The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

"Now that you've heard the bad news, Qwill," Polly was saying, "how's everything in the mountains?"

"I'm spittin' mad," he said.

"That sounds like mountain vernacular, and you've been there only three days."

"I've just had an infuriating experience at a restaurant."

"What did they do wrong?"

"Everything! They gave me the worst table in the place. The service was abominable. The soup was cold. The food was too salty. It was the salty food that explained the whole conspiracy."

"Are you saying it was done purposely?"

"Damn right it was! I made the mistake of taking the wrong person to dinner. My guest was a mountaineer. They're called Taters around here."

"Really! Are they so undesirable?"

"They're an unpopular minority, although they were here first, and they get a rotten shake at every turn. In Moose County we have cliques but no prejudice like this, and I was unprepared. The whole dinner was an embarrassment."

"What are you going to do?" Polly knew Qwilleran was not one to turn the other cheek.

"I've got to think about it."

"I'm sorry you're so upset."

"Don't worry," he said, his anger subsiding. "I'm going to consult Koko. He'll come up with an idea. How's Boot-sie?"

"He's fine. He weighs ten pounds."

"Ten pounds going on thirty! And how are you?"

"I'm fine. The library board is giving a formal dinner Friday, and I'm altering the neck of my long dress so I can wear my pearls. I miss you, dearest."

"I miss you, too." There was a breathy pause. Despite his facility with words, Qwilleran found terms of endearment difficult. "A bientot," he said with feeling in his voice.

"A bientot, dearest."

He went outdoors and walked briskly around the veranda a few times. The sun was dropping behind the West Potatoes, and the dragon clouds were waging a riotous battle—violent pink and purple against a turquoise sky. When a damp chill from the northeast chased him indoors, Koko was still prancing.

"What's on your mind?" he asked absently.

"Yow!" said Koko with urgency, running back and forth through the living room arch.

"Where's Yum Yum?" It occurred to Qwilleran that he had not seen her since returning from dinner. Immediately he checked all the comfortable chairs in the living room and all the beds upstairs. Calling her name he rushed from room to room, opening closets, cabinets, and even drawers. Then—back in the living room—he saw Koko dive under the floor-length skirt that Sabrina had draped on a round table.

"You devils!" he muttered as he fell on his hands and knees and peered under the skirt. There they were, both of them, wearing beatific expressions, and on the floor between them was a stamped, addressed letter with perforations in two corners. "Who stole this?" he demanded, although he knew Koko was the culprit, attracted by the adhesive on the stamp and the envelope. Although Yum Yum's famous paw pilfered Scrabble tiles and cigarette lighters, Koko specialized in documents, leaving fang marks as evidence. Qwilleran dropped the Peel & Poole letter in a drawer of the Fitzwallow huntboard for safekeeping until he could mail it, noting as he did so that it was addressed to Sherry Hawkinfield in Maryland— probably a bill for Sabrina Peel's appraisal services.

Before going upstairs to finish the evening with a book, he gave the Siamese their bedtime snack, a dry food concocted by a gourmet cook in Moose County. Qwilleran watched them gobble and crunch, but his mind was elsewhere. He had no desire to take sides in local politics and no intention of becoming a gullible confederate in a Tater obsession. Yet, the shabby treatment at the golf club and the emotional outpourings from his dinner guest were stirring his blood.

The matter of a good attorney could be handled easily; he had only to call Hasselrich, Bennett & Barter in Moose County, but old Mr. Hasselrich—he of the fluttering eyelids and quivering jowls—would expect a well-organized brief. Some kind of preliminary investigation of the Father's Day murder would be necessary, something that could be done quietly without causing alarm in the valley.

As Qwilleran absentmindedly watched the Siamese washing up after their snack, he started patting his moustache; an idea was formulating. For cover he would use a ploy that had worked on a previous occasion. It would explain his presence in the Potatoes and his need to see a transcript of the Beechum trial, and it would enable him to question a number of local residents, especially those victimized by Hawkinfield's damaging editorials. To spread the word and establish his credentials he would first break the news to Carmichael at the Gazette.

"Colin," he would say, "I want you to be the first to know. I plan to write a biography of J.J. Hawkinfield."

CHAPTER 10

Beechum had been right again. It rained all night, charging in like a herd of elephants, battering the trees, beating on the roof, soaking the earth. By Tuesday morning the downpour had abated leaving the trees dripping, the atmosphere soggy, and the ground muddy. Qwilleran doubted that the carpenter would show up to work on the gazebo.

While he was preparing his breakfast coffee and thawing a four-day-old doughnut, the telephone rang, and a man's voice said genially, "How are you, Qwill? Getting settled? I hear you had dinner at the club last night. This is Colin Carmichael."

"Let's say that I participated in a farce that masqueraded as dinner," Qwilleran retorted in a bad humor. "How did you hear about it?"

"They called me because I sponsored you."

"If they want to apologize, it's too late. I've torn up my card."

"It's not exactly an apology. It's an explanation," the editor said. "They thought I should explain the situation to you. To put it bluntly, you brought a Tater to the club as your guest, and the members don't care for that."

"That's what I suspected," Qwilleran said belligerently. "Tell the members they know what they can do. Editors excluded, of course."

"Honestly, I hated to call you, Qwill. Sorry it happened."

"So am I. It tells me something about Spudsboro that I didn't want to know."

"Don't hold it against me. How about lunch?"

"I think it would be better if I dropped into your office. There's something I want to discuss with you, and I'd like to see some back copies while I'm there."

"Sure. Any time after two will be okay. We're putting a special to bed at two, and it's quite important. I want to be on top of it."

"What kind of special?"

"Sixteen pages of June brides, heavy on advertising, of course."

"Of course," said Qwilleran. "See you after two."

To his surprise, the red pickup with one blue fender pulled into the lot, and he went to the building site to greet the carpenter.

"Morning, Mr. Beechum. That was quite some rain we had last night."

"Gonna git worse."

"Hmmm . . . well . . . but the job is shaping up nicely. I didn't know it was going to be hexagonal, though."

"Hex what?"

"It has six sides instead of four."

Tiggered to git you sumpin' special."

"I appreciate that." Qwilleran sauntered around with his hands in his pockets. "Nice view from here. You were nght about that, too."

"Lotsa purty sights in the mount'ns." The carpenter straightened up and pointed with his handsaw. "They's a puny trail down thataway."

"Thanks, but I'm not taking any more chances on getting lost in the woods."

"Iffen you git lost, jes' keep on goin'. You bound to come out somewheres."

"I admire your philosophy, Mr. Beechum. What about the caves? I hear there are some interesting caves in the mountains. Do you know anything about the caves?"