The Cat Who Played Post Office tcw-6 Read online

  "It's good to have a confidante." His mournful eyes met her inviting green gaze and the world stood still, but the magic moment was interrupted by a simulated catfight in the foyer. Qwilleran huffed into his moustache, and Melinda sipped her champagne and looked at the three walls of bookshelves.

  "Nice library," she said. "Yes. Good bindings." "Mostly classics, I suppose." "It appears so." "Did the Klingenschoens read these?" "I doubt it… Melinda, did you ever see Daisy Mull? What did she look like?" "Hmmm… tiny… reddish hair… pouty mouth. Daisy was quite visible in Pickax. She and her girlfriend used to stand outside the music store and giggle when cars tooted their horns, Her clothes were flashy by Pickax standards, but that was a few years ago. Things have changed. Today even the middle-aged women in Pickax have given up lavender sweater sets and basket bags." Qwilleran draped an arm over the back of the sofa, musing that a firm, shiny, slippery upholstery left something to be desired. A loungy, down-filled, velvety sofa would be more seductive; at least, that had been his experience in the past.

  "Why did you name your cats Koko and Yum Yum?" Melinda asked. "Are you a Savoyard?" "Not especially, although I like Gilbert and Sullivan, and in college I sang in The Mikado." "You're an interesting man, Qwill. You've lived every, where and done everything." He groomed his moustache self-consciously, "It helps you've been around as long as I have. You've always dated young squirts from medical school." "Not true! I'm always attracted to older men. Eyelids with a middle-aged droop turn me on." He leaned closer to add champagne to her glass. There was a sense of pleasurable propinquity, and then the tall case clock started to bong eleven times and Koko walked into the library. Walking with a stiff-legged gait and tail at attention, he looked at the pair on the sofa and uttered an imperious "YOW!" "Hello, Koko," Melinda replied. "Are you and I going to be friends?" Without a reply he turned and left the scene, and a moment later they heard another insistent howl. "Something's wrong," Qwilleran said. "Excuse me." He followed the cat and found him in the vestibule, staring at the front door.

  "Sorry, Koko. Wrong time of day. The mail comes in the afternoon." Returning to the library, Qwilleran explained the cats' obsession with the mail slot. Casually he was maneuvering to resume the intimate mood that had been interrupted, when Koko stalked into the room a second time. Looking sternly at Melinda, he said, "nyik nyik nyik YOW!" And again I he marched to the front door.

  "Does he want to go out?" "No, he's an indoor cat." "He has a noble face, hasn't he?" She glanced at her watch.

  "Siamese are a noble breed." The third time Koko made his entrance, scolding and glaring at the guest, she said, "He's trying to tell me something." She jumped up and trailed after the determined animal, who plodded resolutely toward the front of the house, stopping at intervals and looking back to be sure she was following. In the vestibule he stared pointedly at the door handle.

  "Qwill, I believe he's telling me to go home." "This is embarrassing, Melinda." "That's okay. I have the early shift at the clinic tomorrow." "My apology! He likes the lights turned out at eleven. Next time we'll lock him up somewhere." "Next time," she corrected him, "we'll go to my place — if you don't mind sitting on the floor. I don't have any furniture yet. Only a bed," she added with a sidelong glance. "How soon is next time?" "After the medical conference. When I come back from Paris I'm leaving the Mooseville clinic. I'm tired of taking fishhooks out of tourists' backsides." "What do you plan to do?" "Join my father's office in Pickax." "I'll be your first patient. Can you check cholesterol, heart, and all that?" "You'll be surprised what I can do!" She threw him another of her provocative green-eyed glances.

  Qwilleran escorted Melinda to her silver convertible parked discreetly in the garage — not a bad idea, as it turned out.

  When she finally drove away, he walked back to the house with a buoyant step and found Koko waiting for him with a smug look of accomplishment.

  "You're not as smart as you think you are," Qwilleran said to him, preening his moustache with satisfaction.

  Early the next morning he walked downtown to Amanda's studio to order a sofa. The crotchety designer was out on a house call, but a friendly young assistant produced some catalogues of contemporary furniture. Within five minutes Qwilleran had ordered a slouchy sofa in rust-colored suede, a brown lounge chair and ottoman, and some reading lamps — for his new studio.

  "You have good taste," the assistant said, "and I've never seen a client make such speedy decisions. I'd love to your carriage house when it's finished." "And what is your name?" he asked.

