Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 15 Who Went Into the Closet

Ms. Sims apologized for the frigid temperature. "We're waiting for the furnace man. Emergencies like this are usually handled by a member of our congregation, but no one knows where he is. Maybe you heard about the potato farmer that disappeared. We're very much upset about it. He was such a wonderful help. When we decided to build a basement under this hundred-year-old church, he told us how to jack it up and do the job. He had all kinds of skills... So now we're waiting for a heating man from Mooseville."

"Don't apologize," Qwilleran said. "I'll cut this visit short because I have a cat in the car. What is that door?"

"That's the furnace room."

"Good! I'll use it for entrances and exits. Do you have anything in the way of a platform?"

"Not a regular platform, but one of our members manufactures industrial palettes - you know, those square wooden things - and we can borrow as many as necessary and stack them up. I think they're four by four feet."

"Are they sturdy? Are they solid?"

"Oh, yes, they're built to hold, thousands of pounds."

"Eight of them should be enough, stacked two high in an eight-by-eight-foot square. How about electric outlets?"

"Two over here, and two over there. These tables are what we use for pot-luck suppers, but they fold up, and we can arrange the chairs in rows. Is there anything else you need?"

"A small table and chair on the platform and another table and chair for my engineer, down on the floor." He handed her a typewritten card. "This is how we like to be introduced. Will your pastor be doing the honors?"

"I'm the pastor," she said.

The chill of the basement had been worse than the cold snap outdoors, but the car interior was still comfortable. Qwilleran turned up the heat and said to

Koko, "If it's all right with you, we'll go for a little ride along the shore, and see if the cabin's buttoned up for the winter." He had inherited a log cabin along with the rest of the Klingenschoen estate.

They headed along the lakeshore, where boarded-up cottages and beached boats huddled under a light blanket of snow. Then came a wooded stretch posted with red signs prohibiting hunting. At one point a large letter K was mounted on a post at the entrance to a narrow driveway, and this is where Qwilleran turned in. It was hardly more than an old wagon trail, meandering through the woods, up and down over brush-covered sand dunes. At the crest of one slight hill Koko created a disturbance in the backseat, throwing himself around in the carrier and yowling.

"Hold it, boy! We're just having a quick look," said Qwilleran, thinking the cat recognized the place where they had spent two summers. He stopped the car, however, and released the door of the coop.

Quivering with excitement, Koko darted to the rear window on the driver's side and pawed the glass.

"It's cold out there! You can't get out! You'd freeze your little tail off."

In a frenzy Koko dashed about the interior of the car as Qwilleran ducked and protested. "Hey! Cool it!" he said, but then he looked out the driver's window. Twisted trunks of wild cherry trees were silhouetted against the snow, and between them were animal tracks leading into the woods. Qwilleran jumped out, slammed the door, and followed the tracks.

A few yards into the woods there was a slight hollow, and what he found there sent him running back to the car, stumbling through the brush, slipping on wet snow. Without stopping to put Koko in the carrier, he backed down the winding trail to the highway. At the nearest gas station, on the outskirts of Mooseville, he called the sheriff.

-12-

AT ELEVEN P.M. the WPKX newscast carried this item: "Acting on an anonymous tip, police today found the body of a Brrr Township man in the Klingenschoen woods east of Mooseville. Gil Inchpot, fifty-two, a potato fanner, had been missing since October 24. Because of the condition of the body, decomposed and mutilated by wild animals, the medical examiner was unable to determine the cause of death. State forensic experts have been notified, according to the sheriff's department."

In phoning the tip to the police, Qwilleran had identified himself as a hunter trespassing on posted property and declining to give his name. He had altered his voice to sound like one of the locals who went "huntn" both in and out of "huntn" season. As the, Klingenschoen heir and a well-known philanthropist, he had to fight to keep a low profile. Qwilleran preferred to be a newswriter, not a newsmaker.

As soon as he heard the broadcast, he called Gary Pratt at the Black Bear Caf‚. "Have you heard the news?"

"Yeah, it's tough on Nancy," said the barkeeper. "She had to identify the body, and about all that was left was clothing. They didn't say anything about homicide on the air, but the thing of it is: If he'd been out hunting varmint and tripped on something in the woods, he'd be wearing a jacket and boots, wouldn't he? And what about a gun? He was wearing a plaid shirt and house slippers."