The Cat Who Played Brahms (15 page)

Lori answered. "You caught me just in time, Mr. Qwilleran. I was about to lock up and go home."

"You mean you actually lock the post office in Mooseville?"

"Seems silly, doesn't it?" she said. "But it's federal regulations."

He made the requisite remarks about the weather and then said: "Would you and Nick like to come over tomorrow evening to have a drink and meet the cats and watch the sunset? I have a charming guest from Down Below, and I don't know how much longer she can stay."

Lori's acceptance was almost too effusive, and Qwilleran said to Rosemary later:

"You'd think it was an invitation to the White House or Buckingham Palace."

She raised her eyebrows. "Did I hear you say that your charming guest might not stay much longer?"

"Merely an innocent social prevarication intended to lend convincing authenticity to an alarmingly abrupt invitation."

"You must be feeling good," Rosemary said. "You always get wordy when you're feeling good."

-12-

"What shall I wear to visit Aunt Fanny?" Rosemary asked on Wednesday morning. "I'm all excited."

"You look nice in your white suit," Qwilleran said. "She'll be dressed like Pocahontas or the Empress of China. I'm going to wear my orange cap." He knew Rosemary was not enthusiastic about his new headgear. On the road to Pickax he pointed out the turkey farm.

"Mildred brought us some turkey from the farm one day, and it was the best I've ever tasted."

"That's because it was raised naturally," Rosemary explained. "And it was fresh. No preservatives."

Near the old Dimsdale Mine he pointed out a dilapidated boxcar doing business as a diner. "I call it the Dismal Diner. We're having dinner there tonight."

"Oh, Qwill! You're kidding." As they neared Pickax he said: "I have a hunch Aunt Fanny will like you. You might find out why she rented to those divers last summer. And tell her the pickax disappeared from the cabin."

"Why me?"

"I'm going to take a walk and let you girls get acquainted. You could mention the murder of Buck Dunfield and see how she reacts. I'm also curious to know why an eighty-nine-year-old woman with a live-in bodyguard carries a handgun in a county that has no crime."

"Why don't you ask the questions and I'll take a walk." Rosemary suggested. "I'm no good at snooping."

"With me she's evasive. With another woman she might open up. She likes women lawyers and women doctors, I happen to know."

They drove past crumbling buildings that had been shaft houses for the mines, past old slag heaps that made unnatural bumps in the landscape, past rows of stone rectangles that had been the foundations of miners' cottages. Then the road reached the crest of a hill, and Pickax City lay in the valley below, with the circular park in dead center.

"Fanny lives on the circle," Qwilleran said. "Best location in town. Her ancestors made a pile of money in mining."

When they pulled into the driveway of the great fieldstone house, Tom was working on the perfectly groomed lawn and his blue pickup was parked in front of the carriage house.

Qwilleran waved to him and noticed that the growth on the young man's lip was beginning to resemble a moustache.

Aunt Fanny greeted them in a flowing purple robe of Middle Eastern design with borders embroidered in silver. A purple scarf was knotted about her head, and her long dangling earrings were set with amethysts. Rosemary was spellbound, and Aunt Fanny was volubly cordial.

Qwilleran brought up an insignificant rear as the hostess swept them into the large pretentious dining room for lunch. He tried hard to pretend he was enjoying his cup of tomato soup, half a tuna sandwich, and weak coffee. He listened in amazement as Rosemary gushed and twittered and Aunt Fanny proved she could answer questions in a normal way.

"When was this lovely old house built?" Rosemary asked.

"Over a hundred years ago," Aunt Fanny said. "In horse-and-buggy days it was considered the grandest house in town. Would you like me to show you around after lunch?

Grandfather brought over Welsh stonemasons to build the house, and there's an English pub in the basement that was imported from London, piece by piece. The third floor was supposed to be a ballroom, but it was never finished."

"While you ladies are taking the grand tour," Qwilleran said, "I'd like to walk downtown, if you'll excuse me. I want to see the Picayune offices."

"Oh, you journalists!" Aunt Fanny said with a coy smirk. "Even when you're on vacation you can't forget your profession. I admire you for it!"

Leaving the house, Qwilleran looked for Tom, but the handyman and the blue truck had gone.

