Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Said Cheese

"Not good. We'll have to choose a Pickle Queen as well as a Potato Queen and a Trout Queen. The whole town will smell of dill and garlic from July to October."

"I thought you liked garlic, dear." She was goading him gently.

"Not as a substitute for fresh air. Can you imagine the TV commercials for Pickax Pickles? They'd be done in animation, of course-a row of pickles wearing tutus and dancing to the Pickax Polka, with pickle-voices screaming, 'Perk up with Pickax Pickles.'... No, tell Mrs. Alstock there's no pickle factory on the K Fund agenda for economic development. The rumor mongers will have to go back to the drawing board."

"Well, are you ready for some gossip that's absolutely true?" Polly asked. "The mystery woman came into the library and checked out books on a temporary card!"

"Hmff! If she's a reader, she can't be all bad, can she? What kind of book? How to build a bomb? How to poison the water supply?"

"Book withdrawals are privileged information," she said with a superior smile.

"So the library knows her name and address."

"No doubt it's in the files."

Qwilleran smoothed his moustache in contemplation and looked at her conspiratorially under hooded eyelids.

She recognized the humor in his melodramatic performance and retorted sweetly, "You're plotting a Dirty Trick! The Pickax Plumbers will break into the library after hours and burglarize the files, and we'll have a Bibliogate scandal."

Before he could think of a witty comeback, the front door slammed. There were footsteps in the entrance hall. Lynette had come home early.

"I didn't stay for refreshments," she explained. "I decided I'd rather visit with you two."

"We're flattered. Sit down and have a cookie," Qwilleran said in a monotone. He was reflecting that Lynette was a decent person - pleasant, helpful, generous, well-meaning, and smart enough to play bridge and handle health insurance in a doctor's office, but... she didn't get it! It never occurred to her that he and Polly might like a little privacy - once in a while.

Polly said to her sister-in-law, "We were just talking about the mystery woman."

Pontifically Qwilleran announced, "I have it on good authority that she's a fugitive from a crime syndicate or a terrorist group. She knows too much. She's a threat to the mob. Her life is in danger."

Lynette's eyes grew wide until Polly assured her he was only kidding. Then Lynette asked, "Does anyone mind if I turn on the radio for the weather report? Wetherby Goode says the cutest things!"

Qwilleran listened politely to the meteorologist's inanities: "Rain, rain, go away; come again another day." Then he made an excuse to leave. Polly understood; she gave him apologetic glances. Bootsie always escorted him to the front door, as if to speed the parting guest. This evening Qwilleran was escorted by a committee of three, and there was no opportunity for a private and lingering goodnight. Polly, he decided, had to get out of that house!

Arriving at the apple barn, Qwilleran stepped from his car and was virtually bowled over by a putrid stench coming from the tool shed, a hundred feet away. He was a man who made quick decisions. The cheese book had cost him six dollars, but he knew when to cut his losses. He turned his headlights on the shed, found a spade, and dug a sizable hole in the ground. Without any obsequies he buried Great Cheeses of the Western World. He hoped it would not contaminate the water table.

The Siamese were glad to see him. They had been neglected most of the day. They had had no quality time with him.

"Okay, we'll have a read," he announced. "Book! Book!"

One side of the fireplace cube was covered with shelves for Qwilleran's collection of pre-owned books from Eddington's shop. They were grouped according to category: fiction, biography, drama, history, and so forth, with spaces between that were large enough for Koko to curl up and sleep. He seemed to derive comfort from the proximity of old bindings. He also liked to knock a volume off a shelf occasionally and peer over the edge to see where it landed. In fact, whenever Qwilleran shouted "Book! Book!" that was Koko's cue to dislodge a title. It was a game. Whatever the cat chose, the man was obliged to read aloud.

On this occasion the selection was Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Qwilleran often read about nature, and he had enjoyed Euell Gibbons's book, even though he had no desire to eat roasted acorns or boiled milkweed shoots. The chapter he now chose to read was all about wild honeybees, and he entertained his listeners with sound effects: Bzzzzzzz. The Siamese were fascinated. Yum Yum lounged on his lap, and Koko sat on the arm of the chair, watching the reader's moustache.

Halfway through the chapter, just as the wild bees were swarming from a hollow tree, Koko's rapt attention faltered, his ears pricked, and his tail stiffened. He looked toward the back door. It was late, Qwilleran thought, for a car to be coming through the woods without invitation. He went to investigate. Standing on the threshold he saw no headlights, heard no motor noise, but unnatural sounds came from behind the toolshed. He snapped on the exterior lights and ventured toward the woods with a high-powered flashlight and a baseball bat.

As he approached the shed, there was scrambling in the underbrush, followed by dead silence, but the putrid odor told the story. A raccoon had dug up the cheese book and left it there, muddy and disheveled. The question now arose: How to get rid of it? Using the flashlight, he scoured the tool shed for containers with airtight lids and consigned the cheese book to a plastic mop pail. O'Dell's janitorial service would know what to do with it.

There was also a metal tackle box, empty and slightly rusted - the kind a mass murderer Down Below had used to send dynamite through the mails. For one brief giddy moment, Qwilleran considered mailing the cheese book to his former in-laws in New Jersey.

3

Friday started with a whisper and ended with a bang! First, Qwilleran fed the cats. He watched in fascination as they groomed themselves from whisker to tail tip. They seemed to sense, Qwilleran thought, that a prize-winning professional photographer was coming and that they might become famous calendar cats. The female was dainty in her movements; the male brisk and business-like. He had extremely long, bold whiskers, and Qwilleran wondered if they accounted for his remarkable intuition. Koko was also a master of one-upmanship, and he had proved more than once that he had John Bushland's number.

Bushy, as the balding young man liked to be called, arrived without noticeable photo equipment-just a small, inconspicuous black box dangling around his neck.

Qwilleran met him at the door. "Come in quietly and make yourself at home. Avoid any sudden movements. Don't touch your camera. I'm making coffee, and we'll sit around and talk as if nothing is going to happen."

Bushy wandered into the library area and looked at titles on the shelves. "Wow!" he said softly. "You have a lot of plays. Were you ever an actor?"

"I was headed in that direction before I discovered journalism. A little acting experience, in my opinion, is good preparation for almost any career."

"Shakespeare... Aristophanes... Chekhov! Do you read this heavy stuff?"

"Heavy or light, I like to read them aloud and play all the roles myself."

"Do you realize how many plays have food in the title? The Wild Duck, The Cherry Orchard, The Corn Is Green, Raisin in the Sun, Chicken on Sunday, A Taste of Honey..."

Qwilleran brought a tray to the coffee table. "Sit down, Bushy, and have some coffee and shortbread from the new bakery on Stables Row. It'll remind you of our trip to Scotland. Ignore the cats."

They were warming themselves in a triangle of sun- light on the pale Moroccan rug. Koko had struck his leonine pose, with lower body lying down and upper body sitting up, like the fore and aft halves of two different animals.