THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_

“No. The play at the barn opens Friday, and he has the title role. He’s concentrating on that. But the big news is that he has a job! Assistant manager at the new restaurant. They have a sophisticated menu and a good wine list, so he hopes he’ll learn something.”

“Have you met Owen Bowen?”

“Only at a C of C meeting. He’s middle-aged, quite handsome, rather supercilious, and ever so tan,” she said disdainfully. “I consider him a bit of a pill, but Derek can handle him.”

“I believe it.” Derek’s height (six-feet-eight) coupled with his swaggering but likable personality appealed to young girls, bosses, grandmothers, and cats and dogs.

Elizabeth said, “It was Derek who named the new restaurant. The psychology of naming food establishments is something he learned at MCCC. Mr. Bowen planned to name it - ugh! - the Cliffside Café! Derek told him it was too ordinary. ‘Owen’s Place’ has an element of played-down snob appeal that will attract the yachting crowd from Grand Island.”

At this point she was called to the front of the store, and Qwilleran looked at a sailboat in the craft display. It was handcrafted entirely of copper-labeled “Sloop rigged with topsail, mainsail, jib sail, and spinnaker - by Mile Zander.” He was a commercial fisherman whose hobby was metalwork.

“Does the pedestal go with it?” Qwilleran asked Kenneth.

“I dunno, but the guy’d sell it to you, I bet. It weighs a ton. I’ll deliver it if you want.”

When Qwilleran drove away, he had bought a copper sculpture and a railroad tie. He had always liked sailboats, although he had never learned the difference between a sloop, a yawl, and a ketch. He bought yachting magazines and read about the cup races, and the sight of a sailboat regatta breezing along the horizon quickened his pulse. Now he could tell Arch he had bought a sailboat and would watch his old friend’s jaw drop.

Before going home, he drove out to Fishport to see Doris Hawley - for several reasons.

Beyond the Mooseville town limits he passed a former canning factory that had once supplied half the nation with smoked herring; now it housed an animal clinic, a video store, and a coin-operated laundry… Farther along the highway the FOO restaurant had not yet replaced the letter D that blew off its sign in a northern hurricane two decades ago… Next came the fisheries, a complex of weathered sheds and wharves; they were silent as death when the fleet was out but a scene of manic activity when the catch came in … Beyond the Roaring Creek bridge, on the left, was the trailer home of Magnus and Doris Hawley. A homemade sign on the lawn - a square of plywood nailed to a post - said HOME-BAKES. That meant muffins, cinnamon rolls, and cookies. Mrs. Hawley was watering the extensive flower garden when Qwilleran pulled into the side drive.

“Beautiful garden, Mrs. Hawley!” he called out. “You must have two green thumbs!”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Q.” She turned off the spray and dropped the nozzle. “It’s been awfully dry. Don’t know when I saw such a stretch without rain. What can I do for you?”

“Do you happen to have any cinnamon rolls?”

“Half-pan or whole pan? They freeze nicely… Hush!” she said to a barking terrier, who ran excitedly back and forth on his trolley. She was a gray-haired woman with a gardener’s slight stoop and the energy of a much younger person.

When she went into the house, Qwilleran looked toward the rear of the property and saw a picnic bench on a grassy bank, but the dry spell had tamed the Roaring Creek to a gurgle. “Is Magnus working the boats today?” he asked when she returned.

“Oh, you can’t keep that man off the boats!” she said with pride as well as disapproval. “He’s seventy and could retire, but what would he do? Winters are bad enough. He does a little ice-fishing but watches an awful lot of television.”

“And how do you cope with a Fishport winter?”

“Well, I don’t have any garden or any customers for home-bakes, so I read books and write letters to our sons Down Below.”

“If you don’t mind a suggestion,” Qwilleran said, “why don’t you get into the literacy program and teach adults how to read? Pickax has an active program, and I imagine this community could use one.”

Mrs. Hawley was aghast. “I wouldn’t know how to do that! I don’t think I could!”

“They’d give you a training course in tutoring. Think it over. Meanwhile, have you heard anything about the young man you befriended?”

“Not a thing! The police were here twice, asking questions. We’ve told them everything we know! They act as if we’re holding something back. It makes me nervous. And some nasty people are saying my cookies were poisoned. I haven’t sold a one since that rumor started. I worry about the whole thing.”

“You have nothing to worry about, Mrs. Hawley. The nasty people will choke on their own lies. As for the police, they’re trained to investigate in certain ways. I’m sorry your act of kindness boomeranged.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Q. I’ll tell Magnus what you said.”

“By the way, do you know someone named Mike Zander?”