Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Wasn't There

"On this same evening," Qwilleran told Brodie, "while Polly and Irma were occupied elsewhere, Melinda was seen going into their the empty room. It's my theory that she tampered with some vitamin capsules that Polly had taken to Scotland, substituting a drug that would stop the heart. I checked with our pharmacist here, and he said it could be done--in several ways.

Melinda didn't realize that Polly had stopped taking the vitamins and had turned them over to Irma, who was catching cold.

Inadvertently, Melinda killed one of her best friends." Brodie grunted a wary acceptance of the story, but Qwilleran had not finished. From a desk drawer he produced a small bottle, uncapped it, and poured a few capsules into the palm of his hand.

"These are similar to the vitamins Polly took to Scotland. They're pink, Andy!

Pink pills!" The chief shook his head.

"The rest of Koko's shenanigans I'm willing to buy, but this... I don't know. It's a little hard to swallow." "Lieutenant Flames would swallow it." "That he would! Hook, line, and sinker!" He stood up and groped in his pockets.

"I'm forgetting what I came here for... Here! This is for you." He handed over a square envelope with Qwilleran's name in a familiar handwriting.

"It was in Melinda's apartment along with the suicide note. I've got to get back to the station." Glancing at the envelope with a mixture of curiosity and dread, Qwilleran dropped it on his desk while he accompanied Brodie to the police car parked at the back door, and after the chief had driven away with a wave of the hand, he walked around the barn three times before going indoors.

He was in no hurry to read Melinda's last missive. No matter what the gist of it--remorse, apology, passionate outburst, or bitter accusation--it would be painful reading. As he walked he pondered Koko's incredible involvement in the case. There was no knowing how much of it was coincidence, how much was serendipity, and how much was his own imagination. The cat's tactics in revealing clues ranged from the significant to the purely farcical. Even Qwilleran had to admit that the pink-pill business was far-fetched. So was Koko's sniffing of the spot on the rug, as if he knew Shakespeare and, more particularly, Macbeth. And then he thought, I owe Irma an apology.

She was a wonderful woman-unapproachable, perhaps, and annoyingly private, but she had her reasons, and she did a tremendous amount of good for the community. She went out on the moor with Bruce every night to try to straighten him out, the way Katie wanted her to do.

It didn't work. Suddenly he remembered he had to drive Polly to work.

But first he would read Melinda's farewell note, his curiosity having overcome his apprehension. He let himself in the front door, and the moment he stepped into the foyer he sensed complications. He experienced that oh-oh feeling that always swept over him when bad news was impending--which enough a cat had thrown up on the white rug, or had broken a tray of glasses, or had stolen the shrimp Newburgh.

There was a guilty stillness in the place. Slowly he moved through the foyer, looking to left and right. In the lounge area his experienced gaze skimmed every surface, every corner, in search of disaster. In the kitchen, scene of many a catly crime, everything was in order. Then he turned toward the area where he had his desk and telephone, his bookshelves and comfortable reading chair. There, on the desktop and the floor beneath, was a shower of confetti.

Minute scraps of paper, some of them chewed into tiny wads, were all that remained of Melinda's note.

"Koko!" he shouted.

"You did this, dammit! You fiend!" Qwilleran glanced quickly around.

"Where the devil are you?" Yum Yum was on top of the fireplace cube, looking down on the scene like an innocent bystander, sitting on her brisket, her whiskers upturned as if smiling... but Koko wasn't there.

The End

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