"The poppies were beautiful this year," Rhoda interrupted. "Too bad they don't have a longer blooming season."
"I said potties - not poppies!" Homer shouted in his reedy treble. "Chamber pots! Thunder mugs! The things they put under beds!"
Rhoda turned to Qwilleran and explained sweetly, "The garden club maintains our flower beds. Don't you think the rust and gold mums are lovely? We haven't had any frost yet."
"I give up!" said Homer, throwing up his bony hands. "She's a sweet woman, but she'll be the death of me!" With disjointed movements of arms and legs he stomped from the room.
Rhoda asked with a radiant smile, "Was he giving his lecture on old barns again?"
"No, he was giving his lecture on ghosts!" Qwilleran replied loudly.
"Oh... yes," she said as she hung the feather duster on a hook behind the door. "They have quite a few at the Fugtree farm, you know."
Qwilleran bowed out quickly, shouting that the phone was ringing in the west wing.
It was Roger MacGillivray, reporter for the Moose County Something, who was calling. "Qwill, I got the info on Iris Cobb's will," he said, "but there's one thing that isn't clear. What is this cookbook she left you?"
Qwilleran, who was adept at extemporaneous prevarication, said, "That is her personal collection of recipes that she wished to have published posthumously." He spoke with the deliberation of one who is authorized to make a statement for publication. "The Klingenschoen Fund will underwrite the printing costs, and proceeds will go to the Iris Cobb Memorial Scholarship. For home economics studies," he added as an afterthought.
"Great!" said Roger. "That wraps it up. Thanks a lot."
Qwilleran dashed off his column for Friday's paper and phoned it in to the copydesk. It was late, therefore, when he started thinking about dinner, but he found one of his favorite dishes in the freezer - lamb shank cooked with lentils - and he thawed a hearty portion in the microwave. It was a large piece of meat, and before sitting down to eat, he sliced off a generous chunk for the Siamese, dicing it and putting it on their plate under the telephone table. Yum Yum attacked it with enthusiasm, but Koko was virtually glued to the kitchen windowsill, staring at the darkness outside.
"We've had enough of this ridiculous performance, young man!" Qwilleran said. "We'll find out what's bugging you!" With flashlight in hand he stormed out of the building, beaming the light around the exterior, in shadowy places not illuminated by the yardlights. He saw nothing unusual, nothing moving. A slight tremor on his upper lip made him wonder, What are cats seeing when they're gazing into space? Koko had left the windowsill, and Qwilleran was ready to give up the search when the flashlight beam picked out some depressions in the ground under the kitchen window. They looked like footprints. That rules out disembodied spirits, he told himself. It could have been some kid from Chipmunk... a juvenile Peeping Tom... a window washer from the county jail.
He hurried indoors and looked up Homer Tibbitt's phone number. He wanted to know when the windows had last been washed.
The maintenance chairman lived at October House, a residence for seniors, and the operator said, "I'm sorry, but I can't ring Mr. Tibbitt at this hour. He retires at seven-thirty. Do you wish to leave a message?"
"Just tell him Jim Qwilleran called. I'll try again tomorrow morning."
Both cats seemed to have enjoyed their portion of lamb; they were washing their masks, whiskers, and ears with satisfaction. Qwilleran popped his own dinner plate into the microwave for another shot of heat and immediately pulled it out again, staring at it in disbelief. All that remained on his plate was a mess of lentils and a shank bone, gnawed clean.
-8-
AS QWILLERAN PREPARED breakfast for the Siamese on Friday morning his mind was still on the footprints outside the kitchen window. If the window washers had been there since last weekend, the footprints could be theirs. If not, the tell-tale depressions had doubtlessly been left in the soft soil Sunday night, when Iris Cobb was making her last phone call. It had rained earlier that evening; since then the weather had been dry.
He placed the plate of tenderloin tips on the floor under the telephone table and once again called October House.
"Mr. Tibbitt," said the operator, "is not available. Would you care to leave a message?"
"This is Jim Qwilleran."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Qwilleran. You called last night."
"Will Mr. Tibbitt return soon?"
"I'm afraid not. He's gone to Lockmaster."
"Is he all right?" Qwilleran asked hastily. Lockrnaster, in the county to the south, had a medical center noted for its geriatric department.
"Oh, yes, he's fine. Ms. Finney drove him down there to - see the autumn color in horse country. They say it's gorgeous."
"I see," Qwilleran mused. "When do you expect them to return?"
"Not until Sunday afternoon. They're visiting friends down there. Shall I have him call you?"
"No. Don't bother. I'll catch up with him at the museum."
Qwilleran now faced an uncomfortable task - packing Iris Cobb's personal belongings in cartons from the basement. He had done it once before, after his mother died, and it was a heart-wrenching chore. He had done it often when he worked in a nursing home during college days, and in that situation it was a routine job. But it was an embarrassingly intimate rite to perform for a woman who had been his former landlady and housekeeper. He felt like a voyeur as he gathered her pink pantsuits, pink robes, pink underwear, and pink nightgowns from closets and dresser drawers. Most painful of all was the invasion of the top drawers with its jumble of smeared lipsticks, broken earrings, used emery boards, pill bottles, a hair brush with stray hairs clinging to the bristles, and the magnifying glass with silver handle that he had given her on her last birthday.
When the cartons were packed, he labeled them and carried them to the museum office. Koko wanted to accompany him.
"Sorry," Qwilleran said. "The sign stipulates no smoking, no food or beverages, and no bare feet."
When the chore was completed, however, Koko was still bouncing up and down at the door to the museum, trying to turn the doorknob. He had been allowed in the exhibit area once before when Mrs. Cobb was alive, and on that occasion he had been attracted to some model ships.
Qwilleran finally acquiesced. "All right, but you'll be disappointed," he told the cat. "The ship exhibit has been dismantled."
As soon as the connecting door was opened, Koko bounded into the museum, ignoring the pioneer rooms and heading for the east wing, which housed the theme exhibits, study collections, and the museum office. He scampered directly into the office, looked behind the door, and started jumping to reach Ms. Finney's feather duster.
"You devil!" Qwilleran said. "How did you know it was there?" He removed the cat and closed the office door, then watched him closely as he explored.
Koko bypassed the room that had formerly featured model ships; the door was closed, and a sign announced a new exhibit opening soon. He showed no interest in historic documents or the distinguished collection of early lighting devices. What fascinated this remarkable cat was an exhibit that everyone considered the most boring in the museum: textiles. It consisted of bed linens and table linens yellow with age; quilts faded from laundering with lye soap; hand-woven blankets perforated with moth holes; hand-hooked rugs dingy with wear; dreary dishtowels made from flour sacks; a stained mattress stuffed with straw; curtains dyed with berries and onion skins. Yet, the identification cards stated proudly the names of the early settlers who had woven, quilted, hooked, dyed, and stuffed these artifacts. Koko especially liked a bed pillow made from a flour sack and filled, according to the ID card, with chicken feathers from the Inchpot Centennial Farm. He sniffed it intently.