"That is, if I'm' 'braw' enough to wear it at all. It's supposed to be a surprise for Polly, so don't spread the rumor." Even though his mother was a Mackintosh, and even though he had joined the clan as a tribute to her memory, Qwilleran had reservations about appearing in public in a kilt.
The two men stood on the sidewalk and gazed with dismay at the boarded windows of the hotel across the street. "A crying shame!" said the accountant. "It wasn't a good hotel, but it was all we had, and who knows what'll happen to it now? The owner's in the hospital, and the management agency will be dragging its feet. They're based in Lockmaster, you know, and couldn't care less about a little creeping blight in downtown Pickax."
Qwilleran said, "I met the owner just before he had his accident, and he's eccentric, to say the least. I hope his affairs are in order-legal and financial. I hope he has an attorney, and an estate-planner, and a will."
"The problem is that no one wants to work with the scoundrel," Big Mac said. "Our office used to do his tax work, but he was impossible. Didn't keep records. Wouldn't take advice. What does one do with a client like that? I've forgotten whether we fired him or he fired us. His local attorney bowed out in desperation, too. The Lockmaster agency probably handles all his affairs now. They have my sympathy!"
Main Street was crowded with Saturday shoppers, since there was no mall to lure them from downtown, and they were joined by quite a few sightseers, gawking at the scene of the explosion. Among them was Mitch Ogilvie, dressed more like a farmer than a museum manager.
Qwilleran grabbed him roughly by the arm. "Mitch, you dirty dog! What happened to you? I hear you left the museum. You look as if you're going to a costume party!" He was wearing grubby denims, field boots, and a feed cap. He had also grown a beard.
"Yeah, I'm working my way up the ladder," the young man said. "From hotel clerk... to museum manager... to goat farmer! I'm glad I wasn't working here when the hotel blew up."
"Yes, but what's this about goat farming?"
"Kristi started a new herd, and I helped her sell her mother's antiques. She realized enough to make some big improvements in the house and the farm, so I hired on."
"Have you learned how to milk goats?"
"Believe it or not, I'm the cheese-maker. I went to a farm in Wisconsin and took a course. The new cheese shop on Stables Row is handling our product. Maybe you've seen our labeclass="underline" Split Rail Farm. We got rid of the old white fence, and I built one myself out of split rails."
"I've not only seen your label, I've bought your cheese," Qwilleran said. "I've tried the feta and the pepper cheese. Great eating! I'd like to see the cheese operation; I might be able to write about it."
"Sure! Great! Anytime!" Qwilleran suggested the next afternoon. "That is, if you don't mind working on Sunday."
"There are no days off in the goat business, Qwill." Mitch glanced at the hotel. "But it's safer than working at the Pickax Hotel... See ya!"
Qwilleran continued on his way to the shop called Franklin's Flowers. It was across from the hotel and next door to Exbridge & Cobb, Fine Antiques. Susan Exbridge was a handsome match for her upscale establishment. She collected Georgian silver, won bridge tournaments at the country club, received alimony from a wealthy developer, and bought her clothes in Chicago. When Qwilleran happened along, she was standing on the sidewalk, critiquing a display she had just arranged in the window.
Stealing up behind her and disguising his voice, he said, "There's a wrinkle in the rug, and the lamp shade is crooked."
She saw his reflection in the glass and turned quickly. "Darling! Where have you been all summer? The town has been desolate without you!" As one of the more flamboyant members of the theatre club, she over dramatized.
"It's been a hectic summer in many ways," he explained.
"I know. How's Polly?" The two women were not warm friends, but they observed the civilities, as one is required to do in a small town.
"Improving daily. We have to find her a place to live. Her apartment is being swallowed up by the college campus. Temporarily she's staying with her sister-in- law."
"Why don't you and Polly - " she began.
"Our cats are incompatible," he interrupted, knowing what she was about to suggest.
They discussed the possibilities of Indian Village, a complex of apartments and condominiums on the Ittibittiwassee River. There were nature trails; the river was full of ducks; the woods were full of birds.
"The quacking and chirping sometimes drive me up the wall," Susan said, "but Polly would love it." There was a tinge of snobbery in her comment. In Indian Village, the bridge-players never went birding, and the bird-watchers never played bridge. Some day, Qwilleran thought, he would write a column on cliques in Moose County. He might lose a few friends, but it was a columnist's duty to stir things up occasionally.
Susan opened the front door. "Come in and see my new annex."
The premises always gleamed with polished mahogany and shining brass, but now an archway opened into a new space filled with antiques of a dusty, weathered, folksy sort.
"Do you recognize any of those primitives?" she asked. "They were in Iris Cobb's personal collection, and I never had a place to display them until the store next door was vacated. I rented half of it, and Franklin Pickett took the other half. Honestly, he's such a pill! He always wants to borrow antique objects for his window display, but he never offers a few flowers for my shop."
In the archway a rustic sign on an easel announced: THE IRIS COBB COLLECTION. Qwilleran noted a pine cupboard, several milking stools, benches with seats made from half-logs, wrought-iron utensils for fireplace cooking, an old school desk, some whirligigs, and a faded hand hooked rug with goofy-looking farm animals around the border. He picked up a basket with an openwork weave that left large hexagonal holes. It had straight sides and was about a foot in diameter. He questioned the size of the holes.
"That's a cheese basket," Susan explained. "They'd line it with cheesecloth, fill it with curds, and let it drip. It belonged to a French-Canadian family near Trawnto Beach. They were shipwrecked there in 1870 and decided to stay. They raised dairy cattle and made their own cheese until the farmhouse was destroyed by fire in 1911. The daughter was able to save the cheese basket and that hooked rug. She still had them when she died at the age of ninety-five."
Qwilleran gave her a stony stare. "You should be writing fiction, Susan."
"Every word is true! Iris recorded the provenance on the catalogue card."
Qwilleran shrugged a wordless apology to the memory of the late Iris Cobb. She had been an expert on antiques and a wonderful cook and a warm-hearted friend, but he had always suspected her of inventing a provenance for everything she sold. "And what is that?" he asked, pointing to a weathered wood chest with iron hardware.
"An old sea chest," Susan recited glibly, "found in an attic in Brrr. It had been washed up on the beach following an 1892 shipwreck and was thought to belong to a Scottish sailor."
"Uh huh," Qwilleran said skeptically, "and there was a wooden leg in the chest thought to belong to Long John Silver. How much are you asking for the cheese basket and the chest? And are they cheaper without the provenance?"
"Spoken like an experienced junker," she said. "Because you're an old friend of dear Iris, I'll give you a clergyman's discount, ten percent. She'd want you to have it."
Qwilleran grunted his thanks as he wrote the check, thinking that dear Iris would have given him twenty percent. He said, "I don't suppose her personal cookbook turned up, did it?"
"I wish it had! Some of my customers would mort- gage their homes to buy it! The book was a mess, but the recipes she had developed were priceless. She kept it in that old school desk, but by the time I was appointed to appraise the estate, it was gone."