Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

Qwilleran posted the letter in his rural mailbox the next morning, walking down the orchard wagon trail to the highway, Trevelyan Road. The trail was the length of a city block. It ran past the skeletons of neglected apple trees, between other trees planted by squirrels and birds in the last hundred years, alongside the remains of the old Trevelyan farmhouse that had burned down, and past the two acres where Polly would build her new house. After raising the red flag on the oversized mailbox, he took a few minutes to consider the construction site. The fieldstone foundation of the old house was barely visible in a field of waist-high weeds. An abandoned lilac bush was doing nicely on its own, having grown to the size of a two-story, three-bedroom house, and it still bloomed in season. When the wind direction was right, its fragrance wafted as far as the apple barn.

Polly wanted to preserve the old stone foundation - for what purpose she had not decided. She kept asking, "Shall I build in front of it, or behind it, or beyond it? I can't build on top of it."

Qwilleran had tried to make suggestions, but her questions were merely rhetorical; she was an independent person and had to make her own decisions. As head librarian she had a brilliant reputation. She was efficient and briskly decisive. She charmed the members of the library board, improved the collection, controlled the budget, coped with the quirks of an old library building, staged events, and solved the personal problems of her young assistants with kindness and common sense. In facing her own dilemmas, however, she melted into a puddle of bewilderment.

Returning from the mailbox, Qwilleran became aware of two pairs of blue eyes staring at him from an upper-level window of the barn. He waved to them and kept on walking through the Black Forest to the Park Circle, with its important buildings and multi-lane traffic. The proximity of town and country was one of the attractions of living in a small city (population 3,000). On the perimeter of the Park Circle were two churches, the courthouse, the K Theatre, and a building resembling a Greek temple: the public library.

Qwilleran walked briskly up the stone steps of the library-steps. rounded into gentle concavities by a century of feet. Now added to the feet of booksubscribers were the feet of video-borrowers, and Qwilleran doubted that the steps would last another half-century. In the main room he headed directly toward the stairs to the mezzanine, nodding pleasantly to the young clerks who greeted him as Mr. Q. They also glanced mischievously at each other, amused at the sight of the middle-aged friend of their middle-aged boss paying a call in broad daylight. The relationship between the head librarian and the richest man in the northeast- central United States was a subject of constant conjecture in Pickax.

Qwilleran bounced up the stairs, noting the familiar sight of Homer Tibbitt at one of the reading tables, surrounded by books and pamphlets. Although well up in his nineties, the county historian spent every morning at the library, pursuing some esoteric

research project. Or perhaps he was avoiding his overly attentive wife, as the giggling clerks surmised. In her eighties, Rhoda Tibbitt could still drive, and she chauffeured her husband to and from his life's work.

Polly was seated in her glass-enclosed office in front of a deskful of paperwork. When she spoke, her serenely low-pitched voice gave Qwilleran a shudder of pleasure as it always did, no matter how often they met or how many hours they had spent together the evening before.

"Morning," he said with an intimate nuance.

He never used terms of endearment, except to Yum Yum, but he could infuse a two-syllable greeting with warmth and affection. He slid into a hard, varnished oak chair, library-style circa 1910.

Polly said, "You look especially vibrant this morning, dear."

"I'm a veritable fountain of news," he announced as he launched into his report on Dwight's new job, the Party Train, and the theatre club's decision to do A Midsummer Night's Dream. He avoided mentioning that the fairies might be updated. He even revealed Dwight's date with Hixie Rice as a kind of romantic milestone on the social scene. Outsiders might call it gossip, but in Pickax this was legitimate sharing of information. Good news, rumors, bad news, scandal, and other data somehow reached the library first, and Polly's assistant, Virginia Alstock, was tuned in to the Moose County grapevine for its dissemination.

Today Polly's reactions were subdued. She seemed preoccupied, glancing frequently at the stack of manuals on home building that occupied a corner of her desk.

The title on top of the pile was How to Build a Better House for Less Money, and he asked, "Are you making any progress with your house plans?"

"I don't know," she said with a world- weary sigh. "It's all so confusing. In Oregon, Susan did sketches for a one- story house that would integrate with the terrain. No basement. Heating equipment in a utility room next to the laundry.... But these books say that a two-story house is more economical to build and to heat, and it would give Bootsie a chance to run up and down stairs for exercise."

"Build a one-story house with a basement and let him run up and down the basement stairs," Qwilleran suggested with simple logic. Bootsie was the other male in Polly's life, a husky Siamese. He was grossly pampered, in Qwilleran's opinion.

"I'm not fond of basements. I've seen too many that leak," she objected. "I was thinking of a crawl space with good insulation. What do you think, Qwill?"

"You're asking the wrong person. I'm only a journalist; I leave the house building to the house builders. Why not

line up a professional firm like XYZ Enterprises?"

"But it's so large and commercial, and I've lost respect for them since the fiasco on Breakfast Island. It's my belief that a small builder gives more personal attention to one's needs and ideas. Mrs. Alstock's in-laws in Black Creek hired a young man. He finished on schedule and very close to the estimated cost. We should encourage young people in the trades, don't you think? He works out of Sawdust City."

"Hmmm," Qwilleran mused, having heard that the Sawdusters were all roughnecks who threw bottles through tavern windows on Saturday nights. "What is his name?"

"He's a Trevelyan - another of those 'hairy Welshmen,' as they're called, but I have no objection to long hair and a shaggy beard if he does a good job."

"Want me to check him out for you? The paper has a stringer in Sawdust City."

"Well... thank you, Qwill, but... Mrs. Alstock is taking me to see her in- laws' house tomorrow night, and Mr. Trevelyan will be there. I'll have my sketches with me, and if he impresses me favorably - "

"Find out if he eyeballs the construction from the sketches," Qwilleran suggested, remembering the underground builder he had encountered in Mooseville.

"Oh, no! In Pickax the plans and specifications must be drawn up by an architect in order to obtain a building permit."

Changing the subject abruptly, Qwilleran said, "I'm keeping you from your work. How about dinner tonight at the Old Stone Mill?"

"I'd love to, dear, but I've called a special meeting of the library board. We'll have dinner at the hotel, then come back here to discuss the paving of the parking lot. We've had it out for bids."

Teasingly he said, "I hope your literary ladies enjoy the inevitable chicken pot pie and lemon sherbet, spelled 'sherbert' on the menu."

Polly smiled, recognizing his genial thrust at the hotel's cuisine and the library's frugal allowance for board members' meals. "You're welcome to join us," she said coyly.

"No thanks, but why don't you get the board to budget a few dollars for cushions for these chairs?"

"Go away," she said affectionately, waving him out of her office. She was wearing the ring he had given her for Christmas - a fiery black opal rimmed with tiny diamonds. He knew that she was wearing it to impress the "literary ladies."