Qwilleran raised his glass of Squunk water. “Same to you… Okay, Andy, what happened today after the, prosecutor was alerted?”
“The medical examiner had already ruled it death by a blow on the head some twenty-four hours before the car went into the gorge. When Barter came up with the name of a suspect, the investigators hotfooted it to Indian Village, but the suspect’s van had already left. Roadblocks had already been set up in three counties. They stopped him in Lockmaster, south of Flapjack. He’ll be charged tomorrow with arson and two counts of homicide. Amanda Goodwinter heard screams Tuesday night, followed by sudden silence. Mandy doesn’t miss a thing!”
“How about the Ramsbottom connection?”
“It’s a safe bet the suspect will implicate him in the Coggin incident. He’d be crazy not to.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa” came a comment from Koko.
“What kind of noise is that? Sounds like a dirty old ram!”
Qwilleran asked, “Would you say Chet’s glory trip is over?”
“You watch and see: besides the criminal charge, there’ll be a civil suit filed by the Campbell clan. I wouldn’t want to be in that guy’s shoes, one way or another. It wouldn’t surprise me if they got him on income tax evasion, too. He’s been playing all the angles.”
“When Broderick Campbell confessed to watering the liquor, did the general public believe him? He had a reputation as an upstanding young man.”
“I’ll tell you, Qwilclass="underline" this town is always knee-deep in rumors and gossip and opinions, and people will believe what fits their own interests.”
“Let me freshen your drink,” Qwilleran offered. “Have some more cheese.”
“How much did you have to do with this case, Qwill? Don’t try to hid behind G. Allen Barter. How much did old Nosey-nose have to do with it?”
“Koko takes the Fifth.”
“I ran into Lieutenant Hames when I was Down Below last week. He asked about Koko. He told me some amazing things about that cat. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.”
Brodie and Hames were the only individuals Qwilleran had ever taken into his confidence on that score. The detective was an absolute believer; the police chief was still fifty percent skeptical.
“Well… as I’ve told you before, all cats have senses above and beyond those of humans,” Qwilleran began. “You hear about house cats foiling a burglary, warning about a fire, predicting an earthquake. Koko goes a step further. When he senses something wrong - something of a criminal nature - he lets his suspicions be known in subtle ways. I’d like to demonstrate something, Andy.”
Qwilleran knew he was taking a chance. Koko, with his natural feline perversity, might not feel like cooperating. Or perhaps the previous feat was a fluke. Nevertheless, it was worth a try. Qwilleran brought the antique compass from its drawer and placed it with exaggerated reverence on the bar. “Here’s something I acquired from a rare source - a seventeenth-century Italian compass.”
“Does it still work?”
“Of course it works! They made things better in the old days, didn’t they?” He removed the decorative lid, and the compass card quivered delicately before settling down with the star pointing toward the dining area.
“That’s north, all right,” Brodie said. Qwilleran was relieved to hear Koko jump down from the fireplace cube with a grunt. A second later he had jumped to the snack bar. Qwilleran moved the cheese away and said, “Koko is fascinated by the earth’s magnetic field. Watch what happens.”
The two men watched. Koko looked at the compass and then at the cheese. Qwilleran thought anxiously, Suppose nothing happens! How do I explain?
The brown tail bristled. The black nose twitched. The bold whiskers swept back as the cat approached the instrument in stealthy slow motion.
Qwilleran thought, What a ham!
The twitching nose hovered a half inch over the circle of glass. Underneath the glass the compass card shuddered and started to move - slowly, almost reluctantly, until the star pointed to the kitchen.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Brodie said. “Does it mean he’s hungry?”
“Not exactly,” Qwilleran said, enjoying a private moment of triumph. He returned the compass to its drawer and brought two books from the library area. “If the dining room is north, the kitchen is west - right? Now examine these two books. I read aloud to the cats daily - actually because it’s good for my lungs - and Koko is allowed to choose the title for each reading. It’s a game we play. He sniffs the bindings and knocks a book off the shelf. Recently he’s been hipped on The Day of the Locust and The Birds Fall Down. Why? What is your reaction to them?”
Brodie handled them gingerly, as if they might be booby-trapped. “They’re kind of old. Never heard of either of ‘em. They smell old, too, like they’ve been in somebody’s basement. Must’ve come from Eddington’s.”
“Who are the authors? Look at the names on the title pages, Andy.”
Reluctantly he did as he was told. “Nathanael West… and Rebecca West. Any relation?”
“Only in Koko’s mind. He has a ‘west’ fixation. What’s the name of the guy in the county jail?”
“Jake Westrup.”
“So… ?” Qwilleran smoothed his moustache.
“Don’t tell me you think there’s a connection. It’s just a coincidence.”
“Sure. A three-ply coincidence… Another splash of Scotch, Andy?”
Brodie held out his glass and had another look at the recumbent leaning against the stone wall. “What does Koko think about that thing?”
“He won’t go within ten feet of it.”
“The cat’s smarter than I thought!”
At that moment Brodie’s beeper sounded. He tossed off the last of his drink and bolted for the door, saying, “Thanks! See ya!”
Qwilleran followed him to the parking lot and heard his radio squawking as he prepared to drive away.
The moon was bright, the temperature mild, the breeze playful. On such a night Qwilleran was in no hurry to go back indoors. He walked around the barn, thinking about the compass and the two books by authors named West. Brodie had a case; it was too absurd for a rational mind to accept, and yet… who could know anything about the circuitry in Koko’s fantastic little brain? Only a Korzybski could comprehend the cat’s connections between Things and Meanings and Messages.
As he took a second turn around the building he could hear an imperious baritone yowling. Thinking it a protest about the bedtime snack that was behind schedule, Qwilleran went indoors to dish up Kabibbles. There he found Koko alternately jumping at the door handle of the broom closet and running to the window in the foyer. This was no request for food.
It was a subtle hint that he, too, wanted a moonlight excursion, and he wanted it immediately. The cat’s body was trembling with excitement as he was buckled into his gear. Yum Yum, who had an aversion to leather straps, was hiding in one of her many secret places.
The terrain was eerily illuminated by the full moon as the two adventurers set out down the lane, Koko riding on Qwilleran’s shoulder and Qwilleran keeping a firm hand on the leash. The cat could see invisible movement in the underbrush, and he could hear inaudible sounds in the night air. Once a rabbit crossed their path; another time, a waddling raccoon. Once there had been a great homed owl in the woods who hooted in Morse code, but he had moved to wilder habitat after the Art Center was built. Koko liked to give the building a security check, tugging at the leash, walking about the studios, sniffing the aromas of the artists’ turpentine, ink, and tuna sandwiches.
On this occasion Koko’s body vibrated excessively as they neared the gate, and when they reached the Art Center he did his imitation of a pileated woodpecker: a rapid-fire kek-kek-kek-kek-kek-kek-kek like an automatic weapon in the still night. There was no traffic on Trevelyan Road. The empty parking lot looked blue in the moonlight.