When the two baseball fans arrived at the Old Stone Mill, they were shown to the best table - one with a bouquet of fresh flowers - and there was applause from other diners; everyone in Pickax knew about the $1,500 dinner date. Sarah blushed, and Qwilleran bowed to the smiling faces at other tables.
The waiter served them one dry vermouth and one Squunk water, and Sarah said, "When you write about Koko and Yum Yum in your column, Qwill, you show a wonderful understanding of cats. Have you always been a cat fancier?"
"No, I was quite ignorant of feline culture when I adopted them, but they soon taught me everything I needed to know. Now I'd find it difficult to live without them. What attracts me is their secret energy. It makes a cat a forceful presence at all times."
He was interrupted by the forceful presence of Derek Cuttlebrink, presenting the menus and reciting the specials: "Chicken breast in curried sauce with stir-fried veggies... roast rack of lamb with green peppercorn sauce... and shrimp in a saffron cream with sun-dried tomatoes and basil, served on spinach fettucine."
Sarah said, "I developed a taste for curry when we traveled in India, so that would be my immediate choice."
Derek asked Qwilleran, "You want a sixteen-ounce steak and a doggie bag?"
"You don't happen to have any turkey, do you?"
"Come back on Thankgiving day. The soup du jour is oxtail."
"I had oxtail for lunch at the Spoonery. Who stole the recipe from whom?"
"You wanna know the truth," Derek confided, "our chef got the recipe from Joy of Cooking."
When the waiter had left the table, Sarah said, "He's rather outspoken, isn't he? But he's refreshing."
Qwilleran agreed. "He gets away with it because he's six-feet-eight. If he were five-feet-six, he'd be fired...
Now, where were we? Speaking of cats, I assume you like animals."
"Very much. I volunteer my services at the animal shelter every Saturday."
"What do you do?"
"I wash dogs."
"Small ones, I hope," Qwilleran said. "All sizes. Every dog gets a bath when he arrives at the shelter, and not one has ever given me any trouble. They seem to know we're doing something nice for them. Last Saturday I bathed a Great Dane. He jumped right into the tub. I put cotton in his ears and salve in his eyes, then wetted him down with the hose, applied shampoo, talked to him, hosed him off, and dried him. He loved it!"
"Apparently you're accustomed to dogs."
"Yes, we always had them at home. Now all I have is Sir Cedric. When I go home at the end of the day, he greets me, and we have some conversation, rather one-sided, I'm afraid... I wouldn't tell this to anyone else, Qwill."
"I understand exactly how you feel," he said with sincerity.
When the entr‚es were served, he took a deep breath and asked, "Didn't you have a display of buttons at the library a while ago?"
"You remembered! How nice!" she exclaimed.
"How, why, and when did you start collecting?"
"My father had a valuable collection of historic military buttons, and when we went to large cities for ballgames, he would search for Civil War buttons in the antique shops, and I would look for pretty glass ones. Now I have over a thousand - all kinds. My miniature paintings on porcelain are small works of art that I can hold in my hand. I also specialize in animal designs on ivory, silver, brass, copper, and even Wedgwood. I have a shell cameo of a dog's head carved from the Cassis Tuberca from the West Indies. You may remember it in my exhibit."
"Yes," he murmured vaguely.
Then she said, "If it isn't too presumptious, Qwill, I'd like to give you a memento of this occasion." She reached into her handbag and gave him a carved wood button depicting a cat's head.
"Well, thank you. That's a charming thought," he murmured.
"You might like to attend a meeting of the tri-county button club, too. Quite a few men belong."
"That's something to keep in mind... Shall we have dessert?"
The meal ended with crŠme br–l‚e for her and apple pie with cheese for him, and she declared it the most delightful dining experience of her entire life. As he drove her home, the conversation turned to shoptalk: the newspaper's fast-growing circulation, Wilfred's glory as a biker, and Mildred's new Thursday food page.
Sarah asked, "Did you notice the references to Iris Cobb in the Food Forum? She's greatly missed."
"Did you know her?"
"Very well! When I was a volunteer at the museum, she'd invite me to have lunch with her, knowing how I loved her pasties. I have an educated palate, you know - another of Father's legacies." She sighed and went on. "Did you know I was one of the preliminary judges for the pasty contest Saturday?"
"No. Filling or crust?"
"Filling. And now I must confide in you: There was one pasty that was extraordinary! To me it tasted as good as Iris Cobb's! It was made with turkey, which was disallowed, but the other judges and I were mischievous enough to pass it through to the finals." They were turning into the gates of Indian Village. Shyly, Sarah said, "Would you care to come in for a while and see my collection of buttons?"
"Thank you, but I have some scheduled phone calls to make. Another time, perhaps," he said, "but I'll see you safely indoors and say goodnight to Sir Cedric."
The animal holding up the library table, who had been standing on his hind legs for a hundred years, looked eerily alive. There was the shading of the brown coat, with the delineation of every hair, and there was the sad hound-dog expression in the eyes. Qwilleran patted his head. "Good dog! Good dog!"
On the way home he reflected that the evening would have been quite different if his auction package had been knocked down to Danielle Carmichael for her mandated cap of a thousand dollars. The conversation would have been about malls, football, and kinkajous instead of buttons, baseball, and carved wooden dogs, and she would never have referred to minutiae. Instead of a simple dress with Chanel jacket, she would have worn a sequinned cocktail sheath, thigh-high, and the other diners would not have applauded. Rather, they would have gasped, and some would have snickered. (This was Pickax, not Baltimore.) And the Christmas fund would have been five hundred dollars poorer. And he would not have heard the comment on the extraordinary pasty in the bake-off. By raising the ghost of Iris Cobb, Sarah might well be supporting his growing suspicions.
As soon as he arrived home, he made some phone calls. It was late but not too late for certain night owls of his acquaintance.
At the Riker residence, Mildred answered. "How was your fifteen-hundred-dollar dinner date?"
"Never mind that. Read about it in the 'Qwill Pen,' " he replied briskly. "Right now I'm interested in what the accountants' safe divulged. I read the winners' names in the paper today. Who baked the superpasty?"
"If I tell you, will you promise not to leak it? We're planning a feature, you know - the way you suggested."
He promised.
"Promise you won't even tell Polly?"
He promised again.
"Why are you so interested?"
"I'm writing a book on the origin and evolution of the pasty, from miner's lunch to gourmet treat."
"At this time of night? Come on, Qwill! You're keeping secrets."
"You're the one who's keeping secrets. I'm telling you flat-out that I'm writing a book." He was always on the verge of writing a book, but not about pasties.
"Okay. It was Elaine Fetter of West Middle Hummock."
"I suspected as much."
"Do you know her?"
"Everybody knows her. And if I were you, I'd put that superpasty feature on hold."
"What's the matter? What's this all about?"