The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare (10 page)

He also wondered if Polly really had an elderly landlord named MacGregor monitoring her activities. Or was it a manufactured excuse for leaving early? And why was she so reluctant to stay late? She was afraid of something. Gossip, perhaps. Pickax imposed a Victorian code of propriety on its professional women, and they took pains to preserve appearances, even though they were privately living in the late twentieth century. Polly’s landlord, Qwilleran suspected, might be more than a landlord.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH. It was the opening day of gun season for deer hunters. At the Klingenschoen Museum it was the morning after the preview, and Mrs. Cobb was still elated and a trifle giddy.

Qwilleran complimented her on the success of the evening. “Everyone praised the museum and the refreshments, not necessarily in that order,” he said. “We’ve been offered a twelve-foot Christmas tree for the foyer, and the Fitches would like to use the museum for their son’s wedding.”

“It would be a beautiful setting for a wedding,” she said, adding playfully, “Koko could be ring bearer and carry the ring on his tail.”

“You’re making jokes this morning,” Qwilleran said. “You must be feeling good.”

She looked at him coyly. “What would you think about having two weddings here?”

“You?”

Her eyes were glowing behind the thick lenses. “Herb is buying a hundred-year-old farmhouse. He called me just before the preview and said he thought we should get married.”

“Hmff,” Qwilleran said, then searched for something more agreeable to say. “It’s the Goodwinter place. I’ve seen it. It’s a gem!”

“He got a good buy because she’s in a hurry to sell before snow flies.”

“It’s overdecorated, but you’d know how to correct that.”

“It will be fun to restore it and furnish it with primitives.”

“Does Hackpole like antiques?” Qwilleran asked dubiously.

“Not really, but he says I can do anything I want. His chief interest is hunting and fishing. He has cabinets full of guns and hunting knives and fishing rods. He wants to give me a rifle – a… 22 rimfire, whatever that is – for squirrels and rabbits.” Her pursed lips expressed disapproval.

“It’s hard to imagine you tramping around the woods, taking shots at small animals, Mrs. Cobb.”

She shuddered. “Herb was telling me how he field-dresses a deer, and it turned my stomach. By the way, he wants to know if you like venison. He always gets his buck, and he says the meat is delicious if the deer bleeds to death slowly. The heart should keep pumping blood out of the tissues.” She quoted without enthusiasm.

“Hmff,” Qwilleran said again, his down-turned moustache drooping more than usual. He was not happy with the turn of events. A housekeeper who worked an eight-hour shift and then went home to cook for her husband would be quite different from the live-in housekeeper who had spoiled him and the cats with her cooking during the last eighteen months. Yet he knew that Iris Cobb, twice widowed, yearned for a husband. Too bad she hadn’t found one better than Hackpole.

True, he made a good living – in used cars, auto repair, welding, and scrap metal. True, he was a volunteer fire fighter, and that was to his credit. He had fabricated Mrs. Cobb’s mobile herb garden in his welding shop; he had picked the berries for her wild haw jelly; he was an expert woodsman. Yet, all around town Hackpole was considered obnoxious. He seemed to have no friends, except Mrs. Cobb, and this inept Romeo now wanted to give her a… 22 rifle! Poor woman! She had hoped for a certain expensive silk blouse for her birthday, and Hackpole had given her an expensive Swiss army knife. The man aroused Qwilleran’s curiosity.

How had he arranged the purchase of the Goodwinter house so fast? He was hardly a member of the country club clique, but he might have connections with XYZ Enterprises. His welding shop probably had the contract for the balcony railings on the Mooseville Motel and the Indian Village units.

Then the telephone rang, and Qwilleran took the call in the library.

A little-girl voice said, “Mr. Qwilleran, this is Jody. Juney came back from Down Below last night. He didn’t get hired.”

“Did he see the managing editor?”

“Yes, the man who promised him a job. He said they’d just hired three new women reporters and there was no opening at the present time, but they’d keep him in mind.”

“Typical!” Qwillran muttered. “Typical of that guy.”

“Juney tried the Morning Rampage, too, but they’re cutting down their staff. He’s terribly depressed. He got in late last night and didn’t sleep at all.”

