The Cat Who Tailed a Thief (18 page)

* * *

After his conference with Brodie, he waited until a suitable hour before phoning the Carmichael apartment. Danielle answered, saying that her cousin had arrived but was a wreck; he’d been without sleep for almost forty-eight hours; he was now sleeping and couldn’t be disturbed.

“That’s all right,” Qwilleran said. “I wanted only to express my sympathy and invite the two of you for a business discussion tomorrow—and some refreshment. He might find it heartening to hear about two major restoration projects that could use his expertise. Do you think he’s willing to take on something big—at a time like this?”

“He is! I know he is! What time tomorrow?”

“How about two-thirty? I’m in the last unit in Building Five. He’s been here before. . . And what do you both like to drink?”

“Margaritas,” she said promptly.

After that masquerade of goodwill and hospitality, Qwilleran planned—with an element of elation—how to snare his prey. For bait he would use a few drinks, a lot of sympathy, and a spurious business deal. Then he would spring the trap! There was a possibility that Carter Lee would be smooth enough, slick enough, to elude it. Although he had told the theatre club he had no acting ability, he was—in Qwilleran’s book—the Olivier, the Gielgud, the Alec Guiness of the confidence game.

It might or might not be a coincidence that volume ten on the Melville shelf—the one that riveted Koko’s attention—was
The Confidence-Man.
The cat was also greatly attracted to A. Nutt’s scholarly disquisition on the Ossian
hoax
! Qwilleran realized now that he should have taken the cat’s eccentricities more seriously.

His immediate task was to prepare the trap. His idea, not yet fully developed, was to tell his listeners about
Short and Tall Tales
and play “The Dank Hollow” for them. After that, he would play a tall tale of his own—about a scam that victimized Pickax a hundred years ago. It would be so transparently analogous to the Pleasant Street project that the listeners would be uneasy. At least, he supposed, Danielle would be uneasy, even if her “cousin” kept his cool. Now, all Qwilleran had to do was to compose this tricky, sticky bit of fiction.

When he sat down at his typewriter, however, the events of the last twenty-four hours crowded his mind. To clear it he needed a drastic change of thought. What would it be? He looked at Koko; the cat looked at him.
Opera
, the man thought.

“Yow!” said Koko.

Adrienne Lecouvreur,
the man thought.

“Yow!” said Koko.

It was the compact disc album that Polly had given him for Christmas; he had never played it. Somewhat guiltily, he slipped the first disc into the player and stretched out in his lounge chair, with his crossed legs on an ottoman and a mug of coffee in his hand.

The first act was a bustling scene backstage at the Comédie Française, with theatre personnel and their visitors fretting, plotting, and flirting. Koko relaxed nearby, comfortable on his brisket, but Yum Yum had disappeared. No opera lover, she!

The music was lush; the voices were stirring. In the story, taking place in 1730, a glamorous actress and a spiteful princess were rivals for the love of a nobleman. It was a tale of intrigue, passion, deceit, and revenge. It involved a pawned necklace, a bunch of violets, a lost bracelet. Koko fidgeted from time to time. Qwilleran was following the libretto in English, but the cat was hearing it in Italian. As if he knew what it was all about, he made sounds of disapproval as the tension mounted. In the last act, as Adriana was dying in the arms of her lover, Koko howled as if his body would turn inside out.

“You spoiled the finale,” Qwilleran chided him afterward, as Yum Yum crawled out from her secret hiding place.

Yet, it was not an ordinary yowl; it was a hollow, tortured wail! Qwilleran replayed the fourth act, jumping tracks to the death scene: Adriana receiving the box of dead violets, thinking them a cruel message from a lost lover, burying her face sorrowfully in the wilted flowers, not knowing they came from the princess, not knowing they were poisoned. Koko howled again. He had made the same anguished response to “The Dimsdale Jinx” when the pasties were mentioned—the poisoned pasties.

After hearing Koko’s response to the opera, Qwilleran sat down at his typewriter with grim purpose. Gone was his prankish cat-and-mouse approach to setting a trap for a con man. This was a different ballgame, he told himself; no more softball; now it was hardball! Koko’s reaction to the poisoned violets confirmed a cynical journalist’s suspicions. It also explained the increasing disturbance on his upper lip.

In the coffee houses the local jokers liked to say, “If you want to murder your wife, do it Down Below, and you can get away with it.” With hindsight, Qwilleran now found recent events painfully obvious: the hurried wedding; the transfer of property to joint ownership; the swift cremation without autopsy; the secrecy about Carter Lee’s whereabouts after the death, precluding interference from anyone in Pickax.

