Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 17 Who Blew The Whistle

ELIZABETH: She's a bewitcher who is bewitched.

DEREK: That's pretty good. Put it in.

QWILLERAN: How do you feel about little green men in a Shakespeare play?

DEREK: No problem. He called 'em fairies; we call 'em greenies. They're all aliens, right?

QWILLERAN: What is your favorite line? DEREK: I like it when I roar like a lion... Arrrrgh! Arrrrgh! And at the end I have a death scene that's fun. Now die, die, die, die, die. That always gets a laugh.

Qwilleran, having completed his mission, more or less, returned to the barn through the Black Forest, listening for Marconi. It was still daylight, however, and Marconi was a night owl.

Yum Yum was waiting at the kitchen door. He picked her up and whispered affectionate words while she caressed his hand with her waving tail. Koko was not there. Koko was in the foyer, looking out the window.

The formal entrance to the barn was a double door flanked by tall, narrow windows. These sidelights had sills about twenty inches from the floor, a convenient height for a cat who wanted to stand on his hind feet and peer through the glass. There was something out there that fascinated Koko. With his neck stretched and his ears pricked, he stared down the orchard trail. Surveyors had been there and lumberyard trucks and carpenters' pickups and a cement mixer, but that was daytime activity, and there was no action after four-thirty. Yet Koko watched and waited as if expecting something to happen. His prescience was sometimes unnerving. He could sense an approaching storm, and a telephone about to ring. He often knew what Qwilleran was going to do before Qwilleran knew.

Koko also had a sense of right and wrong. The decoys on the fireplace cube, for example, were lined up facing east. One day Mrs. Fulgrove came to clean and left them facing west. Koko threw a fit!

On this summer evening he watched and waited, while Qwilleran listened to the tape of Derek's interview; to make an eight-inch think-piece out of it would require all his fictive skills. Only once was Koko lured away from the window, and that was when Derek roared like a lion.

A run-through without the book was always a long rehearsal, and it was dark when Qwilleran's guests arrived. As soon as the car headlights came bobbing along the wooded road, he floodlighted the exterior of the barn to play up its striking features: a fieldstone foundation ten feet high, three stories of weathered shingle siding, and a series of odd-shaped windows cut in the wall of the octagonal building. Visitors were usually awed.

Qwilleran put on his yellow cap and went to meet the two women, and as he opened the passenger's door Elizabeth stepped out and looked around. "You have an owl," she said. "It sounds like a great horned owl. They hoot in clusters. We had one in our woods on the island, and we used to count the hoots. The pattern varies with the season and the owl's personal agenda."

"Shall we go indoors? I'm thirsty," Fran said impatiently.

The interior was aglow. Indirect lighting accented the balconies and the beams high overhead; downlights created mysterious puddles of light on the main floor; a spotlight focused on a huge tapestry hanging from a balcony railing. Appropriately, the design was an apple tree.

As Fran gazed around in admiration, Elizabeth went looking for the cats.

Fran said, "I've been here a hundred times, and I never cease to marvel at Dennis's genius. His death was a flagrant waste of talent. If he had lived, would he have stayed in the north?"

"I doubt it," Qwilleran said. "His family was in St. Louis."

"I can't find Koko and Yum Yum," Elizabeth complained.

"They're around here somewhere, but we have an abundance of somewhere in this place. Shall we go into the lounge area and have a glass of wine or fruit juice?"

Koko, having heard his name, suddenly appeared from nowhere, followed by Yum Yum, yawning and stretching her dainty hindquarters.

"They remember me from the island!" Elizabeth said with delight, as she dropped to her knees and extended a finger for sniffing.

Fran followed Qwilleran into the kitchen to watch him prepare wine spritzers.

"What did you want to tell me?" he asked quietly.

In a low voice she said, "The police have been questioning Floyd's associates, and they've discovered something that I consider bizarre. Have you heard of the Lockmaster Indemnity Corporation? They were supposed to be private insurers of depositors' funds in the Lumbertown Credit Union, but they're broke! They can't cover the losses!"

"How can that be? Sounds to me as if they're part of the scam."

"I don't know, but they'd transferred their assets to their wives' names. They call it estate planning. Dad calls it dirty pool."

"I'd say your dad is right. If they get away with it," Qwilleran said, "there's something radically wrong in this state!"

As he carried the tray into the lounge area two spritzers and one club soda - Elizabeth rose gracefully from the floor. "We've been having a significant dialogue," she said. "They're glad to see me."