The commercial section of Main Street extended for three blocks. Stores, restaurants, a lodge hall, the post office, the home of the Picayune, a medical clinic, and several law offices were all built of stone with more exuberance than common sense. Cotswold cottages nestled between Scottish castles and Spanish forts. Qwileran gave the Picayune office a wide berth and turned Into the office of Goodwinter and Goodwinter. "I don't have an appointment," he told the gray-haired secretary, "but I wonder if Mr. Goodwinter is available. My name is Qwilleran."

The secretary was undoubtedly a relative; she had the narrow Goodwinter face. "You've just missed him, Mr. Qwilleran," she said pleasantly. "He's on his way to the airport and won't be back until Saturday. Would you like to speak to his partner?"

The junior partner bounded out of her office in a cloud of expensive perfume, extending a well-manicured hand, and smiling happily. "Mr. Qwilleran! I'm Penelope. Alex has told me about you. He's attending a conference in Washington. Won't you come in?"

She too had the long intelligent face that Qwilleran had learned to recognize, but it was softened by a smile that activated tantalizing dimples.

Qwilleran said: "I just dropped in to report on something your brother discussed with me."

"About the mysterious liquor purchases?"

"Yes. I don't find any evidence that our elderly friend is tippling."

"I agree with you," said the attorney. "That's my brother's private theory. He thinks she's developing a whiskey voice. I say it's hormones."

"How do you account for the houseman's liquor purchases?"

"He must buy it to treat friends. He has an apartment in the carriage house, and he must have some social life of a sort, or it would be a very lonely life."

"He's a strange young man."

"But gentle and rather sweet," Penelope said. "He's a good worker and carries out orders perfectly, and some of our affluent families would kill to get him."

"Know anything about his background?" "Only that a friend of Fanny's in New Jersey arranged for Tom to come out here and help her. Isn't she a remarkable woman? She amassed her fortune in the days before women were supposed to have brains."

"I thought she inherited her money."

"Oh, no! Her father lost everything in the Twenties. Fanny saved the family property and went on to make her own millions. She'll be ninety next month, and we're giving a party. I hope you'll join us. How are you enjoying Mooseville?"

"It's never dull. I suppose you know about the murder."

She nodded without any emotion, as if he had said: "Do you know it's Wednesday?"

"It was a shocking thing to happen in a place like Mooseville," he said. "Do you have any theories?"

She shook her head.

She knows something, Qwilleran thought, but the Legal Curtain has descended. "Wasn't Dunfield the police chief who was feuding with Fanny a few years ago? What was the trouble?"

The attorney looked up at the ceiling before answering cooly. "Simply small-town politics. It goes on all the time."

Qwilleran liked her style. He enjoyed his half hour in the company of an intelligent young woman with dimples and chic. Rosemary was attractive and comfortable to be with, but he had to admit he was captivated by career women in their thirties. Fondly he remembered Zoe the artist, Cokey the interior designer, and Mary the antiques dealer.

On his way back to the stone house he spotted another Goodwinter face. "Dr. Melinda, what are you doing here?" he said. "You're supposed to be repairing tourists at the Mooseville Limp-in Clinic."

"My day off. Buy you a cup of coffee?" She guided him around the corner to a luncheonette. "Second worst coffee in the county," she warned him, "but everybody comes here."

He tested the coffee. "Who's in first place? They'd have to try hard to beat this."

"The Dimsdale Diner takes top honors," Melinda said with a flourish. "They have the worst coffee in the county and the worst hamburgers in northeast central United States.

You should try it. It's an old boxcar on the main highway, corner of Ittibittiwassee Road."

"You're not going to make me believe Ittibittiwassee."

"No joke. It's the road to the Ittibittiwassee River. The Indians had a village there at one time. Now it's time-sharing condos."

"Tell me something, Melinda. I've seen the remains of the Dimsdale Mine and the Goodwinter Mine. Where's the Klingenschoen Mine?"

Melinda studied his eyes to see if he could possibly be serious. Finally she said:

"There is no Klingenschoen Mine. There never was a Klingenschoen Mine."

"How did Fanny's grandfather make his money? In lumbering?"

