The other said: HANGED FOR KILLING HIS DEAR WIFE.
“Only in Moose County would you find something like that,” Qwilleran said.
A resort town, Brrr was noted for the historic Hotel Booze and its Black Bear Café. Guests were greeted at the entrance by an enormous mounted bear rearing on his hind legs. Splintery wooden chairs and wobbly wooden tables added to the primitive ambience that attracted campers, fishermen, and boaters.
The two men sat in a booth and ordered the so-called bearburger, best chopped-beef sandwich in the county. “Do you see what I see?” Qwilleran remarked. “Gary Pratt has lost half a bushel of hair!”
The proprietor’s shaggy beard and uncut hair, coupled with an ursine physique and lumbering gait, had always given him the personality of an amiable black bear. Now his beard was clipped and his hair tamed.
“Hey, you guys! Haven’t seen you lately,” Gary said, shuffling to their booth with the coffee server. “I thought you were both dead. I thought your cats were writing your column, Qwill. It seemed better than usual.”
“My ghostwriters appreciate the compliment,” Qwilleran said. “But let’s talk about you. What happened? Get caught in a food processor?”
“I’m getting married.”
“No!” the two customers said in unison.
“This is only for the wedding. Then I go back to normal.”
“Who’s the unlucky girl?” Qwilleran asked.
“Nobody you know. She owns the Harborside Marina.”
“Don’t let her redecorate this restaurant,” Thornton warned. “It’s the first thing she’ll want to do.”
“Don’t worry. It’s written in our marriage contract. She doesn’t tell me how to run the café, and I don’t tell her how to run the marina… Say, that was some fire down your way the other night!”
The two men nodded solemnly as they bit into their burgers.
Gary went on. “But it’s an ill wind, as the saying goes. I hear the county’s getting a piece of land for a new facility they’ve needed for years. Centrally located. On Trevelyan Road.”
“They didn’t waste any time, did they?” Qwilleran said tartly, thinking of the promise made by Northern Land Improvement. “Where did you hear this rumor?”
“A guy who comes in here. Engineer for the county.”
“What kind of facility?” Thornton asked with obvious apprehension.
“A parking lot for heavy road equipment: snow-blowers, plows, asphalt trucks, road-rollers-stuff like that.
They’ve had it scattered allover, They want it together on one big lot,” Thornton said, “I don’t know why, Wouldn’t it make more sense to have several stations and deploy equipment to job sites as needed?”
Gary shrugged, “Nobody ever said the county fathers had any sense, They also want to build a repair shop as big as a jet hangar.”
The two men exchanged glances.
“There goes the neighborhood,” Thornton said as Gary moved away. “Beverly will burst a blood vessel if they put it across from the Art Center,” “And Maude will turn over in her freshly dug grave, no matter where they put it on her beloved hundred acres. The purchaser agreed to use them for agriculture.”
“The rumor could be only a rumor - wishful thinking, along with the pickle factory they threatened to start in Pickax.”
They chewed in gloomy silence for a while. Then Thornton said, “I could tell you an interesting tale about the Coggin farm - not for publication.”
“That’s okay. Let’s hear it.”
“This was before I was born, but my dad told me after I started getting interested in local history, After World War One, he said, the stonecutting business wasn’t doing too well. The mines had closed; the county had been lumbered over, and there was an economic bust and general exodus. Thousands were going Down Below to work in factories - and to die there, apparently. At any rate, they weren’t coming north to be buried, He had a Model T truck and did some hauling jobs to make ends meet, but it was rough, People were living on oatmeal and turnips, and families were having to double up.
“Then, one day Bert Coggin came in to order a tombstone for his uncle, who’d been living with them. The old fellow had been struck down by lightning and was being buried on the farm. Dad chiseled a stone and delivered it in his truck - all Bert had was an oxcart - and the two of them set up the stone on a fresh grave by the river. Dad was glad to get the business; his family was in need of shoes, and Bert paid cash.
“In a week or so, Bert was back for another stone; his aunt had died of a broken heart. Dad cut the stone and, while delivering it, wondered about burying somebody on a riverbank. What if there was a flood? . . Anyway, he and Bert set up the stone, and Bert asked to look at the truck; he was thinking of buying one. To Dad’s embarrassment, it wouldn’t start! He tinkered with the motor until the farmbell called Bert in to supper.
“As soon as Bert had left, Dad sneaked back to the graves. He’d only pretended the truck wouldn’t start. Scraping the topsoil away, he found some loose planks, and under the planks he found cases of booze! Old Log Cabin whiskey from Canada.”
“That’s the brand Al Capone drank during Prohibition,” Qwilleran said.
“Exactly! Rum-runners were bringing it across the lake and up the river, where it was stashed on Bert’s farm until it could be delivered Down Below… Well! Dad had three options: report ‘em, ignore ‘em, or join ‘em. Prohibition was bringing prosperity back to Moose County. People were flocking north by the trainload, and everybody was smuggling contraband in from Canada or out by train and Model T. Some of today’s old families who claim to be descended from lumber barons or mining tycoons are really descended from bootleggers.”
“What course did your father take, Thornton?”
“He never told us. He merely explained that there was a lot of tombstone business during Prohibition. We lived in a nice house and always had shoes, and all of us kids went away to college.”
Qwilleran went home with a feeling of satisfaction after a productive morning and enjoyable afternoon. His housemates
obviously felt neglected, however. Their motto was: when unhappy, tear something up. The interior of the bam had been given the confetti treatment, and the front page of yesterday’s Something lay in shreds.
Moreover, Koko was bleating his new lament: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. To assuage their grievances and bolster their morale, Qwilleran brushed them, gave them an extra treat, and read to them; Koko’s choice was The Day of the Locust. Then they all went to the gazebo for an adventure with the wildlife. While Yum Yum looked for insects, Koko made friends with the crows and mourning doves. He found the squabbling blue jays interesting, but the pileated woodpecker annoyed him with its ratchety cry. Whenever Koko heard the piercing kek-kek- kek-kek-kek, he talked back with a kek-kek-kek-kek of his own.
Once, he turned away from the birds, listened sharply, and yowled. A moment later, the phone could be heard ringing indoors, and Qwilleran ran to the barn.
Dawn McBee was calling. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Q.”
“That’s all right. Everything checks out A-OK for the funeral. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Well, Culvert has an idea. He wants to take Maude’s dogs to the funeral. He thinks Maude would like it.”
Qwilleran did some swift thinking about propriety, public reaction, logistics. The media, he knew, would gobble it up. “Could he control them?”
“He says he could rig a harness like the ones they use for dogsledding. And the dogs love him. They’d behave.”
Qwilleran okayed the idea, and when he discussed it with Polly later, she agreed. Pickax liked a good funeral. They still told how Ephraim Goodwinter’s casket had been escorted to the grave by thirty-seven carriages and fifty-two