The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts (25 page)

Do you remember the Ephraim Goodwinter funeral?

(Long pause.) Wal, now, I were a young lad, but my folks talked about it.

Was his death a suicide or a lynching?

(Long pause.) All I know, he were strung up.

Do you know who cut down the body?

Yup. My paw and Ephraim's son, Titus. They had a preacher there, too. Forget his name.

Mr. Crawbanks?

That's him!

How do you know all this?

(Long pause.) I warn't supposed to be there. My paw told me to stay to home, but I hid in the wagon. The preacher, he said some prayers, and Paw and Titus took off their hats. I crossed myself. I knew I'd get a whuppin' when we got home.

Did you see the corpse? Were the hands tied or not?

Couldn't see. It were near daybreak—not much light.

Did anyone have a camera?

Yup. Titus, he took a picture. Don't know what for.

How was the corpse dressed?

That were a long time ago, and I were too bug-eyed to pay attention. They throwed a blanket over him.

A suicide would have to stand on a box or something and then kick it away. Do you remember seeing anything like that?

(Long pause.) Musta sat on a horse and give it a kick. Horse went home all by itself. Empty saddle. That's when they come lookin' for the old man. That's what Titus said.

Did you believe that?

I were a young boy then. Didn't stop to figger it out.

Did your father ever talk about it?

(Long pause.) Nope. Not then. (Long pause.) What d'you want to know all this for?

Our readers enjoy the memoirs of old-timers. I've interviewed Euphonia Gage, Emma Huggins Wimsey, Homer Tibbitt ...

Homer, eh? I could tell you some things he don't know. But don't put it in the paper.

I'll turn off my tape recorder.

Qwilleran flipped the button on the machine and placed it on the floor.

"I want a drink of water," the old man demanded in his shrill voice. As the canary hurried from the room, he said to Qwilleran. "Don't want her to hear this." With a leer he added, "What d'you think of her?"

“She's an attractive woman."

"Too young for me."

When the canary returned with the glass of water, Qwilleran took her aside and said, "May I have a few minutes alone with Mr. Dingleberry? He has some personal matters to discuss."

"Certainly," she said. "I'll wait outside."

Nervously Adam said, "Where'd she go?"

"Right outside the door. What did you want. to tell me, Mr. Dingleberry?"

"You won't print it in the paper?"

"I won't print it in the paper."

"Never tell a living soul?"

"I promise," said Qwilleran, raising his right hand.

"My paw told me afore he died. Made me promise not to tell. If folks found out, he said, we'd both be strung up. But he's gone now, and I'll be goin' soon. No percentage in takin' it to the grave."

"Shouldn't you be passing this secret along to your sons?"

"Nope. Don't trust them whippersnappers. Too goldurn'ed cocky. You've got an honest face."

Qwilleran groomed his moustache with a show of modesty. Strangers had always been eager to confide in him. Looking intensely interested and sincere, he said, "What did your father reveal to you?"

"Wal, now, it were about Ephraim's funeral," old Adam said in his reedy voice. "Longest funeral procession in the history of Pickax! Six black horses 'stead of four. Two come all the way from Lockmaster. They was followed by a thirty-seven carriages and fifty-two buggies, but... it were all a joke!" He finished with a cackling laugh that turned into a coughing spell, and Qwilleran handed him the glass of water.

"What was the joke?" he asked when the spasm had subsided.

Adam cackled with glee. "Ephraim warn't in the coffin!"

Qwilleran thought, So Mitch's story is true. He's buried under the house! To Adam he said, "You say Ephraim's body wasn't in the coffin. Where was it?"

"Wal, now, the truth were..." Adam took a sip of water, which went down the wrong throat, and the coughing resumed so violently that Qwilleran feared the old man would choke. He called for help, and a nurse and two canaries rushed to his aid.

When it was over and Adam was calm enough to leer at the nurse, Qwilleran thanked the staffers and bowed them out of the room. Then he repeated his question. "Where was Ephraim's body?"

Cackling a laugh that was almost a yodel, the mortician said, "Ephraim wam't dead!"

Qwilleran stared at the old man in the wheelchair. There was a possibility that he might be senile, yet the rest of his conversation had been plausible—that is, plausible by Moose County's contrary standards. "How do you explain that bit of deception?" he asked.

