The cat who knew a cardi.., p.1
The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal, page 1
THE CAT WHO KNEW A CARDINAL
LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN
-1-
September promised to be a quiet month in Moose County, that summer vacation paradise 400 miles north of everywhere. After labor Day the tourists returned to urban turmoil in the cities Down Below; the black fly season ended; children went reluctantly back to school; and everyday life cranked down to its normal, sleepy pace. This year the siesta was short-lived, however. Within a week the community was jolted by news of the Orchard Incident, as it was headlined by the local newspaper.
Prior to the Orchard Incident there was only one item of scandal on the gossip circuit in Pickax City, the county seat (population 3,000). Jim Qwilleran, semi-retired journalist and heir to the vast Klingenschoen fortune, was living in a barn! An apple barn! Oh, well, the townfolk conceded with shrugs and wagging heads, Mr. Q was entitled to a few eccentricities, being the richest man in the county and a free-wheeling philanthropist.
"Apple barn's better'n a pig barn," they chortled over coffee mugs in the cafes. After four years they had become accustomed to the sight of Mr. Q's oversize moustache with its melancholy droop. They no longer questioned the unorthodox W in the spelling of Qwilleran. And most of them now accepted the fact that the middle-aged divorced bachelor chose to live alone—with two cats.
Actually the facts were these: After twenty-five years of chasing the news in the capitals of the United States and Europe, Qwilleran had succumbed to the attractions of rural living, and he was captivated by barns, particularly an octagonal structure on the Klingenschoen property. The hundred-year-old fieldstone foundation was still intact, and its shingled siding was weathered to a silvery gray. Rising majestically as high as a four-story building, it overlooked a field of grotesque skeletons—the tortured remains of what was once a thriving apple orchard. Now it was of interest only to birds, including one that whistled an inquisitive who-it? who-it? who-it?
Qwilleran had first discovered the barn during his rambles about the Klingenschoen estate, which extended from the main thoroughfare of Pickax to Trevelyan Road, almost a half mile distant. The mansion of the notorious Klingenschoens, facing Main Street, had been converted into a theatre for stage productions, with the extensive gardens in the rear paved for parking. Beyond was a high, ornamental fence of wrought iron. Then came a dense patch of woods that concealed the barn and the orchard. After that, the lane leading to Trevelyan Road was hardly more than a dirt trail, winding through overgrown pastureland and past the foundations of old cottages once occupied by tenant farmers. If anyone remembered the lane at all, it was known as Trevelyan Trail. At the end of it an outsize, rural mailbox on a post was identified with the letter Q.
Originally the barn had been used for storing apples, pressing cider, and making apple butter. In recent years, all that remained was a wealth of empty space rising cathedral-like to the octagonal roof. Drastic renovation was required to make it habitable, but after Mr. Q moved in he was pleased to learn that the interior—on a warm and humid day—still exuded the aroma of Winesaps and Jonathans.
On a certain warm and humid day in September—the tenth of the month, to be exact—Qwilleran;s housemates continually raised noses to sniff a scent they could not identify. They were a pair of Siamese-strictly indoor cats—and it was partly for their benefit that the barn had been converted to its present design. With ramps and cat-walks spiraling upward around the interior walls, with balconies floating on three levels, and with a system of massive beams radiating under the roof, the design allowed this acrobatic couple to race wildly, leap recklessly, and wrestle precariously on timbers thirty or forty feet overhead. For their quiet moments there were window-walls through which they could watch the flight of a bird, the fall of a leaf, and the ballet of wind-swept grasses in the orchard.
Qwilleran himself, having lived for two years in an apartment above the Klingenschoen garage, was awed by the spatial magnificence of his new residence. He was a big man in his comfort-loving fifties, with wide shoulders and long legs, and nature had not intended him to live in cramped quarters. On that warm and humid Saturday evening he strode about his domain enjoying the feeling of spaciousness and the dramatic perspectives, all the while stroking his bushy salt-and-pepper moustache with satisfaction. The last rays of the sunset slanted into the interior through high triangular windows, so shaped to preserve the symmetry of beams and braces.
