Meanwhile Qwilleran released the long-suffering animals from their prison.
“You’ve lost your rug,” he said to Koko.
He poured a double Scotch for his friend, a glass of white grape juice for himself, and a saucer of the same for Koko. “Care to wet your whiskers?” he asked as he placed the saucer on the floor.
The police cars soon pulled away, and the editor shambled into the cabin, dropping disconsolately on a sofa. “They wouldn’t talk.”
“Just tell your readers that the police are investigating.”
“You dirty rat! For this I walked half a mile up your drive in rain and mud?”
“If a dead body turned up in your basement,” Qwilleran told his old friend, “you too would keep your mouth shut.”
“They don’t suspect you, do they?”
“They suspect everyone, including the little green men in theUFOs.”
“I’m your oldest friend,” Riker continued persuasively. “You’ve always discussed cases with me.”
“Heretofore, I was never personally involved. This is the first time I’ve had a dead body of my own. But I’ll tell you one thing: Someone around here hates carpenters!”
The editor drained his glass and stood up. “How do you feel about carpenters, Qwill?”
“The same way I feel about editors. There are times when I’ve wanted to kill them!”
It was still raining, and Qwilleran drove Riker to his car parked on the highway. “How about having dinner somewhere tonight, scout?”
“Well, it’s like this,” said Riker. “My horoscope in today’s Rampage said I’d resume relations with an estranged friend, so I’m taking Amanda to dinner tonight.”
When Qwilleran returned to the cabin, he took care of one small detail. He reached into the lograck on the porch and withdrew a doorkey. After eradicating Mildred’s fingerprints and replacing them with plenty of his own, he returned the key to its niche in a hollow log. Then he telephoned Mildred. “How’s Roger?”
“He’s one sick boy. Sharon is at the hospital now, and I’m keeping the baby. How do you feel?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” The murder had not yet been announced on the radio, and Qwilleran had no intention of breaking the news. “Do you have today’s papers from Down Below?” he asked her.
“I have the Fluxion.”
“What’s my horoscope for today?”
“Hold the line. I’ll get it.” There was a rustling of newspaper pages. “Here it is. For Gemini it says, “Don’t complain about the lack of excitement today. Take a trip! Visit a friend! Do something you’ve been wanting to do.” How about that?”
After thanking Mildred and hanging up, Qwilleran pondered the advice for a while and telephoned Bushy, but the answering machine said that he and Vicki had gone back to Lockmaster and could be reached there. He found the photographer’s business card and dialed the number. Bushy answered, sounding none the worse for a night on Three Tree.
“How are you doing?” Qwilleran asked.
“I’m so glad to be warm and dry and alive, I’m walking two feet off the ground.
How about you?”
“No more than nineteen inches.”
“That’s true, you lost part of your house, didn’t you? How were the cats when you got home?”
“They were in good shape. Mildred had fed them an epicurean menu.”
“Don’t forget, you’re going to bring them down here for a studio portrait. How about tonight? It’s only an hour’s drive. We can talk about Three Tree. It’ll do us both good to get it off our chests.”
Qwilleran agreed. After all, his horoscope had suggested it.
“How would you like to go for a ride?” he asked the Siamese as he thawed two cartons of beef stew for his dinner and theirs. “You can have your picture taken by a professional photographer and entered in a calendar contest. You’ll win hands-down.”
They approached their share of the feast fastidiously, gobbling the meat and licking up the gravy but leaving the carrot and potato and onion high and dry on the rim of the plate. Then they washed up in perfect unison like a well-rehearsed chorus line: lick-the-paw three four … over-the-nose three four … over-the-ear three four. When the wicker picnic hamper appeared, they hopped into it and settled on the down-filled cushion as if they knew they were about to pose for calendar art. By the time they reached Lockmaster they were both comfortably asleep.
The lumber barons” mansions in Lockmaster had been lavished with turrets, gables, oriel windows, and verandas. Now they housed a funeral home, a museum, two insurance companies, three real estate agencies, a clinic, and the Bushland Photo Studio.
Bushy and his wife met Qwilleran at the door and clutched him in a triangular embrace as if the ordeal had made them old friends.
Vicki said, with tears in her eyes, “I was almost out of my mind Tuesday night.”
“At least you were warm and dry,” Qwilleran reminded her.
“It’s amazing that you and Bushy pulled through better than Roger, although he’s much younger.”
Bushy said, “Roger is anemic. He needs a good slug of red wine every day. My mother was Italian, and that was her cure for everything. Why didn’t I rub some on my head?”
“Bring the cats into the studio, Qwill,” said Vicki.
The front parlor was furnished in updated Victorian, to provide quaint settings for contemporary photos. Qwilleran set down the hamper in front of the marble fireplace and opened the lid. Everyone was quiet, waiting for the Siamese to emerge, but not so much as an ear appeared above the rim of the hamper.
Qwilleran peered into its depths and found both cats curled up like a single fur pillow with heads, legs, and tails tucked out of sight.
“Wake up!” he shouted at them. “You’re on camera!”
Two heads materialized from the fur pillow-Koko bright-eyed and instantly alert, Yum Yum groggy and cross-eyed.
Bushy said, “Let’s go in the other room and have a drink and leave them to get familiar with the place.”
For the next half hour he and Qwilleran re-lived the horrors of the island experience.
“Now that I recall,” Qwilleran said, “I pulled through with more fortitude than I showed when there was a dead spider in the Komfort-Heet.’”
Bushy said, “I felt a kind of inner force fighting the cold.”
The more they talked, the less horrifying it became. The ironic humor of the situation emerged. They could laugh about it and probably would, for years to come. When they returned to the front parlor to start the photo session, the Siamese were still asleep in the bottom of the hamper.
“Okay, you guys, cooperate!” Qwilleran said. He reached in with both hands and grasped Koko about the middle, thinking to lift him out, but Koko’s claws hooked into the wicker and could not be dislodged.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, putting his hands gently under Yum Yum’s body, but she also had eighteen functional hooks that engaged the open weave of the hamper. “I’m going to need help,” he said.
Vicki reached into the hamper, murmuring soothing words, and carefully unhooked Yum Yum’s left paw from the wicker while Qwilleran did the same for the right paw. Then they lifted, but her rear claws were firmly anchored. By the time they disengaged the rear end, the front end was again attached to the hamper.
Qwilleran’s back was beginning to ache. He stood up, stretched his spine, and took a few deep breaths. “There must be a way,” he said. “Three intelligent adults can’t be outwitted by two cats who don’t have university degrees and don’t even have drivers” licenses.”
“Let’s turn the thing upside-down and shake them out,” Bushy suggested.
They tried it, and the down cushion fell out but not the cats.
“I say we should go back and have another drink,” said Bushy. They did, and Koko and Yum Yum remained riveted to their travel coop for the remainder of the evening.