The Cat Who Went Underground by Lilian Jackson Braun

Author:Lilian Jackson Braun
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Adult
ISBN: 9780515101232
Publisher: Jove
Published: 1988-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

“How’s the pie?” asked the proprietor, making his rounds.

“Best I ever tasted, Gary,” said Qwilleran. “Is your grandmother still making your pies?”

“No, the old lady died, but my aunt has her recipes.”

“It’s rich but not cloying, creamy but not viscid.”

“I should raise the price,” Gary said as he walked away to ring up a sale on the antique brass cash register.

Qwilleran said to Roger, “There’s something satisfying about the sound of an old cash register: the thump of the key, the ring of the sale, the scrape of the drawer popping out . . . How come you’re not eating your pie?”

“You threw me a curve,” said Roger, who had been staring into space. “What kind of criminal activity do you mean? Is something going on that I don’t know about?” Like most natives of the county he considered it his privilege to know everything that was happening, and as a reporter he considered it his duty to know it first.

“It’s happening right in front of your eyes. If you’re going to be a journalist, you’ve got to start thinking as well as reporting.”

“Gosh! Give me a clue!”

“I ran into a similar case in Rio fifteen years ago, but you expect that sort of thing in South America; you don’t expect it in Mooseville.” Qwilleran was purposely prolonging the suspense.

Roger stared at him expectantly, with his fork poised in midair.

“I seriously suspect,” said Qwilleran, taking time to groom his moustache, “that someone in the Mooseville area has put a curse on carpenters.”

Roger relaxed. “What’s the joke, Qwill? Give me the punch line.”

“It’s no joke. Carpenters are dying and disappearing at an ungodly rate. Anyone who believes in UFOs should be able to accept the age-old mystique of the curse—an evil spirit exerting influence in an otherwise healthy community.”

Roger put down his fork. These statements were coming from a veteran journalist whom he admired and respected. “Where do you get your statistics, Qwill?”

“It’s common knowledge. We’ve had two accidents, one death from so-called natural causes, and a couple of disappearances. And it’s all happened in the last two months. Joe Trupp appears to have been the first.”

“Everybody knows the tailgate of a truck fell on him,” Roger said. “It was an open-and-shut case of accidental death. That’s what the coroner ruled.”

“That’s the beauty of a curse. Everything looks so natural, so normal, so accidental. Then there was the underground builder who was putting up Lyle Compton’s garage. He vanished completely, and all efforts to trace him have failed.”

“Well, you know those itinerants,” said Roger. “They come and go. Half the time I suspect they’re fugitives, and when the law starts to catch up with them, they take off!”

“Then how about Buddy Yarrow, drowned in a fishing accident? He was neither an itinerant nor a fugitive. He was a family man and highly respected craftsman. Also an experienced fisherman. Also a strong swimmer.”

“Yeah, I know,” Roger said with regret. “I knew Buddy well. But the coroner ruled that he slipped on the muddy bank of the river—after that big rain we had—and hit his head on a rock.

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