"Wal, now, Ephraim knowed folks hated his guts and they was hell-bent on revenge, so he fooled 'em. He sailed off to Yerp. Went to Switzerland. Used another name. Let folks think he were dead." Adam started to cackle.

Qwilleran handed him the glass of water in anticipation of another attack of convulsive mirth. "Take a sip, Mr. Dingleberry. Be careful how you swallow... What about the rest of the Goodwinter family?"

"Wal, now, Ephraim's wife moved back east—that were the story they told—but she followed him to Yerp. In them days folks could disappear without no fuss. Damn gover'ment warn't buttin' in all the time. Way it turned out, though, the joke were on Ephraim. When he writ that suicide note, he never knowed his enemies would take credit for lynchin' him!"

"What about his sons?"

"Titus and Samson, the two of 'em lived in the farmhouse and run the business—run it into the ground mostly."

His voice soared into a falsetto and ended with a shriek of hilarity.

"If your father participated in this hoax, I hope he was amply rewarded."

"Two thousand dollars," said Adam. "That were big money in them days—mighty big! And five hun'erd every quarter, so long as Paw kep' his lip buttoned. Paw were a religious man, and he wouldn'ta done it but he were in debt to Ephraim's bank. He were afraid of losin' his store."

"How long did the quarterly payments continue?"

"Till Ephraim kicked the bucket in 1935. Paw always told me it were an investment he made, payin' off. He were on his deathbed when he told the truth and warned me not to tell. He said folks would be madder'n hell and might burn down the furniture store for makin' fools of 'em."

Adam's chin sank on his chest. The half hour was almost up.

"That's a thought-provoking story with interesting ramifications," Qwilleran said. "Thank you for taking me into your confidence."

The old man showed another spurt of energy. "There were somethin' else on Paw's conscience. He buried the Goodwinters' hired man, and they paid for the funeral—paid plenty, considerin' it were a plain coffin."

Qwilleran was instantly alerted. "What was the hired man's name?"

"I forget now."

"Luther Bosworth? Thirty years old? Left a wife and four kids?"

"That's him!"

"What happened to Luther?"

"One o' the Goodwinter horses went berserk. Trampled him to death—so bad they had a closed coffin."

"When did this happen?"

"Right after Ephraim left. Titus said he shot the horse."

There was a tap on the door, and the canary opened it an inch or two. "Visiting time almost up, sir."

"Don't let her in," Adam said.

Qwilleran called out, "One more minute, please." The door closed, and he said to Adam, "Do you know why the Goodwinters paid extra for the funeral."

Adam wiped his mouth. "It were hush money. Paw wouldn'ta took it if he warn't beholden to the bank. Paw were a religious man."

"I'm sure he was! But what were the Goodwinters trying to hush up?"

Adam wiped his mouth again. "Wal, Titus said the man were trampled to death, but when Paw picked up the body. there were only a bullethole in the head."

There was another tap on the door. The old man's chin sank on his chest again, but he revived enough to make a swipe at the skirt of the canary when she came in to wheel him to his room.

Driving back to North Middle Hummock Qwilleran was thinking, Mitch Ogilvie was right on one point: Old Adam knew a thing or two. The story of the double hoax was plotted with enough dovetailing details to make it convincing—in Moose County, at any rate, where the incredible is believable... And yet, was it really true? Adam Dingleberry had a reputation as a practical joker. Telling a cock-and-bull story about Ephraim could be his final joke on the whole county. Telling it to the media would be a virtual guarantee that it would be leaked. What headlines it would make! GOODWINTER HANGING A HOAX! MINE OWNER DIED ABROAD IN 1935! The wire services would pick it up, and Qwilleran's byline would once more be flashed nationwide.

But how would Moose County react? The Noble Sons of the Noose—whoever they were – might trash the Dingleberry funeral home with all its lavish décor, not yet paid for. They might even go after Junior Goodwinter, managing editor of the Somethin great-grandson of the original villain. Qwilleran had a responsibility here, and a decision to make. The double hoax might be a triple hoax.

-20-

ARRIVING AT THE farhlhouse, Qwilleran made straight for the stereo, followed by two Siamese with waving tails. "Adjust your ears," he instructed them. "You're about to hear an astounding tale."

