Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Smelled A Rat

Both men enjoyed the pizza, and Qwilleran explained that it came from a pizza parlor in Kennebeck that delivered. Food and drink and the prospect of a lucrative sale had apparently mellowed Nightingale’s usual stiff formality.

It was time for Qwilleran to go to work. “You must have noticed many changes in Pickax, Kirt: medical center, airport, community college, curling club. I saw you there the other evening-the night Cass fell down the stairs. Are you a member?”

“I have a social membership, that’s all. Friendly crowd.”

“How long have you been gone from what we call God’s country?”

“Perhaps twenty-five years. Time flies.”

“I suppose you attended Pickax High School.”

The guest nodded, dismissing it as a topic worth exploring.

“They have an Olympic-size swimming pool now.”

“Is that so?”

“Did you by any chance know a student named George Omblower?” Qwilleran thought he detected a slight wince.

“Can’t say that I did.”

“He was an all-A student and considered quite a brain. Unfortunately he got into trouble and dropped out. A friend of mine knew his mother. She lived in Chipmunk. George had a girlfriend here who moped over him for years and then finally jumped off the Bloody Creek bridge.” This was a fictional touch of Qwilleran’s, but it stirred no emotion in his listener. “Mrs. Omblower said her son ran afoul of the law in the East and spent five years in prison.”

Although Nightingale did not wet his lips or pull his ear lobe, a flush came to his neck.

“There was another notoriously bad boy at the high school, named ..” Qwilleran looked at the ceiling as if trying to recall the name, and he saw the guest room door open slowly and noiselessly. “I believe the name was Gideon Blake.”

“No recollection. Is there a point to all this?” The man’s temper was rising.

“Gideon got in trouble, too, but changed his name and became mayor of our fair city.”

Nightingale took a gulp of his Bloody Mary.

“The only reason I’m boring you with this local gossip is to acquaint you with a rumor that Omblower is back in town under an alias and is wanted on charges of arson and murder.”

Nightingale, clearly disturbed, set down his glass with a crash, and Qwilleran moved casually to the fireplace to stir the small blaze in the grate-and to get his hand on the poker. He turned just in time to see something flying in his direction. He dodged, and the missile sailed past his ear and crashed into the sliding glass door. At the same time there were thundering commands from the balcony and clattering boots on the stairs. Outside the shattered door, the martini pitcher landed unharmed on its solid bottom-on the cedar deck.

The vehicles that had moved quietly into River Road on a signal from the balcony now sped out of the Village with the suspect in the sheriff’s car and the leftover pizza in the PPD car. Qwilleran, before calling the Pet Plaza, notified the maintenance crew to remove the broken glass and board up the sliding door.

When the Siamese arrived, they knew something monstrous had happened, even without visible evidence, and they were disinclined to leave the carrier. Only smoked oysters tempted them to return to the real world. Even so, they approached the treat with bellies to the floor and frequent glances over the shoulder.

Eventually Koko-but not timid Yum Yum-prowled about the scene of the crime. Amazingly, he first inspected the martini pitcher, now posed in the center of the coffee table as if nothing had happened. If the condo had been built according to code, with safety glass, it would have lost a handle.

“Any comment?” Qwilleran asked Koko. “You won’t be quoted.”

The cat was speechless.

The telephone rang, and it was Arch Riker’s urgent voice.

“Have you heard the news? We have a bulletin on the front page. The mayor’s been arrested.”

“On what grounds?”

“Operating an illegal investment scheme, called a Ponzi scheme…. Amanda will be taking off her clothes and dancing in the street!”

“So will Homer Tibbitt.”

“Amanda will win the election unopposed.”

Qwilleran asked, “Exactly what is a Ponzi scheme?”

“Well, as I understand it,” Arch said, “a broker takes a client’s dough to invest in some promising business that needs cash to get started and will pay big interest. The deal sounds so good that the client’s friends and relatives rush to invest their kids’ college funds and retirement nest eggs. On paper it looks great. They give the broker more dough. … Of course, the crunch is that he never invested it-just used it for his own purposes. It’s sometimes called pyramiding.”

“Pyramiding!” Qwilleran repeated with a look of wonderment. Was that why Koko was always twisting the brown lampshade. Or was he doing it because cats like to twist lampshades?

Qwilleran had a great desire to go downtown, mingle with the crowd, take the public pulse. Driving his van, he thought, Zoller blew the whistle. It takes a special kind of nerve to expose corruption in a small town. He took Maggie along under the guise of an elopement. He sent her back with the documents or whatever evidence he had. She lay low, delivering the papers to Zoller’s attorney, who worked with the prosecutor.

Was it the barometric pressure of the approaching storm? Or was it relief at seeing a dubious character exposed? Hordes of people poured out into the downtown streets-some of them inebriated, all of them giddy with the news. The PPD was keeping an eye on them, although the officers were smiling as broadly as the celebrating citizens. In the post office, the bank, the stores-it was the same.

Qwilleran went to the police station, and Brodie waved him into his office. “What’d I tell ya? Have a cup of coffee.”

“Well, you trapped the rat,” Qwilleran said, “with all due respect to the mayoral office.”

“And we’re charging Nightingale with arson and murder. How did you get the idea he was Omblower?”

“Koko found the evidence. He also suspected Don

Exbridge’s letter in praise of shafthouses and the follow-up letters in opposition-not to mention the leader ads for the video palace.”

“It would do me a lot of good to confiscate the gambling machines. Our people don’t need those. Let them play bingo.”

Qwilleran asked, “How about Don Exbridge? He’s always working against the public good and getting away with it.”

“He’ll be accused as accomplice-before-the-fact, you can be sure. Everything was his idea. Omblower did the dirty work, and he won’t let Exbridge go scot-free… . What was the crash I heard on the tape?”

“Nightingale picked up the martini pitcher by the handle and aimed it at my head like a hammer-throw. I ducked, and it sailed through Exbridge’s cheap glass door, landing rightside-up on the soft cedar deck.”

Brodie said, “A foolish man, Exbridge-using arson as a shortcut to acquiring land for development.”

“No doubt about it, Andy: He wanted Book Alley for a strip mall downtown, and he wanted ten minesites for country estates and high-density condominiums.”

Before leaving downtown Qwilleran visited the library to break the news to Polly. She already knew-through the grapevine.

“It’s hard to believe,” she said, “that Kirt would be involved like that. He seemed like a decent sort, and he loved books.”

“He sold books,” he corrected her.

As he drove to Indian Village, the sky became leaden, and dusk was falling early. He was not surprised to see the interior of Unit Four in a state of confusion. Everything that was not nailed down had been knocked to the floor - almost everything. Strangely, the martini pitcher, bowl of wooden apples and glove box were untouched. But Qwilleran’s desktop was swept clean, two lamps were toppled, and the Danish rug was crumpled like an unmade bed. This was a catfit at its worst - or best, depending on one’s point of view.