The Cat Who Went Underground (19 page)

Between erratic strokes of the hammer he thought he heard coughing outdoors.

Russell Simms was standing in the backyard with her hand over her nose and mouth. “Something’s burning,” she said in a muffled voice.

“Go around to the lake porch,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”

On the lake porch the air was fresh and clear, and he inhaled deeply. “Have a chair,” he said to Russell, “and I’ll tell you a story you won’t believe. I came home from Pickax and found that idiot burning shingles! He also cut a hole in the wall of the cabin, and the cats got out.”

“I saw them,” she said quietly.

“You saw them! Where were they?”

“In the yard.”

“Where was the carpenter?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was probably in the cabin, sleeping in my bed – that blockhead! So you’re the one who put the cats in the toolshed! That was smart thinking! But how did you manage it?”

She put a hand in her sweater pocket and drew out a few morsels of the dry catfood that she fed to the seagulls.

“Fishy Fritters!” Qwilleran said in amazement. “You actually lured them into the shed with Fishy Fritters? If I try to feed them Fishy Fritters, they throw a catfit… Well, Russell, it’s a miracle that you happened along when you did. If I had lost those cats, I would have killed that man!”

“I had a feeling I should come,” she said shyly.

“I don’t know how to thank you. How can I thank you?”

Hesitantly she said, “Will you tell me something?”

“Of course.”

“Honestly?”

“Of course!”

“What’s wrong with my cottage?” She removed her dark glasses and looked at him directly for the first time, her eyes half closed and the pupils contracted. No wonder Mildred said her eyes were weird!

Having paused too long, he said quickly, “I don’t think… that is, I was unaware of anything wrong with the cottage. When the Dunfields lived there, it seemed to be… rather comfortable.”

“Why are they renting it?”

“Mr. Dunfield died, and his wife doesn’t care to live at the beach any more.”

“When did he die?”

“About two years ago.”

“What happened to him?” Her piercing eyes searched his.

“Well… it was most unfortunate, you see. He was a fine man, a retired police chief, a friend of mine…I’m sorry to say, he was murdered.”

“I knew it!” Russell said with a shudder. She jumped up, rushed from the porch and ran down the steps to the beach. He watched her head for home along the shoreline, faster than she had ever traveled before.

CHAPTER 14.

“I SWEAR I could kill that guy!” Qwilleran said with vehemence. He was having lunch with Roger and Bushy and relating the events of the previous afternoon – how the underground builder had burned the shingles and allowed the cats to get out of the cabin. “If they had been lost in the woods, I would have clobbered him with a two-by-four-and I mean it!”

The photographer said, “When we were building our addition two years ago, our guy painted the whole thing a sick green while we were away. Our house is white, you understand! He painted the addition green because – he explained afterwards – the green paint was on sale! My wife was so upset, she almost had a miscarriage… What’s your guy’s name?”

“Iggy. That’s all I know.”

“Cripes! He’s the one who painted us green! You have to watch him every minute.”

“I know. He started to shingle my roof in a poisonous blue.”

They were having a sandwich at the FOO, a down-at-the-heel restaurant on the west side of Mooseville. At some point in recent history the restaurant’s large sign had lost the letter D in a wind storm, and it had never been replaced.

Fishermen and boaters patronized the place because it was close to the docks, the food was cheap and plentiful, and the unlicensed establishment served illegal beverages in coffee cups. It also appeared to be popular with the sheriff’s deputies, leading Qwilleran to deduce that the restaurant was under suspicion or the local law enforcers were corrupt.

The three men ate with their hats on, in accordance with FOO custom – Qwilleran in the orange hunting headgear that he liked, Roger in a Mooseville baseball cap, and Bushy with his skipper’s cap at a dapper angle.

“Iggy was on the job when I left this morning,” Qwilleran said, “but this time I’ve taken the precaution of locking up the cats in the guestroom. He’s supposed to start framing the windows today. No doubt it will take him a week, allowing for catnaps and cigarette breaks.”

Bushy nodded wisely. “If you ask me, it’s not only tobacco he smokes.”

“I wouldn’t tolerate him, but he’s my last resort… Any news about Clem, Roger?”

“Police are investigating. That’s all I can find out,” said the young reporter.

