The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts (20 page)

The two men talked about leaf raking, the hotel business, and Scottish history, but Kristi was quiet and introspective. Finally she said softly, "Emmaline will walk tonight."

The men glanced at each other and then at her. She said, "Qwill, would you like to see Emmaline? Mitch has seen her twice."

"Yes, I would," he said. The downpour had started. They collected their jackets and ran for the steel barn. As they drove up Black Creek Lane torrents of water slapped the windshield. As they turned into the Fugtree drive, flashes of lightning silhouetted the Victorian house against an electric blue sky. No one spoke. They dashed for the side door and arrived in the kitchen wet. Still there was no conversation. Wordlessly Kristi draped their wet jackets over kitchen chairbacks. She turned on no lights, but she beamed a flashlight at the floor to lead them into the foyer. Groping through the incredible clutter they found their way to the massive staircase and sat on the stairs to wait in the dark, smelling the mustiness of the house, feeling the vibration from thunderclaps overhead, hearing the rain slap against the tall narrow windows, seeing the panes glow blue with each lightning flash. They waited.

"She's coming!" Kristi whispered. No one dared to breathe.

The men stared in rapt silence. Kristi shuddered and gasped.

Qwilleran found his blood running cold. The minutes ticked away.

Then Kristi broke into tears. "Wasn't she beautiful?" she sighed.

"Beautiful!" Mitch said in a half-whisper.

"Incredible!" Qwilleran said under his breath.

The three sat quietly for a while, each with private thoughts. The rain relented; the tumult subsided; and Qwilleran brought himself to murmur, "What can I say?... Thank you... Good night." He squeezed Kristi's hand, touched Mitch's shoulder, and found his way out of the house. "My God!" he said aloud, sitting in the driver's seat, reluctant to turn on the ignition.

At home he dropped into his wing chair and fell into a reverie so deep that he didn't hear the vehicle pulling up to the door. The brass knocker startled him. He jumped up and opened the door, saying, "Mitch! Did you forget something?"

"Just wanted to talk for a minute—without Kristi."

"Come into the kitchen and get that wet jacket off. Do you want a cup of coffee before you drive home?"

"It might be a good idea."

"Put another log on the fire while I make the coffee." "Sorry to come back so late."

"Forget it! What's on your mind?"

Mitch gave him a searching look. "Tell me honestly, Qwill. Did you see Emmaline?"

"Did you?" Qwilleran asked, returning the intent gaze.

"I've never seen her," the young man confessed.

"To tell the truth," Qwilleran said, "I didn't see her either, but I felt a chill. I sensed an invisible presence. Perhaps I was reacting to Kristi's emotion. Whatever, it was a memorable experience."

They drank coffee for a while without talking. Then Qwilleran said, "Have a doughnut." He pushed the plate across the table.

"Thanks. These are pretty good doughnuts."

"Kristi's an interesting young woman," Qwilleran said. "I worry about her—with Brent still at large."

"Is he dangerous?"

"Worse still, he's stupid! He was okay until they went Down Below and he started doing drugs. He fell apart. Used to be a good-looking guy, too. At least, Kristi thought so, I guess."

"If he's that far gone," Qwilleran speculated, "it won't take the police long to track him down. It takes a modicum of intelligence and some animal instinct to be a fugitive."

"You're right!" Mitch pushed the plate back across the table. "Doughnut?"

"Yes. They're not bad."

"Up front, Qwill, do you think I stand a chance of getting the museum job?"

"I'm on your side, Mitch, but it's in the hands of the museum board."

"I've been doing some lobbying, and most of them pledged their support, but Larry and Susan are dragging their feet—that's what it seems like."

"I'll see what I can do on your behalf."

"Sure appreciate it." Mitch stared into his coffee cup and fidgeted.

"Another doughnut, Mitch?" The plate went back across the table.

"Thanks."

Qwilleran read the signals. "Is there something else on your mind?"

"Well, when you were telling us about Iris hearing the noises, I thought of something I should tell you, something I heard recently from one of the old-timers. He got the story from an old blacksmith who used to shoe the Goodwinter horses... You know about the big funeral they had for Ephraim?"

"I certainly do! Thirty-seven carriages, fifty-two buggies, or was it the other way around?"

