G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA · Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) · Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England · Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) · Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) · Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India · Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) · Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2007 by Lilian Jackson Braun
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
ISBN: 1-4295-0320-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Dedicated to Earl Bettinger,
The Husband Who…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Earl, my other half—for his husbandly love, encouragement, and help in a hundred ways.
To my research assistant, Shirley Bradley—for her expertise and enthusiasm.
To Becky Faircloth, my office assistant—who’s always there when I need her.
To my editor, Natalee Rosenstein—for her faith inThe Cat Who …from the very beginning.
To my literary agent, Blanche C. Gregory, Inc.—for a lifetime of agreeable partnership.
To the real-life Kokos and Yum Yums—for their fifty years of inspiration.
PROLOGUE
Overheard at an alfresco party in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere:
WOMAN IN BLUE SHETLAND SWEATER:“I have never heard of such a thing! And I’ve been a veterinarian for twenty years!”
MAN WITH LARGE MOUSTACHE:“What can I say? I counted them myself.”
WOMAN:“You might have miscounted.”
MAN:“Would you like to count them yourself? If I’m right, you can report the evidence to a scientific journal. If I’m wrong, I’ll take you to dinner at the Mackintosh Inn.”
WOMAN:“Fair enough! We’ll do it the next time you bring him in for a dental prophylaxis.”
ONE
The man with the large moustache (a well-groomed pepper and salt) was Jim Qwilleran, columnist for theMoose County Something and transplant from Down Below, as locals called the metropolitan areas to the south. They themselves, for the most part, were descended from the early settlers, and they had inherited the pioneer fortitude, sense of humor, and appreciation of individuality.
They enjoyed the Qwill Pen column that ran twice weekly…accepted the fact that he lived alone in a converted apple barn, with two cats…and admired his magnificent moustache.
James Mackintosh Qwilleran had entertained several ambitions in his youth Down Below: first to play second base with the Chicago Cubs, then to act on the Broadway stage, and later to write for theNew York Times. He had certainly never wanted to be the richest individual in the northeast central United States! How it happened was a tale “stranger than fiction.”
“Aunt Fanny” Klingenschoen probably knew what she was doing when she made him her sole heir.
Qwilleran established a philanthropic organization: the Klingenschoen Foundation, which went to work improving the quality of life in Moose County. Medical, scholastic, cultural, and infrastructural improvements were made possible by the K Fund, as it was known to one and all.
To everyone’s surprise, other old-moneyed families were inspired to put their fortunes to work for the public good. A music center, two museums, and a senior recreation facility were in the works.
Everything’s going too smoothly, Qwilleran thought, with the pessimism of a seasoned newsman. “What’s your fix on the situation, Arch?” he asked his old friend from Chicago.
Arch Riker was now editor in chief of theSomething. He shook his head morosely. “When there’s so much money floating around, somebody’s gonna get greedy.”
(Visitors from far and wide—in formal attire—had paid five hundred dollars a ticket for a preview of the mansion, called the Old Manse.)
It was a late evening in August. Qwilleran and the cats had been enjoying a cozy evening in the barn. He had read to them from theWall Street Journal, and they all had a little ice cream.
The barn was an octagonal structure of fieldstone and weathered shingles more than a century old. Indoors, all the old wood surfaces and overhead rafters had been bleached to a honey color, and odd-shaped windows had been cut in the walls.
Where once there had been lofts for storing apples, now there was a ramp winding around the interior, with balconies at three levels.
Later in the evening, the Siamese deserted the reading area and chased each other up and down the ramp, then dropped like flying squirrels onto the sofa on the main floor. The living areas were open-plan, surrounding a huge fireplace cube, its stacks rising to the roof forty feet overhead.
It was almost elevenP .M., and Koko and Yum Yum were being unduly attentive; it was time for their bedtime snack.
Proceeding in slow motion, to tantalize the anxious cats, he rattled the canisters of Kabibbles and dusted off their two plates with exaggerated care. They watched hungrily. Koko appeared to be breathing heavily.
Suddenly Koko switched his attention to the wall phone that hung between the kitchen window and the back door. He stared at it for a minute, twitching his ears nervously.
Qwilleran got the message. By some catly intuition, Koko knew the phone was going to ring. After a few seconds it rang. How did that smart cat know? Guessing that it would be Polly Duncan, the chief woman in his life, Qwilleran answered in a facetiously syrupy voice: “Good evening!”
“Well! You sound in a good mood,” she said in the gentle voice he knew so well. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing much. What are you doing?”
“Shortening my new dress a couple of inches.”
“Whoo-ee!”
Ignoring the comic wolf whistle, she went on, “It’s much too long, and I thought I’d wear it with some Scottish accessories Sunday afternoon, since the party’s celebrating Dr. Connie’s return from Scotland. Would you consider wearing your Highland attire, Qwill?”
Although he had once rebelled at wearing what he called a “skirt,” he now felt proud in a Mackintosh kilt with a dagger in his knee sock. After all, his mother had been a Mackintosh.
“What was Connie doing in Scotland? Do you know?”
“She earned her degree from the veterinary school in Glasgow twenty years ago, and she goes back to visit friends. Did you know her cat has been boarding with Wetherby?”