THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_ by The Cat Who Saw Stars

Author:The Cat Who Saw Stars [Stars, The Cat Who Saw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-11-06T18:34:44+00:00

Next he walked to Elizabeth’s Magic on Oak Street. Although it was closed on Mondays, she would be there, rearranging her stock and totaling the previous week’s receipts. Her enterprise was doing well. She brought to it an infectious spirit, off-beat ideas, and a certain shrewdness. He rapped on the glass, and she ran to the door.

Her first breathless words were, “Qwill! Have’ you heard - ?”

“Shocking, isn’t it? How did you find out?”

“Mrs. Stacy was trying to locate Derek, and he happened to be doing some work for me. He rushed over to the hotel.”

“Do you expect him to come back?”

“He’d better come back!” she said firmly. “He can’t leave me with all this sawdust and plaster lying around!” A somewhat tilted rectangle had been cut in the sidewall of the shop. “I own the whole building, you know, and my tenant next door has moved out, so I’m going to use the space for a lending library.”

“Admirable idea!” he said. “But was that lopsided doorway intentional? Or was Derek hung-over?”

Before she could answer, Derek opened the front door with his own key and charged into the shop saying, “Weird accident! You won’t believe it.”

The three of them huddled in the chairs at the rear as he told what he knew:

“They went out in the boat and anchored somewhere and had a picnic lunch. Ernie had some red wine and got tipsy, so she went below for a nap, leaving Owen to do some fishing. Suddenly she, woke up because the boat was rocking violently. Also, her hands and feet were numb. She was scared.”

“Awful feeling,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve had it happen after drinking.”

“She called to Owen, and he didn’t answer. She crawled up the ladder on her knees and elbows, and he was gone! Then she really panicked, and the blood rushed back to her extremities. She radioed for help… That’s all I know.”

Qwilleran said, “I saw them bring her into the hotel in a wheelchair. How did she seem when you arrived, Derek?”

“In a daze. I had to drag the story out of her.”

“Did she have an explanation of his disappearance?”

“Yeah. He’d been drinking a lot. Booze - not just wine. She thinks they got caught in the wake of another boat, and he lost his balance and fell overboard.”

“Could be,” Qwilleran said, although a nagging sensation in the roots of his moustache was telling him, Not so! Not so!

Derek said, “I imagine she’ll want to sell the boat; it was Owen’s plaything. What she likes is the RV. It has all her cookbooks, and it’s kind of cozy. Sleeps two. Has running water. I think she’d be happy living in the thing.”

“Well, I’ve got commitments to take care of,” Qwilleran said. “I’ll leave you two to clean up the plaster dust.”

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