Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

Qwilleran went to meet him. "Do you know your boss is in the hospital?"

"Yeah. He's hurt bad."

"Can you continue to work on the house?"

The man shrugged. "No boss, no pay. I come to pick up my tools."

"Do you know where Eddie rented this machine?"

"Truck-n-Track in Kennebeck."

At that moment a late-model car stopped on the shoulder, driven by Scott Gippel on his way to work.

"Did you hear the newscast, Scott?" Qwilleran asked.

"Sure did! That guy's gonna cash it in, take it from me. It's the Trevelyan curse, allover again. Same place. Same family. Look! You can see the foundation where their farmhouse burned down."

"Well, don't be too worried about Eddie. He's young, and he's strong - "

"And he drinks like a sponge," the car dealer said. "He's probably got alcohol instead of blood in his veins."

Qwilleran let that comment pass. There had been a time when he fitted the same description, more or less. He said, "Could your tow truck get this thing out of the ditch and deliver it to Kennebeck?"

"Who pays?"

"I do, but I want it done fast... immediately...now.

Without answering, Gippel picked up his car phone and gave orders.

Qwilleran waited until the carpenter had picked up his tools - and nothing belonging to Eddie. He waited until the tractor had been towed away. Only then did he go home and feed the cats. They were unusually quiet; they knew when he was involved in serious business.

He himself breakfasted on coffee and a two-day-old doughnut while pondering Koko's bizarre behavior in recent weeks: the interminable vigils at the front window... his perching on the fireplace cube with the decoys... his vociferous and absurd reaction to the name Hermia... his digging in the crook of Qwilleran's elbow, ad nauseam.

As the man ruminated, the cat was investigating the bookshelf devoted to nineteenth-century fiction.

"You'd better shape up, young man," Qwilleran scolded him, "or we'll send you to live with Amanda Goodwinter."

"Ik ik ik!" said Koko irritably as he shoved a book off the shelf. It was a fine book with a leather binding, gold tooling, India paper, and gilt edges. With resignation and the realization that one can never win an argument with a Siamese, Qwilleran picked up the book and read the title. It was Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.

"Thanks a lot," he said crossly.

Qwilleran's telephone was in constant use that morning. He called Kennebeck and instructed Truck-n- Track to send him Eddie's rental bill, not forgetting to credit the deposit. He instructed Mr. O'Dell to pick up Eddie's table saw and other tools and store them in a stall of the carriage house.

At one point he telephoned the Lanspeaks, who called their daughter at the medical clinic, who spoke to the chief of staff at the hospital, who revealed that the patient was in and out of consciousness, having sustained massive internal injuries and multiple fractures. The next twenty-four hours would be decisive.

Soon after, Celia called again. She had been to the hospital with Tish. Eddie was conscious but didn't recognize his sister. "I think they had him all doped up," she said. "We were wondering how to break the news to Florrie and how she'd take it, and we decided that the reunion with Grandpa Penn might soften the blow. What do you think, Chief?"

Qwilleran thought, It'll either soften the blow or deliver the coup de grace. He said, however, "Good idea!"

"So I'll phone him and ask if I can pick him up this afternoon. I hope it isn't too short notice."

"It won't be. The social schedule at the Retirement Center seems to be flexible."

"Also, I have something to report right now, Chief, if you can see me for a few minutes before I leave for The Roundhouse."

When she arrived, she was flushed with excitement.

"Coffee?" he asked.

"I haven't time." Sinking into the cushions of the sofa, she rummaged in her handbag for her notebook and then dropped the roomy carryall on the floor, where its gaping interior immediately attracted the Siamese. It was used to transport such items as cookies, paperback novels, house slippers, drugstore remedies, and more. "What do you think they're looking for?" she asked, as the two blackish- brown noses sniffed the handbag's mysteries.

"Wrigley," Qwilleran said. "They think you've got Wrigley in there, and they want to let the cat out of the bag."

Celia howled with more glee than the quip warranted, Qwilleran felt, but he realized she was overexcited by the day's happenings. He waited patiently until she calmed down, then asked, "Where's Tish now?"

"Still at the hospital. They have a comfy waiting room for relatives in the intensive care wing, and that's where we had a heart-to-heart talk this morning - Tish and I. I asked if Eddie had friends we should notify, but she doesn't know any of his friends... I told you they're a strange family, Chief... Then she said Nella Hooper liked Eddie a lot and would be sorry to hear what happened, but she didn't leave a forwarding address. Nella, I found out, is the secretary at the credit union who was fired a couple of weeks before it closed. She and Eddie lived in the same apartment building. She wasn't a secretary, Tish said, but more like an assistant to the president. She had a degree in accounting and knew computers and made a big impression on Tish. They used to go to lunch together."

"First question," Qwilleran said. "What was this highly qualified woman doing in a tank town like Sawdust City? Besides everything you mention, she has smashing good looks! I've seen her."

"She loved trains! That's all. It was a dream job, traveling around the country with the president, looking at trains and - "

She was interrupted by the phone. Hixie was calling to say that Nella Hooper's apartment would not be available until October first - and maybe not then if she decided to come back. The credit union always paid her rent - quarterly - in advance. Eddie Trevelyan had moved, to Indian Village four months before Audit Sunday. Hixie concluded, "Is he the one who was in that bad accident last night?"

"He's the one. Floyd's son. Thanks, Hixie. Talk to you later."

As Qwilleran returned to the lounge area, he was thinking, If they were going to fire Nella in July, why would they pay her rent until October? To Celia he said, "Did Tish mention why Nella was fired?"

"She wasn't fired, really. Nella's father in Texas has Alzheimer's disease, and her mother needed her at home, so Nella had to quit her job. But the office made it look like she was fired, so she could collect benefits. She left without saying good-bye, which really hurt Tish's feelings, although she realizes Nella had family troubles on her mind."

"Hmmm, makes one wonder" was Qwilleran's comment. "As 1 recall, Tish said she hated her father for cheating on Florrie. How does she react to Nella's relationship with her father?"

"Strictly business, she said. Her father's real girlfriend owns a bar in Sawdust City. Tish told Nella how she felt about F.T. and how he wouldn't spend the money to send Florrie to Switzerland. Nella was very sympathetic and said it would be easy to switch $100,000 into a slush fund for Florrie, and F.T. would be none the wiser. Also, it would be legal because it was all in the family.... Do you understand how this works, Chief?"

"I don't even understand why seven- times-nine always equals sixty-three."

"Me too! Glad.I'm not the only dumbbell.... Well, anyway, the next thing was that Tish introduced Eddie to Nella, because he wanted money to build condos. If he could buy the land, he could borrow against it to start building, but F.T. wouldn't back him. Nella told him not to worry; she could work the same kind of switch because it was all in the family. But before anything happened, Nella had to quit, and the credit union went bust. Tish was lucky to have her savings in a Pickax bank. She didn't trust F.T." Celia had been talking fast. She looked at her watch. "I've gotta dash. If I'm late, the nurse gets snippy."