“That’s what I guessed. Anyway, I’m stuck with Iggy. He’s not only lazy and infuriating; he makes stupid mistakes, but I can’t ride herd on him every minute. I’m glad to get away for a few hours.”

“Have you spent much time on the lake?” the photographer asked.

“Last time was two years ago. I went out on a chartered trawler and hooked something I wasn’t supposed to, and all hell broke loose. What’s on the agenda, Bushy?”

“I thought we’d take off for the island right after lunch and spend a couple of hours over there investigating the situation on the shore, then do some fishing and fry up our catch on the beach. I’ve got a portable stove on the boat and a coffee pot, and we can slice potatoes and throw ‘em in the pan.”

“I brought the beer and ginger ale,” said Roger.

“Have you checked the weather?” Qwilleran asked. “I hear they’re having heavy winds in Canada.”

“Luckily they’re going to miss us,” said Bushy, “but it gets cool out there on the island. You might need a sweater under your windbreaker.”

“I brought one,” said Roger.

“So did I,” said Qwilleran.

“Then we’re all set!”

The photographer’s boat was a modest cabin cruiser called Say Cheese, and he was an experienced skipper. As they sped across the water, Qwilleran looked back at the receding shoreline, nestled at the foot of the sandhills and fringed with wharves and the masts of boats. Mooseville looked as quaint as an Italian fishing village, and he experienced a tingle of nostalgia for other times, other places, other friends.

It was one of those days when the sky was blue and the clouds were puffy, moving proudly like tall ships. They were moving fast, Qwilleran noted. The skipper had the motor wide open, and no one tried to talk against the roar. Soon the island appeared to rise out of the lake – just the tops of trees at first, then the wide beach, and then the small, flat-roofed fishing shack near the trees. He counted. There were actually three trees on Three Tree Island.

Bushy cut the motor, and they putt-putted toward a prefabricated metal pier.

“They take the pier down in winter and store it in the shack,” he explained.

“The shack isn’t much, but it’s shelter. Mostly they use it to clean fish, so you won’t want to spend much time inside unless you brought a clothespin.” He pinched his nose.

With the boat tied up at the pier, they walked ashore. It was a lowlying island, and the beach was wide and smooth.

“Good place for a spaceship to land,” Roger said. “The landing site is on the opposite side of the island, the pilot told me. Anyone want a drink before we start exploring?”

He brought a cooler from the boat, and they stretched out on the sand. Bushy and Qwilleran stripped off their shirts, but the white-faced Roger said, “Not me! I burn!”

As Qwilleran lay on the sand he heard a whistling sound high overhead. He sat up and listened, smoothing his moustache as he vaguely remembered hearing it once before when he was vacationing at the cabin. On that occasion it was followed by a violent storm. He said nothing about it; after all, he was a city-bred landlubber, while Roger and Bushy had known this lake all their lives. Since they showed no concern, Qwilleran lay down again.

“Okay, team,” said the skipper after a half hour. “Let’s hit the trail. Better put the cooler back on the boat and take your sweaters. Bring mine, will you, Rog?”

“Do we proceed clockwise or counterclockwise?” Qwilleran asked. They tossed a coin and started westward. It seemed like a small circle of land when viewed from the approaching boat, hardly larger than a cartoonist’s idea of a desert island, but it proved to be a long way around when they trudged along the shore.

The beach that appeared so hard and smooth was in actuality an expanse of deep, fine sand, and every step was a slide backward as well as a push forward. After tramping for half an hour there was still no hint of a scorched spot on the beach or even among the beach grass that covered the crown of the island.

The photographer had his camera ready. “Don’t give up! We’re not halfway around the island yet.”

“How can you tell?” Roger asked. “It feels like we’ve been around twice.”

They trudged on. Soon they put on their sweaters, having reached the windward side of the island. The breeze was coming from Canada across a hundred miles of water.

“Look! Did you see that?” Roger asked excitedly. “A water spout!”

“Is that a freak of nature?” Qwilleran asked. “Or does it have something to do with plumbing?” Since arriving in Mooseville he had become uncomfortably aware of plumbing.

“It’s the tail of a cloud spinning around and picking up water like a fountain.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

Bushy had to admit that the clouds were moving faster than he would like, and Qwilleran pointed out that the sky was an unusual color in the north.