"This time we got it right," he said to the cats, who were following him, strutting elegantly on long slender legs. "This is where we belong!" The three of them had lived at several addresses—sometimes happily, sometimes disastrously. "This is the last time we're going to move, you'll be glad to hear."
"Yow!" was the male cat's reply in a minor key; one could almost detect a note of skepticism.
Qwilleran made it a policy to converse with the Siamese, and the male responded as if he understood human speech. "We have Dennis to thank for all of this," he went on. "I only wish Mrs. Cobb could see it."
Chuckling over a private reminiscence, he added, "She'd be tickled pink, wouldn't she?"
"Yow," said Koko in a soft, regretful tone as if he remembered Mrs. Cobb's superlative meatloaf.
The renovation had been designed and engineered by the son of Qwilleran's former housekeeper. Dennis Hough was his name, pronounced Huff, and his arrival in Pickax from St. Louis had created a stir for three reasons: The barn project was a sensation; the young builder had given his construction firm a whimsical name that delighted the locals; and the man himself had a mesmerizing effect on the women of Moose County. It was Qwilleran who had urged Dennis Hough to relocate, giving him the barn as his first commission and arranging Klingenschoen funds to back his new venture.
On this quiet Saturday evening the three barn dwellers were on a lofty catwalk high under the roof, and Qwilleran was reveling in the bird's-eye view of the comfortably furnished main floor when a piercingly loud demand from Yum Yum, the female, told him she cared more about food than architecture.
"Sorry," he apologized with a swift glance at his watch. "We're running a little late. Let's go down and see what we can find in the freezer."
The Siamese turned and scampered down the ramp, shoulder to shoulder, until they reached the lower balcony. From there they swooped down to the main floor like flying squirrels, landing in a deep-cushioned chair with two soft thuds—a shortcut they had been swift to discover. Qwilleran took a more conventional route down a circular metal stairway to the kitchen.
Although he had been a bachelor for many years, he had never learned to cook even the simplest survival food for himself. His culinary skills were limited to thawing and coffeemaking. Now he dropped two frozen Alaska king crablegs into boiling water, then carefully removed the meat from the shells, diced it, and placed a plateful on the floor. The Siamese responded by circling the dish dubiously, first clockwise and then counterclockwise, before consenting to nibble.
"I suppose you'd prefer breast of pheasant tonight," Qwilleran said.
If he indulged them it was because they were an important two-thirds of his life. He had no other family. Yum Yum was a lovable pet who liked to sit on his lap and reach out a paw to touch his moustache wonderingly; Koko was a remarkably intelligent animal in whom the natural feline instincts were developed to a supranormal degree. Yum Yum knew when Qwilleran wore something new or served the food on a different plate, but Koko's twitching nose and bristling whiskers could sense danger and uncover hidden truths. Yum Yum had a larcenous paw that pilfered small objects of significance, but Qwilleran was convinced that Koko craftily planted the idea in her head. Together they were a wily pair of accomplices.
"Those devils!" he had recently remarked to his friend Polly. "I believe they have the Mungojerry-Rumpelteazer franchise for Moose County."
Tonight, as the cats nosed their way through the crab-meat without enthusiasm, the man observed the disapproving posture of the fawn-furred bodies, the critical tilt of the brown ears, and the reproachful contour of the brown tails. He was beginning to read their body language—especially their tail language. His concentration was interrupted when the telephone rang and there was no one on the line. Thinking nothing of it, he proceeded to thaw a pouch of beef stew for his own dinner.
Ordinarily, Saturday evening would have found him dining at the Old Stone Mill with Polly Duncan, the chief librarian in Pickax and the chief woman in his life. She was out of town, however, and he gulped down the beef stew without tasting it, after which he retired to his studio to write his "Straight from the Qwill Pen" column for the local newspaper. His upbeat topic was the success of an unusual experiment in Pickax. On that very evening the Theatre Club was presenting the final performance of The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth. It had been a controversial choice of play. Even devotees of Shakespeare predicted there would be more persons on the stage than in the audience. Yet, the production had achieved the longest run in Pickax theatre history: twelve performances over a period of four weekends, with virtually no empty seats.
