Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 10 Who Talked to Ghosts

"I see. Well, thank you. Is everything all right over there?"

"Everything's okay."

"That phone call just before I left seemed to upset you, and I was concerned."

"That's kind of you, Qwill, but my friend is here from Pickax, and everything's under control."

"Good! Have a nice evening," said Qwilleran. Was the phone message really from her ex-husband? he wondered. And who was this "friend" who suddenly appeared and made everything right? He turned back to the table where he had dropped Kristi's two donations. Yum Yum was eating one of them, and Koko was sitting on the other.

-10-

QWILLERAN HAD A reason for inviting Roger's mother-in-law to dinner. He wanted to know more about Kristi Fugtree Waffle - not to flesh out his goat interview but to satisfy his curiosity - and Mildred Hanstable was the one to ask. A lifelong resident of Moose County, she had taught school for almost thirty years, and she knew two generations of students as well as their parents and grandparents, the past and present members of the school board, the county commissioners - in short, everyone.

When Qwilleran phoned her in Mooseville she squealed with her usual exuberance, "Qwill! So good to hear from you! Roger tells me you're house-sitting at the museum. That was such a shock - losing Iris! She always looked so healthy, didn't she? Perhaps she was a little overweight, but I... oh, Lord! so am I! I'm going on a diet right away."

"Start your diet tomorrow," he said. "Are you free to have dinner tonight?"

"I'm always free to have dinner. That's my problem." "I'll pick you up at six-thirty, and we'll go to the Northern Lights Hotel."

Qwilleran thawed some lobster meat for the Siamese, wondering if the waterfront hotel in Mooseville would offer anything half as good. Then he showered and dressed in something he considered commendable for the occasion. When dating Polly Duncan, who was not attuned to fashion, he wore what was readily available, and clean. Mildred, on the other hand, taught art as well as home ec, and she had an eye for color, design, and coordination. For Mildred he tried harder. For Mildred he wore a camel's-hair cardigan over a white open-neck shirt and tan pants, an ensemble that enhanced the suntan he had acquired during recent months of biking. Admiring himself in Mrs. Cobb's full-length mirror, a nicety that was lacking in his Pickax apartment, he noted that the shades of tan flattered his graying hair and luxuriant pepper-and-salt moustache.

In a mood of self-congratulation he drove from the rolling hills and cultivated fields of the Hummocks to the wild, wooded lakeshore, experiencing once again the miraculous change in atmosphere near the lake. Ii was not merely the aroma of a hundred miles of water and a fleet of fishing boats; it was an indescribable element that elevated one's spirit and made Mooseville a vacation paradise.

Mildred greeted him with a platonic hug. "You're looking wonderful! And I love your tan and white combination!" She was licensed to hug platonically, being not only Roger's mother-in-law but Qwilleran's former neighbor and the food writer for the Moose County Something and the loyal wife of an absentee husband.

Qwilleran returned the compliment, admiring whatever it was she was wearing. "Did you design it, Mildred?"

"Yes, it's intended to be a flattering cover-up for a fat lady."

"Nonsense! You are a handsome mature woman with a mature figure," he said with a declamatory flourish.

"I always love your choice of words, Qwill." As they drove toward downtown Mooseville there were signs that the vacation season was coming to a close. They encountered less tourist traffic, fewer recreation vehicles, and, almost no boats on trailers. Summer cottages were boarded up for the winter. There were not many fishing boats bobbing alongside the municipal piers that bordered Main Street, and the seagulls were screeching their last hurrah of the season.

"It's kind of sad," Mildred observed, "but it's pleasant, too. October belongs to us and not to those loud, swaggering tourists from Down Below. Fortunately they throw their money around and keep our economy going. I just wish they had better manners."

The Northern Lights Hotel was a barracks-like building with three floors of plain windows in dreary rows, but it was a historic landmark that had served the community in the nineteenth century when sailors and loggers-likewise lacking in manners - patronized the free-lunch saloon and rented a room for two bits.