Behind the curtain a corps of helpers was hurriedly re moving the chairs.
“What’s the rush?” Qwilleran asked. “What’s going on?”
Wetherby Goode grabbed his arm and said, “Hixie wants to see you,” as he shoved Qwilleran into the spotlight out front. Hixie was saying to the audience, “Tonight we want to honor someone whose words entertain and inform us … who supports every local endeavor even if it means being a judge at a cat contest… who rides a bicycle while others pollute the air with automotive emissions… whose creative brain dreamed up the Pennant Race: James Mackintosh Qwilleran!”
The fans gave him a standing ovation, and Qwilleran bowed graciously while maintaining his usual melancholy facade. The curtain behind him was parting.
Hixie went on. “With appreciation and affection we present the ubiquitous and peripatetic Mr. Q with a token of our esteem.” She gestured upstage, where the spotlight was on a peculiar contraption.
“What is it?” he asked, although he knew.
Hixie explained: “A recumbent bicycle - the latest thing on two wheels! You claim to do your best thinking while you’re biking or sitting with your feet up. Now you can do both at the same time.”
In his mellifluous stage voice he said, “Words fail me! For the first time in my life I’m speechless! I’m completely overwhelmed! When you see me wheeling down Main Street in a reclining position, please remember that I’m not asleep. I’m thinking!”
Half a dozen spellers helped Qwilleran load the ‘bent, as it was familiarly called, into his van. Many spellers were reluctant to leave, exhilarated by the show they had just presented. Sarah Plensdorf was one who lingered, and Qwilleran complimented her on her backstage efficiency.
In a low voice she said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Qwill. About Phoebe. Monday night, after the warm-up, she came to my place in the middle of the night and asked to sleep in my guestroom. She’d locked herself out, she said, and didn’t know when… Jake would be home. I have an instinctive dislike for that fellow, and I didn’t believe her, especially since her right eye seemed to be swollen. I didn’t know what to say. One doesn’t like to pry… or meddle.”
“What did she say the next morning? Anything enlightening?”
“She was still sleeping when I left for work, and I went right from the office to a dinner meeting of my button club. When I came home, she was gone. Didn’t even leave a note. And when she didn’t show up tonight, I first thought she was embarrassed about her eye, but then I thought, She’s gone to California! She’s gone to her grandmother! Phoebe’s quite impulsive, you know.”
Qwilleran said, “One would think she’d leave you a note, though.”
Sarah dismissed the remark with a wave of the hand. “Young people don’t stop and think.”
“Well, thanks for telling me, Sarah. I’m sure she’ll phone you from California. Keep me informed.”
Qwilleran drove home via the back road, not having picked up his mail or newspaper. For a moment he wondered if Phoebe might be in her studio, but the parking lot was empty, and the only light in the building was the night-light in the foyer.
As the van moved slowly up the lane, he could see the illuminated windows of the barn. At dusk a timer switched on all interior lights, transforming the four-story octagon into a giant lantern. He drove around the building and backed up to the kitchen door. He would park the odd bicycle in the lounge area, where there was room enough for it to lean against the stone wall. It would look arty there, he decided. Even if he never rode it, the recumbent would be a conversation piece, like the checker set he never used.
Before maneuvering the bike through the kitchen door, he went in to prepare the Siamese for something mystifying. What he saw was a floor covered with small dark objects, and what he heard was a guilty silence. Both cats were on the fireplace cube, arranged in compact bundles and looking somber.
Qwilleran turned on two lamps in the lounge area and examined the clutter on the floor. They were checkers!
“You devils!” he said over his shoulder. “What possessed you?”
A rumble came from Koko’s chest, as if he were claiming credit for the chaos. Qwilleran gathered up the discs. Strangely, they were all red; the black checkers were still in place on the squares. To add insult to injury, Koko jumped down from his perch and landed on the telephone desk, scattering the envelopes that Qwilleran had brought from the mailbox. The cat was obviously in one of his destructive moods, and it seemed wise to leave the recumbent in the van until morning.
He leafed through the mail. Several pieces were commercial flyers addressed to “Occupant,” and they went directly into the wastebasket. But one envelope had a butterfly sketched in the upper lefthand comer. He could hardly rip it open fast enough. It was handwritten, in a style he associated with artists. It was a long letter, and he read it twice before phoning the attorney’s home.
Bart’s wife answered. “He’s on his way home from Chicago, and I don’t expect him until midnight. Is there anything I can do for you?” She was a law clerk at Hasselrich Bennett & Barter.
Qwilleran said, “You could tell him I need to see him first thing in the morning. Tell him it’s important. Tell him it’s about fraud, bribery, arson, and the murder of an elderly woman.”
-17-
In the days following the Pennant Race, Pickax could I talk of nothing else - in the coffee shops, on street corners, at the supermarket:
“Tell you why the Hams won. They’re young, and they’ve got good memories, and they’re used to learnin’ lines.”
“Nab! They’re used to the bright lights, and they didn’t have stage fright.”
“You’d think the head of the college would’ve done better.”
“He never saw the wordlist, Everybody else knew the words on the list.”
“Who said college presidents have to know how to spell those big words? He just runs things.”
“He was subbin’ for the Butterfly Girl. Wonder why she didn’t show?”
” ‘Cause she’s the type that dances to her own music, ever since she went to that school in Lockmaster.”
“How d’you like that crazy bike they gave Mr. Q? I’ll tell ya, I wouldn’t ride it!”
“My wife won the office pool at Toodle’s - ten bucks.”
“I was bettin’ on the Chowheads! My cousin was spellin’ for’ em.”
“Think we’ll be able to beat Lockmaster in the World Series?”
“If it’s fair and square. I don’t trust that bunch down there.”
The morning after the spell game Qwilleran had an early appointment with G. Allen Barter. He was showering and shaving when the eight o’clock news was broadcast:
“Last night’s Pennant Race spell-off raised an estimated ten thousand dollars for the Moose County literacy effort, according to backers. Winners of the silver pennant were the Hams, a team sponsored by the Pickax Theatre Club. Along with four runner-up teams the Hams will compete in the World Series in September, facing champion spellers from Lockmaster.”
Qwilleran made note of the fact that WPKX referred j to “backers.” They never gave the Something credit for anything - at least, not since the controversy over radio listings in the paper. The next item gave him a chuckle:
“A truckload of sheep escaped on Main Street late yesterday afternoon when the transport vehicle stopped for a red light and the tailgate popped open. According a to a witness, one animal jumped out, and the rest followed - like sheep. Main Street traffic was rerouted for two hours while Pickax police and state troopers rounded up the flock. One animal is still at large. The driver of the truck was ticketed. Baaaaaaaaad trip!”