“I don’t like it,” said Bushy. “I think we should head back to the boat on the double and cut loose for the mainland. Storms come up fast on this lake. Let’s go!”

They attempted the return trip at a trot, but the deep sand and the rising wind fought them every step of the way. The sky had changed to a yellow-gray, and the lake was whipping up a surf.

Bushy shouted against the wind, “We may have to stay on the island overnight!”

Qwilleran thought, The cats won’t get their dinner. They’ll be starved by morning, and they’re locked up in that small bunkroom. They’ll be furious.

When they arrived within sight of the boat it was thrashing in the waves and crashing against the metal pier. Even as they watched helplessly, the lines snapped, and the Say Cheese shot into the air on the crest of a wave and capsized.

“Oh, my God!” the skipper groaned.

The wind caught it under the bow, and it rolled and tossed wildly like a dying shark. Bushy ran to the edge of the water and watched it go, until a giant wave caused him to dash back to safety.

“Damn shame!” Qwilleran said.

“Rotten luck!” said Roger.

The dejected skipper said, “Let’s get out of this wind.”

Heads down and caps jammed on, they forged up the slope to the fishing shack, a makeshift hut of wood and corrugated metal that rattled in the wind. There were two windows, but they had been boarded up for the winter and not yet uncovered.

The men entered the shack and leaned against the door to close it, so strong was the force of the gale. There was no light, with the windows covered, and it was drafty. The fishy aroma was the least of their concerns. Qwilleran stumbled over a wooden crate.

“There’s a wood-burning stove here somewhere,” Bushy said, groping around the interior, “but I don’t know if there’s any wood. Do we have matches?”

The matches, unfortunately, were on the boat along with the portable cookstove and coffee pot and fishing rods and radio. And none of the three men was a smoker.

“If I can fall over two more crates, we can all sit down,” said Qwilleran.

Wooden boxes scraped on the uneven floor, and the three men sat down in the dark. They were silent for a few minutes, each with his thoughts.

“Who brought the dominoes?” Qwilleran asked.

Bushy laughed. “I loved that boat, but luckily it’s insured, so let’s get our chins up off the floor and figure out something to do for the next few hours. When I don’t show up by nightfall, my wife will call the sheriff, and they’ll come looking for us with the helicopter, but it could be a long wait.”

“It’s four-thirty,” said Roger, whose watch glowed in the dark shack.

“Time for the Happy Hour!” said Bushy. “I could use a double martini right about now.”

“How long do these big blows usually last?” Qwilleran wanted to know.

“Fifteen minutes or fifteen hours.”

“If I have a choice, I’ll take the abbreviated version.”

“I’m never going to eat fish again,” Roger said. “This place is putrid!”

“Any guess about the wind velocity?”

“I’d say fifty miles an hour.”

“More like sixty, if you ask me.”

“Listen! Did you hear something?” Bushy said with an anxious hitch in his voice.

“It sounds like a splash right outside the shack!” He opened the door a crack and peered outside. “Hell! The lake’s rising!”

Qwilleran wondered if the island had ever been entirely submerged. He wondered if the others were thinking the same thing. In the total darkness faces and emotions were invisible.

In another half hour the spray was hitting the shack and water was running under the door. Waves began slamming against the building.

No one was talking. They were all waiting – waiting for the next giant wave. The apprehension was palpable. Qwilleran had faced life-and-death situations before – with a dogged resolve to survive or a numb resignation. Only where Koko and Yum Yum were concerned did he ever succumb to gut-wrenching worry. Now, with mounting anxiety, he wondered what would happen to them. Would Mildred adopt them? Would they miss him? Koko would adjust, but Yum Yum would stop eating; she was emotionally dependent on Qwilleran, and she would pine away.

Another wave pounded the building, and it tilted.

“We’re moving!” Bushy yelled as the shack shuddered and creaked.

“We’re going to be swept into the lake!” Roger screamed. It was the first vocal evidence of fear. “I’m getting out!”

“Wait! Don’t panic!” Qwilleran shouted. “Let’s see what’s the best thing to do. Bushy, got any ideas?”

“Which way are we moving?”