In late afternoon, Qwilleran was sitting in the gazebo with the Siamese and a stack of magazines, when a sudden change in the cats’ attitude attracted his attention. Their necks stretched and ears pointed forward as they stared down the lane toward the Art Center. A few minutes later, the crunch of footsteps on gravel sent Qwilleran out to see who was trespassing. The prowler who rounded the last bend in the lane was a chubby young boy.
Qwilleran was not fond of preteens. “Looking for something?” he asked sharply, standing with his fists on his hips.
“Just moseying around,” the boy said amiably with an innocent expression on his rosy-cheeked face. He was one of Moose County’s well-fed blond youths who grew up to be giants. “What’s that?” he asked.
“What’s what?”
“The thing with screens all around.”
“It’s a gazebo.”
“Oh … How do you spell it?”
Qwilleran told him, and after the boy had studied the structure, he said, “It’s octagonal.”
“What did you say?”
“That means it has eight sides.”
Now Qwilleran was amused enough to relax his belligerence. “What’s your name?”
“Culvert.”
“Culvert? Is your father a highway engineer?”
“He’s a farmer. We live on Base Line.”
“What’s his name?”
“Rollo McBee.”
“I know him,” Qwilleran said. “I know your uncle Boyd, too. I see them at the coffee shop. What are you doing up here?”
“My mom sent me. I took some soup and rice pudding to Mrs. Coggin. She’s a nonagenarian.”
At this Qwilleran was sufficiently impressed to invite the boy into the gazebo to meet the cats.
“I never saw any like these,” Culvert said. “They’re Siamese.”
“You’ve got the biggest moustache I ever saw. Does it feel weird?”
“Not anymore. The first twenty-five years are the hardest. How old are you?”
“Ten, in July.”
“You have a good vocabulary for your age.”
“I have my own dictionary.”
“Good for you! Are you going to be an etymologist when you grow up?”
The boy shook his head soberly. “I’m going to be a photographer. I like to take pictures.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“People doing things. My dad milking the cows. My mom baking bread. Mrs. Coggin feeding the chickens… . Well, I gotta go home to supper. Can I take a picture of the cats sometime?”
Polly had promised to phone after Paul Skumble had left. It grew late, and Qwilleran was uneasy.
“I gave him a glass of wine and a simple supper,” she explained. “He likes my house. We decided I’ll wear my blue silk dress and pearls and sit in a highbacked Windsor in the library, with the leather-bound books from the Duncan family in the background - and a copy of Hamlet in my hand.”
“When will he start?”
“That’s what we need to discuss, Qwill. He wants to work in daylight, and since I’m busy at the library all week, it will have to be done on a series of weekends. You know, dear, how I love our uninterrupted time together, but… what else can we do?”
Qwilleran thought, Why did I ever suggest this fandango? “Don’t worry,” he said, feigning indifference. “There’ll be plenty of other weekends.”
In what remained of the evening, Qwilleran read aloud to the Siamese, one of their favorite pastimes, especially before bedtime. It was Koko’s responsibility to make the literary selection. They never read one title from cover to cover but sampled a chapter of this book or that. Qwilleran suspected they all sounded alike to his listeners, and he himself liked dipping into books he had read before. It was like running into an old friend on a street corner.
On this occasion Koko sensed new acquisitions from Eddington’s bookshop. After serious sniffing of the three World War II titles, he dislodged Fire Over London, and Qwilleran caught it before it landed on the floor. As usual he stretched out in his lounge chair with his feet on the ottoman and Yum Yum on his lap, while Koko sat attentively on the wide arm of the chair. It was a toss-up whether the familiarity of this ritual was more comforting to the cats or the man.
After the reading session the Siamese had their usual nightly snack and then went up the ramp to their room on the third balcony. Their door was left open, since the addition of the bird garden, to accommodate their early-morning bird-watching through the foyer windows. The door to his suite was closed to prevent furry bodies from crawling under his blankets.
It was a clear night. The weather was calm. The stars were bright. Sometime during the small hours Qwilleran was jolted awake by a thumping against his door, followed by unearthly howling. He jumped out of bed and yanked open the door.
“Oh, my God!” he yelled, dashing to the phone.
The large windows on the east side of the barn framed a horrifying sight: a night sky turned brilliant orange! He punched 911. “Building on fire - Trevelyan Road, quarter-mile north of Base Line - the new Art Center - surrounded by woods - forest fire a possibility.”
He pulled pants over his pajamas, whirled down the spiral staircase to the kitchen, grabbed the car keys and was gone.
Oh, God! he groaned to himself as he drove recklessly down the lane. All those hopes! All that work! All that art! All that turpentine! … Some artist working late - and smoking, against regulations… Mildred will have a heart attack! he thought.
He could hear the frantic chorus of emergency vehicles: the wailing and honking of firefighting equipment; the sirens of police cars. As he drew closer. the scene became brighter: leaping red and yellow flames licking the black sky. The flames had not reached the grove of ancient trees… had not reached his new gate… had not reached the Art Center! It was the Coggin farmhouse on fire!
-6-
Flames were leaping into the black sky, and the bulky figures of firefighters were silhouetted against the orange and red inferno. Powerful headlights glared, and blue lights flashed. Fire trucks, sheriffs cars, and the pickups of volunteers were angled in every direction. Another truck, a pumper from a nearby town, was approaching from the north.
Qwilleran had covered major fires for metropolitan newspapers Down Below but none as troubling as this simple farmhouse totally ablaze. Where was Maude Coggin? Had she managed to escape?
Water lines were trained on the flames, producing the hiss of steam and clouds of black smoke. With no wind, there was little danger of sparks igniting the Art Center; even so, a hose was showering the roof. Qwilleran spotted the fire chief in his white helmet; all others were anonymous in their black gear, yellow-striped for visibility. As soon as the flames were put down, some of those men went in with airpacks and came out with blackened faces and lowered heads.
The sheriff’s yellow tape was stretched to define the danger zone, and Qwilleran moved around the perimeter, trying to see something - anything. The waiting ambulance was inside the tape, and officers from the Pickax Police and sheriff’s department only shrugged. “Maybe no one was home,” one of them said encouragingly. The nightman from the Something knew nothing either; he was snapping routine shots that would look like any other fire-scene photos.
Qwilleran stayed until the house and outbuildings burned to the ground, leaving only mounds of charred rubble. Emergency vehicles started to back away. One firefighter lumbered up to him and said, “We’re pullin’ back, Mr. Q, but a couple of us’ll stick around to watch for hotspots.”
His face was soot-covered, but Qwilleran recognized the voice. “Are you Rollo? What about the woman who lived here?”