"This blacksmith told the old-timer that Ephraim wasn't in the coffin!"

"Why? Did he know why?"

"The family of the old miser was afraid he'd be dug up—by his enemies, you know—so they went through the motions of burying him in the cemetery, but actually he was secretly buried, here on the farm."

"Where? Do you know?"

"Under the house!"

"Now I've heard everything, Mitch. Do you believe that story?"

"I'm only telling you what I heard, Qwill, on account of what you said about Iris, and the way your cat is acting."

"Hmmm," Qwilleran said, stroking his moustache. "How about another cup of coffee?"

"Thanks, but I've got to be going. I'm on the day shift this week."

Qwilleran and Koko walked their guest to the door and watched the blue pickup drive away. The rain had stopped, but the trees were still dripping, and the night was dark. Koko was sniffing and peering into the blackness, and Qwilleran made a lunge for the cat before he could cross the threshold and disappear into the night.

-15-

AT MIDNIGHT QWILLERAN retired to the General Grant bed with a paperback novel that Koko had twice knocked off the shelf. He had read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest some years before and had seen the movie but he was willing to read it again. He tried, but his eyes only processed the words automatically while his mind reviewed the evening with Kristi, Mitch, and Emmaline. He particularly relished the rumor about Ephraim's burial under the house. Mitch apparently believed the story, but the old-timer who revealed it may have imagined the whole thing, or the blacksmith who related it may have taken a swig after a hard day at the anvil. Nevertheless, Qwilleran liked the story.

The Siamese were curled up on the foot of his bed. In Pickax they had their own room, complete with all conveniences, but at the museum they wanted to sleep on the foot of Qwilleran's bed, a quirk that made him wonder about subliminal influences in the place. All was quiet except for an occasional twitching paw or delicate snore. Shortly after he had turned off the bedside lamp and rolled over, he felt the animals snap out of their deep sleep. Koko was grunting. He turned on the lamp in time to see them listening with ears pricked, necks extended, and heads swiveling like periscopes as they strained to see into the adjoining hall. Then, with one accord, they jumped from the bed with fluid grace and scampered toward the kitchen. They had heard something.

Qwilleran had heard it, too, but he assumed the refrigerator motor had kicked on, or the electric pump was refilling the tank, as it sometimes did in the middle of the night for reasons of its own. Nevertheless, he slipped into his moose-skin moccasins and groped his way to the kitchen, where he heard the gentle sound of a cat lapping a drink of water. That was Yum Yum. Koko was on the windowsill, chattering as he did at squirrels—unusual behavior in the middle of the night.

Qwilleran looked out the window and saw nothing, but he thought it prudent to check the museum. Without turning on lights—simply low-beaming a flashlight on and off—he inspected the exhibit rooms and the office. Whimsically he thought, it would be a joke on a skeptic like me if Ephraim Goodwinter were to materialize through a wall—and what a column it would make for the "Qwill Pen"! Hopefully he sat down in the office. Once he thought he saw, from the comer of his eye, a wisp of movement, and he turned quickly, but there was nothing there. If he had been less skeptical he might have been more patient, but he declined to spend more than five minutes on ghost watching.

Returning to his apartment he locked the connecting door and went back to bed, where he turned on the radio and heard WPKX signing off for the night. Yum Yum again nestled against his feet, although her partner had not returned. Qwilleran picked up his book and tried to resume reading, but Koko's absence made him uncomfortable. Once more he padded to the kitchen and called him without hearing a reply. The entire apartment was silent, and it was not the living, breathing silence that means a furry body is hiding and listening; it was the dead silence that falls on a place I when a missing cat is simply not there.

Grumbling under his breath, Qwilleran returned to the museum and found Koko sitting on the registrar's table with other uncatalogued items: a stoneware jug, a hand-cranked. apple peeler, an embroidered pillow celebrating the Columbian Exposition of 1893, a wooden blueberry picker, an old print of sailing ships—and Kristi's bible. The merest quiver in the roots of Qwilleran's moustache told him to carry both the cat and the bible back to the apartment.

