Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Robbed a Bank

In the evening the temperature dropped and a west wind arose. Qwilleran put on a wool turtleneck jersey and a heavy sweater and built a fire in the library fireplace. The barn was drafty; it was high time to move.

The Siamese, whose hair was standing on end, took up positions on the hearth rug facing the blaze, as if to toast their whiskers. Qwilleran stretched out in the lounge chair closest to the fire and wondered if Andy would prefer a hot buttered rum to his usual scotch.

Meanwhile, he read another Annie-Fanny letter, dated January 3:

Dear Fanny –

The worst has happened! Yesterday I was sitting alone, reading Spenser’s Faerie Queene to take my mind off the new year. We had neither the money nor the spirit to celebrate. Dana had been trying to get a job as a waiter, but the restaurants were hiring only experienced help. Finally he lied – and was hired. But he didn’t last more than one shift. It was too obvious that he had never worked in a restaurant before. When he came home he was feeling positively suicidal. I was really worried, because I knew his brother had taken his own life…. But yesterday he went out again to look for work. I felt so sorry for him, I thought my heart would break. But then I remembered my responsibility to my baby and started reading about the knights and ladies of old. Suddenly there was a knock on my door, and two police officers were there. They said, “Ma’am, we regret to inform you that your husband has been killed.” I almost fainted, and they helped me to a chair. All I could think was: He’s thrown himself in front of a bus! I managed to ask, “Was it a car accident?” They said, “No, ma’am. He was shot by a security guard during an attempted bank robbery…”

Qwilleran had read enough. He jumped up and threw the letter into the fireplace. “The past is dead!” he muttered, and he emptied the entire box of Klingenschoen correspondence into the blaze. A car pulled into the barnyard, and the cats pricked their ears, but Qwilleran had the poker and was feeding the flames.

Brodie let himself in and swaggered through the kitchen to the library. “It’s a good night for a fire,” he said in his commanding voice. “Temperature dropped twenty degrees since sundown. What are you doing? Burning vital evidence?”

“Getting rid of obsolete documents before I move…. Sit by the fire, Andy. How’d you like your scotch on a night like this?”

“Just a splash of tap water. Not too big a splash.” He settled into a deep-cushioned armchair. “Don’t let me get too comfortable and forget to pick up my wife at ten o’clock. She’s at the church helping to mend winter clothing they collected for the needy. She’s been there since four o’clock. They serve the women supper.”

“What did you do for food?”

“Aw, I found some beans and franks in the fridge and warmed them up.”

“Sounds better than what I had.” Qwilleran served the beverages and individual bowls of nuts – the luxury mix. “Keep your eye on the Brazil nuts, Andy. Koko collects them. Doesn’t eat them, just collects them.”

“So you’re moving back to the Village! Anything new out there?”

“A new neighbor, Kirtwell Nightingale. Know him? Says he’s from around here, although he’s been living in Boston.”

“Never heard of a Nightingale in these parts, and I worked for the sheriff’s department long enough to memorize the county book. The name sounds phony to me.”

“He sells rare books from his home, some priced in five figures.”

“Hmmm,” said the chief. “Sounds a bit shady. Better keep an eye on him. Put your smart cat on his tail.”

Then he spotted Kiltie on the bar. “What’s that strange-looking thing?”

“A vintage mechanical bank, about 1930, from the Sprenkle collection.” Qwilleran brought it into the circle around the fire, extorted a dime from his guest and pressed the lever. Brodie laughed with gusto when the canny Scot blinked and pocketed the coin.

“And have you seen Thornton Haggis’s woodturnings?” Qwilleran put the spalted maple box on the table at his guest’s elbow. “Pick it up. Examine it. See how perfectly the lid fits.”

Brodie looked inside. “Pennies!”

“I’m saving up to buy a yacht,” Qwilleran said. “Didn’t you ever pick up a lucky penny in the street, Andy?”

“Not since I was six years old.”

Nothing was said about Boze Campbell until the chief had downed his second drink. Then he asked abruptly, “What were you doing at the Big B mine last night?”

“Driving in from a party in the country. It’s a sad ending to a sad story. Who should know better than you?”

“It’s not over till it’s over. Off the record, there’ll be a break in the case soon – real soon. The FBI is watching the girl. She’s pulled other scams with a variety of aliases.”

At that moment Koko, who was sitting on the hearth rug, rose in the air and landed on the end table. He gave Brodie an impudent stare, nipped the knob of the maple box, yowled, and jumped to the floor.

“What’s wrong with him?” the chief asked.

“He does some peculiar things, but he usually has a reason,” Qwilleran explained. “Remember hearing about the paper towels he draped around the kitchen? You had just discovered that all the towels in Delacamp’s suite were missing. What happened?”

“Well… this is just between you and me… when we finally unlocked the jewel cases, they were empty! She had cleaned them out before checking them into the manager’s safe that night. And it’s our theory that she wrapped the jewels in towels and had them in duffel bags when Boze drove her to the airport. All her regular luggage and clothes were left in her room.”

Qwilleran asked seriously, “Would you say that Koko’s demonstration with the paper towels was only a coincidence?” He was thinking about Brazil nuts, snapshot, licking and the gum-wrapper.

“Couple of years ago I’d have said yes. When I met Lieutenant Hames that time Down Below and he told me about your smart cat, I didn’t believe a word. Hames is a great cop but a little nuts, you know…. But now –” He jumped up. “It’s almost ten! Thanks for the drinks. Tell Koko he’ll be sworn in next week. If the sheriff can have a dog, the PPD can have a cat on the force.”

He was striding for the exit, and Qwilleran was following.

Brodie was saying, “If you ever get married, Qwill, never be late in picking up your wife. We’re a one-car family, now that we can’t use official vehicles when off-duty.”

Qwilleran consulted his watch, “You have two minutes to get to the church. You can make it, if you drive the wrong way around the Park Circle. Too bad you don’t have a siren.”

Brodie slid behind the wheel and said, just before driving away, “Stick close to your radio. I think there’ll be news.”

*

Qwilleran stirred the fire and added another log, which the Siamese appreciated. In removing the refreshment tray he noted that his guest had not touched the Brazil nuts – and neither had Koko. That meant that the case was closed, as far as the cat was concerned. He had lost interest in the yellow pencils, ‘Oedipus Rex’, and snapshots of the Highland Games. To Qwilleran that was proof that these were messages and not mere cat-play.

Sprawling in front of the fire he thought about other things and dozed lightly until a dull ache in the center of his forehead roused him. Koko was sitting on the arm of the chair, staring at him. He sat up, and Koko scampered to the feeding station in the kitchen. It was almost eleven o’clock; time for the news, time for the bedtime snack. While the cats bent over their crunchy treat, Qwilleran heard the WPKX announcer say.

“A woman alleged to have planned the robbery and murder of a Chicago jeweler in Pickax has been arrested as she boarded a plane for Rio de Janeiro, carrying large quantities of jewelry and cash. She had registered at the Mackintosh Inn as Pamela North and was posing as the victim’s niece and assistant. Investigators say she tricked a local man, John (Boze) Campbell, into committing the crime. Using a number of other aliases, she has perpetrated similar schemes elsewhere. Her legal name is now known to be Harriet Marie Penney. Campbell fell to his death early this morning in the shafthouse of the Big B mine, where he was in hiding.”