Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Wasn't There

They looked down on Qwilleran with condescension.

"Welcome home!" she greeted him.

"How was the trip?" "No one ever said traveling is easy." "How about a cup of coffee?" "As soon as I dump this luggage.

I've been living out of it for two weeks." He carried his bags up the ramp to the balcony, and when he returned he had a small white box in his pocket, with CRM on the cover. The Siamese were still sitting sphinxlike on the refrigerator.

"Did they ever find Irma?" he asked as he slid onto a seat at the snack bar. Mildred poured two mugs of coffee.

"Yes, she finally arrived, and they buried her yesterday, although there was some further unpleasantness. The Dingleberry brothers told Roger--off the record, of course--that the Hasselriches disagreed violently about burial versus cremation." "Did the obit run?" "Yes. On the front page. I left it on the coffee table. It's a lovely write-up... Well, apart from the tragedy, Qwill, how was your adventure?" "I'll know better after I've spent a night in my own bed and recovered from tour trauma." "Did you buy yourself a kilt?" "No, just a couple of ties in the Mackintosh tartan. Speaking of Mackintosh, here's a memento of Glasgow." He pushed the small white box across the bar.

"Oh, Qwill! Thank you so much!" she exclaimed when she saw the peacock feather pin in silver and enamel.

"What's the name of this stone?" "It's a cairngorm, found only in Scotland, I believe." "It was sweet of you to think of me." "It was generous of you to take care of the Siamese, Mildred." "Not a bit! It was a thrill to live in this barn, and the cats were enjoyable company. I wouldn't mind having one just like Koko." "There's no such thing as just-like-Koko," he informed her.

"He's the Shakespeare of cats, the Beethoven of cats, the Leonardo of cats!" Hearing his name mentioned favorably, Koko rose and stretched his rear chassis, then extended his forelegs with spreading toes, after which he jumped down from the refrigerator with a thump and an involuntary grunt and ambled over to Qwilleran to sniff the foreign aromas. Who could say what scents were registered by that twitching nose? Old castles? Heather? Scotch broth? Fishing villages? Sheep?

A distillery? The bones of ancient kings? A battlefield soaked with blood 250 years ago?

"Did the cats misbehave in any way?" Qwilleran asked.

"Well, one of them stole my emery boards-- a whole pack of them, one at a time." "Petty larceny is Yum Yum's department. I owe you a pack. I'll take it out of her allowance. How about Koko?" "He did one naughty thing that gave me a scare," Mildred said.

"I was getting ready to take my diet pill, and he swooped in and snatched it. I was afraid he'd eat it and get sick, but he just punctured the capsule with his fangs." "Yes, he likes to sink them in soft, gummy things, like jelly beans," Qwilleran explained.

"Do I smell macaroni and cheese in the oven? All the time I was eating nettle broth, mutton pie, boiled sheep's tongue, and tripe and onions, I was dreaming about macaroni and cheese." "That's for our lunch," she said.

"I'm leaving some left-overs in the refrigerator for the cats- meatloaf, codfish cakes, terrine of turkey, and there's beef stew for you in the freezer. I've been cooking up a storm while you were away and having a wonderful time." After lunch, Mildred packed and moved out, and Qwilleran shut himself in his balcony suite until an operatic chorus outside his door reminded him it was time for dinner. The three of them snacked informally on the leftovers, and then he sprawled listlessly in his favorite lounge chair with no desire to read the newspaper or play the stereo or write a letter or take a walk or call anyone on the telephone. It was post-vacation lethargy. When the Siamese crowded around, having forgiven him for his unexplained absence, he stroked Yum Yum halfheartedly and told Koko without much conviction that he was a handsome fellow.

Impulsively, Koko jumped from the arm of the chair and walked deliberately to the large square coffee table, where Mildred had left a copy of the Moose County Something. Hopping to the tabletop, he stared down at the newsprint with a nearsighted gaze. Then, arching his back and bushing his tail and sweeping his ears back, he commenced a slow prance around the lead item on the front page. He circled it again and again in a hair-raising ritual that Qwilleran had seen before. It meant that Koko's extra senses were detecting a discrepancy that escaped human perception. Qwilleran felt the familiar crawling sensation in the roots of his moustache. There on page one was the three-column photo of Irma Hasselrich and the half page obituary.

Koko, he remembered, had howled at the exact moment of her death.

Without benefit of satellite he had known what was happening in a remote Scottish hamlet. Was it possible that the cat sensed more than that? Was Koko the source of the subliminal message urging him to return home early? Polly thought she had a remarkable rapport with Bootsie, but it was nothing compared to the mutual understanding that existed between Qwilleran and Koko. But no, he finally decided; it was all absurd imagining.

"I'm punchy from jet lag," he said to the Siamese.

"Let's turn out the lights and call it a day."

Seven

Back home in his own bed Qwilleran enjoyed a good night's sleep, but in the morning he was disoriented. He didn't know what day it was.

He knew only that it was Day Thirteen. After living in a tour induced limbo, where days had numbers instead of names, he had not adjusted to the standard calendar week. Consequently, the morning after Koko's macabre dance around Irma's obituary was Day Thirteen in Qwilleran's book. The sound of church bells ringing on Park Circle suggested that Day Thirteen might be translated into Sunday.

On the other hand, it might be Saturday if the bells were celebrating a wedding. He thought of phoning the city desk at the Moose County Something and asking, "Is this Saturday or Sunday?" He had answered stranger questions than that when he worked for metropolitan newspapers Down Below. The local radio station was of no help; the announcer gave the time, the temperature, the wind velocity, and the relative humidity, but not the day of the week. As for the WPKX brand of daily news casting it was a half hour of what Qwilleran called mushy news--noto less mushy on Saturday than on Sunday. If the day proved to be Saturday, that meant he had arrived home on Friday. Yet, would Mildred Hanstable have been there on a Friday morning? She taught school and would have been in the classroom unless, of course, it was a Teacher-Optional Workday, in which case she might have opted to stay home and prepare macaroni and cheese, although that was extremely unlikely for one as conscientious as Mildred. Ergo, this had to be Sunday, and the church bells were calling the faithful to worship. That was Qwilleran's cue to walk to the drug store and pick up the out-of town Sunday papers. The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday--or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow.

"I'm going downtown," he announced to them.

"Is there anything you want from the drug store?" They looked at him as if he were demented. Or daft, as they said in Scotland. (qwilleran had bought a glossary of Scottish terms at the Edinburgh airport.) The Siamese knew very well when he was talking nonsense. Or blethering, as they said in Scotland. A brisk walk downtown had the effect of clearing the stupefied brain he had brought home from the Bonnie Scots Tour. He did his best thinking while walking alone. Now he resumed his ruminations begun on the plane: Irma knew about Bruce's past record... She might have relived her youthful passion on the moor... She might have vented some hidden bitterness caused by her own conviction for manslaughter... She might have been Bruce's accomplice in the jewel theft! This wild scenario brought forth not so much as a tickle on Qwilleran's upper lip, but when he tried another avenue of brainstorming, his moustache bristled slightly: Irma might have been Bruce's victim. If he planned to steal the jewels, wouldn't it be logical to eliminate the one person who knew his identity? Could he have slipped her some kind of drug that would stop her heart? This was a technical detail he would have to check with Dr.