“With his academic record he’ll have no trouble getting located, Jody. Newspapers send scouts to college campuses every spring to recruit top students. He’s tried only one city. He should start cranking out résumés to mail around the country.”

“That’s what I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. He left early this morning and said he was going hunting. He said he’d go to the farmhouse and pick up his brother’s rifle – if his mother hasn’t sold it already. That’s why I’m worried. Juney isn’t much of a woodsman, and he isn’t crazy about hunting.”

“Just getting out in the woods will be good therapy, Jody. It’ll sharpen his perspective. And the weather’s not bad. Don’t worry about him.”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“When Junior gets back, we’ll get together and have a talk.”

Qwilleran had made an afternoon appointment with Junior’s Grandma Gage for an oral history interview, but he had an hour to kill, and he felt restless. Mrs. Cobb’s announcement had distressed him, and Junior’s disappointment made him vaguely uncomfortable, so he took his own advice: He drove out into the country.

It was a gray day, not likely to cheer one up, and without snow the terrain looked dreary. Traveling north to Mooseville, through good hunting country, he glanced down side roads, looking for Junior’s car. Here and there a hunter’s car or pickup was parked well off the shoulder in a desolate wooded area, but there was no sign of a red Jaguar. He caught glimpses of a blaze-orange figure crouching in a cornfield or entering the woods, and he heard rifle shots. He was glad he had worn his own blaze-orange cap.

Arriving at his property on the lakeshore, he followed the winding dirt road that led to the cabin. He saw the tire tracks where the camper had parked. Then he went up to the log cabin overlooking the lake. With the windows shuttered, power turned off, and water system drained, it was colder inside than out. On the beach the snow fences were in position. The lake looked grim and ready to freeze. Altogether the scene was bleak and lonely. He heard rifle shots in the woods and hurried back to his car.

On the way to his appointment with Euphonia Gage he took a detour down MacGregor Road, looking for the cottage where Polly claimed to be living under the watchful eye of her elderly landlord. There were no habitations on this country road – just open fields interspersed with patches of woods. There was no traffic except for one car with a buck tied to the roof. The driver gave Qwilleran a happy grin and a V sign.

Suddenly there was a jog in the road, and the pavement gave way to gravel. A little farther on, two mailboxes on cedar posts marked a long driveway bordered with shrubs. It led to a cluster of buildings: a substantial stone farmhouse, a tiny frame cottage in the rear, some sheds, and a weathered barn sagging limply to the ground. The names on the mailboxes were MacGregor and Duncan.

No car was in sight. No farm machinery. No barking dog. But a goose rounded a comer of the main house and honked in a menacing manner. With extreme caution and with one eye on the bird, Qwilleran stepped out of the car and moved toward the side door of the farmhouse. There was no need to knock. He had already been announced.

“What do you want?” screamed a querulous voice. An old man, frail and stooped, appeared in the doorway, wearing three sweaters and some knitted leg warmers over his trousers.

“Mr. MacGregor? I’m Jim Qwilleran. Just want to ask you a question, sir.”

“What are you selling? I don’t want to buy anything.”

“I’m not a salesman. I’m looking for a hunter who drives a red Jaguar.”

“Red what?”

“A red car. Bright red.”

“I don’t know,” the old man said. “I’m color-blind.”

“Thank you anyway, Mr. MacGregor. Good day.”

Still watching the goose, Qwilleran backed away. He had determined that Polly really lived in a cottage adjoining a farmhouse belonging to an elderly landlord named MacGregor. Satisfied, he drove back to town. The cottage, he remarked, was incredibly small.

At two-thirty he rang the doorbell of a large stone house on Goodwinter Boulevard, to interview the eighty-two-year-old president of the Old Timers Club. The woman who came to the door was the right age, but he doubted that she could do headstands and push-ups.

“Mrs. Gage is in her studio,” the woman said. “You can go right in – through the front parlor.”

A gloomy cave of dark velvet, heavy carved furniture, and black horsehair upholstery led into a light, bright studio, unfurnished except for two large mirrors and an exercise mat. A little woman in leotard, tights, and leg warmers sat in lotus position on the mat. She rose effortlessly and came forward.

“Mr. Qwilleran! I’ve heard so much about you from Junior! And of course I’ve read your column in the Fluxion.” Her voice was calm but vibrant. She threw on a baggy knee-length sweater and led him back into the suffocating front parlor.

