Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Went Into The Closet

"We should give up football and stick to growing potatoes," Qwilleran remarked.

"How's everything at the house?"

"Koko just came out of a closet with a man's spat. I haven't seen one of those since the last Fred Astaire movie. He was dragging it conscientiously to the collection site in the kitchen, staggering and stumbling. His aim in life is to empty the closets, ounce by ounce."

"They'll have to be cleaned out sooner or later."

"Watch it!" Qwilleran snapped. Junior had a friendly way of facing his passenger squarely as he spoke, and they narrowly missed hitting a deer bounding out of a cornfield. "Keep your eyes on the road, Junior, or we'll be residents of Hilltop ourselves." They were passing through farm country, and he asked Junior if he knew a potato farmer named Gil Inchpot.

"Not personally, but his daughter was my date for the senior prom in high school. She was the only girl short enough for me."

"You're no longer short, Junior. You're what they call vertically challenged."

"Gee, thanks! That makes me feel nine feet tall."

They parked the car and walked up the hill to a granite obelisk chiseled with the name Gage. Small headstones surrounded it, and there was one rectangle of freshly turned earth, not yet sodded or marked.

"There she is," said her grandson. "I was supposed to ship her books to Florida, but I had too many other things on my mind - my job, and the baby coming. I promise, though, she's going to get a memorial service exactly how she wanted it."

"Has her will been read?"

"Not until my brother and sister get here. Jack has to come from L.A., and Pug lives in Montana. Grandma wrote a new will after moving to Florida. It was in the manager's safe at the mobile home park, all tied up with red ribbon and sealed with red wax. It will be interesting to know what changes she made."

"You told me once that you were her sole heir."

"That's what she said at the time, but I think she was just cajoling me into doing something for her. A world-class conniver, that's what she was!"

"When Pug and Jack arrive," Qwilleran suggested, "I'd like to take all of you to dinner at the Old Stone Mill."

"Gee! That would be great!"

"Would you like an apple?"

The two men stood munching in silence for a while, Junior staring at the grave and Qwilleran gazing around the horizon. "Pleasant view," he remarked.

"Pallbearers always hated burials up here. No access road. They have to carry the casket up that steep path... Wish I had a flower to throw on the grave before we leave."

"We could bury our apple cores. They'd sprout and produce apple blossoms every spring."

"Hey! Let's do it!" Junior exclaimed.

They scooped out some soil and buried the cores reverently, then drove back to town without saying much until Qwilleran ventured, "You never told me anything about your grandfather."

"To tell the truth, my grandparents are closer in death than they ever were in life," Junior said. "She was into arts and health fads; he was into sports and booze. The Gage shipyard had folded, and he spent his time manipulating the family fortune, not always legally. Grandpa spent two years in federal prison for financial fraud. That was in the 1920s."

"If they were so mismatched, why did they marry? Does anyone know?"

"Well, the way my mother told me the story, Euphonia's forebears were pioneer doctors by the name of Roff. They'd deliver a baby for a bushel of apples or set a broken bone for a couple of chickens, so the family never had any real money. Somehow Euphonia got pressured into marrying the Gage heir. The Roffs, being from Boston, had a certain 'class' that Grandpa lacked, so it seemed like a good deal all around, but it didn't work."

"Was your mother their only child?"

"Yeah. She called herself a Honeymoon Special." Qwilleran asked to be dropped off at the variety store, where he bought a blue light bulb and a Halloween mask. Then he spent an hour with his recording machine taping weird noises. The Siamese watched with bemused tolerance as their human companion uttered screeches, anguished moans, and hideous.laughs into the microphone.

The performance was interrupted by the telephone, when Gary Pratt called. "Nancy's here. She wants to tell you something. Okay?"

"Put her on."

In a breathless, little-girl voice Nancy said, "The state police found Pop's truck!"

"That was fast. Where was it?"

"At the airport."

"In the parking structure?"

"No. In the open lot."

He nodded with understanding. There was a charge for parking indoors, and most locals preferred to park free in the cow pasture. "Is there any clue as to his destination?"

"No..." She hesitated before continuing in a faltering way. "He never... he doesn't like to travel, Mr. Qwilleran. He's hardly been... out of Moose County... except for Vietnam."

"Still, some unexpected business transaction may have come up - suddenly. What did the police say?"

"They told me to report a missing person, and they'll check the passenger list for flights."

"Let me know what they find out," Qwilleran said. He was beginning to feel genuinely sorry for her, and in an effort to divert her from her worries he said, "You know, Nancy, I'd like to write a column on dog-sledding. Are

you willing to be interviewed?"

"Oh, yes!" she said. "The mushers would love the publicity."

"How about tomorrow afternoon?"

"Well, I want to go to Pop's house after church to clean out the refrigerator, but I could be home by two."

"By the way, what's the situation in the potato fields?"

"No severe frost yet. I'm praying he comes back before the crop's ruined."

"Could you hire someone to do the harvesting in an emergency?"

"I don't know who it would be. They're all busy with their own work."

"It won't hurt to ask around, Nancy. And I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

The hour of hobgoblins approached. Qwilleran tried on his death's-head mask and prepared a sheet to shroud his head and body. The tape player was set up near the entrance, and at six o'clock he turned on the blue porch lamp that cast an eerie light on the gray stonework. He was ready for them.

The first squealing, chattering trio to come up the front walk included a miniature Darth Vader, a pirate, and a bride in a wedding dress made from old curtains. They were carrying shopping bags. Before they could ring the bell, the front door opened slowly, and unnatural sounds emanated from the gloomy interior. "Ooooooooooh! Ooooooooooo!" Then there was a horrifying screech. As the pop-eyed youngsters stared, a shrouded skeleton emerged from the shadows, and a clawlike hand was extended, clutching an apple. The three screamed and scrambled down the steps.

Later groups were scared stiff but not stiff enough to run away without their treats, so the supply of apples diminished slightly. Many beggars avoided the house entirely. They trooped down the side drive, however, to the brightly lighted carriage house where Polly was distributing candy.

The last intrepid pair to brave the haunted house were a cowboy with large eyeglasses and a moustache glued on his upper lip, accompanied by a tiny ballerina with a white net tutu and sequined bra over her gray warmup suit. The cowboy pressed the doorbell, and Qwilleran pressed the button on the player: "Oooooooooh! Ooooooooooh!" The spooky wail was followed by a screech and a cackling laugh as a ghostly figure appeared.

"I know you!" said the cowboy. "You told us about those people burning up."

In a sepulchral drone Qwilleran said, "I... am the... scrofulous skeleton... of Skaneateles!"

The boy explained to his small companion, "He can talk so you don't know who he is. He's that man with the big moustache."

"What... do... you want?" the apparition intoned.