The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

"She doesn't eat much, so don't fuss and don't apologize. I'll go upstairs," he said irritably, "to see what this is all about."

The young woman who opened the door was dressed in a caftan and seemed very glad to see him.

"Liz! What the devil are you doing here?" he demanded.

"My family left this noon, taking both boats, and I told Mother I didn't wish to go. I told her I'm moving to Pickax City."

"You're a very impulsive young woman! You don't know anything about Pickax." He was thinking, Arch is right; I should mind my own business.

"Will you come in? I'd offer you tea, but I suppose there's no room service today."

"Not today, and not ever! And if the storm hits hard, there may be no lights, no water, and no ferries to the mainland. The only boat left in the downtown marina belongs to Domino Inn, and the storm could reduce it to splinters. Have all the boats left the Grand Island Club?"

"Yes, but ... if I may use the telephone, I think I can arrange something."

"Go down and tell Mrs. Bamba what you have in mind. She'll let you use the office phone ... And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an errand to do."

He wanted to walk away from the situation and consider the complications involved if Liz should move to Pickax. Could she handle her own living arrangements, face responsibility, make wise decisions? Or would she require and expect a full-time guardian? That was a role he was not prepared to play. He had come to the island to help Nick, and he had stepped into ... the peat bog, so to speak.

Qwilleran walked to Harriet's Family Cafe, not expecting it to be open but hoping to follow up their previous conversation. Two men—who proved to be her cousins from the village—were shuttering the windows, while she supervised with tough authority. When she saw Qwilleran, she walked toward him with a solemn step and an anguished face.

"Isn't it terrible about the fire?" she moaned. "We had to notify the fire marshal. He comes up from Down Below if anyone dies—or if the chief suspects arson."

"But you and the other volunteers did a heroic job, Harriet. It could have been much worse."

"I know, but I feel bad because I knew her! I knew June Kale all her life, and I know her pa."

"June Kale? I thought her name was Halliburton."

"She got married once. It didn't last long. Yep, she grew up on the island and went to high school on the mainland, like I did, but she was really bright. Never took piano lessons till ninth grade, and next thing we knew, she was teaching music and playing the piano in • big halls. She got kinda stuck-up then—didn't want anybody to know she came from Providence Island, but she visited her ma and pa a lot, and I give her credit for that! . . . My! They were so proud of their daughter! Her ma's dead now, and her pa must be all broke up. I feel terribly sorry for him. He's the caretaker at The Pines."

"Does he live in the gatehouse?"

"Yep, as far back as I can remember. June grew up there—with electric light, a bathroom, telephone, and all that."

Qwilleran was asking himself questions, and answering them. Did June want to live in the north country to be near her parents? She was too brittle, too worldly for that kind of sentiment. Did she really rent Five Pips to avoid disturbing her elderly neighbors? ... Or so her father could steal in to visit her via the nature trail? Neither. The voices drifting across the yard after dark weren't those of father and daughter. They were young, bantering, teasing, laughing voices. The parties didn't sound like auditions either.

"Do you want some coffee or ice cream?" Harriet asked.

"No, thanks. I just came to see how you are. You must be exhausted after being up all night. Do you plan to stay here during the storm?"

"Nope. I'll be sitting with my ma in the village. It's gonna be a bad one! My cousins are putting up the shutters to save the glass."

Qwilleran turned away as if to leave and then added as an afterthought, "The fire is the sixth incident in less than three weeks, and the fourth to result in a death. If you have any idea who's involved, now is the time to come forward."

Harriet's face became flushed, and she clenched and unclenched her fists. "The fire was an accident! How could it be anything else? She was smoking in bed. She always smoked a lot. Her ma and pa tried to stop her, but they couldn't."

"Okay, leave the fire out of it," Qwilleran said. "You told me you knew something about the other incidents. You knew someone who was responsible."

"I was wrong. That was a mistake. It was just village gossip," she said, walking away and shouting to the cousins who were shuttering the windows.

Qwilleran walked away, too, thinking, Once an islander, always an islander. Harriet had decided to remain loyal. Actually, her transparent denials only confirmed his suspicions.

The WPKX announcer said, "A storm watch is now in effect for all shoreline communities. The Disaster Center has issued evacuation directives for all occupants of beach property. Two fronts are approaching at the rate of five miles an hour and could converge over northern Moose County and adjoining lake areas by midnight. Severe thunderstorms, winds of seventy to a hundred miles an hour, and rising lake levels are expected."

The storm was indeed closing in on all sides, as four persons gathered around the kitchen table at the Domino Inn. Nick had installed the last of the shutters and had nailed planks across the front and back doors to prevent them from bursting open. He also nailed a towel-wrapped two-by-four across the bottom of each door to keep the rain from pouring across the threshold.

Lori served a pickup supper in the kitchen, around a big square table with piano legs and scarred top. There were meatloaf sandwiches, and there was a homemade soup that was thick and grayish in color, but it tasted good. The only recognizable ingredient was alphabet pasta. She explained, "It's full of chicken broth and veggies, but I puree them so the kids won't know what they're eating, and the alphabet letters keep them from thinking about it too much."

Since the pasta alphabet contained all twenty-six letters—as opposed to twelve in the domino game— Qwilleran was able to spell papilionaceous, a word that had once won him a spelling championship and a trip to Washington. Liz had the good manners to be amused by the soup and tolerant of the sandwiches.

Lori said, "Ms. Cage arranged for us to dock the Double-Six at the Grand Island Club."

"Yeah, it worked out great!" Nick said. "I took the boat up there, and they rolled it into a concrete boat-house. Then one of the guys drove me home in a snappy little cart. He said he'd always wanted to see the four big tree trunks inside our lodge."

Liz told them that the west beach had never experienced much damage from summer storms. "We might lose a few tree branches or shingles, but we've never been inconvenienced by loss of power, because we have generators. So it surprised me that Mother wanted to leave this time."

It was no surprise to Qwilleran. The queen mother, he guessed, wanted to whisk her daughter away from his radical influence. Thinking the Bambas deserved an explanation, he said, "Ms. Cage has been wanting to relocate in Pickax, and she thought this would be an appropriate time, storm or no storm."

Lori expressed surprise and pleasure. "You'll like Pickax," she said. "The population is only three thousand, but the town has some good things going for it, including a very good theater club. Also, they're getting a community college." She turned and looked brightly and expectantly at Qwilleran, who had authorized the Klingenschoen Foundation to underwrite the new institution. He had no intention of picking up the cue, however, and said not a word about the college or the theater club or anything else in Pickax. He was not going to encourage this impulsive and eager and reputedly flaky young woman to move into his backyard. Instead he said to her, "You might prefer Lockmaster in the adjoining county. They have horse farms and carriage collectors and driving clubs."