Qwilleran asked, “How did you react to Mrs. Ascott’s session on Saturday night?”
“How about that?” Bushy said belligerently. “Did you get what she said about a material loss? She knew I was going to lose my boat, so why didn’t she tell me to stay on dry land? I don’t pretend to know how these things work, but all three of us were at that meeting and planning to embark on this damned trip. Why didn’t she receive some kind of vibrations and tip us off?”
Roger said, “The girls still think she’s wonderful, but I think she’s slowing down. She told Mildred emphatically to get a physical checkup, and Mildred had just had her annual physical last week-the whole works-and nothing was wrong except her weight. It makes you wonder about Mrs. Ascott’s other advice.’”
“She was off-the-track about Clem Cottle’s whereabouts,” Qwilleran said, “but that message from Joy rocked me back on my heels. We used to be very close.”
“She said something about an excavation,” Roger said. “Do you suppose she meant old Mr. Klingenschoen’s buried treasure? Maybe she wants you to dig,”
“You dig, Roger, and I’ll split it with you.”
They had hours ahead of them, and they talked to keep their teeth from chattering. Roger talked about the crazy kids in his classes when he was teaching history. The photographer talked about his customers who wanted to look like cover girls when they really looked like prunes.
Qwilleran talked about the Siamese: how they had taken an inordinate liking to Mildred’s homemade cereal … how Koko shredded newspaper, but only the Something … and how he had an obsession with the trap door. “He got down into the crawl space once when the plumber was working on the water heater. I don’t know what he finds so engrossing down there.”
Roger said, “There could be mice or chipmunks. The chipmunks could tunnel under the foundation and come up in the crawl space and spend the winter there with a few bushels of acorns.”
“For all you know,” said Bushy, “you’ve got the Chipmunk Hilton under your floor … Say, I read your story about the woman who heard her cat scratching under the door after it was dead. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t try,” Qwilleran said, “and I’ll tell you something else I can’t explain. You know Russell Simms, who’s been renting the Dunfield cottage? She had an urge to visit my cabin yesterday, and she arrived just in time to rescue my cats. A bloody miracle! She also had bad vibrations about the Dunfield cottage.”
“Did you tell her about the murder?”
“Yes, but I should have kept my mouth shut. I had a phone call from Mildred this morning; Russell moved out of the cottage suddenly last night, forfeiting a whole summer’s rent.”
“Strange girl,” said Roger. “Did you ever notice her eyes?”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Bushy. “I’d hate to be marooned on this island with Russell Simms and Mrs. Ascott.”
Roger started to giggle and laughed until he was on the verge of hysteria.
“Cut it out,” Bushy ordered. “You’re shaking the shack.”
“Let him laugh,” Qwilleran said. “It’ll warm him up.”
“But the shack will cut loose from the trees and float away to Canada, and I don’t have my birth certificate!”
At nine-thirty dusk was beginning to fall, and the wind dropped to a stiff breeze.
“I could use a blanket,” Bushy said.
“I could use a sleeping bag and hot-water bottle,” Roger said.
Qwilleran said, “I could use the Komfort-Heet.”
On the corrugated metal roof of the shack they did pushups to keep warm and massaged their arms and legs. At ten-thirty they were still talking.
Bushy said, “I’ll tell you a true story that’s kind of spooky. It happened to my aunt during the Depression. Her husband got a job in a steel mill Down Below, and they were living in a one-room furnished apartment. That’s all they could afford. Her husband worked hard, came home tired, went to bed, and snored. He snored so loud and so non-stop that it drove her crazy. She couldn’t sleep. It was torture! Cotton in her ears didn’t help, it was so loud. She felt like killing him! One night she dreamed she beat him to death with a table lamp, and she woke up in a cold sweat. Her husband was dead in the bed beside her. He’d had a coronary thrombosis.”
In the thoughtful silence that followed Bushy’s story they heard the throb of the sheriffs helicopter and saw the searchlight. The pilot dropped a ladder and picked them off the roof. “Blankets there! Hot drinks in the jug!” he shouted above the noise as the craft veered toward the mainland. “Taking you to Pickax!
Landing on the hospital roof!”
There was not a word from the passengers. Qwilleran felt he might never wish to talk again.
“Tornado hit the shore!” the pilot shouted. “Lots of damage! I’ll buzz the beach!”
They flew low over the dune, and the searchlight exposed the destruction: large trees uprooted and the condominium site reduced to splinters.
“Down there!” the pilot shouted. His passengers looked down. The roof of the Dunfield cottage had been blown off, leaving the interior a maelstrom of rubble.
Lucky girl, Qwilleran thought. She got out just in time.
The helicopter followed the shoreline until it reached Seagull Point and the Klingenschoen property. Nestled in the trees, the cabin was not easy to spot, but he could distinguish the brown roof, the huge chimney, the two porches-all as solid as a rock, as it had been for seventy-five years. But…
“Where’s the new addition?” Qwilleran yelled. “It’s gone!”
CHAPTER 15.
THE THREE MEN snatched from the flooded island were treated for exposure at Pickax Hospital, but Qwilleran refused even a thermometer until he had telephoned Mildred and arranged for her to pick up the key and feed the cats.
When he was released on Thursday it was Mildred who drove him home through the torrential rain that was the aftermath of the windstorm.
She said, “You and Bushy must be in excellent physical shape, or they wouldn’t have let you go home today. Roger has to stay in for further observation. What a horrible ordeal for you poor dears! Did you know it was in the out-of-town newspapers yesterday?”
“I didn’t see a paper or use the phone after Dr. Halifax gave me his knockout drop.” Qwilleran spoke in a voice more subdued than usual.
“The Morning Rampage had a story on page three, saying three boaters were missing, and in the afternoon the Daily Fluxion reported the rescue on page one: Former Flux Staffer Rescued from Lake.”
“I hope they didn’t say we were looking for the site of a I UFO landing. How did they get the news? Moose County hasn’t made headlines since the 1913 mine disaster.”
Driving rain was beating against the windshield until the glass was virtually opaque, and Mildred pulled off the road to wait for some degree of visibility.
She said, “This is very unusual weather for July. Of course, we all know what’s causing it.”
“What’s causing it?” he asked in all innocence.
“Why, the visitors from out there, of course!”
“You’re not serious, Mildred.”
“You can’t expect aircraft to barge in from outer space without disturbing the atmosphere.”
Earnestly he said, “Mildred, a couple of weeks ago there was a bright light pulsating outside my window at two o’clock in the morning. Do you know anything about that? Was it a trick?”
Mildred was incensed. “What do you mean?”
“I thought it might be a practical joke.”
“You’re really awful, Qwill, to say a thing like that … Are you sure you feel all right?”
“I’m okay. A little weary, that’s all. The medication is sapping my energy.”