This time, with two cats pressing against his feet, he had no trouble falling asleep. He slept soundly until the darkest hour of night, when he found himself sitting up in bed and staring at the face of the stern-eyed, sour-faced miser. He tried to speak, but no words came. He tried to shout. Ephraim came closer and closer, and then the General Grant headboard began to topple. He raised both hands in a futile attempt to stop it from crushing him...

The dream ended, and Qwilleran found himself sitting up in bed with both arms raised and his head throbbing. The cats were blissfully asleep; the headboard was firmly in place; but his skin was clammy, his throat was sore, and his eyes burned.

After taking aspirin and a large glass of water he finished the night on the sofa and succumbed to deep sleep until the telephone rang and the familiar voice of Arch Riker barked, "Did you hear the news on the radio?"

"No, dammit! I was sound asleep!" Qwilleran complained in a hoarse croak. "With a friend like you, who needs an alarm clock? What time is it?"

"Nine-fifteen. Do you want to go back to sleep or do you want to hear some hot breaking news?" asked the publisher of the Something, knowing well what the answer would be.

Qwilleran was instantly awake. "What happened?" he asked in full voice.

"It was on the nine o'clock news. They found the body of a man near where you're living. Were you involved in any fights last night?"

"Who? Who's the man?"

"For an innocent bystander you sound unusually anxious, my friend. They're not releasing his name until they've notified next of kin."

"Where was the body?"

"On Fugtree Road near the Black Creek bridge. That's all I know. Roger's over at the police station getting something for the Something."

Qwilleran had no sooner hung up than Polly Duncan called him with the same news.

He said, "Both the cats and I were alerted last night. Something was happening in the neighborhood, but I couldn't figure it out. After that, I had a nightmare. I saw Ephraim's ghost. I was wishing I had a can of beans. When I woke up I was having a peculiar physical reaction." He described the symptoms.

"It sounds to me," Polly said, "like an allergy attack, probably caused by all those fallen leaves and the heavy rain. Drink a lot of water."

Qwilleran opted for coffee, then called the Moose County Something. Roger had just returned from the civic center.

"What did you find out, Roger?" he asked. "Talk about poetic justice! The murdered man is Brent Waffle," the young reporter said. "He's the guy Kristi Fugtree divorced, and he was the prime suspect in the poisoning of her goats."

"How was he killed?" Qwilleran held his breath, remembering that Kristi had a gun and she was emotional enough to use it.

"Hit on the head with a blunt instrument, but it didn't happen at the bridge. He was dumped there. They can tell by the bleeding or something that he was killed elsewhere."

"Do they know the time of death?"

"The medical examiner figures between five and six P.M. yesterday.

"Who found the body?"

"A road crew going to work on the bridge."

"How about suspects?"

"They're talking to people around your neighborhood. They'll get to you soon, so you'd better rehearse your alibi... I've got to go and file my story now. Keep this under your hat till the paper hits the street."

Qwilleran leafed through Mrs. Cobb's phone book, but before he could make another call there was a commotion on the windowsill. Koko was agitated, pacing back and forth on the sill like a caged tiger, uttering a sharp "ik ik ik."

"What's all the fuss about?" Qwilleran asked. He went to the window in time to see something disappearing through the cat-hatch in the barn door, and it was not a cat. On the grassy ramp outside the hatch lay a small bright green object.

Qwilleran rang the Boswell cottage. "This is Qwilleran. I think Baby's in the barn. Better send your husband down to get her."

"Oh dear!... I didn't know..." said a confused voice. "Vince isn't here... I'll get dressed..."

"Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Boswell?"

"I was lying down... I didn't know... I'll get dressed..."

"Stay where you are. I'll find her and send her home."

"Oh, thank you... I'm sorry... I didn't know..." Qwilleran skipped the civilities, pulled on some clothes and ran to the barn. Opening the eye of the needle and squinting into the darkness, he called "Baby! Baby!"—his voice reverberating in the vaulted space. Then he opened the big barn doors, and the flood of light revealed the small girl trudging down an aisle between the crates, clutching a kitten, its four legs protruding awkwardly like a scarecrow.

"I found a kitty," she said. "Be careful! He might scratch. Put him down gently—very gently—that's the way!"

Baby did as she was told. That was to her credit, Qwilleran thought. She listened to reason and she was obedient.