Qwilleran had attended opening night in the company of Polly Duncan, fifth row on the aisle, after which he wrote a justifiably favorable review. Now that the final box office results were known, he wrote a wrap-up piece commending the audiences for their discerning appreciation of serious drama and complimenting the small-town performers for their believable portrayals of sixteenth-century English nobility. It was not entirely accidental that he neglected to mention the director u
Pleased with his handiwork, he concocted a cup of coffee in a computerized machine, thawed a doughnut, and prepared to relax with a book he had bought secondhand. Qwilleran was thrifty by temperament, and despite his new financial status he retained many of his old habits of frugality. He drove a pre-owned car, gassed up at the self-serve pump, winced when he looked at pricetags, and always sought out bargains in used books.
After getting into pajamas and his comfortable old threadbare plaid robe, he put a match to some dry twigs and applewood logs in the fireplace and was about to stretch out in an oversized armchair when the telephone rang again. Once more he heard an abrupt click-off followed by a dial tone, and this time he questioned it. In the cities where he had lived and worked Down Below, the incident would suggest a burglar lurking in a phone booth down at the corner. In Moose County, where break-ins were rare, he could suspect only curiosity-seekers. There had been so much gossip about Qwilleran's apple barn (where a fruit grower had hanged himself from the rafters in 1920) that townfolk had been prowling about the premises and peering in the windows.
Putting the phone call out of his mind, he settled down in his big chair with his feet propped on the ottoman. Immediately, the Siamese came running in anticipation of a reading session. He often read aloud to them. They seemed to appreciate the sound of his voice, whether he was reciting from his secondhand Walt Whitman or reading the major league scores in the newspapers from Down Below. He had a richly timbred delivery—the result of his diction classes while dabbling in college drama—and the acoustics of the barn added to its resonance.
As he opened Audubon's Birds of America—the so-called Popular Edition of the nineteenth-century best-seller—his audience arranged themselves in comfortable bundles of attention, Yum Yum on his lap and Koko at his elbow on the arm of the chair. Ornithology was not one of Qwilleran's interests, but Polly had given him binoculars for his birthday and was trying to convert him to bird watching. Moreover, a book with two hundred color-plates was an irresistible bargain at a dollar.
"It's mostly pictures," he explained to the attentive animals as he turned the pages. "Who thinks up these absurd names? Black-bellied plover! Loggerhead shrike! Pied-billed grebe! Don't you think they're absurd?"
"Yow," Koko agreed.
"Here's a handsome one! It's your friend, the cardinal. The book says it resides in thickets, tangles, and gardens as far north as Canada."
Koko, an experienced pigeon watcher from Down Below, now spent hours every day at the windows on the various levels of the barn, sighting myriad small birds in the blighted orchard. Recently he had struck up an acquaintance with a visitor distinguished by red plumage, a royal crown, and a patrician beak, who whistled a continual question: who-it?
As Qwilleran turned the page to the rose-breasted grosbeak, both cats suddenly stretched to attention and craned their necks in the direction of the front door. Qwilleran also sat up and listened. He could hear a menacing rumble in the orchard that sounded alarmingly like army tanks, and he could see lights approaching the barn. He jumped to his feet and switched on the yard-lights. Peering down the Trevelyan Trail he could see them coming—a column of headlights, weaving and bouncing as vehicles maneuvered through the ruts of the dirt road.
"What the deuce is this?" he barked, palming his moustache in perplexity. "An invasion?" The alarming tone of his voice sent both cats bounding out of sight; they had no intention of being caught in the line of fire.
