Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

On this occasion the selection was Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Qwilleran often read about nature, and he had enjoyed Euell Gibbons's book, even though he had no desire to eat roasted acorns or boiled milkweed shoots. The chapter he now chose to read was all about wild honeybees, and he entertained his listeners with sound effects: Bzzzzzzz. The Siamese were fascinated. Yum Yum lounged on his lap, and Koko sat on the arm of the chair, watching the reader's moustache.

Halfway through the chapter, just as the wild bees were swarming from a hollow tree, Koko's rapt attention faltered, his ears pricked, and his tail stiffened. He looked toward the back door. It was late, Qwilleran thought, for a car to be coming through the woods without invitation. He went to investigate. Standing on the threshold he saw no headlights, heard no motor noise, but unnatural sounds came from behind the toolshed. He snapped on the exterior lights and ventured toward the woods with a high-powered flashlight and a baseball bat.

As he approached the shed, there was scrambling in the underbrush, followed by dead silence, but the putrid odor told the story. A raccoon had dug up the cheese book and left it there, muddy and disheveled. The question now arose: How to get rid of it? Using the flashlight, he scoured the tool shed for containers with airtight lids and consigned the cheese book to a plastic mop pail. O'Dell's janitorial service would know what to do with it.

There was also a metal tackle box, empty and slightly rusted - the kind a mass murderer Down Below had used to send dynamite through the mails. For one brief giddy moment, Qwilleran considered mailing the cheese book to his former in-laws in New Jersey.

3

Friday started with a whisper and ended with a bang! First, Qwilleran fed the cats. He watched in fascination as they groomed themselves from whisker to tail tip. They seemed to sense, Qwilleran thought, that a prize-winning professional photographer was coming and that they might become famous calendar cats. The female was dainty in her movements; the male brisk and business-like. He had extremely long, bold whiskers, and Qwilleran wondered if they accounted for his remarkable intuition. Koko was also a master of one-upmanship, and he had proved more than once that he had John Bushland's number.

Bushy, as the balding young man liked to be called, arrived without noticeable photo equipment-just a small, inconspicuous black box dangling around his neck.

Qwilleran met him at the door. "Come in quietly and make yourself at home. Avoid any sudden movements. Don't touch your camera. I'm making coffee, and we'll sit around and talk as if nothing is going to happen."

Bushy wandered into the library area and looked at titles on the shelves. "Wow!" he said softly. "You have a lot of plays. Were you ever an actor?"

"I was headed in that direction before I discovered journalism. A little acting experience, in my opinion, is good preparation for almost any career."

"Shakespeare... Aristophanes... Chekhov! Do you read this heavy stuff?"

"Heavy or light, I like to read them aloud and play all the roles myself."

"Do you realize how many plays have food in the title? The Wild Duck, The Cherry Orchard, The Corn Is Green, Raisin in the Sun, Chicken on Sunday, A Taste of Honey..."

Qwilleran brought a tray to the coffee table. "Sit down, Bushy, and have some coffee and shortbread from the new bakery on Stables Row. It'll remind you of our trip to Scotland. Ignore the cats."

They were warming themselves in a triangle of sun- light on the pale Moroccan rug. Koko had struck his leonine pose, with lower body lying down and upper body sitting up, like the fore and aft halves of two different animals.

Bushy said, "Junior wants me to pull a paparazzi stunt and get some candids of the mystery woman. He thinks they'll be useful to the paper and/or the police if she turns out to be a spy or a fugitive from the FBI or whatever. What do you think about her wig? I think it's a man in drag."

"I think everyone's overreacting," Qwilleran said.

"Tell me about the Celebrity Auction. I hear you're on the committee."

"Yeah... well... the Boosters Club is raising money to aid needy families at Christmastime. People will bid against each other to have a dinner date with a celebrity, such as the mayor. I volunteered to take someone out on my cabin cruiser for a picnic supper. I'm no celebrity, but I'll throw in a portrait sitting in my studio."

Roguishly Qwilleran asked, "Is this outing going to be chaperoned?"

"Well, now that you mention it, we expect some flak from the conservative element, but what the heck! If they can stage an auction Down Below with a few million strangers, we can have one up here, where everybody is always watching everybody."