Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Played Brahms

"Look!" she cried, staring toward the locked door. Dangling there was a small animal, hanging by the neck, the rope looped over one of the porch beams.

"Oh my God!" Qwilleran groaned. He felt sick. Then he said in astonishment: "It's a wild rabbit!" "At first I thought it was Yum Yum." "So did I." It was one of the little brown rabbits that gnawed pine cones near the toolshed. It had been shot and then trussed up in a hangman's noose.

Qwilleran said: "You go down to the beach and calm down, Rosemary. I'll take care of this." He wondered: Is this a threat? Or a warning? Or just a prank? Someone had come out of the woods on the crest of the dune — the thicket that the cats were always watching. Anyone approaching the cabin by stealth would come from that direction.

He left the sad bit of fur hanging there and went to the other side of the cabin to let himself in. Koko and Yum Yum came running in a high state of nervous excitement, dashing about without direction or purpose, Koko growling and Yum Yum shrieking. They had seen the prowler from their favorite window. They had heard the shot. They had smelled the presence of the dead animal.

"If only you could talk," Qwilleran said to Koko. A vehicle was chugging over the roller-coaster terrain of the driveway, and he went out to meet the visitors. His face was so solemn that Nick's happy smile faded instantly.

"Is anything wrong, Mr. Qwilleran?" "Let me show you something unpleasant." "Oh, no! That's a dirty trick!" Nick exclaimed. "Lori, come and look at this!" She gasped. "A poor little cottontail! For a moment I thought it was one of your cats, Mr. Qwilleran." Nick advised calling the sheriff. "Where's your phone? I'll call him myself. Don't touch the evidence." While Nick was phoning, Lori was on her hands and knees, crooning to the disturbed Siamese. Gradually they responded to her soothing voice and even played games with her golden hair, which she was wearing in two long braids tied with blue ribbons. Rosemary served raw vegetables and a yogurt dip, and Qwilleran took orders for drinks. Lori thought she would like a Scotch. "Watch it, kid," her husband warned her, with one hand covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "You know what the doctor told you." "I'm trying to get pregnant," she explained to Rosemary, "but so far we haven't had anything but kittens." Nick replaced the phone in the kitchen cupboard.

"Okay. The sheriff's coming. And I'll have a bourbon, Mr. Qwilleran." "Call me Qwill." They sat on the porch and enjoyed the tranquilizing effect of the placid blue lake. Koko, who was not inclined to be a lap cat, jumped onto Lori's lap and went to sleep.

"I'm not sure I want to stay around Mooseville," Qwilleran suddenly announced. "If I leave the cabin, and the cats are sitting on the windowsill, what's to prevent that maniac from taking a shot through the glass? This incident might be a warning. He might come again." "Or she," said Lori quietly.

Three questioning faces were turned in her direction, and Qwilleran asked: "Do you have a reason for switching genders?" "I'm only trying to be broadminded." "I suppose you know everyone at the Top o' the Dunes Club," he said to her.

"My wife knows everyone in the whole postal district," Nick said proudly, "including how many stamps they buy and who gets stuff in plain brown wrappers." Qwilleran said: "I know the Hanstables and the Dunfields. Who are the others?" Lori counted on her fingers. "There are three retired couples. And an attorney from Down Below. And a dentist from Pickax. Don't go to him; he's a butcher. Then there are two cottages for sale; they're empty. Another is in probate, and it's being rented to two very good-looking men." She threw a sly glance at her husband. "I think they're professors from somewhere, doing research on shipwrecks. The school superintendent from Pickax lives in the shingled house, and an antiques dealer lives in the one that looks like a boat." "That fraud!" Nick interjected. "And how about the people who own the FOO?" "Their place is up for sale. They lost it. The bank owns it now… By the way," she said to Qwilleran, "the homeowners on the dune are worried about the future of this property. Miss Klingenschoen said she might leave it to the county for a park. That would be good for business in Mooseville, but it would hurt property values on the dune. Do you know what your aunt intends to do?" "She's not my aunt," Qwilleran said, "and I don't know anything about her will, but if the subject ever comes up, I'll know what the local sentiments are." He was pouring the third round of drinks. "It doesn't look as if the sheriff's coming. He probably thinks I'm a nut. I called him about an owl the other night, and last week I reported a dead body in the lake, which everybody seemed to think was a rubber tire." Nick turned to him abruptly. "Where did you see this body?" "I was trolling and brought it up on my fishhook." Qwilleran related the story of the Minnie K with relish, appreciating the rapt attention of his listeners.

Nick asked: "What was the date? Do you remember?" "Last Thursday." "How about the voices on the other boat? Could you hear them distinctly?" "Not every word, but well enough to know what was going on. The engine had conked out, and they were arguing about how to fix it, I think. One guy had a high-pitched unmusical voice. The other guy's name was Jack, and he had what I would call a British working-class accent." Nick glanced at Lori. She nodded. Then he said: "Englishmen are always called Jack up here. It's a custom that started way back in mining days. Last week one of the inmates went over the wall. He was a fellow with a Cockney accent." Qwilleran looked at him in amazement mixed with triumph. "He was trying to escape to Canada! Someone was ferrying him across — in the fog!" "They all try it," Nick said. "It's suicide, but they try it… This is off-the-record, Qwill. Everybody knows about the ferry racket, but we don't want it getting in the papers. You know the media. They blow everything up." "Do many inmates escape?" "The usual percentage. They never head south. A poor bastard gives a local skipper good money to ferry him to Canada, and when they're a few miles out… splash! Just like you said. The water's so cold that a body goes down once and never comes up." "Incredible!" Qwilleran said. "That's assembly-line murder. Do you think there are many guys working in the racket?" "Everything points to one skipper, who happens to have a good contact inside. But so far they've never been able to apprehend him." "Or her," Lori said softly.

"I see," Qwilleran said, smoothing his moustache. "No bodies — no evidence — no trace." "Frankly," Lori said, "I don't think the authorities are trying very hard to catch anybody." Nick snapped at her: "Lori, don't shoot off." "How about the drug problem inside?" Qwilleran asked.

"No more than what they expect. It's impossible to stop the smuggling entirely." His wife piped up again. "They don't want to stop it. Pot and pills make the inmates easier to control. It's the liquor that causes trouble." A car door slammed. "That's one of the sheriff's men," Nick said, jumping to his feet. Qwilleran followed.

Lori said to Rosemary: "Don't you just love the hats the deputies wear-with the two little tassels in front? I'd love to have one."

When the telephone rang, Koko and Yum Yum were sitting on the polar bear rug, washing up after their morning can of crabmeat. Rosemary was in the kitchen, preparing the turkey for the oven. Qwilleran was having his third cup of coffee on the porch when the phone bleated its muffled summons from the kitchen cupboard.

He was trying to organize his wits. The dead rabbit was one more mismatched piece in the Mooseville Puzzle. Nick's revelation about escaped convicts reassured him, however, that he could still tell a human body from an automobile tire. Now it was clear that the ferry racket — and not wreck-looting — was the focus of Buck's do-it-yourself investigation; if one could identify the cold-blooded skipper, it would undoubtedly solve the mystery of Buck's murder. He (or she, as Lori would say) was someone who was used to killing.