If the cats were expecting Verdi, they were disappointed. Adam's high-pitched voice crackled from the speakers: "Yup. My grampaw come from the Old Country to build shafthouses for the mines..."

Their ears swiveled nervously until they heard a deep voice saying, "What kind of furniture, Mr. Dingleberry?"

At the familiar sound Koko rose on hind legs and pawed the player while Yum Yum purred enthusiastically.

"Thank you," Qwilleran said to them. "I admit I was in good voice."

The old man was saying, "They was all a bit different: doors, no doors, one drawer, two drawers, false bottom, built-in lockbox, pigeonholes, whatever folks wanted."

"Yow!" said Koko, and Qwilleran felt a familiar quiver in the roots of his moustache. He turned off the sound.

Mrs. Cobb's ugly desk was a Dingleberry; no matter what its value on the local market, Qwilleran still thought it ugly. It had tall legs, a cupboard with doors, no pigeonholes, one drawer, not two. Did it have a false bottom? He removed the drawer and inspected it, shook it, pressed the bottom in several places, felt around the perimeter with his fingertips, hit the sides with the flat of his hand, shook it again. The bottom was thicker than normal, and something was shifting inside it.

"I may need some help here," Qwilleran said, and the cat sniffed and pawed while the man ran his hand over the surfaces and pressed experimentally at vital points. Unaccountably the bottom of the drawer popped up at one end, and Qwilleran pried it out.

There were no jewels concealed in the false bottom; no doubt Mrs. Goodwinter had taken them to Switzerland. There were documents, however, that gave him a psychological chill, as if he were invading a tomb, and he built a fire in the fireplace before spreading the musty papers on the hearth rug. There were bills, receipts and promissory notes. He recognized the writing on one such document:

Rec'd of Titus Goodwinter the sum of three thousand dollars ($3,000) in compensation for the accidental death of my husband. Signed this day of Oct. 31, 1904.

Lucy Bosworth

Had Titus dictated it? Had Lucy written it under duress? Or had she been an accomplice in the plot? The receipt led Qwilleran on a wild gallop of speculation regarding the young woman's relationship with her husband and, for that matter, with Titus, who was a notorious womanizer. It was clear that the payoff financed the purchase of the Pickax General Store, $3,000 being an enormous sum in the days when a family of six could live nicely on five dollars a week. The blood money, so to speak, may have paid for the impressive bible as well, a status symbol of its day.

There were other documents of historic interest if one had the time to study them, including promissory notes at abnormally high interest rates, signed by names well-known in Moose County, among them the thriftless Captain Fugtree. Ephraim's banks may have operated legitimately, but in his private money-lending he was guilty of usury.

The handwriting on a receipt dated October 28 caught Qwilleran's attention. It was the same small bold script found in Ephraim's suicide note, but it was signed by the financially captive storekeeper and undertaker, Adam Dingleberry's "Paw." Driven by debt to set aside his religious scruples, he had signed the following:

Rec 'd of Ephraim Goodwinter, the sum of two thousand dollars ($2,000) in consideration of which the undersigned agrees to bury an empty coffin with full ceremony in the Goodwinter plot in the Pickax Cemetery, payee to conceal the arrangements noted above from all living souls and future descendants, on condition of which payer agrees to make quarterly payments of five hundred dollars ($500) until such time as payer departs this life. Signed and accepted this day of Oct. 28,—1904.

Joshua Dingleberry

A similar agreement with Titus Goodwinter, covering the interment of Luther Bosworth, also bore Joshua's signature.

The Siamese, attracted by the heat from the burning logs or the stale aroma of the documents, were in close attendance, and Koko was particularly interested in a folded sheet of paper that had been handled by dirty hands. It was a rough diagram with measurements and other specifications noted in faded penciling that Qwilleran could not decipher even with his reading glasses. Using a magnifying glass from the telephone desk he was able to identify the central element as a half-circle with dimensions given in feet. Two rectangles connected by a pair of parallel lines were marked SW and NW, but no dimensions were specified. Folded in with the diagram was a misspelled bill from the Mayfus Stone Quarry on Sandpit Road: "4 lodes stone to pave carage house." The date was May 16, 1904, and it was marked "pd."

"Three days after the explosion!" Qwilleran observed. "What do you two sleuths make of that? The carriage house is not paved; it's plank like the threshing floor. And what's this?”