Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 17 Who Blew The Whistle

"And that's not the only good news. I had a date with Hixie last night, and everything's coming up roses."

"You're lucky! She's great fun." It

was an appropriate match. Hixie Rice was another transplant from Down Below, and she was in char of public relations for the newspaper. Qwilleran put on a yellow baseball cap hanging near the kitchen door and accompanied his guest to his car. "We have an owl in the woods," he explained, "and if he sees a good head of hair, he might think it's a rabbit. I'm quoting Polly, the ornithology expert."

"Well, I'm safe," Dwight said, passing a ha over his thinning hair. He cocked his head listen. "I can hear him hooting. Sounds like Morse code - long and short hoots."

As the happy young man drove away Qwilleran watched the taillights bouncing through the ruts of the Black Forest and wondered what had happened to Hixie's

previos heartthrob. He was a doctor. He owned a cab cruiser. He had a beard. Qwilleran walk around the barn a few times before going indoors; it was pleasantly warm, with a so breeze. He listened and counted.

"Whoo-o-o hoo hoo... hoo hoo hoo..whoo-o-o."

Qwilleran decided to call him Marconi and write a "Qwill Pen" column about owls. Fresh topics were in short supply in the summer. Sometimes the newspaper had to rerun his more popular columns, like the one on baseball and the one on cats.

When he went indoors, all was quiet. That was not normal. The Siamese should have been parading and demanding their nightly treat with ear-piercing yowls. Instead, they were assiduously washing their paws, whiskers, and ears, and the bowl on the coffee table was empty. Stuffed with Kabibbles, they staggered up the ramp to their apartment on the top balcony. Qwilleran, before he called it a day, wrote a thank-you note to a woman named Celia Robinson.

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When Qwilleran wrote his thank-you note for the Kabibbles, he sat at his writing table in the library area - one side of the fireplace cube that was lined with bookshelves. For serious work there was a writing studio on the balcony, off- limits to the Siamese, but the bookish, friendly atmosphere of the library was more comfortable for writing notes and taking phone calls. For this brief letter to Celia Robinson he used a facetiously bombastic style that would send her into torrents of laughter. She laughed easily; it took very little to set the dear woman off.

Dear Celia, I find it appropriate to pen an effusive expression of gratitude for the succulent delights that arrived today to tantalize my taste buds and heighten my spirit. Your Kabibbles are receiving rave reviews from connoisseurs in this northern bastion of gastronomy. I suggest you copyright the name and market them. You could become the Betty Crocker of the twenty-first century! Perhaps you would grant me the distribution franchise for Moose and Lockmaster counties. Let me know your new address so I can order Kabibbles in ten-pound sacks or twenty- gallon barrels.

Gratefully, Q

No one in Pickax knew about Qwilleran's whimsical acquaintance with Celia Robinson, not even Polly Duncan - especially not Polly, who was inclined to resent the slightest intrusion on her territory. The cross-country acquaintance had begun when Junior Goodwinter's grandmother died suddenly in Florida. Through long-distance conversations with her next-door neighbor, Qwilleran conducted an investigation into the death, and he and Celia developed a chummy rapport. He called her his secret agent, and she called him Chief. He sent her boxes of chocolate-covered cherries and the paperback spy novels that she liked; she sent him homemade brownies. They had never met.

The case was closed now, but Qwilleran had an ulterior motive for continuing the connection: She enjoyed cooking. Fondly he envisioned her relocating in Pickax and catering meals for himself and the cats. It was not an improbability; she wanted to leave the retirement village in Florida. "Too many old people" was her complaint. Celia was only sixty-nine.

Qwilleran posted the letter in his rural mailbox the next morning, walking down the orchard wagon trail to the highway, Trevelyan Road. The trail was the length of a city block. It ran past the skeletons of neglected apple trees, between other trees planted by squirrels and birds in the last hundred years, alongside the remains of the old Trevelyan farmhouse that had burned down, and past the two acres where Polly would build her new house. After raising the red flag on the oversized mailbox, he took a few minutes to consider the construction site. The fieldstone foundation of the old house was barely visible in a field of waist-high weeds. An abandoned lilac bush was doing nicely on its own, having grown to the size of a two-story, three-bedroom house, and it still bloomed in season. When the wind direction was right, its fragrance wafted as far as the apple barn.