Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

"Yow!" came a loud demand from the floor, and Qwilleran gave each cat a tiny crumb of it, which they gobbled and masticated and savored at great length as if it were a whole wedge.

Brodie asked, "Did Ona Dolman say anything at all that might finger the bomber?"

"No, I'm afraid I missed the boat. I intended to ask some leading questions while we were eating our grape leaves. I even picked up a bottle of good wine for her!" Qwilleran said with annoyance.

"Well, anyway, now that we know she left on a plane, we can start a search. If she was in hiding, she falsified information but there'll be prints on the car, if they haven't cleaned it." He went to the phone and called the airport; the car had been thoroughly cleaned when it was returned. Qwilleran said there would be prints on the kitchen sink at the cabin, and he turned over the key to Brodie, along with the folding chair, cookbooks, and straw hat that she had left behind.

"We'll need your prints, too, Qwill. Stop at the station tomorrow."

"I don't envy you, Andy. You don't know who she really is, where she really lives, why she's being pursued, where she went, who planted the bomb, where he lives, what's his motive, how he found her, and who drove the getaway vehicle."

"Well, we should be able to lift her prints, and just about every man, woman, and child in Pickax can describe her...

What did you call that cheese?"

"GruyŠre."

"Yow!" said Koko.

Qwilleran said, "I asked the guy at the cheese store why a cat would prefer this to Emmenthaler, which is also Swiss. He said it's creamier and saltier."

"Is it expensive?"

"It costs more than processed cheese at Toodle's, but Mildred says we should buy better food and eat less of it."

Brodie stood up. "Better be goin' home, or the wife'll call the police."

Just then a low rumble caught the attention of the two men. It came from under the coffee table. As they turned to look, Koko came slinking out, making a gutteral noise, waving his tail in low gear, sneaking up behind Yum Yum.

"Watch this!" Qwilleran whispered.

POW! Koko pounced! WHOOSH! Yum Yum got away, and they were off on a wild chase up the ramp.

"They're just showing off," Qwilleran said. "They do it to attract attention."

The chief went home carrying a wedge of GruyŠre.

6

On Saturday morning Qwilleran fed the cats, policed their commode, brushed their coats, and combed airborne cat hair out of his moustache and eyebrows. Koko had pushed a book off the library shelf. "Not now. Later," he said. "I have a lot of calls to make. Expect me when you see me." He replaced the playscript of A Taste of Honey on the shelf. Then he thought, Wait a minute! Ores that cat sense that I'm going to interview a beekeeper? And if he does, how can he associate my intentions with the word "honey" on a book cover? And yet, he had to admit, Koko sometimes used oblique avenues of communication.

He went to the police station to be fingerprinted and then to the library for a book on beekeeping. Rather than appear to be a complete dolt, he looked up the definitions of brooders, supers, and smokers, also swarming, hiving, and clustering. While there he heard the clerks greeting Homer Tibbitt, who arrived each day with a briefcase and brown paper bag. Although the sign on the front door specified NO FOOD OR BEVERAGES, everyone knew what was in the paper bag. He was in his late nineties, however, and allowances were made for age. With a jerky but sprightly gait, he walked to the elevator and rode to the mezzanine, where he would do research in the reading room.

Qwilleran followed, using the stairs. "Morning, Homer. What's the subject for today?"

"I'm still on the Goodwinter clan. Amanda found some family papers in an old trunk and gave them to the library - racy stuff, some of it."

"Do you know anything about the Limburger family?" Qwilleran dropped into a hard oak chair across the table; the historian always brought his own inflated seat cushion.

"Yes, indeed! I wrote a monograph on them a few years ago. As I recall, the first Limburger came over from Austria in the mid-nineteenth century to avoid conscription. He was a carpenter, and the mining companies hired him to build cottages for the workers. But he was a go-getter and ended up building his own rooming houses and travelers' inns. Exploiting the workers was considered smart business practice in those days, and he got rich."

"What happened to his housing empire?"

"One by one the buildings burned down. Some were pulled down for firewood in the Great Depression. The Hotel Booze is the only building still standing. The family itself - second generation - was wiped out in the flu epidemic of 1918. There was only one survivor, and he's still living."

"You mean Gustav?" Qwilleran asked. "He has a reputation for being quite eccentric."