She was petite but not frail, white haired but smooth skinned.

“I understand you’re president of the Old Timers Club,” he said.

“Yes, I’m eighty-two. The youngest member is automatically appointed president.”

“I suspect you lied about your age.”

Her pleased expression acknowledged the compliment. “I intend to live to be a hundred and three. I think a hundred and four would be excessive, don’t you? Exercise is the secret, and breathing is the most important factor. Do you know how to breathe, Mr. Qwilleran?”

“I’ve been doing my best for fifty years.”

“Stand up and let me place my hands on your rib cage… Now breathe in… breathe out… inhale… exhale. You do very well, Mr. Qwilleran, but you might work on it a little more. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to turn on this tape recorder and ask you some questions about the early days in Moose County.”

“I shall be happy to oblige.”

The following interview was later transcribed:

Question: When did your ancestors come to Moose County, Mrs. Gage?

My grandfather came here in the mid-nineteenth century, straight out of medical school. He was the first doctor, and he was treated like a blessing from heaven. There were no hospitals or clinics. Everything was primitive. He made house calls on horseback, sometimes ahead of a pack of howling wolves. And once, after a forest fire, when all the trails were impassable, he chopped his way through fifteen miles of debris with an ax in order to treat the survivors. They were burned and mutilated and blinded, and there were no medicines except what he brought in his knapsack.

What kind of medicines did he have?

Grandfather mixed his own and rolled his own pills, using herbs and botanicals like rhubarb powder and arnica and nux vomica. Some of his patients preferred old-fashioned remedies like catnip tea or a good slug of whiskey. They never paid for his services with money. They’d give him two chickens for setting a broken bone or a bushel of apples for delivering a baby.

What kind of cases did he handle?

Everything. Fever, smallpox, lung disease, surgery, dentistry. He pulled teeth with a pair of “twisters.” And there were plenty of emergencies caused by spring floods, poisonous snakes, sawmill accidents, kicking mules, saloon brawls. Amputations were very common. I have his collection of saws, knives, and scalpels…

Why so many amputations?

There were no antibiotics. An infected limb had to be cut off, or the patient would die of blood poisoning. Grandfather talked about performing surgery by candlelight in a log cabin while a member of the family shooed flies away from the open incision. That was over a hundred years ago, you understand. When my father began his practice, conditions had improved. He had an office in our front parlor, and he made house calls in a buggy or sleigh, and he had a full-time driver who lived in the stable and took care of horses. The driver – Zack was his name – later went to work for the Picayune and achieved notoriety by killing Titus Goodwinter.

Do you know the circumstances?

To go back a bit, Zack’s father was a miner, blown to bits in an underground explosion. Zack became a bitter and violent man who regularly beat his wife and two children. Father used to patch them up and report it to the constable, but nothing was done about it. Zack’s young daughter worked at the Picayune, too, and Titus, who was a flagrant roue, seduced the poor girl. She drowned herself, and Zack went after Titus with a hunting knife. Not a pretty story.

Was the Picayune a good newspaper in its early days?

Well… I’ll tell you… if you’ll turn that thing off.

End of interview.

After Qwilleran snapped off the tape recorder, Mrs. Gage said, “I can speak to you confidentially because you’re a friend of my favorite grandson. Junior speaks highly of you. The truth is: I have never thought well of that branch of the Goodwinter family, nor of the newspaper they published. Ephraim, the founder of the Picayune, was not a journalist. He was a rich mine owner and lumber baron who would do anything for money. It was his avarice and negligence that caused the terrible mine explosion, killing thirty-nine men. Eventually he took his own life. His sons were no better. His grandson, Senior, was a strange one; he was interested only in setting type!” She rolled her eyes in derision.

“Why did your daughter marry him?” Qwilleran asked bluntly, since Euphonia was noted for blunt candor.

“Gritty had always wanted to marry a Goodwinter, and she always did exactly what she wanted. It was a strange match. She’s a spirited girl who likes a good time. Senior had no spirit at all and was certainly not my idea of a good time. How they produced Junior, I can’t explain. He’s too small to be Gritty’s offspring – she’s such an amazon! – and too smart to be Senior’s son.”