Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

Koko's attitude indicated something was wrong - and not just the embezzlement. Qwilleran felt a tingling sensation on his upper lip and tamped his moustache with a heavy hand. Koko was trying to communicate. Perhaps the tipoff had been a hoax. Perhaps the auditors were trying to cover up their own mistake. Perhaps Trevelyan was being, so to speak, railroaded.

As if reading the man's mind, Koko slowly rose on four long legs, his body arched, his tail bushed. With whiskers swept back and eyes slanted, he circled the newspaper in a stiff-legged dance that sent shivers up and down Qwilleran's spine. It was Koko's death dance.

-6-

Following Koko's macabre dance on the coffee table, Qwilleran brooded about its significance. He had seen that performance before, and it meant only one thing: death. And it pointed to Floyd Trevelyan. To Qwilleran's mind it pointed to suicide. The arrogant, self-centered, self-made man would self-destruct rather than suffer the humility of capture, trial, and imprisonment. He was too rich, too cocky, too vain, too autocratic to return to his hometown in handcuffs.

Qwilleran made no mention of his theory to Polly when they had dinner Saturday night. His fanciful suspicions were always politely dismissed by the head librarian, whose mind was as fact- intensive as the World Almanac. He had never told her about Koko's supra-normal intuition either, nor his unique ways of communicating. By comparison her beloved Bootsie was a Neanderthal cat!

They had dinner at Tipsy's restaurant in North Kennebeck without referring to the scandal that had electrified Moose County. Polly had other concerns: Would her house be ready in time for Thanksgiving? Would the fumes of paint and vinyl and treated wood - the "new house smell" - be injurious to Bootsie's sensitive system? Qwilleran's attempts to change the subject were only temporary distractions from the major issues: insulation and roofing.

"Have you met Eddie Trevelyan?" she asked.

"Not formally," he replied. "When I walk to my mailbox, he looks up and waves, and I say 'Lookin' good' or something original like that. He has a helper called Benno - short, stocky fellow with a ponytail-and a beautiful chow dog who comes to work with him everyday and sits in the bed of Eddie's pickup or in the shade of a tree. I tell him he's a good dog, and he pants for joy with his tongue hanging out. His name is Zak, I found out."

There were other details that he thought it wise to omit; Polly would only worry. There were the cigarette butts allover the property. There was the "essence of barroom" that Eddie exuded much of the time.

"At first the men - they're both young - seemed to be enjoying their work, bantering back and forth," Qwilleran reported. "But now there's an air of tension that's understandable. To see one's parent, a leading citizen, suddenly branded as a thief must be hard to take. Eddie keeps nagging Benno to 'get the lead out' and pound more nails. It occurs to me that he's rushing the job in order to collect his second payment. When is it due?"

"When the house is weathered-in. Oh, dear! I hope this doesn't mean he'll be cutting corners."

"If his operating capital is tied up in the credit union, he may be strapped for cash to meet his payroll and pay bills. Has he dropped any hints?"

"No, he hasn't, and I talk to him on the phone every morning, early, before he gets away."

The next day, after Sunday brunch at Polly's apartment, they drove to the building site. Polly was appalled by the cigarette butts; she would tell Mr. Trevelyan to get a coffee can and pick them up. The future rooms were a maze of two-by-fours; she thought the rooms looked too small. Rain was predicted, and she worried that the roof boards would not be installed in time.

Polly's constant worrying about the house caused Qwilleran to worry about her. "Why don't we take a pleasant break," he suggested, "and drive to the Flats to see the wildfowl. They might be nidulating, or whatever they do in July." This was a noble concession on his part; she was an avid bird watcher, and he was not. "We might see a puffin bird," he added facetiously.

"Not likely in Moose County," she said with a bemused smile, "but I really should go home and study the blueprints, in order to figure out furniture arrangement."

After dropping her off, Qwilleran went home to the barn, grateful for the company of cats who never worried. Both were pursuing their hobbies. Yum Yum was batting a bottle cap around the floor, losing it, finding it, losing it again- until she flopped down on her side in utter exhaustion. Koko was standing on his hind legs in the foyer, gazing down the orchard trail. Did he know that a chow came to work with the builder every day? Had Zak ventured up the trail to the barn? In any case, it seemed abnormal for a four-legged animal to spend so much time on two legs.

"Come on, old boy! Let's go exploring," he suggested. "Leash! Leash!"

Yum Yum, recognizing the word, scampered up the ramp to hide. Koko trotted to the broom closet, where the harnesses were stored, and purred while the leather straps were being buckled. Then, dragging his leash, he walked purposefully to the front door. When it was opened, however, he stood on the threshold in a freeze of indecision. He savored the seventy-eight-degree temperature and the three-mile-an-hour breeze; he looked to right and left; he noted a bird in the sky and a squirrel in a tree.

"Okay, let's go. We don't have two days for this excursion," Qwilleran said, picking up the leash and shaking it like reins. "Forward march!"

Koko, an indoor cat in temperament and lifestyle, stepped cautiously to the small entrance deck and sniffed the boards, which were laid diagonally. He sniffed the spaces between the boards. He discovered an interesting knot in the wood and a row of nailheads. In exasperation Qwilleran grabbed him and swung him to his shoulder. Koko was quite amenable. He liked riding on a shoulder. He liked the elevation.

Everyone had advised Qwilleran to "do something" about the orchard, a tangle of weeds and vines choking neglected apple trees. Many had lost their limbs for firewood; others had fallen victim to storms.

"Why don't you clean out that eyesore?" Riker had said. "Plant vegetables," Polly suggested. "Have a swimming pool," Fran Brodie urged.

At the building site, Qwilleran allowed the excited cat to jump down but held a firm hand on the leash. It was not the skeleton of the house that interested Koko, nor the tire tracks where the builders parked their pickups, nor the spot under a tree where Zak liked to nap in the shade. Koko wanted only to roll on the floor of the future garage. He rolled ecstatically. Both cats had discovered this unexplainable thrill at their Mooseville cabin, where the screened porch was on a concrete slab. They rolled on their backs and squirmed voluptuously. Now Koko was inventing new contortions and enjoying it immensely.

"Let's not be excessive," Qwilleran said to him, jerking the leash. "If that's all you want to do, let's go home."

On the way back to the barn he had an idea: He would add a screened porch on a concrete slab for the Siamese, where they could have a sense of outdoor living and roll to their hearts' content. Eddie could build it after he finished Polly's house. It would not be attached to the barn; that would only destroy the symmetry of the octagonal structure. It would be a separate summer house - a pergola - like the one he had visited on Breakfast Island, and like the one he had built in the Potato Mountains.

Yum Yum met them at the door and sniffed Koko with disapproval; he had been out having fun, and she had been left at home.

"That's what happens," Qwilleran advised her, "when you elect to be asocial." At any rate, he hoped the jaunt had satisfied Koko's curiosity and there would be no more absurd trail gazing. It was a futile dream. Soon the cat was back in the foyer, standing on two legs at the window, watching and waiting.