Her husband, too, was in high spirits, saying, "That suit looks fabulous on you, Polly!... Hixie baby, we've gotta do lunch... Qwill, my wife wants me to grow a moustache like yours. Don't you think I'm more the Charlie Chaplin type?"
Hixie Rice grabbed Qwilleran's arm. "An anonymous donor has sent a check for fifteen hundred to cover the theft from the money jar? It's drawn on a Chicago bank. Does that mean it's from the Klingenschoen Foundation?" "Don't ask me," he said. "They never tell me anything."
She was circulating with a tape recorder, collecting New Year's resolutions for the monthly newsletter, The Other Village Voice. Qwilleran told her he was going to write a book. Mildred declared she would lose thirty pounds. Polly resolved to find a playmate for Bootsie. Lynette, the confirmed single, amused bystanders by saying, "This is the year I get married." Danielle was determined to buy a kinkajou. Her husband said he was determined to get his wife pregnant.
Then Wetherby Goode surprised the crowd by sitting down at the patio and playing cocktail music, while Danielle surprised them further by singing ballads.
Lynette said, "I didn't know Wetherby could play."
Polly said, "I didn't Danielle could sing."
"She can't," Qwilleran muttered as he returned to the buffet for seconds. Standing in line behind Amanda, he said, "I didn't hear your New Year's resolution."
"They wouldn't print mine," she said grouchily. "I'm campaigning to eliminate those family newsletters that people do on home computers and send out instead of Christmas cards! Whatever happened to those beautiful reproductions of Raphael and Murillo? All we get is a long, sickening report on family reunions, weddings, scholarships, vacations, holes- in-one, and new babies! Who cares if Uncle Charlie was elected president of the bowling club? I never even heard of Uncle Charlie!"
"you're absolutely right!" Qwilleran like to encourage her tirades. "They never tell you that Junior was kicked out of college for cheating, and Daddy lost his job, and Cousin Fred was arrested for driving while impaired."
"Next year," she said, with a conspiratorial punch in his ribs, "you and I will make up a phoney newsletter that's nothing but bad news, and we'll send it to every name in the Pickax phone book!"
"We'll sign it: Ronald Frobnitz and family," he said. Later, Riker asked him, "What were you two talking about? No one's seen her laugh since George Breze ran for mayor and got two votes!"
"Just nonsense," Qwilleran said. "You know Amanda."
Then Willard Carmichael approached him. "Qwill, have you met Danielle's cousin yet?"
"I've been watching for an opportunity, but he's always surrounded."
"Come with me. We'll bust in."
The visiting celebrity stood with his back to the fireplace, answering questions calmly and modestly.
"Excuse me," Willard said loudly. "Carter Lee's visit won't be complete until he shakes hands with the hand that writes the `Qwill Pen' column."
The group moved aside, and the two men gripped hands heartily.
"Welcome to Moose County," Qwilleran said. "I hope you brought your snowshoes."
"Snow or no snow, I'm glad to be here," the visitor said with sincerity. "I've been reading your column. Let me compliment you."
"Thank you. Perhaps we could arrange an interview in the coming week. I understand you have some interesting proposals to make."
"Well, I have to be in Detroit for a few days to finish up some business, and then I'll return, and we'll see what happens." Willard said, "I'll be down there at the same time, and I'll make sure he comes back. We need him."
Mildred overhearing them, said, "Willard, how can you miss the first dinner of the gourmet society? It was all your idea!"
"I feel worse than you do," he said, "but I have to attend a seminar. Technology is advancing at such a breakneck speed that bankers have to go back to school every year."
Danielle said, "He wanted me to go with him, but it would be so boring!"
The conversation was interrupted by an announcement by Wetherby Goode in his radio voice: "Who wants to bring in the New Year? To guarantee good luck in the next twelve months, the first one to enter the building after the stroke of twelve has to be a male - cat, dog, or human."
"Bosh!" a woman's voice shouted.
"It's an old custom, Amanda. You know that."
"Well, you brought in the New Year last January, and we had a hurricane, and explosion on Main Street, and a financial disaster!"
"Take a vote!" Hixie yelled above the hubbub of dissension.
"Okay," Wetherby said, "all in favor of a female bringing in the New Year?... "
"Yea!" chorused all the women present.
"Opposed?"
The men thundered an overwhelming negative.
"Why not alternate?" Qwilleran shouted. "Now there's a man with some sense!" said Amanda, starting for the exit. "As a member of the city council, I consider it my duty to bring in the New Year."
There were protests.
"Let her go!" said a man who had opposed her in the last election - and lost. "Maybe she'll catch pneumonia."
The women booed.
"Amanda, take your coat," Wetherby cautioned. "The wind chill is thirty below!"
The commotion subsided as everyone waited for the magic hour. Champagne corks were popping. The big clock over the bar was ticking. Wetherby was counting down the seconds. The hands reached twelve, and the crowd shouted "Happy New Year!"
Wetherby Goode played "Auld Lang Syne" as the new year was ushered in by Amanda Goodwinter. And Qwilleran, with the instincts of a veteran reporter, went around asking for prognostications for the coming twelve months.
"We'll see a sudden end to thievery at the local level," Riker predicted.
"Our First Annual Ice Festival will be a whopping success!" Hixie declared.
"Carter Lee's plans for Pleasant Street will be a national sensation," Willard said.
As the guests started bundling into their storm wear and trooping out into the snow, firecrackers and gunshots could be heard in the distance. Everyone was happy, except Carter Lee James. He discovered his lambskin car coat had been taken from the coatroom.
The New Year's eve incident was reported to the police, and the residents of Indian Village were in a furor. They were embarrassed that it had happened to a visitor from Down Below - and worried that me might decide not to return - and indignant that two such incidents had occurred in their squeaky-clean neighborhood. Qwilleran tried to discuss the matter with Brodie but was brushed off - a sure indication that the police were on the trail of a suspect.
Qwilleran had his own suspicions. George Breze had recently moved into the Village. With his red cap, overalls, and noisy pickup truck, he was an incongruous figure in the white-collar community. On Sandpit Road outside Pickax he had an empire of marginal commercial ventures behind a chain-link fence. It was under seven feet of snow in winter, and only the "office" was accessible - a shack with a pot-bellied stove. Yet in both winter and summer it was a hangout for kids. When the police dropped in from time to time, the kids were always reading comic books and playing checkers, and Red Cap was busy at his desk. On the same property was a large Federal-style house where Breze had lived with his wife until recently, when she went off with a hoe-down fiddle-player from Squunk Corners. That was when he moved to Indian Village.
Qwilleran had a strong desire to investigate this lead, considering Red Cap a latter-day Fagin, but he had to postpone extracurricular activity and work on the "Qwill Pen." Finding subject matter in winter was a greater problem than in summer, and this year he had encountered a few dead ends. The dowsing story was on hold until spring thaw; a piece on mushroom-growing had hit a credibility snag; it was too soon to write about the Ice Festival; Carter Lee was not ready.
In a quandary, Qwilleran paced back and forth across a floor that bounced more than usual. Suddenly there was a crash near the front door, and two cats fled from the foyer, either frightened or guilty. He had hung his snowshoes on the foyer wall, with their tails crossed, and the Siamese had ventured to investigate something new.