them, poor man!”

  When it was over, the performers took cautious bows to vociferous applause. Then the audience piled out of the gym, and Hixie said, “They loved it when everything fell over. They thought it was part of the show.”

  “Best program we’ve ever had!” the principal told them as they packed their gear. “Even the troublemakers liked it, especially the part where the man’s arm was burned off . . . Now, what can we do for you? Mervyn will carry your suitcases. Would you like a cold drink in our cafeteria?”

  Qwilleran and Hixie were both glad to get out of the building. “Okay, chum, what happened to you?” he asked peevishly.

  “You’ll never believe this,” she said. “I had lunch at Linguini’s, and the parking lot was full, so I parked in the weeds behind the restaurant. When I came out, it was getting chilly, so I put on the coat that was on the backseat. As soon as I pulled onto the open highway, I felt something crawling inside my sleeve. I screamed, ran the car off the road, and jumped out. At the same time a mouse ran out of my coat.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why you were so late,” he objected with a lack of sympathy.

  “I had to wait for a farmer to come with a tractor and pull me out of the ditch.”

  “Well . . . if you say so,” Qwilleran said dubiously. “But I’ll tell you one thing: I’ll never set foot on another platform unless I’ve personally tested it.”

  “And I’ll never park in the weeds behind Linguini’s again! Je le jure!”

  Upon returning home from Mooseland High School, Qwilleran’s first move was to phone Gary Pratt at the Black Bear Café. “Gary,” he said, “I’d like to run up there tomorrow afternoon and see where we’re going to present our show for the Outdoor Club. I don’t want any surprises Monday night.”

  “Sure thing. What time tomorrow?”

  “How about two o’clock?”

  “I’ll be here,” said the barkeeper. “There’s somebody I want you to meet, too—a nice little girl who comes in quite often.”

  “How little?”

  “Well, I mean, she’s in her twenties, but a heck of a lot smaller than your other farm girls around here. She has a problem you might be able to help her with.”

  “If it’s a financial problem, tell her to check with the Klingenschoen Foundation,” Qwilleran said. “I don’t get involved with anything like that. I’m lucky to be able to balance my checkbook.”

  “It’s nothing like that,” Gary said. “The thing of it is, it’s a family problem, and it sounds kind of fishy to me. I thought you might give her some advice.”

  Qwilleran said he would listen to her story. He had little interest in a young farm girl’s family problems, however. What really piqued his curiosity was the suicide of a woman with no apparent motive. He was glad when Junior phoned him on Friday morning.

  “Turn on the coffeemaker,” the young editor ordered. “I’ll be right there with some doughnuts from Lois’s. I have some things to report.”

  Lois’s doughnuts were freshly fried every morning, with no icing, no jelly, no chopped nuts—just old-fashioned fried cakes with a touch of nutmeg. The two men sat at the kitchen table, hugging coffee mugs and dipping into the doughnut bag.

  Qwilleran said, “I’ve figured out why nineteenth-century tycoons built big houses and had fourteen kids. Eight of them were girls and considered a total loss. Two of the sons died in infancy; another was killed while stopping a runaway horse; one was deported Down Below to avoid local scandal; one became a journalist, which was even worse—halfway between a cattle rustler and snake oil salesman. They were lucky to have one son left to run the family business.”

  “That’s just about what happened in the Gage family,” Junior said. “Grandpa was the last male heir.”

  “When did you get back from Florida?”

  “Around midnight. Almost missed the last shuttle out of Minneapolis.”

  “Did you get everything wrapped up?”

  “To tell the truth,” Junior said, “there wasn’t that much to do. Grandma had sold her car; the furniture went with the house; we gave her clothes to charity; and the only jewelry she had was seashells and white beads. She’d unloaded her good jewelry, antiques, and real estate early on, to simplify the probate of her will, she said. The only property she couldn’t dump was Lois’s broken-down building. If anyone bought it, the city would make them put in a new john, widen the front door, fix the roof, and bring the electricity up to code. Don Exbridge was interested in buying the building, but he’d want to tear it down, and the public would be outraged.”

  Qwilleran agreed. “There’d be rioting in the streets and class-action lawsuits.”

  “You know, Qwill,” said Junior, “I don’t care about getting a big inheritance from Grandma Gage, but it would be nice if she established an education trust for her great-grandchildren. Jack has two kids; Pug has three;
and Jody and I have one and seven-eighths, as of today.”

  “How is Jody feeling?”

  “She’s fine. We’re starting the countdown. It’s going to be a girl.”

  Qwilleran said, “Didn’t you tell me that your grandmother put all three of you through college?”

  “Yeah, my dad was broke. She despised him, so paying our tuition was a kind of put-down, not an act of generosity. At least, that’s what my mother told me.”

  “More coffee, Junior?”

  “Half a cup, and then I’ve got to get to the office. Golly, it’s good to be home! There were two things that sort of shocked me at the Park of Pink Sunsets. One was that the management will buy Grandma’s mobile home back again—for one-fourth of what she paid them for it! Wilmot advised me to accept the offer and cut my losses.”

  “What was the other shocker?”

  “Grandma had developed a passion for the greyhound races! Can you picture that sedate little old lady stepping up to the pari-mutuel window and putting two on number five in the sixth?”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Her neighbor, the one who found the body.”

  “Did you talk much with her?”

  “She wanted to gab, but I didn’t have time. I just wanted to get home to my family and my job.”

  Qwilleran patted his moustache thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking, Junior, that I could write an interesting profile of Euphonia Gage. There are plenty of people around here who knew her and would like to reminisce. I could also phone her neighbor at the mobile home park. What’s her name?”

  “Robinson. Celia Robinson.”

  “Will she be willing to talk?”