Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Sniffed Glue

THE STONE BUILDINGS of downtown Pickax gleamed blue-white in the light of the full moon. Following the disastrous rehearsal, Qwilleran started to walk home but detoured by way of the newspaper office. It was the eve of the publication of the first issue, and he was as nervous as a prospective father. At his suggestion the Klingenschoen Fund had made the venture possible. At his urging his; longtime friend, Arch Riker, had come up from Down Below to run the operation. Eventually a printing plant and office complex would be built; meanwhile, the paper was being job-printed, and the editorial and business functions were housed in a rented warehouse.

Qwilleran knew the staff had been working twelve or more hours a day, and he had stayed out of their way, but now it was the countdown; the new publication would be in the hands of readers Wednesday afternoon. He felt envious. It was a moment of excitement and tension, and he was an outsider.

As he expected, the lights were still on in the building, a former meat-packing warehouse, and he found Riker and Junior Goodwinter in the office they shared - with beer cans in their hands and with their feet propped on their desks. It was nothing like the slick, color-coordinated, acoustically engineered, electronically equipped work-station environment Riker and Qwilleran had known at the Daily Fluxion. In this temporary situation executives and cub reporters alike sat at secondhand desks and poked old manual typewriters in a barnlike workplace that still smelled of bacon, although Junior enjoyed the distinction of a rolltop desk that had been his great-grandfather's.

"The coffee's still hot," Riker said. "Grab a cup, Qwill, and find a chair. Put your feet up."

"Are you getting antsy?" Qwilleran asked.

"Everything's locked up except page one; we're still hoping for a banner headline for the kick-off. After the radio spots we got eighteen thousand subscriptions, and we've given a print order of thirty thousand. Hixie and her crew sold so many ads that we're going to forty-eight pages, twice what we expected."

Qwilleran had never seen him so animated. At the Fluxion Riker was the epitome of the jaded editor - a little paunchy, a little bored. Here, his ruddy face glowed with satisfaction and excitement.

The young, fresh-faced managing editor said, "We've got a lot of copy in type. Stories poured in from the stringers, but we still needed boilerplate to fill the holes. Roger MacGillivray quit his teaching job, and he's covering city hall, police, and general assignment. His mother-in-law is handling the food page; she teaches home ec, you know."

"I'm blissfully aware of her blueberry pies," Qwilleran said.

"Kevin Doone is writing a garden column for us. Do you know Kevin? He runs a landscape service."

"I know Kevin well. 'Call Doone to Prune!' I could live for a year on what he charged to prune a few apple trees on my property. Are you doing anything about the vandalism issue?"

"We're running a tough editorial," Riker said, "with a strong pitch for community involvement, parental responsibility, and more prowl cars after dark, even if they have to hire part-time officers. And the sheriff's got to keep an eye on those kids in Chipmunk. They think Pickax is a shooting gallery. It's time to turn off the indulgent grin and the sentimental attitude that boys will be boys."

"What happened at the dental clinic this morning?"

"They were apparently looking for narcotics and cash, and when they were disappointed they trashed the office and started a fire."

"I envy you guys. It's tough to be on the outside, looking in."

"I told you we could use your skills, Qwill," said Riker, "but you're busy writing that damned novel."

Qwilleran smoothed his moustache regretfully. "I'm beginning to think I'm miscast as a novelist. I'm a journalist."

"I could have told you that, you donkey!"

"And I don't have the temperament for free-lance work. I need the discipline of assignments and deadlines."

"Do you want to come on in?"

"What could I do?"

"Features. The kind of meaty, informative stuff you did for the Fluxion. We have a lot of space to fill and a lot of amateurs writing for it. We need all the professionalism we can get."

The front door slammed, and Hixie Rice suddenly appeared. "Quick, you guys! I need a beer, coffee, anything! I'm punchy! I've been hitting the restaurants allover the county. They all want to buy ads in the food section. These flat heels are killing me!" She kicked off her skimmers and turned to Qwilleran. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be rehearsing or writing a novel or feeding your cats."

"If I haven't forgotten how," he said, "I'm going to write a column about interesting people who do interesting things."

"We're assuming," said Riker, "that such individuals exist in this outpost of civilization."

"There are no dull subjects," Qwilleran reminded him. "Only dull reporters who ask dull questions."

"Okay, so that's all settled! Now all we need is some hot-breaking news for page one. The opening issue is going to be a collector's item, and I want it to look like a newspaper."

Junior said, "Roger's at city hall covering the zoning-board meeting tonight, and if we're lucky, it'll break up in a fistfight, or something good like that."

"Don't you guys ever try any creative journalism?" Hixie taunted them. "Kidnap the mayor! Bomb city hall! Pull the plug on the Ittibittiwassee dam and flood Main Street!"

The three serious journalists scowled at her. Qwilleran said to Riker, "What name have you picked for the paper?"

"That's got me stymied. I want it to be something like Moose County Chronicle or Clarion or Crier or Caucus. We've got to make a decision fast."

"You newspaper types have no imagination," Hixie objected. "Why not the Moose County Cannonball or Crowbar or Corkscrew?"

The three serious journalists groaned.

Qwilleran suggested, "Let the readers pick the name. Print a ballot on page one."

"But we've got to have some kind of flag for the first issue," Riker insisted. "We've got to call it something."

"Call it the Moose County Something," Hixie said. "I dare you!"

The front door slammed again.

"That's Roger," Junior guessed.

A young man with a camera bag slung over his shoulder burst into the office. Roger had a pale complexion and stark black beard, and tonight he was paler than usual. He was also breathing hard. He stared at the four waiting staffers.

"What's the trouble, Roger?" asked Riker.

He gulped. "Murder!" His voice cracked on the word.

"Murder?!" Riker took his feet off his desk.

"Who?" demanded Junior, jumping to attention.

"Where?" Hixie put her shoes on quickly.

"At city hall?" Qwilleran asked, touching his moustache nervously.

Roger gulped again. "In West Middle Hummock! Two people shot! Harley Fitch and his wife!"

-Scene Six-

Place: The newspaper office

Time: The afternoon following the

Fitch murder

Cast: Staff members

THE FIRST COPIES of the Moose County Something were coming off the press, and it should have been a time of hilarity and popping champagne corks in the city room, but the front-page news had deadened everyone's spirit. In a small town like Pickax, murder could not be an impersonal tragedy. Everyone was a friend or neighbor or relative or customer of the victim. Even Arch Riker, relatively new in town and a veteran of a thousand, big-city murder stories, was gloomy. "I wanted a sensational banner for page one," he said, "but I didn't want it that bad."

A bundle of papers arrived from the job-printer and the staffers grabbed. Blazoned across the front page was the grim news: HARLEY FITCH AND WIFE FOUND SHOT TO DEATH.

In the cities Down Below, Qwilleran reflected, the public would immediately assume it to be a drug-related execution. In Pickax, 400 miles north of everywhere, there was no glimmer of such a thought. Suspicion might come later - in the coffee shops and over back fences - but at this moment the reaction was one of shock and sadness and reluctance to believe it could happen in Moose County.