The Cat Who Went Underground (16 page)

“The chimney top should be screened,” he said. “It looks like you had a screen up there, but something knocked it off. And I don’t see a fire extinguisher anywhere. You should have a fire extinguisher. You wouldn’t want to burn down a nice old cabin like this, would you?” he asked patronizingly. “What kind of wood do you burn?”

“I haven’t burned any wood,” Qwilleran said. “I couldn’t get the damper open. That’s why you’re here.”

“My job is to educate, not just to clean chimneys,” said the young man haughtily. “If you burn green wood, it builds up creosote and you can have a chimney fire. Hot ashes are another common cause of fire. What do you use to take out ashes, and where do you dump them?”

“I haven’t taken out any ashes, because I haven’t burned any wood, because I couldn’t get the damper open!” said Qwilleran, raising his voice. “If you’ll come back next week, when I’m not so busy, I’ll be glad to sign up for Basic Fireplace Technique 101. But now, if you’ll excuse me…”

He was in a vile mood by the time the electrician arrived. Mad Mac – a hulking individual with bulging biceps and no neck – found a loose connection in the wall outlet and pronounced the entire wiring system obsolete.

“Y’oughta have the whole house checked. A mouse or chipmunk gets in, chews on the wires, and you have a fire. These old logs – they’re dry as tinder, burn like matchsticks. Whole place can go up quicker’n you can spit.”

He lumbered about the cabin like a bulldozer, checking exposed wires, knocking over furniture, frightening the Siamese. “You got cats,” he observed as they flew about the rafters. “With this kind of wirin’ they could electrocute themselves.”

Qwilleran clenched his teeth and kept his mouth shut.

Just before leaving, the electrician said, “Who’s the carpenter out there? One of them hoboes? Don’t know why you summer people hire them bums. I was wirin’ a garage for some folks down the shore, and the damn carpenter stole my tools and took off! I ain’t got no use for carpenters. Plumbers, they’re okay, but carpenters! If I was president, I’d have ‘em all shot at sunrise!”

Shortly afterward it started to rain, and Iggy had an excuse to quit for the day. His teeth flashed a thank-you when Qwilleran paid up, and he headed toward the rattling gypsy wagon that served as a truck.

“Wait a minute!” Qwilleran yelled. “You didn’t put the boards under cover!”

“Won’t do the suckers NO HARM,” said Iggy.

“Nevertheless, I want the siding INSIDE!”

Iggy finished his cigarette, flipped the butt on the ground, and carried the lumber into the new wing.

“Koko, you and I are the only sane ones left,” Qwilleran said when the carpenter’s truck had coughed and exploded its way down the drive. “And it won’t be long before I go off the deep end.”

Koko was prowling irrationally, as he did before a violent storm, and his instincts were on target. High winds soon lashed the lake into a fury. Trees bent to the ground, and even the tall pines swayed alarmingly. The cabin windows were drenched with rain, July hail pelted the roof, and sheets of water blew through the new addition, only half of which was sided. Then a black cloud looming over the dune dumped bolts of lightning and volleys of thunder. The entire cabin shuddered, and… the submersible pump stopped pumping.

So, it was back to the telephone. “Mrs. Glinko, this is Qwilleran.”

“Don’t tell me! Somethin’ blew out!”

“Whatever. All I know is – we’re not getting any water.”

“Drink beer. Ha ha ha.”

“No jokes, please.”

“Allrighty. Keep your hair on. We’ll dispatch somebody.”

As Qwilleran was scurrying about with bath towels, mopping up the horizontal downpour that forced its way through closed doors and windows, Arch Riker phoned from Pickax and asked casually, “Getting any rain up there?”

“Rain! We’re inundated!” Qwilleran said. “The lake’s rising! Tree branches are dropping like bombs! And the pump has conked out. The plumber’s on the way over here. We’ve already had the electrician and the chimney sweep today… I don’t know, Arch. I’ve had it with country living. I’m ready to throw in the towel.”

“How’s your building project progressing?”

“In slow motion. It’s a long story. I could cheerfully murder the guy who’s working on it now.”

“Can you stand some good news?” asked the editor. “The whole staff thinks your copy for the weekend edition is great stuff – especially the story about the old lady and her cat. It’s better than fiction. Why don’t you do more memoirs?”

“I knew I’d wind up on the geriatric beat,” Qwilleran said sourly.

