THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_

“I should go and try to find Liz.” He shuffled out of the coffee shop with none of the bursting energy that was his style.

-18-

When Derek left the coffee shop, Qwilleran suddenly remembered his dinner date with Polly… at Owen’s Place! He paid for the coffee and phoned her from a public booth in the lobby. “Have you heard the news on WPKX?” he asked.

“I haven’t been listening to the radio. What is it? Not too bad, I hope.”

“Very bad. A sinkhole behind the restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner! And it caused a catastrophic sandslide - the east end of the Great Dune.”

“Qwill! I can’t believe this!” she said in horror. “Are you exaggerating?”

“Not at all. I was there when it happened. I was on Oak Street, a block away.”

“I hope there was no loss of life.”

“That hasn’t been announced, but I have fears for the chef - a young, talented, dedicated woman.”

“How dreadful!”

“So where shall we have dinner? I haven’t had time to move back to Pickax as yet, but I could pick you up, and we could go to the Old Stone Mill, or Tipsy’s Tavern.”

“I don’t know, Qwill… This is such depressing news! Do you mean the Great Dune itself is destroyed?”

“Tons of it! Trees and all!”

There was a pause at the Indian Village end of the line. “Perhaps we should postpone it until tomorrow night. I go back to work tomorrow, and you could pick me up at the library.”

“And I’m definitely moving back to Pickax tomorrow morning. I’ll call you at the library as soon as I get in.”

With that matter settled, Qwilleran went out on Main Street again - to listen. The tourists were concerned only with the disruption of their vacations, but the locals had explanations to exchange. They blamed the sand-mining that was unwisely contracted during the Great Depression… the local commissioners for steadfastly ignoring the potential dangers… the short-sighted taxpayers who voted down a safety study… interplanetary Visitors for tampering with the weather and causing the abnormal rain… and greedy developers who had enraged the Sand Giant.

For news-on-the-hour, Qwilleran returned to his van and tuned in WPKX. He heard this:

“One casualty has been reported in the Mooseville disaster. Ernestine Bowen was killed in her recreation vehicle when it dropped into the sinkhole and was buried under tons of sand. She was the chef at Owen’s Place. Her husband disappeared a week ago in a freak accident on the lake. The couple had come from Florida to open a restaurant for the summer.”

Parked near Qwilleran’s vehicle was John Bushland’s green van. The photographer was obviously getting ground photos while aerial shots were being taken from the hovering helicopter. Qwilleran wrote a note on the back of his business card and wedged it under Bushy’s windshield wiper. Then he spotted Phil Scotten in the crowd and said, “Did the boats go out today?”

“They went, but got a late start,” the fisherman said. “I don’t work the boats every day; I do the accounting for the fisheries. I heard the news on the air and had to come and see for myself. Never thought it would happen - not in my lifetime, anyway.”

Qwilleran nodded soberly. “The sheriff’s dog was on the job, and a victim was found in the rubble.”

“That’s Dutch, a German shepherd, trained for search-and-rescue. He’s highly intelligent, has a good sense of sight and smell, and never gives up!

That’s the beauty of an S-and-R. Einstein is trained as an all-purpose dog. In his five-year career he sniffed out millions of dollars’ worth of contraband. But all they need around here is an S-and-R. Dutch found a deer-hunter who went into the woods alone, tripped, and broke a leg… and he found an old lady who wandered away from Safe Harbor in a snowstorm.”

Qwilleran said, “If I had a dog, it would be a German shepherd.”

“You couldn’t do any better than a shep. Remember the bloody riot at the soccer game between Sawdust City and Lockmaster? After that, Dutch and his handler attended the games and - no more trouble! The dog’s presence alone was enough to keep the enthusiasm within bounds. My old college roommate Down Below is a handler on a police force, and I’ll tell him to watch for a shep going into retirement, if you want me to.”

“Uh… do that!”

“Are you covering the disaster for the newspaper?”

“No, I was here when it happened. I’ve been waiting for them to open the lake highway to east-bound traffic.”

When Qwilleran arrived at the cabin, the Siamese met him with expressions of concern; they knew something was wrong.

“Bad scene down there,” he told them. “There’s nothing we can do to help, so we’re heading for home first thing in the morning.”

He fed them and gave them a good brushing to calm their apprehensions. They were basking in the late afternoon sun on the porch when the green van pulled into the clearing.

Bushy jumped out, waving the card. Qwilleran had written: “Good for G and T at the K ranch. Signed: Q.”