Braun, Lilian Jackson - The Cat Who 009

“What is he doing in a social enclave like the Dunes Club?”

“Want to hear the story that’s circulating? Phlogg bought lakefront property when it was considered worthless. He scrounged lumber from the shipyard and built the house with his own hands, and now lake frontage is up to two thousand dollars a foot! A word of warning, Qwill-don’t ever let your cats out. He has a dog that has a reputation as a cat-killer. The Comptons took him to court when their cat was mauled.”

There was a muffled ring from the telephone, and Mildred excused herself. Just inside the sliding doors she could be heard saying, “Hi, Roger! I hear you’re babysitting tonight… No, what is it? … Who? … Oh, that’s terrible! How did it happen? … What will his family do? They have three kids! … Well, thanks for letting me know, Roger, but that’s really bad news. Maybe we can raise some money for them.”

She returned to the terrace with a strained expression. “That was Roger,” she said. “There’s been a drowning-a young man he went to school with.”

“How did it happen?” Qwilleran asked.

“He went fishing and didn’t come home. They found his body at the mouth of the river. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow.”

“Boat accident?”

“No, he was casting from the bank of the river. I feel awful about it. After being out of work all winter, he’d just been hired for the construction gang at the condo development.”

Mildred offered more coffee, but Qwilleran declined, saying he wanted to be home before the mosquitoes attacked. The true reason was that he felt a peculiar sensation on his upper lip-a twitch in his moustache that, in some inexplicable way, had always presaged trouble.

He covered the half mile along the beach more briskly than before. For the last few hundred yards he felt compelled to run. Even as he climbed up the dune to the cabin he could hear Koko yowling violently, and when he unlocked the door he smelled gas!

CHAPTER 2..

WHEN QWILLERAN RETURNED from Mildred’s cottage and smelled the noxious fumes in the cabin, he telephoned the Glinko number.

“Glinko network!” a woman’s voice said, with emphasis on her new word.

He described the situation quickly with understandable anxiety.

“Ha ha ha!” laughed Mrs. Glinko. “Don’t light any matches.”

“No advice,” he snapped. “Just send someone in a hurry.” He had opened doors and windows and had shut the cats up in the toolshed.

In a matter of minutes an emergency truck pulled into the clearing, and the driver strode into the cabin, sniffing critically. Immediately he walked out again, looking up at the roof. Qwilleran followed, also looking up at the roof.

“Bird’s nest,” said the man. “It happens all the time. See that piece of straw sticking out of the vent? Some bird built its nest up there, and you’ve got carbon monoxide from the water heater seeping into your house. All you have to do is get up there on a ladder and clean it out.”

Qwilleran did as he was told, reflecting that the Glinko network, no matter how corrupt, was not such a bad service after all. Two crises in one day had been handled punctually and responsibly. He found a stepladder in the toolshed, scrambled up on the roof, and extracted a clump of dried grass and eggshells from the vent, feeling proud of his sudden capability and feeling suddenly in tune with country living. Up there on the roof there was an intoxicating exhilaration. He was reluctant to climb down again, but the long June day was coming to an end, the mosquitoes were moving in, and remonstrative yowls were coming from the toolshed.

Settling on the screened porch with the Siamese, he relaxed at last. The yellow birds were swooping back and forth in front of the screens as if taunting the cats, and Koko and Yum Yum dashed to and fro in fruitless pursuit until they fell over in exhaustion, twitching their tails in frustration. So ended the first hectic day of their summer sojourn in Mooseville. It was only a sample of what was to come.

Qwilleran forgot about the drowning of Roger MacGillivray’s friend until he bought a newspaper the next morning. He was in Mooseville to have breakfast at the Northern Lights Hotel, and he picked up a paper to read at the table.

Headlined on page one was Roger’s account: MOOSEVILLE MAN DROWNS IN RIVER Buddy Yarrow, 29, of Mooseville Township, drowned while fishing in the Ittibittiwassee River Thursday night. His body was found at the mouth of the river Friday morning. Police had searched throughout the night after his disappearance was reported by his wife, Linda, 28.

According to a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department, it appears that Yarrow slipped down the riverbank into the water. There was a mudslide at the location where his tackle box was, found, and the river is deep at that point.