Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

The photo of room 203 was a scene of incredible destruction: walls gouged, doors ripped off, ceiling panels hanging down, and furnishings shredded and flung about the room like confetti. Qwilleran read the lead story twice; there was no mention that the desk clerk allowed the stranger to take the gift upstairs himself. Then Qwilleran wondered, If the "clean-shaven" stranger had worn a shaggy beard and long hair, and if he had been carrying a six-pack of beer instead of flowers, would he have been allowed to go up to 203? He also wondered about the manager's remark that commercial travelers checked out Friday afternoon. Did that fact have anything to do with the timing of the explosion? If the Lockmaster management firm had indeed plotted the incident, as some believed, did the in-house manager (from Lockmaster) suggest the best time to pull it off?

There was more on the front page. A bulletin stated: "Do not open gifts or other unexpected packages delivered to your home or place of business-if the sender is unknown. Play it safe! Contact the police!"

A human interest anecdote with an ironic twist was included as a sidebar:

After the "birthday gift" had been delivered to room 203, the desk clerk notified the kitchen that it was Dolman's birthday, and the chef, Karl Oskar, prepared to bake her a birthday cake. He was mixing the batter when the bomb exploded, and both he and the batter ended up on the floor.

Qwilleran finished his lunch and went to Amanda's Design Studio to speak with Fran Brodie. The designer was cloistered in a consultation booth with an indecisive client and a hundred samples of blue fabric. Fran saw him and made a grimace of desperation, but he signaled no-hurry and ambled about the shop. He liked to buy small decorative objects once in a while, partly to please the daughter of the police chief.

When Fran finally appeared at his elbow, he was examining a pair of carved wooden masks painted in garish colors. "That woman!" she muttered. "She's a sweet little lady, but she can never make up her mind. She'll come back tomorrow with her mother-in-law and again on Saturday with her husband, who couldn't care less. He'll point to a sample at random and say it's the best, and she'll place the order.... What do you think of my Sri Lanka masks?"

"Is that what they are? I'd hate to meet one of them in a dark alley," They were mythical demons with wicked fangs, bulging eyes, rapacious beaks, and bristling headdresses.

"By the way," Fran said, "you made a big hit with the new banker's wife. She came in this morning, and all she could talk about was you and your barn. She thinks you're charming. She loves your voice. She loves your moustache. Don't let Polly hear about Danielle; she'll have a relapse. But thanks for giving me credit for the barn, Qwill. She'll be a good customer. She hates blue."

"Did you sign her up for the theatre club? I hear she's had stage experience."

"Well... yes. She was a night-club entertainer in Baltimore. Her stage name was Danielle Devoe... Is that today's paper you're carrying?"

"Take it. I've read it. There's nothing new," he said. "You probably know more than the newspaper."

"I know they've run a check on Ona Dolman. Her driver's license is valid, but there's no such address as the one she gave the hotel. The suspect was described as wearing a blue nylon jacket and a black baseball cap with a 'fancy' letter D on the front. He got into a blue pickup behind the hotel."

Qwilleran thought, Nine out of ten males in Moose County drive blue pickups and wear blue jackets; they also wear high-crowned farm caps advertising fertilizer or tractors. Baseball caps are worn chiefly by sport fishermen from Down

Below. The suspect's black one sounds like a Detroit Tigers cap; the letter D is in Old English script.

To Fran he said, "I think I'll take these hideous masks. Would you gift-wrap them and deliver them to Polly on Gingerbread Alley? I'll write a gift card."

Dubiously the designer said, "Will she like them? They don't represent her taste in decorative objects."

"Don't worry. It's a joke." On the card he wrote: "A pair of diet deities to bless your kitchen: Lo Phat and Lo Psalt."

10

As Qwilleran fed the cats on Tuesday morning, a hundred questions unreeled in front of his brain's eye:

Who had bombed the hotel - and why? Would he strike again?

What would happen to the hotel now? Would it ever be restored? Was this the beginning of the end for downtown Pickax?

Were mall developers from Down Below implicated in the bombing? Did they want to see the demise of downtown shopping?

What was J. Willard Carmichael's true reason for moving to Moose County? Did Pickax People's Bank have an interest in promoting mall development?

And what about Iris Cobb's cookbook? Would it ever be found?

And what about the Food Forum? Was it just another; of Hixie's harebrained ideas? Why should he waste his time dummying a column for her when he had problems of his own?