She looked amused. "No. He was a saloonkeeper." Qwilleran paused to digest the information. "He must have been highly successful."

"Yes, but not highly respected. The K Saloon was notorious for half a century before World War I. Fanny's grandfather built the most luxurious house in town, but the Klingenschoens were never accepted socially. In fact, they were ridiculed. The miners had a marching song that went like this: We mine the mines and the K mines us, but who mines Minnie when the something something something. I don't know the punch line, and I'm not sure I want to know."

"Then Minnie K was. . ."

"Fanny's grandmother, a very friendly lady, according to the stories. You can read about it in the local history section of the public library. Fanny's father inherited the saloon but went bankrupt during Prohibition. Fortunately Fanny had her grandfather's talent for making money, and when she came back here at the age of sixty-five, she could buy and sell anyone in the county."

As Qwilleran returned to the stone house he walked with a springier step. There was nothing like a juicy morsel of news to buoy his spirit, even when he was not on assignment.

Rosemary was equally exhilarated when he picked her' up for the ride home. She had had a lovely visit. The house was lovely-full of antiques. Francesca had given her a Staffordshire pitcher from her collection, and Rosemary thought it was lovely, Qwilleran thought it was ugly.

He said: "I've been hungry ever since lunch, and we ought to have an early dinner because Nick and Lori are coming at seven. Let's try the Old Stone Mill."

The restaurant was an authentic old mill with a water wheel, and the atmosphere was picturesque, but the menu was ordinary—from the chicken noodle soup to the rice pudding.

"All I want is a salad," Rosemary said.

"I'm going to order the mediocre pork chops, a soggy baked potato, and overcooked green beans," Qwilleran said. "That's the Moose County specialty. Why don't you have the chicken julienne salad? It's probably tired lettuce and imitation tomatoes with concrete croutons and slivers of invisible chicken. No doubt they serve it with bottled dressing from Kansas City and a dusting of grated Parmesan that tastes like sawdust. This used to be a sawmill, you know."

"Oh, Qwill! You're terrible," Rosemary admonished.

"What did you two emancipated females talk about while I was taking my walk?"

"You. Aunt Fanny thinks you are so talented, so sincere, so kind, so sensitive. She even likes your orange cap. She says it makes you look dashing."

"Did you tell her about the missing pickax?"

"Yes. She said the Historical Society wanted it for their museum, so she had Tom pick it up."

"She might have let me know. And what about the divers?"

"They wrote to a real estate firm in Mooseville, asking for a summer house to rent.

They turned out to be very undesirable tenants. Especially the girls who spent the summer with them. She called them a name that I wouldn't repeat."

"Aw, c'mon. Tell me."

"No."

"Spell it."

"No, I won't. You're just teasing me."

Qwilleran chuckled. He liked to tease Rosemary. She was the epitome of the Perfect Lady circa 1902.

She said: "I have a lot more to tell you, but I don't want to talk here."

When they resumed their drive north he said: "Okay, let's have it. You and Fanny seemed to hit it off pretty well."

"She thinks you and I are engaged, and I didn't dispute it because I wanted her to talk. It was really flattering, the way she took me into her confidence."

"Good girl! What did she confide?"

"Her method of getting what she wants. She manipulates people with big promises and little threats. She says everybody wants something or is hiding something. The trick is to find their weakness. I think she makes it a kind of hobby."

"The little old rascal! That's the carrot-and-stick technique."

"Of course, it works better if you have a lot of money."

"Of course. What doesn't?"

"She showed me a little gold pistol that she carries. That's to intimidate people. It's just a joke."

"She has a quaint sense of humor. What did she say about Dunfield's murder?"

"Oh my! She really hated that man. She got so mad I thought she was going to have a stroke."

"Buck was the only one she couldn't manipulate."

Rosemary giggled. "He accused her of growing marijuana In her backyard. Can you imagine that?"

"Yes, I can."

."About his murder, she said that people who play with fire can expect to get burned, and then she used some very bad language. I was shocked."

Qwilleran smiled into his moustache. He reminded himself that Rosemary shocked easily.

"Such a nice little old lady," Rosemary went on. "Where did she pick up such a vocabulary?"