  "Francesca Brodie. My father knows you — by reputation, that is. He's the police chief. Aren't you sort of a detective?" "I like to solve puzzles, that's all," Qwilleran said. "Did you ever know a Daisy Mull who worked here?" "No, I've only been here four months." For the next two days Qwilleran spent most of his time answering the letters that came shooting through the mail slot in great number, much to the delight of the Siamese. Koko personally delivered an envelope addressed in red ink, and he was not surprised that it came from a building in which they had recently lived.

  The letter was written by another tenant, a young woman who used to speak French to Koko and who was subject to problems with weight and problems with men. She wrote:

  Dear Qwill, Arch Riker gave me your address. Congratulations in striking oil. We miss you.

  Want to hear my good news? I'm dating a chef now, and he's not married — or so he says. The bad news is that I've gained ten pounds. I'm still hacking copy at the ad agency, but I'd kill to get into the restaurant business. If you'd like to open a restaurant in Pickax, let me know. Have chef; will travel. Say bon jour to Koko.

  Hixie Rice

  Other letters arrived faster than Qwilleran could poke out answers on his old typewriter. The telephone rang constantly. And there were other interruptions, as when a young man in white coveralls suddenly appeared at the door of the library, carrying a six-pack of diet cola.

  "Hi!" he said. "Mind if I put this in your fridge? This is a big job. Lots of spackling and patching and scraping, and some of the woodwork's bleeding." He had the wholesome look of a Moose County native, raised on bushels of apples, milk right from the cow, vegetables from the garden, and unlimited fresh air.

  "I assume you're a painter employed by Amanda Goodwinter," Qwilleran said.

  "Yeah, I'm Steve. She's always telling people I'm slow, but I do good work. My grandfather worked on this house when the Old Lady was alive. He showed me how to paint without laps or drips or sags or pimples. Hey, do you really live in this joint? I live in a mobile home on my father-in-law's farm." There were other reasons for Qwilleran' s discontent. Mrs. Cobb had not arrived. There was no sign of anyone to fix the doors. Melinda had left for Paris. And an exasperating melody kept running through his mind: Daisy, Daisy.

  Then a schoolteacher he had met in Mooseville telephoned and said, "Hi, Qwill, this is Roger. How does it feel to be filthy rich?" "Arduous, frustrating, and annoying-so far. But give me another week to get used to it. How's everything at the lake?" "Oh, you know…lots of tourists and happy merchants." "Is business good at your wife's shop?" "Not bad, but she puts in long hours. Say, want to meet me for dinner somewhere tonight? Sharon's working late." "Sure. Why don't you drive down here to the Bastille?" Qwilleran suggested. "I'll give you a conducted tour of the dungeons and pour you a drink. Then we can find a restaurant." "Great! I'd like to see inside that rockpile. We can eat at the Hotel Booze." "That's a new one to me." "Oldest flophouse in the county. They have a twelve-ounce bacon cheeseburger with fries that's the greatest!" Roger MacGillivray, whose Scottish name appealed to Qwilleran, arrived in the early evening. He was a young man with a clipped black beard and vigorous opinions, and he exclaimed about the size of the rooms, the number of windows, the height of the ceilings, and the extent of the property. "It'll cost an arm and a leg to maintain this place," he predicted.

  "Who's going to clean all those windows and dust all those books?" "The landscape service alone cost
s more than I earned at the Daily Fluxion," Qwilleran informed him. "There's always a green truck in the driveway and a guy in a green jumpsuit riding around on a little green tractor." He poured Scotch for his guest and white grape juice for himself, and they sat in the big wicker chairs in the solarium.

  Roger stared at Qwilleran's stemmed glass. "What are you drinking?" "Catawba grape juice. Koko likes it, so I bought a case of it." "You really pamper that animal." Roger glanced around apprehensively. "Where is he? I'm not comfortable with cats." Koko, hearing his name, sauntered into the solarium and positioned himself in Roger's view.

