The Cat Who Smelled a Rat_txt

Within minutes the phone rang again. It was Susan, speaking without her usual flippancy. “Qwill! We’ve had a tragedy on River Road! Early this morning I was awakened by vehicle lights and voices outside my window. The sheriff’s car was next door. I went out in my robe, thinking something dreadful had happened to Jeffa, but they were notifying her that her son had suffered a fatal accident at the curling club! I phoned Dr. Diane, and she came rushing over, and Jeffa asked me to call her daughter in Idaho… . Isn’t it awful, Qwill?”

“Is there anything at all that I could do?”

“Well, Jeffa had me call Mac MacWhannell, and he’s going to take charge of everything, but you could pick up the daughter at the airport. She’ll arrive on the five-thirty shuttle. Her name is Angela Parsons.”

“Jeffa strikes me as a strong woman,” Qwilleran said.

“Yes, she’s not one to collapse, but Diane gave her a light sedative, and she’s sleeping. A caregiver will stay with her till Angela arrives… . Isn’t it terrible? She lost her husband this year-and now this!”

Qwilleran suppressed the urge to go downtown for breakfast and eavesdrop on the gossip about

Cass Young’s faults as a builder and his friendship with the second Mrs. Exbridge. He chose to work on his Friday column, announcing the winners of the haiku contest. Yum Yum, always filled with contentment when he was reading or writing, dozed on the blue cushion atop the refrigerator. Koko was restless, pushing things off tables. Pencils, books, and the bowl of wooden apples landed on the floor.

At two o’clock Qwilleran picked up his newspaper at the gatehouse and found full details of the “accident” with statements from the technician (who had found the body and reported it) and the medical examiner and the officers of the club. The last person to see him alive was quoted. A sidebar described the clubhouse, and an engineer explained the equipment necessary to maintain the quality of ice. The sports page went into the history of curling.

“Everything,” Qwilleran muttered, “except the salient question: Who pushed him?”

Working on Friday’s “Qwill Pen” column was a welcome respite after the disturbing implications of Koko’s midnight message. Most contest entrants squeezed a personal note as well as a short poem on a postal card. Eight winners had been chosen by the three judges: Polly Duncan, Junior Goodwinter, and Rhoda Tibbitt.

A fifth-grader wrote: “If I win, I’ll give my yellow pencil to my two cats, Nippy and Tucky.”

Catnap

Fur pillow on my chair-three ears, two tails, one nose, no paws.

The entries ranged from whimsical to thought-provoking. A retired nurse explained, “I worked for a large industrial firm Down Below, and one of the bookkeepers died after being on the payroll for thirty years. Her obituary in the employee newspaper consisted of only eleven words. It made me cry.”

Obituary

She had such pretty white hair and was always very pleasant.

Birds and butterflies were favorite topics, and a birdwatcher won a yellow pencil for this one.

Birdling

A baby phoebe,

drunk with youth, is staggering on the breeze.

Another nature-lover wrote, “This actually happened to me twenty years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

Monarch

Once a pair of orange wings alighted on my finger, and I smiled for days!

A student in her senior year in high school submitted this moody reverie:

Listen

The wet sounds of a rainy day …

Why do they make me feel so wistful?

A man wrote, “I’m the dad of a two-year-old and a four-year-old who are both bursting with energy. Can I submit two poems?”

Rocking Horse

Hurry, child!

Ask your questions. Tomorrow there may be no answers.

Tricycle

Hurry, child!

Find your answers. Tomorrow there may be no questions.

Only one entry was submitted anonymously.

Lost Love

Too warm … too kind …

too good … too near … too much!

When Qwilleran handed in his copy to Junior, the managing editor-who was a father of two-said that his favorite verses were submitted by the father of two.

“That figures,” Qwilleran said. “My favorite was a non-winner. Apparently a fifth-grade teacher in Sawdust City assigned her class to enter the contest-or else. One rebellious youth submitted: ‘My teacher wears thick glasses … and makes us do things … we don’t want to do.’ I think I’ll send him a yellow pencil for honesty and bravery.”

“What’s your topic for next Tuesday?”

“I haven’t decided. That’s four days away. The way things are going in this town, someone might bomb the Moose County Something.”

Before leaving the building, he went into the Ready Room and found Roger MacGillivray sitting with his feet on the table, waiting for another assignment-and probably hoping he could get home to dinner. It had been his byline on the banner story.

“Compliments on your Cass Young coverage. It was very thorough.”

“My coverage is always thorough,” Roger said. “It’s the editors who cut it down.”

“Is there a story behind the story?”