THE CAT WHO SANG FOR THE BIRDS

Roger looked up. “Hey! I like that

black shirt, Qwill. Where’d you get it?”

“Never mind the shirt! What goes on here?”

“You don’t know?” The reporter glanced around before saying in a confidential tone, “Mock accident. To discourage underage drinking. Tomorrow night’s the Spring Fling.”

“Do you think it will work?”

“It should give them a jolt. Students got a sudden order to leave the building immediately because of contamination in the ventilating system. I got a little queasy myself when I saw all the blood… and I knew it was fake!”

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “To tell the truth, Roger, it would have fooled me if your deskman hadn’t said the paper was tipped off earlier. What did he mean by that?”

“We got a release on the story about an hour ago. The whole thing was a fantastic job of planning and secrecy.”

“Got time for a cup of coffee at Lois’s?”

“Sure. There’s another assignment at two-thirty, but it’s only a kids’ art show. I can be late.” Roger headed for his van. “Meet you there.”

Lois’s Luncheonette, just off Main Street, was a shabby eatery that had been feeding downtown workers and shoppers for thirty years. Lois Inchpot - the loud, bossy, hard”working proprietor - served large portions of moderately priced comfort food to loyal customers who considered her a civic treasure. The restaurant was empty when the two newsmen arrived.

“What’ll you guys have?” Lois yelled through the kitchen pass-through. “The lunch specials are off! And we’re low on soup!”

“Just coffee,” Qwilleran called to her, “unless you have any apple pie left.”

“One piece, is all. Flip a coin.”

Roger said, “You take it, Qwill. I’d just as soon have lemon.”

He was a pale young man with a neatly trimmed beard, stark black against his unusually white complexion. A former history teacher, he had switched to journalism when the Moose County Something was launched. He was married to the daughter of the second wife of the publisher. Nepotism in Moose County was not only ethically acceptable but enthusiastically practiced.

“So!” Qwilleran began. “How come I didn’t know about this melodrama at the school?” More than anything else he disliked being uninformed and taken by surprise. “Who dreamed it up, anyway?”

“Probably the insurance companies. What’s so amazing, they were able to keep it under wraps in spite of all the different organizations and personnel involved.”

“And in spite of our three thousand nosey Nellies and congenital gossips,” Qwilleran added. “All of Pickax knows I’ve started doing Polly’s grocery shopping, even though I slink around like a footpad.”

“That’s the price you pay for living in a crime-free, unpolluted paradise,” the younger man said. “What did you think of the kids who did the playacting? They’re all students who’ve been affected in some way by drunk drivers. What did you think of their bloody makeup? It was done by paramedics from EMS.”

“They all did a convincing job, and I’ll bet they actually enjoyed it, but will their efforts accomplish anything?”

“I hope so. Everyone’s being asked to sign a pledge not to drink at school parties.”

Lois interrupted with two plates of pie in one hand, two mugs of coffee in the other, and forks and spoons in her apron pocket. “If you guys spill any thin’, clean it up!” she ordered with swaggering authority. “I just finished settin’ up for supper, and my help don’t come on till four-thirty.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Qwilleran said with a show of meekness. To Roger he put the usual question: “Anything new at the paper?”

“Well, there was some vandalism last night that would have made a sensational story, but - “

“So much for your crime-free paradise,” Qwilleran interrupted.

“Yeah… well…At the editorial meeting this morning there was the usual go-round. I know you newsguys from Down Below are hipped on the public’s right to know, but we have different ideas up here, If we reported the vandalism in any depth, we’d be (a) boosting the perpetrator’s ego, (b) encouraging copycats, and (c) starting a witch-hunt.”

“So you decided in favor of censorship,” Qwilleran said to tease him.

“We call it small-town responsibility!” A flush came to Roger’s pale face. He was a native of Moose County, and Junior Goodwinter, the young managing editor, was a fourth-generation native. Arch Riker, the publisher, was a transplant from Down Below, reluctant to abandon his journalistic integrity, Qwilleran had lived in the north country long enough to appreciate both sides of the argument.

“What’s this about a witch-hunt?” he asked.

“Well, in every small town there’s an element that’s itching to be another Salem. Last night somebody spray-painted the front of an old farmhouse with the word witch in big yellow letters, two feet high. An old woman lives there alone, She’s in her nineties and kind of odd, but this neck of the woods is full of oddballs.”

Qwilleran felt a tremor on his upper lip and tamped his moustache with his knuckles. “Which farmhouse?”

“The old Coggin place on Trevelyan Road, right in back of your property.”