Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Said Cheese

"The explosion. Was it pretty bad?"

"Everything in a certain radius was blown to bits. That poor girl never knew what hit her."

Qwilleran asked, "Am I correct in thinking room 203 was registered to the mystery woman?"

"Right, and she hasn't been seen since."

Qwilleran paused dramatically before saying, "I spent the afternoon with her."

"What! How come? How did you meet her? What do you know?"

"Why don't you put on your shoes, Andy, and come over for a Scotch?"

In five minutes the police chief drove into the barnyard. He was a tall, husky, impressive figure, even out of uniform, and he was especially impressive when he wore a full Scottish kit and played the bagpipe at weddings and funerals. He walked into the barn with a piper's swagger.

Qwilleran had a tray ready with Scotch and cheese, and Squunk water for himself. As the two men settled into big chairs in the lounge area, the Siamese walked into view with a swagger of their own. Corning close to the coffee table, they sat down with noses on a level with the cheese platter. As the guest raised his glass in a Gaelic toast, the two noses edged closer.

"No!" Qwilleran thundered. Both cats backed off a quarter of an inch and continued to contemplate the forbidden food with half-shut eyes.

"Cocky little devils," Brodie said. "Bet you spoil them rotten."

"Try this cheese, Andy. It's a kind of Swiss from the new Sip 'n' Nibble shop in Stables Row. It's run by two guys from Down Below. They like to be called Jerry Sip and Jack Nibble. Jerry's the wine expert, and Jack knows everything about cheese."

"Gimme a slice. Then tell me how you met that woman."

"It was a weird coincidence. I'd never seen her, but they were talking about her at the paper yesterday and mentioned that she drove a dark blue rental car. So, this afternoon I drove to the cabin on a routine inspection, and there was a dark blue two-door in my parking lot! My car almost reared up on its hind wheels! The woman was sitting on my beach at the foot of the dune, reading a cookbook, so I figured she wasn't dangerous."

Brodie grunted at intervals as Qwilleran told the whole story. "So she offered to make some stuffed grape leaves if I'd buy the ingredients, and that's what I was doing when the bomb went off."

The chief chuckled. "She wanted to get your car out of the drive so she could make a getaway."

"That was my first thought. For a few minutes I felt like an absolute dunce. Then I realized - correctly, I believe - that she'd heard the bulletin on the air and had to get out of town fast. Somehow she knew the bomb was intended for her. I called the airport, and they said she'd turned in the car and boarded the shuttle."

Brodie said, "She might have decamped in a hurry be- cause she was a conspirator in the bomb plot. She was conveniently out of the building - and hiding out on your property - when the bomb exploded."

Qwilleran drew a heavy hand over his moustache, as he always did when he was getting a major hunch. A tingle on his upper lip was a signal that he was on the right track. "I maintain, Andy, that she's a fugitive trying to go underground. This neck of the woods is ordinarily as underground as you can get, but there's another clue to consider. When the wind blew her hair away from her face, I saw a long vertical scar in front of her left ear."

"Could be the result of an auto accident," Brodie suggested. "What name did she give you?"

"Only her first name: Onoosh."

"Onoosh? What kind of name is that? On the hotel register she signed Ona Dolman."

A dark brown paw stole slowly over the edge of the coffee table.

"No!" Qwilleran bellowed, and the paw was quickly withdrawn.

"I didn't know cats liked cheese," said the chief, who thought they lived on rodents and fish-heads.

"Since the new store opened, both cats are turning into cheese junkies," Qwilleran said.

"Well, I guess we'll never see Ona Dolman again, but it's no big loss. The hell of it is the murder of that innocent girl - Anna Marie Toms. I know the family - good people! Not everybody living in Chipmunk gets into trouble with the law. She was kind of engaged to Lenny Inchpot, Lois's son. I'll play the bagpipe at her funeral service, if they want me to."

"Do you know exactly how it happened, Andy?"

"It'll come out later, but I'll fill you in now - off the record." Brodie had gradually accepted this journalist from Down Below as trustworthy and useful. Qwilleran's experience as a crime reporter in major cities around the country had given him insights into investigative processes, and his natural instinct for snooping often unearthed facts of value to official investigators. In pursuing his private passion, Qwilleran was quite satisfied to remain in the background, tip off the authorities, and take no public credit. Brodie, for his part, appreciated his cooperation and occasionally leaked confidential information - through his daughter, the designer. It was a casual arrangement, unknown to other local law enforcement agencies.

"Anything you see fit to tell me is always off the record, Andy. That goes without saying."

"Okay. About four o'clock this afternoon an unidentified white male - about forty, medium build, clean-shaven - came in the front door of the hotel with a gift package and some flowers for Ona Dolman. Lenny, on duty at the desk, said she wasn't in but he'd send them up to her room as soon as the porter returned from his break. The suspect said the gift was hand-blown glass, very fragile, and he'd feel more comfortable taking it upstairs himself and putting it in a safe place. He asked for a piece of paper and wrote: OPEN WITH CARE, HONEY. SO Lenny told him to ask the housekeeper on the second floor to let him into 203. When the suspect came back down, he yelled thank-you and went out the back door. The porter was having a cigarette in the parking lot and saw a blue pickup drive slowly down the back street and pick up a man in a blue jacket. So what? Blue pickups and blue jackets are a dime a dozen around here."

Qwilleran asked about witnesses on the second floor. "The manager's office is up there. She didn't see the suspect, but the housekeeper asked where to get a vase for some flowers and later took the vacuum cleaner into 203, saying the flowers had made a mess on the rug. When she plugged in the cord or pushed the machine around, she probably tripped the bomb. Lenny feels he's responsible for her death. That boy's gonna need counseling."

"Bad scene," Qwilleran said somberly. "Can he describe the suspect?"

"Two witnesses got a close look at him-Lenny and the florist who sold him the flowers. The SBI computer is making a composite sketch from their descriptions, but I don't know how they'll find any clues in the rubble. A bomb blows up a lot of evidence."

"Yes, but the forensic people work miracles. Every year there seems to be new technology." Qwilleran poured another Scotch for Brodie and asked how he liked the cheese.

"Good stuff! I've gotta tell the wife about it. What d'you call it?"

"GruyŠre. It's from Switzerland."

"Yow!" came a loud demand from the floor, and Qwilleran gave each cat a tiny crumb of it, which they gobbled and masticated and savored at great length as if it were a whole wedge.

Brodie asked, "Did Ona Dolman say anything at all that might finger the bomber?"

"No, I'm afraid I missed the boat. I intended to ask some leading questions while we were eating our grape leaves. I even picked up a bottle of good wine for her!" Qwilleran said with annoyance.

"Well, anyway, now that we know she left on a plane, we can start a search. If she was in hiding, she falsified information but there'll be prints on the car, if they haven't cleaned it." He went to the phone and called the airport; the car had been thoroughly cleaned when it was returned. Qwilleran said there would be prints on the kitchen sink at the cabin, and he turned over the key to Brodie, along with the folding chair, cookbooks, and straw hat that she had left behind.