“It was your choice,” Riker reminded him. “You could have been an investigative reporter Down Below, but you opted for Pickax and the Klingenschoen bucks.”

“Why don’t you get the Historical Society to do oral histories for you?”

“Because you do ‘em better.”

“Well, I can’t talk now, Arch. Here comes the plumber.”

Joanna swaggered into the cabin in her heavy boots. “Your pump get hit?”

“I don’t know. You’re the plumber. All I know is – there’s no water.”

“Prob’ly burned out the motor.” She kicked aside the mudrug, swung open the heavy trapdoor as if it were a cereal boxtop, and disappeared into the crawl space. Minutes later she emerged from the lower depths, covered with cobwebs.

“Gotta go and get something,” she said. She drove away mysteriously, returned with whatever it was, sank down under the floor once more, and soon shouted, “Try the tap!”

Water gushed from the faucet, and Qwilleran was grateful. Unlike Iggy, Joanna had done the work with no stalling, no mistakes, no excuses, no mumbling, no cigarette butts. Then she surprised him by saying, “I haven’t seen Clem lately. He did the drains under the new place. Want me to do the finish plumbing?”

“It sounds like a good idea, but I have a different builder now. I’ll mention it to him when he comes tomorrow,” Qwilleran said. But Iggy did not report the next day… nor the next… nor the next.

CHAPTER 11.

A DAY WITHOUT Iggy should have blessed the cabin with tranquility, but Qwilleran felt only anxiety when the carpenter failed to appear on Friday morning. Where was he? Why had he not returned? Would he ever return? The skeleton of the east wing was rain-soaked and forlorn. Qwilleran spent the morning glancing frequently at his watch and listening for the explosive arrival of Iggy’s truck, but he found the woods surrounding the cabin disappointingly quiet except for peeps amd chirps, buzzing and chattering, as birds, insects, and small animals went about their daily business, whatever it might be; Qwilleran did not pretend to know.

Following the storm of the night before, the wind had subsided and the lake was settling down. The woods still had the verdant aroma of a rain forest; trees were dripping, the ground was scattered with fallen tree branches, but the sun was making an effort to shine through a milky sky.

Qwilleran was in no mood to write. He passed the time by picking up the storm’s debris – piling large branches behind the toolshed and breaking twigs into suitable lengths for fireplace kindling. The carpenter had left scraps of shingles strewn about the property, and Qwilleran stacked them in neat piles along with their discarded wrappers. Every time a heavy truck rumbled down the distant highway he stopped to listen, regretting that he had spoken harshly to Iggy.

In midday, before he had taken time to drive into Mooseville, he was surprised to receive a phone call from Nick Bamba. “Say, Qwill, do you know you’re blockaded?”

“Blockaded! What do you mean?”

“I just drove past your place, and there’s a big tree down across your driveway. Also, the K sign has blown away.”

“That explains it!”

“Explains what?”

“It’s like this,” Qwilleran said. “I was expecting a workman, but he didn’t show up today. It’s obvious now that his truck couldn’t get through.”

“But wouldn’t he call you?”

“Not this one! He wouldn’t have the common sense, or he wouldn’t have the coins to put in the phone box. And without the K on the post, I doubt whether he could even find the driveway. It took him half a day to find the lumberyard, and they have a sign that’s ten feet high. So thanks for telling me about the tree, Nick.”

“That’s okay, Qwill. Here’s Lori. She wants to talk to you.”

Lori Bamba was not only Qwilleran’s part-time secretary; she was his advisor in matters pertaining to cats. She had three of her own, and Koko and Yum Yum knew it. Whenever she telephoned, Koko sensed who was on the line. Now he jumped on the bar and purred throatily.

“Hello, Lori,” said Qwilleran. “Koko wants to say a few words.”

He held the receiver to the cat’s head, and there were yowls and musical yiks and cadenzas that Lori seemed to understand.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Qwilleran said, pushing Koko away. “What’s on your mind, Lori?”

“I just wanted you to know I’m taking a vacation and won’t be able to do any typing for about ten days. Do you want me to find a substitute?”

“No need. If there’s anything urgent, I’ll handle it myself. Everything else can wait till you get back. Where are you going?”

“I’m flying Down Below so the baby can meet his two sets of grandparents. They’ve never seen him. Nick will drive down later to pick us up, and we’ll do some camping on the way home.”