One by one the vehicles turned out of the lane and parked in the tall grasses between the old apple trees. Headlights disappeared, and dark figures piled out of dark cars and trucks, converging on the barn. Only when they reached the pool of light in the yard did Qwilleran recognize them as the cast and crew of Henry VIII. They were carrying six-packs, coolers, brown paper bags, and pizza boxes.
His first thought was: Dammit! They've caught me in my pajamas and old robe! His second thought was: They look like hoboes themselves. It was true. The troupe wore backstage attire: tattered jeans, faded sweatshirts, washed out plaids, bedraggled sweaters, and grimy sneakers—a drastic change from the court finery of an hour before.
"Happy barn warming!" they shouted when they saw Qwilleran in the doorway. He reached around the doorjamb and threw a master switch that illuminated the entire interior. Up-lights and down-lights were concealed artfully in timbers and under balconies. Then he stepped aside and let them file into the barn—all forty of them!
If their eyes popped and their jaws dropped, it was for good reason. The walls of the main floor were the original stone foundation, a random stack of boulders held together by hidden mortar—craggy as a grotto. Overhead were massive pine timbers, some of them twelve inches square. Sandblasted to their original honey color, they contrasted softly with the newly insulated walls, painted white. And in the center of it all stood the contemporary fireplace, a huge white cube with three chubby cylindrical white flues rising to the center of the roof.
For the first time in anyone's memory the members of the Pickax Theatre Club were speechless. They wandered about the main level in a trance, gazing upward at the interlocking braces and beams, then downward at the earthen tile floor where furniture was arranged in conversation groups on Moroccan rugs. Then they collected their wits and all talked at once.
"Do you actually live here, Qwill?"
"I utterly don't believe it!"
"Neat! Really neat! Must've cost plenty!"
"Did Dennis do all of this? He's a genius!"
"Man, there's room for three grand pianos and two billiard tables."
"Look at the size of those beams! They don't grow trees like that any more."
"Swell place for a hanging."
"Qwill, darling, it's shattering! Would you like to time-share?"
Qwilleran had met the entire troupe at one time or another, and some of them were his favorite acquaintances in Pickax:
Larry Lanspeak, owner of the local department store, for one. He had auditioned for Cardinal Wolsey but landed the King Henry role, and his slight build required fifteen pounds of padding to match the girth of the well-fed monarch.
Fran Brodie, Qwilleran's interior designer and also daughter of the police chief. She auditioned for Queen Katharine but was ultimately cast as the beauteous Anne Boleyn. Perfect casting, Qwilleran thought. During the coronation scene he had been unable to take his eyes from her, and he was afraid Polly would hear his heavy breathing.
Carol Lanspeak, president of the club and everyone's friend. She was another capable aspirant for Queen Katharine and was deeply disappointed when director VanBrook picked her as his assistant and understudy for the queen.
Susan Exbridge, antique dealer and recent divorcee. She looked younger than her forty years and desperately wanted to play Anne Boleyn. When the director assigned her to do the Old Lady, she was furious but quickly recovered upon learning that the Old Lady had some bawdy lines that might steal the show.
Derek Cuttlebrink, busboy at the Old Stone Mill. He played five minor roles and was outstanding—not for his acting but for his bean-pole stature. Derek was six feet seven and still growing. Each time he made an entrance as another character, the audience whispered, "Here he comes again."
Dennis Hough, building contractor and new man in town. He, too, wanted to play Cardinal Wolsey but had to settle for a lesser role. Nevertheless, as the Duke of Buckingham, unjustly sentenced to death, he made a farewell speech that plunged the audience into tears night after night.
Eddington Smith, dealer in used books. This shy little old man played Cardinal Campeius, although no one could hear a word he said. It hardly mattered, because Cardinal Wolsey had all the best lines.
Hixie Rice, advertising manager for the local newspaper. As volunteer publicist for the club, she sold enough ads in the playbill to defray the cost of the sumptuous court costumes.
Wally Toddwhistle, the talented young taxidermist. He built stage sets for Theatre Club productions, and for Henry VIII he worked miracles with used lumber, spray paint, and bedsheets.
