Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 10 Who Talked to Ghosts

As Qwilleran and his guest seated themselves in the dining room at a window table overlooking the docks, Mildred said, "A hundred years ago people looked out this very same window and saw three-masted schooners taking on passengers in bustles and top hats, and new-fangled coal steamers taking on cargoes of lumber and ore." She glanced at the menu. "And a hundred years ago this hotel served slumgullion to deckhands and prospectors, instead of broiled whitefish and petite salads to dieters. What are you having, Qwill? You never have to worry about calories."

"Since the cats are having lobster tonight, I think I'm entitled to French onion soup, froglegs, Caesar salad, and pumpkin pecan pie."

"How do the cats like their new environment?" she asked.

"They've okayed the blue velvet wing chair, the Pennsylvania German Schrank, and the kitchen windowsill. About the General Grant bed, when polled they voted 'undecided.' Gastronomically they're in seventh cat heaven, chomping their way through Iris's twenty-four-cubic-foot freezer."

"I read about Iris's will in yesterday's paper. Did she really want to have her recipes published? Or did you invent that? To me it sounded suspiciously like a Qwilleranism."

"If you read it in the Something, it's true," he said. "Well, when her cookbook is published, I want to buy the first copy."

"I was hoping you'd consent to be the editor, Mildred. The recipes will need editing and testing, I imagine. Iris was one of those casual cooks - a fistful of this, a slug of that. I'll volunteer to be your official taster."

"I'd be honored!" said Mildred. "Let me warn you: her handwriting looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics."

"After correcting school papers for thirty years, Qwill, I can read anything."

He wanted to quiz her about Kristi but thought it prudent to defer the subject until the dessert course. Whenever he invited Mildred to dinner, it seemed, his motive was to pry information from her incredible memory bank, although he tried to be subtle about it. So he asked her about the new exhibit at the museum, soon to be unveiled. She was chairman of the exhibit committee.

"It was finished three weeks ago," she said, "but we postponed the opening to coincide with the autumn color season - sort of a double feature, you know. The show is all about disasters in Moose County history. The public likes disasters. I'm sure you know that. Didn't the circulation of the Daily Fluxion always go up after a major plane crash or earthquake?"

"How do you celebrate a disaster in a small room in a museum?" he asked.

"It takes a certain amount of ingenuity, if I say so myself. We're covering the walls with photo blowups, and I must tell you about the violent controversy that arose. A member of our committee, Fran Brodie, for your information, found a questionable photo in the museum files with no information as to origin or donor, only a date scribbled on the back: October 30, 1904. Does that ring a bell?"

"Isn't that when Ephraim Goodwinter's body was found?"

"A date that will live forever in coffee-shop gossip! It was just a snapshot - a ghoulish picture of the Hanging Tree with (presumably) a body dangling from a rope. Fran wanted to enlarge it to three by four feet. I said that would be pure sensationalism. She said it was local history. I said it was pandering to bad taste. She said it was objective reportage. I said it was probably a roll of carpet trussed up to look like a body."

"Why would anyone take the trouble to do that?"

"Ephraim-haters have gone to great lengths, Qwill, to 'prove' that he was lynched by a posse of men draped in white sheets. In fact, the museum even has a sheet with two eyeholes burned in it, allegedly found near the Hanging Tree on October 30, 1904, by the pastor of the Old Stone Church. I suspect it was planted there for the good reverend to find."

"I detect a note of skepticism in your remarks, Mildred."

"If you want to know, it's my opinion that the lynching story is a hoax. Ephraim's suicide note is in the possession of Junior Goodwinter, and the handwriting checks out. Junior has allowed us to photocopy it for the exhibit. Of course, Fran Brodie - who can be a pain in the you-know-what - said the suicide note could be a forgery. So the hassle began allover again, and Larry had to come in to arbitrate. The result was a compromise. We're calling the Goodwinter Mine disaster "Truth or Myth?" with a big banner to that effect. We're showing the alleged suicide note and the alleged hanging snapshot, but in actual size. No lurid blow-ups!"

"I'm glad you stood by your guns, Mildred. You always do! Was Fran ever a student of yours?"

"Ten years ago, yes. And now that she's an interior designer, she likes to challenge her old teacher. She's talented - I'll admit that - but she was always a brat in school and she's still a brat."

The entrees were served, and Qwilleran asked, "Did you attend the Exbridge and Cobb reception this afternoon?"