  "He won't bother you," Qwilleran said. "He enjoys listening to our conversation, that's all. He likes the tone of your voice." Koko moved a little closer. "Who looks after these rubber plants, Qwill? They look healthier than I do." "The green jumpsuit comes in and sticks a meter in the soil and takes a reading," Qwilleran said. "The whole horticultural scene is too esoteric for me. I've spent all my life in apartments and hotels." "I think your gardener is Kevin Doone, a former student of mine. He goes to Princeton now and does gardening during summer vacation. You've got a pretty good-sized lot." "Half a block wide and half a mile long, I estimate. There's an orchard back there and an old barn that would make a good summer theater." Roger gripped the arms of his chair. "Why is he looking at me like that?" "Koko wants to be friends. Say something to him." "Hello, Koko," Roger said in a weak voice.

  The cat blinked his eyes shut and emitted a squeaky, nonthreatening "ik ik ik." "He's smiling," Qwilleran said. "He likes you…

  How's your mother-in-law, Roger?" "She's fine. She's gung ho. about a new craft project now — designing things with a Moose County theme, for Sharon to sell in her shop. Pot holders and toys and stuff. The idea is to have the Dimsdale women make them by hand — sort of a cottage industry. She wanted to get a grant from the state, but there was too much red tape. Besides that, the people in Dimsdale don't want to work. Do you know that place?" "I've seen the remains of the Dimsdale Mine, " Qwilleran said, "and I've eaten at the decrepit diner at the intersection, but I thought it was mainly a ghost town." "Officially Dimsdale doesn't exist, but there's a bunch of shanties back in the woods — squatters, you know. In fact, I think they're on Klingenschoen property, your property. You'd never believe it, Qwill, but a hundred years ago Dimsdale was a thriving town with hotels, a sawmill, housing for miners, stores, even a doctor." "You know a lot about local history, Roger." "I ought to! That's what I teach… Say, he's a good-looking animal, isn't he? Very well behaved." "His real name is Kao K'o Kung. He was named after a thirteenth-century Chinese artist." Knowing he was the topic of conversation, Koko casually ambled over to Roger's chairside.

  "If you've never stroked a Siamese," Qwilleran said, "you don't know what fur is all about." Cautiously Roger extended a hand and patted the silky fawn-colored back. "Good boy!" he said. "Good boy!" The cat looked at Qwilleran, slowly closing one eye, and Qwilleran thought, Score another one for Koko.

  The two men finished their drinks and then drove from the palatial splendor of the K mansion to the stolid ugliness of the Hotel Booze. It was a stone building three stories high, with the plain shoebox architecture typical of hotels in pioneer towns. A sign, almost as big as the hotel itself, advertised booze, rooms, and food.

  "In this hotel," Roger said, "a miner could get a man-sized dinner and a bed on the floor for a quarter, using his boots for a pillow, or a sack of oats if he was lucky." The dim lighting in the dining room camouflaged the dreary walls and ancient linoleum floor and worn plastic tables.

  Nevertheless, the room hummed with the talk of customers wearing feed caps and wolfing down burgers and beer.

  Qwilleran tried three chairs before finding one with all its legs and rungs. "I'll have the Cholesterol Special," he told the waitress, a homey-looking woman in a faded housedress.

  "Make it two, Thelma," said Roger.

  The sandwich proved to be so enormous that she served it with her thumb on top of the bun to hold it all together.

  "We call her Thumbprint Thelma," Roger whispered. Qwilleran had to admit that the burger was superior and the fries tasted like actual potatoes. "Okay, Roger, how about a history lesson to take my mind off the calories? Tell me about the abandoned mines around here." "There were ten of them in the old days — all major operations. Shafts went a thousand feet deep, and the miners had to climb down on a ladder! After a long day underground, with water dripping all around, it took half an hour to climb back up to the surface." "Like climbing a hundred-story building! They must have been desperate for work." "Most of them came from Europe — left their families behind — and hoped to send money home. But — what with payday binges at the saloon and buying on credit at the company store — they were always in hock." Thelma brought coffee, and Roger — without much difficulty — persuaded Qwilleran to try the wild thimbleberry pie.

  "Picked the berries myself this morning," the waitress said.

  The men savored each forkful in the reverent silence that the pie merited and ordered second cups of coffee.

