"Durned if I didn't fix my tractor with a piece of wire. Saved a coupla hundred, easy." "Always wanted to go to Vegas, but my oId lady, she says no." "Forget handguns. I like a rifle for deer." "My kid caught a bushel of perch at Purple Point in half an hour." "We all know he's got his hand in the till. Never got caught, that's all." "Here's Terry!" several voices shouted, and heads turned toward the dirty windows.
One customer rushed out the door. Picking up a wooden palette, he slanted it across the steps to make a ramp.
Then a man in a feed cap, who had eased out of a low-slung car into a folding wheelchair, waited until he was pushed up the ramp into the diner.
"Dairy farmer," Junior whispered. "Bad accident a few years ago. Tractor rollover… Milks a hundred Holsteins an hour in a computerized milking parlor. Five hundred gallons a day. Eighteen tons of manure a year." The talk went on — about taxes, the commodities market, and animal waste management systems. There was plenty of laughter — chesty guffaws, explosive roars, cackling and bleating. «Baa-a-a» laughed a customer behind Qwilleran.
"We all know who she's makin' eyes at, don't we? Baa-a-a!" "Ed's new bam cost three quarters of a million.".
"They sent him to college and dammit if he didn't get on dope." "That which is crooked cannot be made straight, according to Ecclesiastes One-fifteen." "Man, he'll never get married. He's got it too good. Baa-a-a!" "We need rain bad." "If he brings that woman here, there's gonna be hell to pay." A sign over the doughnut tray read: "Cows may come and cows may go, but the bull in here goes on forever." "I believe it," Qwilleran said. "This is a gossip factory." "Nah," Junior said. "The guys just shoot the breeze." Toward eleven o'clock customers began to straggle out, and a man with a cigar stopped to give Junior a friendly punch in the ribs. He had a big build and arrogant swagger, and he bleated like a sheep. He rode off on the flashy motorcycle in a blast of noise and flying gravel.
"Who's that?" Qwilleran asked. "Birch Tree," Junior said. "It's really Trevelyan, an old family name in Moose County.
His brother's name is Spruce, and he has two sisters, Maple and Evergreen. I told you we're individualists up here." "That's the guy who's supposed to do our repairs, but he's taking his own sweet time." "He's good, but he hates to work. Hikes his prices so people won't hire him. Always has plenty of dough, though.
He's part owner of this diner, but that would never make anyone rich." "Unless they're selling something besides food," Qwilleran said.
On the way back to Pickax he asked if women ever came to the coffee hour.
"Naw, they have their own gossip sessions with tea and cookies… Want to hear the eleven o'clock news?" He turned on the car radio.
Ever since arriving in Moose County Qwilleran had marveled at the WPKX news coverage. The local announcers had a style that he called Instant Paraphrase.
The newscaster was saying, "… lost control of his vehicle when a deer ran across the highway, causing the car to enter a ditch and sending the driver to the Pickax Hospital, where he was treated and released. A hospital spokesperson said the patient was treated for minor injuries and released.
"In sports, the Pickax Miners walloped the Mooseville Mosquitoes thirteen to twelve, winning the county pennant and a chance at the play-offs. According to Coach Russell, the pennant gives the miners a chance to show their stuff in the regional play-offs." Suddenly Junior's beeper sounded, and a siren at City Hall started to wail. "There's a fire," he said. "Mind if I drop you at the light? See you later." His red Jaguar varoomed toward the fire hall, and Qwilleran walked the few remaining blocks. On every side he was hailed by strangers who seemed happy to see him and who used the friendly but respectful initial customary in Pickax.
"Hi, Mr. Q." "Morning, Mr. Q." "Nice day, Mr. Q." Mrs. Cobb greeted him with a promise of meatloaf sandwiches for lunch. "And there's a message from Mr. Cooper's office. The person you inquired about terminated her employment five years ago on July seventh. She started April third of that year. Also, a very strange woman walked in and said she'd been hired to clean three days a week. She's upstairs now, doing the bedrooms. And another thing, Mr. Qwilleran — I found some personal correspondence in my desk upstairs, and I thought you should sort it out. It's on your desk in the library." The correspondence filled a corrugated carton, and perched on top of the conglomeration of papers was Koko, sound asleep with his tail curled lovingly around his nose. Either the cat was developing a mail fetish, or he knew the carton had once contained a shipment of canned tuna.
Qwilleran removed the sleeping animal and tackled the old Klingenschoen correspondence. There was no order or sense to the collection, and nothing of historic or financial importance. Mail that should have been thrown into a wastebasket had been pigeon-holed in a desk. A letter from a friend, dated 1921, had been filed with a solicitation for a recent Boy Scout drive.
What caught Qwilleran's attention was a government postal card with two punctures in one comer, looking suspiciously like the mark of feline fangs.
The message read: "Writing on bus. Sorry didn't say goodbye. Got job in Florida — very sudden. Got a lift far as Cleveland. Throw out all my things. Don't need anything. Good job — good pay." It was signed with the name that had been haunting Qwilleran for the last ten days, and it was dated July 11, five years before. Curiously enough, there was a Maryland postmark. Why the girl was traveling from Cleveland to Florida by way of Maryland was not clear. Qwilleran also noted that the handwriting bore no resemblance to the precise penmanship on Daisy's luggage tags.
He ripped the tag from the suitcase in the kitchen and went in search of Mrs. Fulgrove. He found her in the Empire suite, furiously attacking a marble-topped, sphinx-legged table with her soft cloths and mysterious potions.
"This place was let go somethin' terrible," she said, "which don't surprise me, seein' as how the Old Lady didn't have no decent help for five years, but I'm doin' my best to put things to rights, and it ain't easy when you're my age and pestered with a bad shoulder, which I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." Qwilleran complimented her on her industry and principles and showed her the luggage tag. "Do you know anything about this?" "Course I do, it's my own writin', and nobody writes proper anymore, but the nuns taught us how to write so's anybody could read it, and when the Old Lady told me to put that girl's things in the attic, I marked 'em so's there'd be no mistake." "Why did the Old Lady keep Daisy's clothing, Mrs. Fulgrove? Was the girl expected to return?" "Heaven knows what the Old Lady took it in her head to do. She never throwed nothin' away, and when she told me to pack it all in the attic, I packed it in the attic and no questions asked." Qwilleran disengaged himself from the conference and let Mrs. Fulgrove return to her brass polish and marble restorer and English wax. He himself went back to answering letters. The afternoon delivery brought another avalanche spilling into the vestibule, to be distributed by the two self-appointed mail clerks. Koko delivered a card announcing a new seafood restaurant, as well as a letter from Roger's mother-in-law. She wrote:
Dear Qwill, Are you enjoying your new lifestyle? Don't forget you're only thirty miles from Mooseville. Drop in some afternoon. I've been picking wild blueberries for pies.
Mildred Hanstable
She had been Qwilleran's neighbor at the beach, and he remembered her as a generous-hearted woman who loved people. He seized the phone and immediately accepted the invitation-not only because she made superb pies but because she had been Daisy Mull's art teacher.
Driving up to the shore the next afternoon he sensed a difference in the environment as he approached the lake — not only the lushness of vegetation and freshness of breeze but a general air of relaxation and well-being. It was the magic that lured tourists to Mooseville.