“Isn’t the baby rather young for tents and ants and canned beans?”

Lori laughed. “We have an RV – not a big one – just enough for camping in comfort. You can borrow it if you ever want to go camping with Koko and Yum Yum.”

“I appreciate the offer, and I’ll mention it to them, but I don’t think they’d care for roughing it.” Koko knew he was being discussed and started pushing the receiver away from Qwilleran’s ear. “Have a good trip, Lori, and let me speak to Nick again.”

Koko lost interest when Lori’s husband came on the line.

Qwilleran said, “You’ve heard – the news about Clem Cottle?”

“I couldn’t believe it!” said Nick. “What do you think happened?”

“Nobody knows. He built my steps to the beach, and I was grateful to you for recommending him. Then he started on my new addition. Did he play ball on the Fourth of July?”

“No, now that you mention it. The Roosters lost to us, twelve to three. He’s their best pitcher.”

“It appears that he hasn’t been seen since he left my place Thursday night. Of course, we don’t know what the police have found, if anything. Let me know if you hear.” Nick’s status at the state prison made him a good source of scuttlebutt. “And thank you again, Nick, for telling me about the tree.”

Qwilleran lost no time in calling Glinko. “Please dispatch a crew to remove a fallen tree,” he requested. “It’s a big one, blocking my driveway.”

“Ha ha ha! That’ll keep you home tonight,” said the cheerful Mrs. Glinko. “What d’you want ‘em to do with it? Chop it up for firewood? That’ll cost extra.”

“Tell them to take it away,” Qwilleran said. “Immediately.”

Fallen trees, vanishing builders, raccoons in the chimney, leaking sinks, birds’ nests in the vents, spider bites on the seat! He was beginning to yearn for his dull apartment in Pickax.

The next morning he walked down the long drive to the highway and was pleased to see that the Glinko crew had spirited away the fallen tree. He drove into town for breakfast and bought a large letter K at the hardware store.

The hardware merchant said, “I read in the paper about Clem Cottle. They said he was last seen building something for you.”

“That’s true. You can’t believe everything you read in the paper, but they get some of it right.”

“He was engaged to marry one of the Wimsey girls, you know. I can’t imagine what happened.”

“The police are investigating, Cecil. They probably know more than they’re telling.”

The hardware man frowned. “It makes me wonder if it’s connected with that big fire on Doug Cottle’s farm.”

“In what way?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet, but it bothers me. The chicken operation was fully insured, I happen to know. Clem and his father weren’t getting along together. My wife got that from her sister; it’s her daughter that was going to marry Clem… I don’t know. I keep trying to put two and two together, and I come up with six-and-a-half. Do you have any theories?”

“Not a one,” said Qwilleran. “I leave police work to the police.”

After nailing the new letter K to the cedar post – with eight hammer strokes for each nail instead of three – he settled down to wait apprehensively for Iggy. Was the man on a binge? Had he found another job that was more congenial? And then the crucial question: Had he suffered the fate of five other carpenters?

Iggy, he reflected, was not a bad fellow. He was skilled in his craft when he chose to work, and he was neither sulky nor fractious nor dishonest – simply lazy and short on common sense, and his personal habits were annoying.

Briefly, Qwilleran considered notifying the sheriffs department about the missing carpenter. They would listen politely, but considering the reputation of underground builders how could they take the report seriously? And how could he identify Iggy? A skinny guy with prominent teeth and a truck that backfired a lot? What was the license number? What, for that matter, was Iggy’s last name?

He had no idea.

Instead, Qwilleran telephoned the Black Bear Cafe in Brrr and asked Gary Pratt if Iggy had been around.

“Not since I sent him to your place last week,” the barkeeper said. “How’s he doing?”

“When and if he works, he does a good job, but he needs constant prodding and supervision, and I never wanted to be a construction boss. By the way, do you know his last name?”

“Never heard it. And he doesn’t use a credit card,” said Gary with a laugh.

“I don’t suppose you know where he’s living.”

“Sleeps in his truck, the chances are, on some back road.”

“If you see him, Gary, tell him my driveway is clear now. It was blocked by a large tree as a result of the storm, but it’s been trucked away.”

“Sure thing,” said Gary. “When are you coming in? Today’s special is barbecued ribs and pecan pie – my grandma’s recipe.”

“I’ll catch it the next time around,” Qwilleran said.