Yet was there any actual proof that he had poisoned her? The howling of a cat—hundreds of miles away—at the moment of death was hardly admissible evidence or even grounds for arrest. Koko’s electrifying cry at the mention of poison was equally thin evidence. His supranormal powers of detection and communication were known to Qwilleran, but would anyone else believe them?

Of one thing he was sure: At the slightest hint that their game was up, Carter Lee and his so-called cousin would disappear, taking their fake IDs and the money from twenty trusting property owners and any amount of loot from the Duncan house.

Qwilleran called the police chief at home. “Andy, sorry to bother you. The case we discussed is more serious than I imagined. I’m going ahead with the entrapment, but I want you to stand by. Anything can happen!”

Then he sat down at his typewriter and pounded out two or three hundred words to implement his scheme. At one point the flash of headlights turning into the adjoining driveway prompted him to telephone Wetherby. Solemnly he said, “Joe, did you hear the news from New Orleans?”

“I did! I did! And I’m mad as hell! This should never have happened! I feel like kicking a door down!”

“Well, I’m going to kick that door down, and I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“Give me fifteen minutes more at my typewriter, then come over here.”

Qwilleran finished writing his tall tale and had a bourbon ready for Wetherby when he arrived. “Sit down, Joe, and I’ll explain.” He waited until his guest had taken a sip. “Both you and I had suspicions about Carter Lee, of one kind or another, and I’ve been led to believe they weren’t far off base. I intend to confront him in a devious way, just to see how he reacts.”

“Where is he?”

“His intention was to return home before the airport shut down, and he’s now at Danielle’s apartment.” Qwilleran described his scheme and ripped the tall tale out of the typewriter. “Read this.”

Wetherby read it with astonishment. “Is any of this true?”

“Not a word.”

“That last line is pretty strong stuff. How do you plan to present it?”

“It’ll be on tape, like the other yarns I’ve collected, and I’d like it to be read by a voice other than my own.”

“Want me to do it? Let me read it once aloud with a dead mike.” When he reached the last line, Koko howled. “Was that applause or criticism?” Wetherby asked.

Qwilleran grabbed both cats. “We don’t want any sound effects on the tape.” He carried them upstairs and shut them in their apartment.

“Will they stay there? Jet-boy knows how to operate the door handles.”

“So far, they haven’t figured it out, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

After the recording was completed and played back, Wetherby said he wouldn’t mind witnessing the confrontation. “I could hide in a closet.”

“You wouldn’t fit. They’re hardly deep enough for a coat hanger. Better to be concealed in the bedroom upstairs, with the door ajar. They’ll be here at two-thirty.”

“I’ll be here at two. Shall I bring my handgun?”

“Whatever makes you comfortable. . . And one more favor, Joe. Do you happen to have any tequila?”

“No. Sorry. Only bourbon.”

* * *

Late that evening WPKX broadcast a flash-flood warning. The dam on the Rocky Burn had been breached by rushing water and constant battering by tree trunks, boulders, and other debris, and the Rocky Burn was now pouring billions of gallons into the old riverbed, through No Man’s Gully and into the Ittibittiwassee. The giant waterwheel at the Old Stone Mill, dry and weakened after years of disuse, had been wrecked and the timbers swept downstream.

Immediately Don Exbridge and his staff started phoning residents, assuring them there was no need for evacuation under present conditions, but the situation was being monitored by the Disaster Commission. The manager’s office would be open all night to answer questions, and the clubhouse was available as a shelter for anyone desiring company in the emergency. In the event that evacuation became advisable, the siren at the gatehouse would sound and state troopers would be on hand.

Qwilleran phoned Polly. She and the Cavendish sisters planned to sit up together. “Interesting women,” she said. “They’re natives of Moose County, but their teaching careers have taken them all over the country. What do you think of Don’s handling of the emergency?”

“He does that better than he builds condos,” Qwilleran said. He himself retired to his bedroom but slept half-dressed. His valuables and basic clothing were in his luggage near the front door, along with the cats’ carrier and their essentials. In the emergency he left the doors open to both balcony rooms, and sometime during the night two furry bodies climbed into his bed and were not discovered until morning.

It was the roar of the water that caused him to wake. The river was turbulent but not dangerously high—as yet. Now and then a tree sailed past like a galleon with sails furled. Over his morning coffee, Qwilleran recalled how convincingly Carter Lee had postponed publicity on his endeavors and how artfully he had introduced their post-honeymoon plans. They would sit for their portraits, work together on restoration projects, visit his mother in France, buy a summer place on Purple Point. . . and Lynette innocently anticipated all of it.

