"Will the fish keep?" he asked. "I'd like to take you to the Northern Lights Hotel for dinner. My day hasn't been productive, and I need a change of scene." "Why, of course! That sounds lovely," Rosemary said. "Do I have time to walk on the beach for an hour?" "You won't like it. The beach is covered with dead fish." "That won't bother me," she said. "It's part of nature." Leaving tulips in a lemonade pitcher on the mantel, in a flour canister on the dining table, and in an ice bucket on the bar, Rosemary tripped jubilantly down the slope to the beach.
Qwilleran sprawled on one of the sofas. "Koko, I feel like an idiot," he told the cat, who was studying him intently from the back of the sofa. "I don't have a single clue.
What are we working with? A dead body in the lake, the murder of a retired cop, and a message on a cassette. Someone has been using this cabin for some kind of illicit or illegal purpose. Never mind who. We don't even know what." "YOW!" said Koko, blinking his large blue eyes.
Qwilleran brought the cassette from his dresser drawer and once more played Little White Lies. The voice cut in: "… bring up more stuff… gotta make some changes..
things are gettin' hot… at the boat dock after supper." It was a high-pitched nasal voice with a monotonous inflection.
"I've heard that voice before," Qwilleran said to Koko, but the cat was playing with his catnip toy. "Things were getting hot because Buck was closing in on his investigation. Some changes had to be made because the cabin was no longer available as a depot." That voice! That voice! He had heard it at the post office, or at the FOO, or at the General Store, or in the hotel dining room.
No! Qwilleran snapped to attention. The voice on the cassette was the voice he had heard in the fog, when two men were brawling on another boat. One voice had a deep rumble and a British accent. The other man spoke with a piercing twang and a flat inflection. As he recalled, something had happened to the engine, and they were arguing, apparently, about the best way to get it started.
CLUNK!
Qwilleran recognized the clunk of a book being pushed from a bookshelf and landing on the floor. Koko had done it before. He was never clumsy; if he knocked something down it was for a good reason.
Koko was on the second shelf, digging behind a row of books to extricate his sockful of catnip. The book he had dislodged was a treatise on historic shipwrecks. It was lying open on the floor — open to a page marked by a folded slip of paper.
There on page 102 was an account of the sinking of the Waterhouse B. Duncan, a freighter carrying a rich cargo of copper ingots. It went down in treacherous water north of Mooseville during a severe storm in November 1913. All lives were lost: three passengers and a crew of twenty-three, including a woman cook.
The folded slip that marked page 102 was a penciled agreement to rent a boat for thirteen summer weekends, terms to be decided. It was dated the previous year and was signed S. Hanstable.
There was something about this information that jogged Qwilleran's memory. Somewhere in one of her letters Aunt Fanny had mentioned… what? The recollection was a vague one. He delved into his correspondence file and groaned; not only were her letters cross- written but her handwriting was extremely individual, and the multitude of dashes made each page a dazzling plaid.
He put on his reading glasses and squinted through half a dozen pages before he found the reference that was nagging his memory. On April third she had first offered him the use of the cabin. Written in her telegraphic style, the letter read:
Charming little place — built entirely of Logs — quite comfortable — I'm getting Older — don't enjoy it so much — last summer decided to rent — two handsome young men — interested in marine history — came up on weekends — their girlfriends stayed all week — horrid creatures — played games with spaghetti — threw it at the ceiling — unspeakable mess — two weeks to clean the place — never again!
Qwilleran's moustache bristled, the way it did when he thought he had found a clue.
The bookmark raised other questions: Did Roger's wife own a boat? Did she print like a kindergarten teacher? Did she spell «decided» with an s?
10
Before taking Rosemary out to dinner Qwilleran fed the cats, both of whom fastidiously avoided every shred of carrot that contaminated their corned beef.
He had made a reservation at the Northern Lights Hotel in order to get one of the high-backed booths constructed from the salvaged cabins of retired fishing boats. Diners in these booths had to be careful to avoid splinters, and in humid weather the booths exuded haunting reminders of their origin, but they were ideal for confidential conversation.
Rosemary was wearing a Mooseville T-shirt and a braided leather necklace from the prison gift shop, and she looked so youthful, so vibrant, so healthy that Qwilleran found it hard to believe she had a grandson old enough to be in medical school. She hung her shoulder-strap bag on a hook at the entrance to the booth. "Isn't it wonderful," she said, "not to worry about theft! At home, when I go to a restaurant, I put this bag on the floor, keep my foot on it, and wind the strap around my ankle." The menu cover reproduced an engraving of a terrifying storm on the lake, and the paper placemats listed the dates of major shipwrecks plus the number of lives lost.
Bon appetit, Qwilleran thought. He said to Rosemary: "You can order the poached scrod with cauliflower if you wish, but I'm going to have a large steak with fries… Don't look so shocked. I know the Right Food has done wonders for you; you don't seem a day over thirty-nine. But it's too late for me. The only time I ever looked thirty-nine was when I was twenty-five." "Truce! Truce!" she said, waving a paper napkin. "I didn't mean to be a nag, Qwill.
You order whatever you want, and don't apologize. You're under creative pressure with your book, and you've earned a treat. How many chapters have you written? Would you read me a few pages tonight?" "And another thing, Rosemary: Please don't keep asking about my progress. I don't have a daily quota or a deadline, and when I'm not sitting at my typewriter I want to forget about it entirely." "Why, certainly, Qwill. I've never known an author personally. You'll have to tell me how to behave." He kept glancing across the room toward a party of four seated beneath a large painting of a drowning sailor in shark-infested water. "Don't look now," he said, "but the two men over there are wreck-divers, I've been told. They loot sunken ships." The men were tall, lean, and stony-faced. "They look like cigarette ads," Rosemary said, "and the girls with them look like models. How did they get those gorgeous tans so early in the season? And why don't they look happy? Their diet is probably inadequate." "I've seen the girls walking on the beach," Qwilleran said. "I think they're staying at a cottage near ours. They may be the four who rented Fanny's cabin last year." He told how Koko had attracted his attention to the shipwreck book and how he had waded through the cross-written correspondence. "If you're looking for a quick way to get a headache," he added, "I'll lend you a few of Fanny's letters." "When am I going to meet her?" "Tomorrow or Wednesday. I'd like to ask her about these so-called marine historians and about her relationship with Buck Dunfield. There's one obstacle; it's hard to get her attention." "Some types of deafness are caused by a diet deficiency," Rosemary said.
"She's not deaf, I'm sure. She simply chooses not to listen. Maybe you'll be able to get through to her, Rosemary. She seems to favor women… Excuse me a moment. I want to catch those people before they leave." He crossed the room to the wreck-divers and addressed the more formidable of the two.