  Qwilleran said, "I suppose the old saloons had gambling in the back room and girls upstairs." "Right! And a bizarre sense of fun. When a customer drank too much and passed out, his pals carried him outside and nailed his boots to the wooden sidewalk. And there was always an old soak hanging around the saloon who would do anything for a drink. One of these characters used to eat poison ivy. Another would bite the head off a live chipmunk." "This isn't the best dinner-table conversation I've ever heard, Roger." "I'm telling it like it was! The K Saloon was notorious." "Is that what you teach in your history classes?" "Well, it grabs their attention. The kids eat it up!" Qwilleran was silent for a moment before he asked, "Did you ever have a student by the name of Daisy Mull?" "No, she dropped out before I started teaching, but my mother-in-law had her in art class. She said Daisy was the only Mull who would ever amount to anything — if she applied herself. She was kind of goofy." Qwilleran told him about the graffiti — then about his plans for a studio over the garage — and then about his search for a housekeeper.

  "How do you figure you'll adjust to a live-in housekeeper?" Roger asked him. "I suppose it's like having a wife, without the fringe benefits." "Speak for yourself, Roger." "Are you getting along okay with GandG?" "So far, so good. Penelope is the one handling the estate. I haven't figured her out yet." "She's the bright one in the family. What do you think of her brother?" "Alexander hasn't been around much. He's gone to Washington again." Roger lowered his voice. "There's a rumor he's got a woman down there. If he's serious, it's big news. Alex has always been a confirmed bachelor." "Is Penelope involved with anyone?" "Why? Are you interested?" "No thanks. I've got all I can handle at the moment." "She never bothers with guys," Roger said. "Strictly careerist. Too bad. She's really got it together." Qwilleran picked up the check and paid the cashier on the way out. She was a large woman in a patterned muumuu splashed with oversize black-eyed Susans. Qwilleran found himself whistling Daisy, Daisy.

  Instantly the hubbub in the dining room dissolved into silence, and the cashier wagged a finger at Qwilleran. "That's a no-no." She pointed to a sign over the cash register: No credit. No checks. No spitting. No whistling.

  "Sorry," Qwilleran said.

  "It's bad luck," Roger explained. "It used to be considered unlucky to whistle in the mines, and the superstition stuck.

  There's no whistling in Pickax — by city ordinance.

  6

  He had never been much of a whistler, but as soon as Qwilleran learned that whistling was forbidden in Pickax he felt a compulsion to whistle. As he prepared the cats' breakfast he whistled an air from The Mikado causing Koko to twist his ears inside out and run into the back entry hall. Yum Yum went slinking into the laundry room and crouched behind their commode.

  The cats' commode was an oval roasting pan containing a layer of kitty gravel-an unorthodox but substantial piece of equipment that worked well. Their water dish was an lmari porcelain bo
wl that Qwilleran had found in the butler's pantry.

  Their food he arranged on a porcelain dinner plate with a wide blue and gold border-appropriate because the border matched the ineffable blue of Yum Yum's eyes, and because the gold-embellished crest bore a K.

  Qwilleran put a plate of canned red salmon on the floor in the laundry room and called the cats. Yum Yum reported immediately, but there was no response from Koko. "Drat him! He's gone up to the attic again," Qwilleran muttered. It was true. The door to the attic stairs stood ajar, and Koko was on the third floor, sharpening his claws on a roll of carpet.

  Qwilleran made a lunge for him, but the cat eluded his grasp and bounded to the top of an Art Nouveau chifforobe, where he assumed a challenging posture. Then it was an insane chase around the dusty storeroom — Koko streaking over a General Grant bed, under a bowlegged Chinese table, around a barricade of steamer trunks, with Qwilleran breathing heavily in stubborn pursuit.

  Koko finally allowed himself to be caught, while crouching defiantly on a cheap cardboard suitcase patterned to resemble tweed. Qwilleran's moustache sent him a signal: another item of significance! He grabbed an unprotesting cat in one hand and the suitcase in the other and descended to the kitchen, where Yum Yum was washing up after finishing the whole can of salmon.

  Attached to the broken handle of the luggage there was a tag written in the perfect penmanship he had seen before: Daisy Mull. The contents had the same musty odor he remembered from opening her carton of winter clothing. This time the collection included sandals, T-shirts, cutoffs, a faded sundress, underpants dotted with red hearts, and the briefest of swimsuits.

  Qwilleran could explain why the girl had abandoned her cold-weather gear, but why had she left her summer wearabIes as well? Perhaps she had lined up a situation that would provide an entirely new wardrobe — either a job or a generous patron. Perhaps a tourist from some other part of the country had come up here and staked her to a getaway — for better or worse. Qwilleran wished the poor girl well.