* * *

The first mission of the day was to find ingredients for margaritas. In his lean years, Qwilleran had moonlighted as a bartender; in this, the affluent period of his life, he took pride in his well-stocked bar and ability to mix a variety of drinks. He was not prepared, however, for margaritas. He had only salt for the rim of the glasses.

Using the phone he confirmed his fear that the liquor store in Pickax was closed, along with every other establishment. The clubhouse bar was locked because the barkeeper was marooned by the Rocky Burn deluge. When Qwilleran called Hixie Rice, she referred him to Susan Exbridge, who referred him to her ex-husband. From Don Exbridge he learned the surprising information that the Cavendish sisters had lived in southern California and had brought home a fondness for margaritas. When Qwilleran rang their doorbell, he was greeted as a hero and supplied with everything he needed for the drinks.

* * *

Wetherby Goode arrived at the promised time and was sequestered in the bedroom, with the door ajar. “Try not to sneeze,” Qwilleran told him. The Siamese, glutted with a substantial meal that would slow them down, were shut up in their own apartment with the television turned on, minus audio.

Shortly after two-thirty, the Land-Rover pulled up in front of the condo, and Qwilleran greeted his guests with the right mix of solemnity and hospitality. Carter Lee was subdued, but Danielle was her usual giddy self.

“Ooh! Look!” she said, pointing at the display of weaponry on the foyer wall. Her cousin turned away in a silent rebuke.

The cordial host took advantage of the situation. Craftily he said, “Those are Scottish dirks from Gil MacMurchie’s collection. He had five, but the best one was stolen during that epidemic of thievery a few weeks ago.” He unhooked one from the frame and continued his lecture while ushering them into the living room. “The dirk is longer than a dagger and shorter than a sword—a very useful weapon, I’m sure. It’s interesting to know that the grooves in the blade are called blood grooves. This hilt has a thistle design, which is an emblem of Scotland, but the most desirable is a lion rampant.” He placed it on the coffee table in its scabbard, hoping that its presence would arouse their guilt. Then, having chafed the subject long enough, he asked, “May I offer you a margarita? I’ve been told I make a good one.”

Both faces brightened. They were sitting on the sofa, facing the windows, and Qwilleran would be able to study their countenances. He wondered if Wetherby Goode was enjoying his performance. He proposed a toast to Lynette’s memory, causing the bereaved husband to nod and look down woefully. Danielle pouted and studied the salt on the rim of her glass.

“You’re wise to come home and plunge into your commitments,” Qwilleran said in his avuncular style. “Work is said to be a great healer.”

“It’s painful but therapeutic in the long run,” Carter Lee agreed. “I know Lynette would want me to carry on. I have dreams of making Pleasant Street a memorial to her, perhaps calling the neighborhood the Duncan Historical Park.”

“A beautiful gesture,” Qwilleran murmured, feeling hypocritical. He knew that neighboring property owners, though outwardly friendly, would resent such a designation. “I hope you’re aware,” he continued, “that this county has enough historic property to keep you busy for a lifetime. There are two projects in which I have a personal interest. A great deal of money is being budgeted for their restoration. First is the historic Pickax Hotel downtown, boarded up since an explosion last year.”

“I’ve seen it,” Carter Lee said. “What are the interior spaces?”

“Twenty guestrooms and many public areas, including a ballroom. The other project is the Limburger mansion in Black Creek, slated to operate as a country inn. . . May I freshen your drinks?”

So far, so good, Qwilleran thought as he mixed two more margaritas. The guests were relaxing. They talked easily about the flooding, and Danielle’s role in the play, and the future of the gourmet club. They listened receptively to the plans for
Short and Tall Tales
and said, yes, they would like to hear one.

“I like ghost stories,” said Danielle, wriggling in anticipation.

They listened to “The Dank Hollow” and called it sensational. As Qwilleran served another round of drinks, he said, “And now I’m going to play one that no one else has heard. It hasn’t even a name as yet. I want your opinion.”

As the tape unreeled in the silent room, with only the sound of the rushing river to distract, Qwilleran observed the visitors. Danielle was enjoying it; her cousin was listening more critically. At the mention of Charles Louis Jones, his eyelids flickered. As the story went on—Lucy’s dowry, the gifted husband, the hasty marriage—he uncrossed his knees, set down his glass, glanced at Danielle. He was gradually getting the point, Qwilleran thought. There was more to the tale: