

The Cat Who Climbed a Tree

By Lane DeAngelo

Copyright 2018 Lane DeAngelo

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author, and thank you for your support.

Scriptural quotations are taken from The King James Version of the Bible.

No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without permission from the copyright owner. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Traffic was sparse on Ittibittiwassee Road in Pickax. Recently laid asphalt had finished curing and was providing the smoothest ride around. The few cars and trucks out and about this Sunday morning seemed to be moving at a leisurely pace as the world was providing no imminent need to hurry along. To be fair, most things usually moved along slowly in Moose County, which is 400 miles north of everywhere. Today was no exception.

The grass was just beginning to add length to its stature at the very beginning of growing season. It was early in the day, the sun was barely up, and the air was crisp and cool. Walking down the road behind a rather handsome cat was a tall man who looked to be around the half-century mark. He sported a large pepper and salt moustache and was ambling along the side of the main thoroughfare attached to the cat by a leash, which was attached to a harness.

"You little scoundrel, you won't get away from me this time. I don't know why you chose this early hour to make enough ruckus to wake the dead, but we'll just walk off some of that feline energy of yours and probably a lot of my own," said Jim Qwilleran to his four-footed companion. "I popped a few bucks for this escape-proof contraption, and you will not defeat this one, Koko. Do you hear me? It's brand new on the market and it's guaranteed to keep you where you belong." The man was emphatic in his confidence that all possible escape attempts would be thwarted by his recent purchase. But if past history was to be respected, he should have held his tongue. The six-foot-two-inch man of Scottish descent had regularly tasted defeat in this particular area during the time he'd had charge of the cat to whom he was addressing his remarks.

The attractive male Siamese at the other end of the escape-proof feline containment device listened briefly, then stuck his nose in the air and sniffed as if offended, turning his dark brown face away from the man. Then he went up on his toes and arched his fawn colored back. He lowered his head and went in for a good long stretch accompanied by one big yawn before continuing to saunter slowly down the road. He loved his human very much, though he found the species at varying times both disrespectful and altogether irritating with unfortunate frequency. The problem being that humans are simply not the superior creations which cats are. Koko secretly supposed they couldn't help it. What could you expect from long-legged creatures who couldn't even leap from the floor to the top of a tall bookcase without killing themselves, after all? Koko reasoned that since he found it so much fun to do so himself, if their kind could, he would have caught at least one in the act by now-which he had not. He had, however, seen a number of them fall down repeatedly without even trying to leave the floor. Enough said.

According to _The Book of Cat_ for which Koko held much respect whenever he was in the mood:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and everything was quiet and peaceful because God had not yet created Cat, so he set about correcting that oversight right away. God pushed the water to one side and the dirt to the other side and created bunches of stuff to swim in the water and walk on the dirt and grow out of it so that Cat would be amused when it arrived on the scene. Then God created keepers to tend the earth, but he noticed the keepers were lonely and that they had a tendency to indulge in self-destruction. So, in order to provide companionship and ensure the keepers would always know their place, it was now time for Cat.

And God said Let us make Cat in its own unique image; to dig everywhere inappropriate and shed constantly, upchuck fur balls regularly (but seldom on smooth, easy-to-clean surfaces), sleep on the heads of its keepers, knock down everything subject to gravity, and terrify creatures many times its size. May Cat steal anything that isn't nailed down while working tirelessly to procure things which are, and investigate the interior of every container on the face of the earth-especially the ones it cannot possibly fit into. Let Cat get stuck inside all of them, and cry out for help relentlessly at the top of its lungs. And God blessed Cat and made it to rule over its keepers with distant condescension, and make a mess everywhere it went. The keepers foolishly imagined at first that they possessed Cat when, in fact, the exact opposite turned out to be true. And the keepers fell madly in love with Cat forever, ensuring that Cat would always have the upper paw, and that the keepers would always be subservient to their superior feline masters who allowed the keepers to live in their houses and pay all the bills. And God saw that it was good, at least from Cat's point of view.

And that is how cats came to be. Every kitten born instantly knows these sacred passages which are inscribed on their little feline hearts.

Suddenly, a chipmunk intersected their path scampering furiously at top speed as chipmunks always do. It ran up the closest tree very near to the edge of the street right in front of the pair. The cat stared at it, and then yowled and screeched and ran around the man in quick circles till the twelve-foot leash ran out. Then he did the same thing in the opposite direction, and then again back the other way going in between the man's feet till the leash got so tangled that it had to be unhooked for a minute to straighten it out.

"What in blazes has gotten into you, Koko?! You've seen chipmunks before, and you're not into live prey like Yum Yum is," he said as he unhooked the leash from the harness, being careful to hold onto the excited cat. The detangling process began.

The problem with this maneuver was that the cat didn't seem to know that he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, not that he would have cared about that fact even if he had. Opportunity presented itself and he simply could not ignore it. This was stipulated in _The Book of Cat_ under the section titled _The Ethics of Egress: It's Your Job to Run Away_ , which he was bound to, again, whenever he was in the mood.

Squirming and yelling as if he was being killed, he caught his human off balance and using the man's broad chest as a backboard, Koko flipped himself upward and did a somersault in mid-air, sailing to freedom. Assisting him was the fact that trying to hold onto a contrary cat is like trying to capture rapidly moving Jell-O by squeezing it. Taking off like a shot, the Siamese streaked down a pathway on the wet grass to the left which led into the woods. Qwilleran had not even straightened up all the way before his little charge was already out of sight.

"Confound it, Koko! I do not feel like chasing you today!" he exclaimed along with a couple of decent cuss words. "Some escape-proof-" he stopped in mid-sentence because Koko was still wearing the harness, plus he had to admit to himself that the label hadn't boasted any guarantees against operator error. The cat had bested him yet again.

His words fell to the ground as the cat was nowhere near close enough to hear him any longer, assuming he would have paid attention had he been thusly located. The man sighed and started trekking into the woods after the cat who had not gone after the chipmunk, even though the only logical conclusion to an outsider would be that was why he'd gotten riled up in the first place. Nothing else was anywhere in their vicinity, not even a vehicle anywhere in sight at the moment the cat had begun verbalizing and racing around. It had been eerily quiet.

"The things I do for love, not to mention the fact that Yum Yum would be heartbroken if I returned home without you." He walked across new grass for about twenty feet till he reached the woods, and entered there at the spot where he'd seen the cat vanish.

"Koko! Koko! Where are you? Koko!" he called as he walked further and further into the woods. Each step seemed to take him into denser trees and brush. He was glad he'd put his ducks on before leaving the house instead of merely wearing sneakers as he had first planned on doing. The ground was still wet and somewhat sloshy in places from prolific overnight showers.

He walked further in till he thought he heard something moving around. He stopped and listened for possible cat-authored noises. There was a soft cracking sound to his right so he veered off in that direction while still calling the cat. Then he heard a familiar sound.

"YOW! YOW! YOW!" said Koko off in the distance. Translation: This was Cat for "Help me!" or "I want that!" or "I'm hungry!" or "I feel like annoying you and I'm really good at it!" Or all of the above.

"I'm coming, Koko! Please stay where you are. You don't want Yum Yum to be upset, do you? She would miss you so much if anything happened to you!" Not to mention how much his human would likewise miss the adventurous Siamese. Even though he knew cat logic dictated a cat should do whatever it wanted to whenever it wanted to without consideration for the feelings of others, the man thought he'd try guilting the cat into giving up by using his little female companion as the trump card to convince Koko to yield to his appeal. He kept walking and heard more yow's from Koko, who now sounded as if he was even further away.

Qwilleran walked on following the sounds his cat was making as they became fainter still. He was clearly being summoned deeper into the woods. Had the Siamese gotten his little leg caught in a thicket? Or gotten himself entangled in something else he could not get himself out of? As if cats ever do such things. More yowing ensued.

After pushing aside brush and walking through the trees for several more yards, he experienced a familiar harbinger as the roots of his grandiose moustache began to tingle and vibrate. His hand automatically rose to his mouth and he pressed down on the cookie duster using his knuckles in a combing motion. So this was not just about a Sunday morning walk after all, he thought. What was that cat up to? The tingling intensified. That only ever meant one thing. Something was afoot, and it wasn't good.

Qwilleran came to a small clearing where he could hear his cat yowing much louder now but he was having a hard time locating him. He had to stare at a certain tree off to his right for several seconds before he located the little purebred Houdini's mostly dark brown face peeking out from the left-hand side. The tree was wet and its bark was very dark brown perfectly matching Koko's face and long, thin legs which were the only parts of him which were visible. His ten pounds were mostly hidden behind the trunk as the cat clung to the rear of the tree as the man faced the front of it. Koko was positioned above and off to one side of a space where it looked as if someone had dumped a bunch of leaves and twigs in a large heap as one would do if preparing to build a really big camp fire. He walked toward the naughty cat who was perched about four feet off the ground. He was just about there when-

"You little scoun-" was as far as he got before tripping and falling flat out on his face. His shoe had caught on something and he barely got his hands out in front of him in time to break his fall as he abruptly went down to meet the floor of the forest in a close and personal way.

"KOKO! I AM NOT HAPPY WITH YOU RIGHT ABOUT NOW!" shouted the Scotsman as he up gazed at the little cat's face. Koko had gone completely silent as he stared at Qwilleran with his beautiful large blue eyes.

The man got up on his haunches and looked around, moustache tingling like crazy. He looked down to search for what he caught his shoe on as he'd approached the cat who was still, albeit now silently, hanging onto the tree trunk without moving. He stood up and detached the suddenly quiet Siamese from the tree and tucked him under his arm as he turned back around. Looking down again he found something which looked like a glove. The glove was attached to something that looked like a hand. And the hand looked like it was attached to something that looked like an arm. And once he moved some forest refuse off of the top of it with his free hand, the arm looked like it was attached to something that looked like a body which had been hidden under the leaves and branches. After checking the wrist for a pulse, Qwilleran confirmed that the person had definitely expired, proving once again that Detective Koko and his special talents reigned supreme. Waking the dead, indeed!
Chapter 2

Koko turned his head and stared at the house phone. Among his other worldly talents, he always knew when the phone was going to ring before it did. Fourteen seconds later, it rang.

"You haven't been back from vacation for two days and you've come up against another dead body already. What is it with you, Qwill?" asked Arch Riker, editor in chief of the Moose County Something newspaper.

"I don't know. Get me back to this little sleepy place no one's ever heard of and suddenly I'm tripping over them-literally-again," the ex-crime reporter said into the phone.

"You were pretty talented at that when you lived down below, too. But I see once more you needed the help of your super feline to find it."

"Actually, I wasn't looking for it, but this is true. See what I mean? Koko is so smart, it's uncanny, Arch. I know he's smarter than I am." Koko purred his approval from the chair he was lying on, then stuck one of his back legs in the air and began studiously licking his knee.

"No argument there," replied his friend. The men laughed. Hurling good-natured barbs was comfort food to the childhood friends. "And if his past talents for solving crimes still hold true, he'll be figuring this one out for you as well. You should start paying better attention, Qwill."

"I've been telling you for years he is a super special cat. May I remind you Koko has even saved my life? You can't buy that kind of friendship."

"That's only because you spoil him with fancy home cooked food which he knows no one else would make for him."

"I could never get away with putting most commercial cat food in front of him or Yum Yum. That much, I know from experience."

"Yowowow," said Koko as he took a short break from his personal grooming routine. That was Cat for "I know not of what you speak, but I wouldn't eat it anyway." Then he contemplated relocation to another room as the chatter was keeping him awake. But even though the sound level was cutting into his nineteen-hour-a-day nap requirements, the effort to move proved to be too much trouble for him at the moment. He quickly willed himself to fall asleep next to his little female companion.

"Look Arch, why don't you and Mildred come over to the house for dinner tonight? It's the old vintner's place just off Keller Lane which the family offered me till my loft is rebuilt. They bought a smaller place and this was just sitting empty and they haven't had any offers yet, nice of them to offer it for my use. It's huge and the cats get plenty of exercise running all over the place. I'll order Asian food, just the kind you both like, and we can shoot the breeze for a bit. You know my loft won't be finished for quite some time since the fire destroyed so much of it, so I'm stuck in limbo once again till they get done rebuilding. They haven't even started yet."

"Sounds like a good idea. The wife went down below for the funeral of a friend and to help out the family with some things, so it'll be just me."

"Around seven would be good."

The conversation ended and they hung up. Then Qwilleran went into the giant-sized kitchen and poured himself a cup of spoon-melting black coffee as he sat down across from Connie McCloud, housekeeper and cook extraordinaire. She was having some pastry she'd picked up earlier along with her own cup of the murderous joe they both loved so much. Ignoring a large bowl of healthy looking fruit in the middle of the table, he selected a scrumptious looking glazed donut for himself, took a bite, sipped his coffee and made a satisfied face. Then he continued reading an article in National Geographic which he had begun earlier in the day about the platypus. He had read for several minutes when the back door seemingly opened by itself and an uninvited guest paid them a visit.

A brown and white goat walked into the kitchen and looked around.

Both humans stopped chewing and looked at each other without moving. The goat then walked over to the table they were sitting at and reached in and grabbed a bear claw from the pastry box. Her head moved from side to side as she eyed Connie, and then Qwilleran individually. Then she looked back at Connie, dropped the bear claw to the floor, and began eating it right then and there. The visitor made short work of the bear claw while her hosts sat in silence. Then she returned to the table for another delicacy. Connie ever so slowly reached into the pastry box and chose a chocolate frosted cream filled donut for the pastry thief in the hopes she might appreciate the gesture and leave of her own accord. As if according to plan, the goat took the gift politely from Connie's fingers, looked back over at Qwilleran, and then slowly sauntered out the screen door of the kitchen through which she had come after giving it a shove with her nose. She was careful not to drop her donut.

"What the hell just happened?!" he asked.

"Well, I guess the rumors are true. One of the local farmers bought some new livestock recently and stories about this individual have been going around the town of late. Quite a colorful character. Apparently, she's into all sorts of mischief, has a vindictive streak, and leaves presents in the form of piles of goat pellets in your yard if she decides she doesn't like you. I heard someone say the other day that her name is Linda, and she knows how to open unlocked doors."

"Linda? Linda the goat? Who names a goat Linda?!"

"Abel Derrick named her after his late wife, or so the story goes. I heard they never got along. Post mortem revenge, I guess."

"Why is she out and about walking into people's homes?! Why isn't she penned up on his farm then?"

"Apparently, Linda is somewhat of an escape artist. Who does that remind you of? She gets out every day. No clue why he doesn't fix his fence or whatever's wrong over at his place. Did you see the look on her face? I could feel her saying 'Give me more or else', I swear. This is my fault. I must have forgotten to lock the door back up when I made my pastry run this morning, and there's something wrong with that latch anyway, it's hard to lock. I don't much think about locking up our doors way up here away from big cities. Sorry about that, Jim. I'll call someone and get that latch looked at."

As she spoke, he got up and locked the screen door and the actual kitchen door, just in case Linda decided she was still hungry.

"Don't worry about it. I am a tad concerned that she will now think our house is the place to go for really good sugary stuff. But I agree giving her more was the only way we would get rid of her without her causing wanton destruction to our kitchen. She got the last donut. And what are goat pellets, if I may ask?"

"To put it delicately, goats defecate in piles of pellets, not the usual 'pies' which most livestock manufacture."

"I still have a lot to learn even after all these years up here. But in my defense, that's a subject I never spent time pondering."

The man got some paper towels and wiped up the area where Linda had done her feasting on the tile floor. Then he went back to his National Geographic and Connie went back to reading the morning newspaper, an old-fashioned habit both of them still enjoyed. Several minutes had passed when the doorbell rang.

"So now she's using the bell."

"I'll get it" said Connie as she made her way to the front of the house.

Less than a minute later, she returned to the kitchen. "Jim, the police are here to see you."

"Have them come into the kitchen please, Connie." He shut his magazine in order to give the police his full attention. It was the polite thing to do.

The cats were wakened anew from their nap by an increase in the noise level around them. They continued to lie quietly on their blue cushion which had become a fixture atop the refrigerator in every given place they'd lived during the years Qwilleran had belonged to the pair. Koko laid folded up turtle-style and a smaller, slightly cross-eyed female Siamese with captivating blue eyes tinged with violet laid turtle style next to him. Yum Yum rubbed her dark muzzle against her companion's face for comfort and then moved her head to imitate his pose exactly. She would normally disappear when encountering strangers, but decided it was too much effort this time as she was not fully awake yet. Qwilleran had noticed she was becoming more tranquil and a bit bolder as she matured. Koko had a significantly more outgoing personality than she did and not much bothered him. Smaller and meeker, Yum Yum was also calmed by the fact that she had always believed if she kept perfectly still, she was totally invisible. Not a twitch.

Two uniformed officers walked in following Connie, who then sat back down. One of them was a lanky six-foot-four with dark hair, and the other one was at least a foot shorter and rounder and balder than a cue ball. Everyday folk did not often get a look inside the life of the Klingenschoen heir, so they gawked at everything. Yum Yum eyed them warily as Koko looked on with curiosity realizing he had never smelled these people before. The two cats continued to sit motionless side-by-side like bookends without any books to tend. Though largely dependent on their keen powers of observation in order to carry out their duties to the fair citizens of Pickax City, the cops (who reminded Qwilleran of old time comic strip characters Mutt and Jeff) completely missed the cats positioned watchfully on top of the fridge in their urban treehouse. It became apparent as the conversation unfolded that the pair were not very keen regarding much.

Now that the pastry was all gone, their host started peeling an orange for himself and pointed to a bowl of fruit on the table. "Fruit?"

"It is against the law to offer or take bribes," said Mutt without a smile. "I'll overlook it this time."

Qwilleran wondered which had constituted bribery, the pears or the oranges. The tall cop continued as if innately bothered by something from his position standing with his back to the refrigerator.

"I'm Officer Schodowski and this is Officer Rinaldi," Mutt said as he nodded toward the short cop. "Mr. Qwilleran, we know you spoke with detectives at the scene, but we have been officially dispatched by the Pickax City Police Department of Moose County to inquire of you as to some follow-up questions about the body of one deceased which you found yesterday while you were out for your walk, or your constitutional as some would put it on Ittibittiwassee Road. We would appreciate your cooperation." A pad and pen appeared in the cop's hand.

"State your full name." The cop had already begun writing.

"James Mackintosh Qwilleran with a W."

"What?"

"That's spelled with a W."

"What's spelled with a W?"

"Qwilleran. It's spelled Q-W-I-L-L-E-R-A-N. People tend to spell my last name with a U, but there is no U in there. It's Scottish and it's spelled with a W. Most people call me Qwill. My housekeeper is the only person who calls me Jim," he said as he glanced over at Connie who was busy reading away as she kept one ear reserved for the current goings on.

The look on Mutt's face wasn't exactly one of appreciation as he crossed out Quilleran and wrote down the correct spelling.

"You're not from around here, is that correct? I hear an accent."

"I was born in Chicago, if that's what you're referring to. I find your accent interesting as well."

"I don't have one. What time would you say you left your house to begin your walk, Mr. Qwilleran with a W?"

"Around 6:30 a.m."

"What were the particular weather conditions? Temperature, cloud cover, humidity, barometric pressure? Be specific."

"I'd say it was near fifty degrees, clouds-a few, humidity-yes, there was some, and barometric pressure-I clean forgot to check that before leaving the house."

"Precisely how far had you walked before you found the body? Be specific."

"Precisely the distance from this kitchen door to the footpath which I showed the detectives which led into the woods where the body lay. I forgot my pedometer. Sorry."

Mutt exhaled his loud displeasure at the man's lack of awareness of details regarding a casual Sunday morning walk which no one else would have known either.

"How exactly did you happen to be deep enough in the densest woods around in order to find the deceased? What was your reason for being there? Are you a bird-watcher or some type of nature freak-or what?" continued Mutt (whose actual first name was Chuck) somewhat indignantly.

"As I told the detectives, I didn't exactly find it. My cat found it. I merely followed him into the woods."

"Okay, if you say so. How exactly did your kitty find the deceased and make his way all the way back home in order to alert you and get you to follow him all the way back to that exact spot in the woods?" he rolled his eyes as he spoke. "Your kitty is more talented than Lassie."

Feigning offense Qwilleran raised his eyebrows and said, "Koko is a purebred male Siamese whose full paper name is actually Kao K'o Kung. He is of superb lineage. That's K-O-K-O with two K's, not C's." Two could play this game.

"My apologies," said Mutt, taking full umbrage now. "I thought he was a cat."

Short cop Jeff (whose actual first name was John) stood in a corner of the kitchen just outside of Mutt's peripheral vision smiling at the alleged abuse his partner perceived he was enduring in the name of protecting the public.

"I was walking him when a chipmunk darted in front of us. When we saw it, Koko hatched his escape plan and started running around me and tangled the leash so badly I had to disconnect it for a bit to get it straightened out. He took the out and squirmed away from me before I could get the leash fixed. He shot into the woods and I followed him. When I finally got to him, he was up in the air hanging onto a tree trunk. My eyes were on him instead of where I was walking, and I tripped on the body."

"You walk your cat?"

"Yes."

"On a leash?"

"Yes, and now I've added a harness because he kept slipping out of the leash."

"I see." Mutt turned his head and shot a glance at Jeff, who shot a glance back at Mutt. Rich folks- _go figure_. Jeff continued fidgeting with a potholder he'd found on the counter.

"So, a chipmunk ran into the woods and your cat took off after it?"

"No. The chipmunk scampered up a tree right in front of us while we watched it. My cat used the sighting as an excuse to start running in circles around me and then into the woods after I detached the leash from the harness so I could untangle it. Then I went into the woods after my cat."

"Did your cat see the chipmunk?"

"Yes, I said we both did." Keen powers of not hearing accompanied Mutt's other expert talents. Jeff snorted quietly in the corner.

"So, your cat saw a chipmunk run up a tree that was right in front of the two of you, and said cat chose to run into the woods instead of running up the tree to get said chipmunk once said cat got away from you?"

"That is what said cat did."

"Do cats do that?"

"Do what?"

"Ignore small prey and run in the opposite direction maybe hoping to find more prey instead of dashing up the tree in front of them to get the chipmunk they just saw go up it first?" said Mutt. Jeff dropped the potholder and bent over to pick it up. His hat fell on the floor as he did so. He picked it up, stood back up and put his hat back on his head. Then he dropped the potholder again and repeated the rest of the previous scenario.

Oh, why not, thought Qwilleran as he popped an orange section into his mouth and chewed thoroughly till it was gone. "My cat did. He has a sixth sense when it comes to something funny going on and is an excellent crime solver, too. He even knows how to use a dictionary and has saved my very life. What exactly are you implying, Officer Schodowski?"

Mutt stared at Qwilleran as it slowly dawned on him it was likely that the most notable inhabitant of Pickax City in Moose County, the fellow who had not so long ago become the super-rich heir to the Klingenschoen fortune had either just been released from a mental institution or should-at the very least-be in one presently. He stopped writing.

"Nothing. I guess some cats just don't hunt."

"Yum Yum hunts."

Mutt sighed. He hated talking to crazy people, but it was part of his job. "Who is Yum Yum?"

"She is the little female Siamese up there next to Koko on top of the refrigerator. She brings me dead mice she has caught and killed. Koko prefers to solve crimes. He doesn't commit them."

Mutt looked down at the floor and licked his lips before looking back at the interviewee. "So let me get this straight: You keep your cats on top the refrigerator or maybe inside of it, huh? Or maybe one's full of salt and the other one contains pepper?"

Qwilleran stared without saying a word and snapped his magazine back open noisily. If asked politely, he himself would admit that he had lately begun to notice he was becoming somewhat cantankerous with advancing age. Or perhaps it had to do with the fact that he was in agreement with Koko that dealing with humans on a regular basis could be purely annoying a good portion of the time. He had of late begun to understand why older people frequently become short-tempered. Once your lifetime idiot quota climbs to a certain level, the rest is all uphill.

Where are the men in the white coats when you need them? A lifelong dog man, the tall cop knew precious little about cats except for the fact that he had been terrified of them since he was a little boy. When he was seven, he had tried to pet the cat next door who responded by hissing at him, scratching his face, and chasing him into the house while growling, screaming cuss words in Cat, and spitting at him just for fun. He never figured out which feline law he had violated in order to bring the raging attack down on himself, he just ran for his little life. Now he made a professional decision to humor the crazy guy.

"Ok, sure."

Mutt turned around nonchalantly and glanced at the top of the refrigerator expecting to see something along the lines of a glass cookie jar in the shape of a pair of cats. Very close to his head and staring back at him intently were four feline eyes right at his own eye level inches away from his face. Suddenly feeling uncharacteristically bold and timing it perfectly, Yum Yum stuck out a velvety dark brown paw and patted Mutt's hair gently in greeting. A look of shock registered on the cop's face as his pupils dilated and six-foot-four inches of scared to death lost its balance, yelling "OH, GOD! HELP ME!" really loud in a voice that had immediately scaled up a full octave. Jeff tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh as his partner jumped away and stumbled backward into the counter behind him.

"This interview is over! We'll be in touch if we need anything else from you! Ok? We're leaving!" Officer Schodowski/Mutt was now fully hyperventilating as he bolted out of the room and ran back through the house and out the front door through which he'd first entered. Officer Rinaldi/Jeff spoke for the first time.

"So ya say yer cat led ya t' da body an dat's perzackly how dat happened?"

"Perzackly" mused Qwilleran with a smile.

"Tanks fer yer time den." And with that, Jeff lackadaisically followed after his partner while wearing a big grin. He walked out of the room, then walked back in a few seconds later and put the potholder back on the counter where he'd found it before leaving a second time.

Koko and Yum Yum stared quizzically after the officers from the perch where they had watched the clumsy spectacle unfold. Seeing as they enjoyed having theirs stroked, they were curious as to whether or not the tall man's fur always hurt him that much. Then they agreed between themselves not to touch it again if he ever came back for another visit. They exchanged thoughts of agreement. _Bet that one falls down a lot_.
Chapter 3

Loretta Garver closed the notebook after making her last entry for the time being. Wi-Fi wasn't due to be installed in the building for a couple more days and she had forgotten her laptop so she was making notes and entries the old-fashioned way. Getting a new museum up and running was not child's play. There were architects to deal with, builders, renovations, floor plans, exhibits and display items to procure along with the cases and shelving to put them in and on, bills to pay, fundraising efforts to be strategized and executed, staff to be hired, and a host of other details which would not go unnoticed if not carried out competently. Fortunately for her, she had no doubt that she was just the person for the job of museum director. She'd worn many hats in her life, not the least of which was organizer and executor of many diverse undertakings. She had survived worse.

The Moose County Something was doing a special article on the museum and the preparations which were going into the grand opening. A feature reporter had been in touch twice already checking on dates and details. A photographer would be out when things were in better order, but for now not everything had been fully dealt with even though definite progress had been made. Building alteration and painting was complete; new flooring had been put down covering the entire place; shelving had been put up; and several of the display cases had already been installed. The interior was one very large room positioned in front of the intake/receiving dock area which would be closed off from the public when the time came. Fanny Klingenschoen had donated the nearly eight thousand square foot building along with the large parcel it sat on to the city before her recent death, which had then in turn been sold to some corporation which was now leasing it out to the museum. Pickax City had used some of the money from the sale to improve road conditions, some of it to install a few new sewer pipes, and some of it to give the police what (for most) was a much-deserved raise.

An eighteen-wheeler with the words "Northern Transport" painted on the sides and back doors pulled up in front of the place. Before he got out of the truck, the museum director opened the door and instructed the driver via emphatic hand gestures and nods to pull around back. He drove the big truck behind the building and parked. Then he unloaded six large crates which were attached to wooden pallets and put them one-by-one onto the forks of a hand jack, which he then wheeled into the backroom prep area. After the driver unloaded and placed the last crate, Garver signed for the shipment and the trucker pulled out. She was happy that this batch of artifacts had arrived on time and was equally glad that she had hired a helper to assist in cataloging and displaying each piece. She picked up the phone in the prep room to schedule him in now that she needed help to begin this more serious leg of her work.

"This is M.A." a young male voice answered.

"Halloo, HemmAyyy. Thiss iss Lovettahh Gahhvahh."

"Hey Miss Garver, how are you?!"

"Soo faaine, soo faaine. The fairsst shhopmant hezz ahhravved. Khen yhou cam enn thass wake?"

"Absolutely! I'm so excited! I love this stuff! When do you want me there?" They proceeded to discuss days and times and came to an agreement on his schedule which was to be amended as grand opening approached.

"Ahh khen yooss yhoo trayy daaze ayy wake prissantlay. Khan yhoo camm enn Mandayys? End Toossdayys? End Fraydayys? Ayt too trayy? "Yhoo khenn ayt yhurr launch whiniverrr yhoo hwent."

"Well, beam me up, Scotty! I sure can! That sounds great, Miss Garver! Thanks so much for this job! I'll do the museum proud! You'll see!"

"Ahhm share yhoo hwelll, HemmAyyy. Ahhm share yhoo hwelll."

They hung up and Garver started opening a crate using a crowbar. She pried up nail by nail till the entire top was loosened and ready to come off. The difficulty she encountered led her to the conclusion that she would finish up a few more paperwork duties and call it a day, leaving the rest of the crates for her twenty-three-year-old helper to open the next morning. She moved the top aside and pulled out a well-wrapped piece which turned out to be a perfect example of the very theme of the museum. That was enough physical exertion for her for the day. She made two notes to herself and tucked them into the desk where she kept the notebook. Then she locked the place up and left.

****

Shorty's Diner was full of customers for the dinner hour. Being one of the town's newer and more popular casual places to eat, it was frequently somewhere between half to full capacity. It sat close to the intersection of several small cities and towns so folks drifted in from everywhere to whet their whistle and grab a bite. Open twenty-four/seven they served breakfast, lunch, and dinner around the clock. You want pancakes at eight in the evening, you got 'em. Fried chicken at seven a.m., no problem. The place had a lot of square footage inside for a diner, and the parcel it occupied was large enough to accommodate several big rigs in addition to dozens of local cars and pickups simultaneously. Inside you could find fifty or sixty people eating and drinking at any given time, maximum occupancy being higher. There was an outside patio available during warm weather, but it had not opened for the season yet because it was still nippy most of the day. April weather in Pickax was a sketchy affair. WPKX could be heard playing oldies dimly in the background and outside on the vacant patio. A short break for the weather report by meteorologist Wetherby Goode (whose real name was Joe Bunker) temporarily interrupted the music which resumed quickly afterward. The current selection was telling everyone to Walk Like An Egyptian, but no one was really listening, so everyone who came in and out just walked normally with the exception of two waitresses who had decided on the spur of the moment to entertain the customers. They balanced their trays carefully with a great amount of skill as they Egyptianed around the place from table to table. The cook upped the volume to get the place in the mood while the Bangles' hit song played. Everyone watched and laughed at their antics, and gave hearty applause when the selection ended as the volume was turned back down.

For those who cared to listen, numerous intellectual conversations were occurring simultaneously about everything under the partly cloudy skies:

"I'm not lyin'-that sucker was this big!"

"Saw the thing and got my gun out quick!"

"His mother's coming for a visit, God help me."

"It was starin' me down."

"Like a bright light."

"I don't care who don't believe that thing ain't real-I seen it!"

"Lost three hours I'll never get back."

"Scared the hell outta me!"

"Double pumped the clutch and ran clean off the road."

"This crap is terrible!"

"For a head fulla holes?"

"The Vulcan practice of kolinahr ensures that..."

"My wife ran off with the vet and left me with the dog."

Qwilleran brought Arch Riker to Shorty's instead of ordering Asian food as originally planned. Riker's divorce had hit him hard years earlier but he'd found love again with the former Mildred Hanstable in, of all places, a little town 400 miles north of everywhere. Who knew good things could happen this close to the North Pole? He'd relocated and taken over editing the Something and was ever glad he had.

"To this day I miss the bunch at the old Press Club, Arch. I miss the ambience of the place itself and the food it served every day. I always knew I would never be confronted there by the health police trying to make me feel guilty about biting into artery plaque on rye. It's nice up here don't get me wrong. But it still feels like an adroit change in every aspect of the word. I can appreciate the small town feel of Pickax, but I really miss the big city sometimes." Looking at his companion, he lowered his head and continued as if imparting a confidence: "There are no traffic jams here, Arch. None. Have you seen any? I can't even find any pollution."

"Outside of your Aunt Fanny's fortune which she so kindly left you, I'd think a lack of heavy traffic would be one of the selling points of your relocation, Qwill."

The will had stipulated that in order to inherit his benefactor's vast fortune, Qwilleran had to move to Moose County and live in the area for a five full years consecutively. During that time he had been supported by a very generous regular stipend till he came into the full amount at the end of the five years, which had now passed. It had also stipulated he had to relocate immediately after Fanny Klingenschoen's death, which he had done right after he quit his job at the Daily Fluxion where he had worked with Arch down below back in the day. Though Aunt Fanny had not been an actual relative, she had always thought of Qwilleran as family and been quite fond of him. Still, the reading of her will had come as a total shock which he never saw coming. And now that he had his own business dealings up north to deal with and his column in the Something, he had settled into small town life with muted alacrity. He had a tendency to live on the edge of low blood pressure anyway, so getting overly excited didn't come naturally to him very often.

"It's funny the things you miss. Koko was acting restless and kicking up a terrible fuss the other day, so I decided to take him out for a stroll early in the morning. As I was walking him along the then very quiet thoroughfare I was thinking to myself, Gee, what I wouldn't give for a bunch of traffic to come down the road right about now. I even miss the smell of exhaust."

"So here you are in the pristine wilderness so to speak, rich as a king, and the only thing you can think about is the Press Club with all its pungent air quality, heart attack inducing food, and the fact that you miss traffic jams. Amazing."

"Well, that, plus the dead body Koko found. I was thinking about that, too, after the little scoundrel led me on a goose chase into the woods. I was thinking about that, too."

"I've known you a long time. What magical thing is there about you which continually draws you into the midst of murder and mayhem? It's uncanny how this stuff seeks you out. It's not like you're still on the crime beat or anything. If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were a serial killer who hasn't been found out yet."

"I think that's what a couple of the cops up here think. One of them practically accused me of ending the corpse's life during a day-after interview. But Koko and Yum Yum scared him off and he ran away," grinned the Scotsman. "Say, you should spend the night at the house since Mildred is away. The cats would love to see you."

"I believe Koko could scare anyone if he put his mind to it. I will take you up on that kind offer, I've gotten used to having someone in the house with me since I remarried, and I have no use for total peace and quiet anymore. What have they found out about the deceased?"

Their food arrived and they took a couple of bites before getting back to their conversation.

"It's been less than a week and they're still trying to identify the body. I don't know the right people obviously, so I haven't been able to find out any details that haven't already been published in the Something. There's no missing person report from what I could determine. Wish I knew someone at the coroner's office I could pump for information. I'm still viewed as an outsider here even at this stage of the game by some folks who have a guarded way of interacting with me. I didn't touch much of anything at the scene. I didn't want to pollute the crime scene, as it were. And it seemed to me that if you cover up a dead body with branches and leaves, you did that because a crime was committed."

"Say, I've got an idea. Why don't I use my press credentials from the paper as an excuse to go snooping around? No one in that circle has to know we're personal friends so they should open up to me more readily than they would to Aunt Fanny's nephew. I can say the crime reporter is busy elsewhere but that we wanted to report on any progress being made to keep readers up-to-date regarding the body in the woods found recently. I could throw in the concerned citizens are worried about a murderer running loose angle for motivation for the cops and the coroner to spill the beans if there are any to spill at this point in time."

"Arch, I think you just earned your mooseburger."

"What are you talking about?" Riker suddenly looked concerned.

"I mean you have an excellent idea."

"No, I mean the crack about the mooseburger. What the heck is in this thing?" Riker pulled the top bun off his partially eaten burger and stared at the contents underneath.

"It tastes just like beef, Arch. The critters are cousins, after all. They hunt a lot of them here because there are so many of them all over the place. So when you order a burger at this joint, chances are excellent you're eating moose meat. Don't you think it tastes like cow?" His words were met with an incredulous stare.

"Now you know normally I'm not a queasy person, but for some reason that is just making my stomach do somersaults at the moment. A precious piece of my childhood has just been vanquished. I'm eating Bullwinkle."

"Well, pass him over here and I'll finish him if you don't want it. My doctor isn't here to see me (God forbid) eating bread and red meat."

"Nope. Hunger has won out. I've decided to get over it and finish the moose on my plate. I'm too hungry to go looking for a cow burger right now." He put the top piece of bun back on his sandwich.

"Good, because now I'll tell you that they actually only serve moose here. It's a hallmark of Shorty's 'cuisine' so to speak. I'm sorry, old buddy. It didn't occur to me to say anything. I thought everybody knew."

"They could at least specify that it's moose meat. Paint a picture of one on the front window-they should do that much. The menu just says 'burgers' as if that means something besides cow meat here in the States."

"The dill pickles are actually slices of pickled eels. Turns out contrary to what you'd think, those critters are crunchy."

"Very funny." Riker shot a suspicious look at his friend as he lifted the top bun off his sandwich again and took a good look at the pieces of pickles which he hadn't eaten yet. They looked like pickles.

"I say we enjoy a little fishing before supper and see what we come up with for a catch. If we don't do well, we can always ask Connie to make us all a nice pot roast."

"You mean moose roast?"

"You never would have known had I not told you. Food sources can be very interesting up here. You're going to love the bacon and eggs she'll make us for us for breakfast tomorrow," he said with a mischievous wink.

"I am not eating eggs from some weird animal, or strangely sourced bacon either, for that matter."

"That's too bad. We import fresh platypus eggs from Australia and they're to die for. I'll have Connie pick some up at the gourmet grocery store for us. In addition to being the only mammal that lays eggs, did you know that the platypus is from the monotreme family, and that they have a single duct for urine, feces, and sex instead of multiple openings? It's a fascinating animal."

Riker's stomach did another somersault and he put his mooseburger down. "That's plain disgusting. Knock it off before I upchuck this wild animal you're force feeding me."

His companion grinned. "I have no idea if one can eat platypus eggs. I promise our eggs come from chickens and our bacon comes from pigs. Promise." He loved needling his friend.

"The damage is done. I'll never trust you again. And furthermore, I'm not into going fishing right now. I actually feel like I need a nap after we're done here, if you wouldn't mind. I'm suddenly tired and I feel a headache coming on."

"Not at all. We'll go to the house and settle you in. If you're really not going to finish your burger, I'll take it home for the cats. I told them after I tasted my first one that this meat comes from cows and they believed me."

"You lied to your cats? Isn't lying to one's children a sin or something?"

"I didn't exactly lie; I simply didn't specify that it comes from cow cousins. They eat it right up."

"Please," said Riker as he pushed the largely uneaten mooseburger toward his friend. Platypus eggs aside, he intended to eye his breakfast warily before chowing down the next morning.

"You know, Arch, the native population of moose actually dwindled considerably in years past up here. I have to confess that due to that fact it's still illegal to hunt them in this state. Go ahead and eat your cowburger. I should apologize but the look on your face is pretty priceless," Qwilleran grinned some more.

Though he had been hungry when they initially sat down to dine, Riker refused to take the hamburger back and he took the opportunity to outline in graphic detail where he felt his childhood friend should store it for the long haul. Then he summoned the waitress and ordered chicken. He reasoned that anything he was subsequently served would have to look like a bird of some kind or pieces of a bird, and he felt safer that way.

"You got me and that means I owe you one. Be afraid. Be very afraid," joked Riker.

"How are the kids doing?"

"As well as can be expected. I take them as much as I can but you know this crazy schedule and the distance thing. Jody's going off to college next year, do you believe it? My babies are growing up, Qwill."

"I bet they're always glad to get some time with you nowadays."

"I think they're even gladder that I let them load up on junk food when Mildred's not around to catch us. I never mastered the art of cooking. They wind up eating fast food and sweet stuff and then I get the stink eye from the wife if the kids rat me out. 'Dad lets us eat ice cream every day. Dad takes us to Quicky Burger for dinner. Dad lets us eat potato chips for breakfast.' That kind of stuff gets me in trouble every time. How do women do all the stuff they do? I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. I'm not good at dividing my attention."

"The fairer sex has mastered the art of multi-tasking whereas we have not, for the most part. I believe it's genetically coded that they can have three conversations going at the same time while they cook dinner and help kids with their homework. God apparently did not see fit to gift us thusly. We get to pick up heavy stuff."

"Speaking of the better looking sex how are you faring these days?"

"I suppose you heard Polly has taken a three-year assignment at a library in Paris. Quite suddenly." He looked down at the table.

"I did hear something along those lines. I don't get it. She goes over there for vacation, accepts an unexpected job offer, and just runs out on you like that without notice and without coming back to say goodbye even? And plans to stay for years? You two were together for some time, I don't understand how someone could do that."

"Imagine my surprise," he was still staring at the table. "It's been months and I still haven't heard from her. She's sending for her things. A friend of hers is packing them up."

"I hope she doesn't think you'll be sitting here waiting for her when she gets it in her head to return someday. She'll get tired of Europe and she'll come popping back up before that assignment of hers is up, you watch. The best thing you could do is move on and forget about her, that's my advice to you, my friend."

"I have learned not to try to predict the bent of the female heart when it comes to the subject of relationships." Feeling the need to change the subject, he continued. "Do you think you can start your informal investigation into the case tomorrow? I'm itching to learn something out about Koko's find. Thanks for doing that, Arch."

"You're welcome, and save your gratitude till you get my bill."
Chapter 4

Both of the uniformed men stared as a host of unintelligible sounds fell from the excited woman's mouth. Moaning loudly, she circled the room like a drunken ballet dancer, complete with wringing of hands and wild gestures. Loretta Garver lurched from place to place till sanctuary was found behind them, and clutching onto a display case for support she continued a grievous tirade in her own personal version of Mystery English. For all the sense she made, the museum director might as well have been speaking fluent Martian employing fractured iambic pentameter from underneath the lost continent of Atlantis. The police interview getting underway was frequently punctuated with more outbursts.

"I can't make out a word-sounds like someone shoved her head underwater," said Mutt as he looked away from the speaker.

"Me neither," said Jeff quietly. "Perzackly what language is dat?" Mutt shrugged and shook his head.

"I think I can help you gentlemen," said a fresh-faced young man in his early twenties as he approached them. "She said she came in this morning and all the crates had been opened and stuff was strewn all over the place. We were totally bummed!"

"That's what she just said?"

"Yes."

"Really? You seem to understand her quite well then."

"Really. She told me her speech patterns changed considerably after a very traumatic experience she had some time ago. She was never the same afterward. She told me she sometimes takes medication that helps make her more understandable a portion of the time, providing she doesn't become upset about anything."

"I've never heard of such a thing. Where is she actually from?"

"She told me she was born in New Jersey."

"Then there must be another New Jersey in some foreign country somewhere because that accent does not emanate from these here United States."

"I suppose I've just got an ear for her way of speaking."

"And who might you be exactly?

"I'm Miss Garver's assistant! I'm so lucky to have this job! In a real museum!"

"Specifically, what's your name, son?" asked Mutt.

"Michael Anthony Mazola. My friends call me M.A. Pleased to meet you, sir!" He stuck out an enthusiastic hand which was ignored as the cop scribbled on his pad.

"AHH KHENNOTT BELLAAVE ETT! AHLL HOURR WHERRK! ROWENNNTT!!"

"Can you fill in what happened for us since you seem to...understand...the director there," Mutt's eyes were open wide moving from side to side watchfully checking to see if Loretta Garver was circling around for a pass.

"AHHHMAHHHGAHHHDDD!! DETTLAYNES!!"

"What t' heck duz dat mean?" asked Jeff.

"She's worried about deadlines, grand opening, that sort of thing. This mess sets us back something awful. Are you kidding me?" said M.A. as he looked around in disbelief.

"Ok, so why don't you fill us in on what happened from start to finish this morning? That is when the break-in was discovered, correct? Be specific," said Mutt.

"Yes. Miss Garver arrived a couple of minutes before I did. It was not quite eight a.m. She had just unlocked the back door and was entering the intake area when I arrived. I saw her get out of her car and walk in as I pulled up. That's when we saw the mess you see here! Stuff-artifacts-had been taken out of the crates on those pallets there and thrown all over the place! It's a good thing this stuff is packed to the nines or we'd have a bunch of broken history all around us! Yesterday we had just gotten done cataloging everything in this shipment in preparation for setting some up on shelves and putting some into display cases. We put most of it back into crates grouped by area to be displayed in. We left some items out on the tables back there. Guess we'll have to start all over again. I sure hope some of the ID tags survived the mauling the pieces received. High strangeness!"

"AHHH KHENNOTT GOO OWNN!!"

"What kinds of artifacts are inside these wads of bubble wrap and straw?"

M.A. raised a water bottle to his lips. "Lemme get a slurp. Skulls, mainly. Some ancient tools and weapons, a few coins and pieces of jewelry-real rough finish. Really cool stuff!" Slurping ensued.

"BERREKKENN ENN PAYYCISS!!"

"They're not broken, ma'am. I think the bubble wrap cushioned all of them; you'll see when we open them up. I know they'll be okay!"

"AHH HETT MAHHH LAFFF!"

"Miss Garver, please sit down and take a few deep breaths," said M.A. "Gee, golly, you've gotten yourself all worked up!"

"AHH DEDD NOOTHENNGG UFF THA KAINDD!" came out like a geyser, but she sat down as implored. The common hope in the room was that she would wear herself out before she did so to everyone else.

"Go ahead," said Mutt to Jeff as he handed the interrogation off to his partner. She was starting to scare him the way cats did, so he made his way to the back room where he suddenly felt himself breathing easier. He had never been good at calming upset women. He was, after all, a dog man.

"So, ya gotta buncha skulls dere?" asked Jeff.

"Yes, mostly," said M.A.

"Anytin' missin'?"

"We need to go back through and check every numbered piece off against the inventory list again before I can give you a firm answer. We thought we'd better call you right away when we discovered the break-in."

"Good ting ya did. How soon d' ya tink ya can get us dat inventory wit notes regardin' any missin' pieces, perzackly?"

"I'll start plowing through that as soon as you officers finish up here; there are over 300 pieces that have come in so far. Hopefully I'll have something to you by the end of this week. I can drop it off at the station when we're done if that will help?

"S'good." Because anything that would keep them away from Loretta and Loretta away from them would be excellent to Jeff's way of thinking.

"Gonna check da premises fer signs of a break-in now. Couple o' more questions: Who has keys t' da place besides you and da director dere? Alarm system in place and all functional-like?"

"She has the only set I know of. We've been meaning to get another set made for me but we haven't quite gotten that far yet. No alarm system, believe it or not."

"Any weird visitors lately?"

"No. We're not open yet so no one has been here but us."

"Good enough. Tanks," said Jeff. He made his way to the intake area. "Whudja find?"

"Nothing at all, specifically. No signs of forced entry whatsoever. I think the lock was picked. Not even a tiny nick on anything. The boys from the lab got here a bit ago. They're dusting for prints now."

"Rained agin last night. Feetprints?"

"Nope. I don't see a thing."

"Da kid said da director had t' unlock da door t' da back room here dis mornin' so da perp was kind enough t' lock back up. Criminals wit manners."

"It'll be interesting to see what they took, specifically," said Mutt.

"Perzackly, o' course," said Jeff.

****

"I was doing some shopping at the grocery store today and I heard Dolly Brecker tell Sue Armbruster and Shoobie Willis that the museum has been broken into and vandalized, and they've yet to open! How upsetting for Loretta Garver. She's been working nonstop to get the place ready for grand opening in a week. I can't believe it, Jim. What would someone want with a bunch of skulls and ancient junk? It's not as if there are any items of real value. I appreciate interesting things from the distant past as much as anyone, but ancient bones and such never interested me a whit. Just dead people we should have left alone."

"Don't let her hear you say that, Connie. I don't know the specifics of the subject matter but I am given to understand the exhibit is quite personal to her and that she's highly upset," said Qwilleran. "The paperboy mentioned it when I opened the door unexpectedly and scared the hell out of him this morning. He was delivering somewhat late and I surprised him. I think I'm going to pay a visit to the museum director today. I believe Aunt Fanny would approve."

"Oh, I'm sure she would! You're such a good listener, I'm sure Loretta could use a shoulder to cry on. You're so good at that, Jim. Please take her a couple of pieces of the apple pie I baked. I hear she has a young helper with her there now, a young man from Mooseville."

"I'm glad you've become acquainted with the locals at breakneck speed. Some of them are still guarded with me for some reason, so I'm glad one of us is having luck in that area. And that's a great idea, so please pack up some pie and I'll be on my way in a bit. As soon as I eat another piece, that is. Where's Arch today? He spent the night upstairs because Mildred is down below for a bit. Have you seen him?"

"I encountered him in the hallway earlier and I'm worried. He said he wasn't feeling very well and went back to bed looking God-awful. He's running a fever and coughing and sounds terrible. I might just take him to see Melinda today if his temperature continues to climb or if he feels worse later on since Mildred isn't here to ride herd on the poor man."

"It couldn't hurt. He didn't look too well when we had dinner last night. Said he felt like he needed a nap. I suppose I'll just have to have double ice cream with my pie since he can't eat any for himself. We don't want to be overrun with the stuff." Qwilleran ignored the reference to Dr. Melinda Goodwinter, whom he had dated in the past. Connie didn't know about that and he was content to leave it that way for the time being.

"Ice cream keeps in the freezer a long time."

"I personally never believed that."

He hadn't met the museum director yet but he had been meaning to get around to it seeing as Fanny donated the building to the city which was now being leased to the museum. He had previously figured on dropping in out of curiosity, but since he heard the news of the break-in he thought it would be the decent thing to do, too. Perhaps he could smooth some feathers while enjoying his second favorite pastime, snooping. Writing was his first. The quintessential Renaissance Man, he excelled at smoothing, snooping, and writing, among other things. He missed pounding his typewriter and delivering a finished piece just ahead of a tight deadline. Once a reporter, always a reporter, but pounding a laptop didn't have the same feel. However, he still enjoyed writing his opinion piece column titled The Qwill Pen which was published on Tuesdays and Fridays in the Something. He finished his pie topped with lots of ice cream, and gathered up two more pieces of the scrumptious, freshly homemade dessert and prepared to drive to the museum. One resident of the house saw things differently.

Koko suddenly came tearing into the kitchen at top speed. He ran back out and then ran back in again. This time he leapt at full speed onto a small throw rug near the stove. He dug his claws in just right and went sailing across the smooth tile floor on his fabric sled with his head down and his hind end up in the air on display, just to be polite. Extremely pleased with himself, he was forced to stop when he bonked his head on a cabinet door. Eyes open wide and ears flattened, he dragged the rug back a ways, ran out of the room and started the process all over again because this kind of enjoyment was obviously worth the pain. Yum Yum watched from atop the refrigerator but declined the urge to join her friend due to the fact that the end result did not appeal to her. Koko had no such reservations about bonking his head on hard objects.

"Oh, my. Someone's restless today, Jim. Look at him go!" More racing through the huge dwelling.

The cat clipped the man's shins three separate times under the table as he raced around enjoying himself immensely. Then it happened. The pepper and salt moustache on the face of its owner began to vibrate and didn't stop after it had been smoothed down. Koko ran back in and stood in the doorway.

"I think he wants you to follow him."

"I think you're right."

The man got up and followed the cat into the room where he had put the big dictionary he'd acquired years ago. Koko jumped up on top of the table and started massaging the side of the book with his paws. He left a toe inserted at his chosen page per his usual habit. This was one way he fed clues to his human to follow in order to help the lesser species solve crimes. Qwilleran did not normally broadcast that fact too liberally lest the hearer would judge him worthy of spending some time in a rest home, just as Officer Schodowski had.

"So, I see you're reading the dictionary again? Considering your past success rate and our recent adventures, I make no argument against your process, my little friend."

Qwilleran opened the book and read the words used for column headings on the pages where Koko had inserted his toe.

Foramen headed one column. Forceps headed the other column where Koko had put his toe. Now he was sitting on the indicated page to make sure his intentions were clear. One brown toe pointed directly to the plural of a particular word.

"Foramina? It sounds familiar but what exactly is that?" Qwilleran moved the cat aside and started reading aloud to his companion.

"Foramina is the plural of foramen. The human skull has numerous holes (foramina) through which cranial nerves, arteries, veins and other structures pass. These foramina vary in size and number with age," said the book. Ancient conversations he'd had with coroners over the years he reported on crime were coming back to him in shadowy fashion.

"So you're telling me I have holes in my head? That's not very nice. At least I know what forceps are. I will keep these words in mind. Thank you, honorable Kao K'o Kung. I have decided not to take your first selection personally, but you're the one who's going to have holes in his skull if you keep bonking your head on the kitchen cabinets."

Koko turned his dark brown face upward and squeezed his eyes shut as he enjoyed the respect and adoration of his human, who was now rubbing his ears affectionately. Then Yum Yum walked in to investigate. Her furry friend leapt off the table onto her and that started a wrestling match. The little female got loose and ran into the hallway and the chase was on. Back and forth, in and out, the cats ran and jumped and dove and flew all over the place till they were out of breath and needed a break which lasted all of thirty seconds. After another spirited round of chase and pounce it was time for them to eat, and they began reminding their guardian of that fact loudly and in unison.

"You're in for a treat. I have steak for you."

He walked into the kitchen and got out a small saucepan into which he poured some beef broth and turned the heat on low. He then took Arch's mooseburger from the fridge and removed the meat from the bun, pulled it apart with a fork into small pieces and put it in the saucepan. After a few minutes he took the pan off the heat and spooned the not so gourmet meal onto a plate for the cats to enjoy; not too hot, not too cold. Just right.

The cats sat five feet away from it and looked toward their dish with disdain. Then both of them walked away indignantly. _Moose? Really? And ground up at that!_

"They're in a persnickety mood today, I see," said Connie. Both cats adored her.

"I never should have done it. I'm being paid back for teasing Arch about eating moose meat at Shorty's yesterday. Now they won't touch the leftovers in case they might actually be eating moose which is foreign to them and not approved by their haughty palates. Now I know they perceived bits of the conversation still hanging in the atmosphere. The cats are magic. I never should have done it."

"You made Arch eat moose? No wonder why he doesn't feel well!"

"No, he didn't eat moose. I just told him that he did."

"So you told the cats you made Arch eat moose, too? You know they trust us and believe everything we tell them, don't you?"

"No, no, no! I did not tell them that! Do we have any canned crabmeat for these two gourmets?"

"We always have that in stock. I'll grab a can. I'm adding chef to persnickety felines to my resume." The housekeeper went to the pantry and returned with a can of blue crabmeat.

"Not to worry," said Connie. "I'll feed them for you after which I'm sure they'll groom their fur for a half hour and then pass out for a nice long afternoon nap. Get yourself to the museum and don't forget the pie."

"On my way."
Chapter 5

Dr. Melinda Goodwinter put the ends of the stethoscope into her ears and listened to her patient's chest. Then she put the device on his back and listened to his lungs one at a time. "Take deep breaths." The patient obeyed and wheezed and coughed violently.

"How long have you felt ill?"

"Just about a couple of days now. It's gotten steadily worse since last night," wheezed Arch. "I feel like someone stole half my air."

"I don't like the way your lungs sound so I'm packing you off to the hospital for a chest x-ray. Your fever is rather high, also. I'd like to check you in and observe you for a day or so to keep an eye on you. The fact that you became so sick so fast is of concern. This dastardly flu epidemic is killing even young, healthy people within a few days this season. I would feel better if you would let me check you in. Deal?"

"I actually feel bad enough to say yes. That is fine with me. Thanks, doc. I never go to the doctor. Qwill said you're a good doc and I believe him." Qwilleran had once again left out details regarding the fact that he and Melinda had dated for some time in years gone by when discussing other things with Arch.

"I'll make a note to thank him for the vote of confidence. I'm going to start your paperwork now online and I'll call the hospital to have them prepare to admit you. I can call an ambulance for you or I can drive you over myself. I'm going there anyway shortly. You're my last patient today."

"Oh, that is so kind of you, Melinda. I will drive Arch over and save you the trouble since I brought him here," said Connie. Though not of a newer vintage her van was holding up, kind of.

"Good. By the time you get him there they'll be ready for him. Sorry your week is starting off so badly."

"That's ok," wheezed Arch. "At least I have my friends to help me."

"Lean on me, Arch. We'll walk to my van slowly."

"You might have to carry me, Connie."

Twelve minutes later the sick man and his nursemaid arrived at the hospital and they went to the emergency room door to get him checked in per Melinda's instructions. He looked so pale and weak that a big muscular male nurse who happened to be standing near raced to put a wheelchair under the patient seconds after he and his escort walked in. Arch plunked down and promptly passed out. His head rolled backwards.

The nurse reached down and took Arch's wrist in his fingers looking for a pulse. Then he pressed his fingers against Arch's neck. He asked Connie for the non-responsive man's name as he tried to find signs of life. She had barely gotten "Arch Riker" out of her mouth when-

"We have a possible code blue over here!" shouted the man as he pressed his fingers to Arch's neck again still looking for a pulse.

Frenetic activity began as the desk attendant grabbed a microphone and boomed the code blue throughout the hospital. Feet could be heard running toward them as the nurse rapidly wheeled the patient toward the emergency bays. Within seconds an emergency room doctor appeared and knelt in front of the wheelchair. He felt for a pulse after which he opened Arch's eyes and shined a light into them. Then he felt the carotid artery for himself.

"I couldn't detect a pulse!" said the nurse.

"Get him into room six and we'll get him on the table stat!" commanded the doctor. The nurse took off running for room six pushing the wheelchair with the doctor running along with them. He and the doctor lifted Arch onto the examining table there in one swift movement.

Connie followed them with a look of bewilderment and horror on her face. It was just like this when Jack died. She felt as if she'd suddenly entered an alternate universe. _My God, what did they mean get him in there STAT? Isn't that code for right damn now? Emergency happening right damn now? Why can't they find his pulse? What's wrong with these people? Oh, my God!_

"Mr. Riker, can you hear me?" The doctor shone a light in the patient's eyes again. Nothing. No pupil response. "Who took the defibrillator out of this room?! Go get one!" but the male nurse was already running to find a device.

"Can we clear this room, please? Only authorized personnel." The curtain was shut in her face as she strained to see what was unfolding. Connie took a couple of steps back as the nurse came pounding back down the hallway dragging a machine on wheels behind him.

The curtain opened and they didn't bother to close it this time as the machine was positioned next to the examining table. The doctor was already up on the table kneeling over Arch performing CPR on her friend. The bed was turned to the side so she could see that Arch's shirt and undershirt had been cut open. Then she saw his face, which had turned blue. She faltered for a moment and thought she would pass out next. The doctor jumped down and applied gel to her friend's chest and shouted "CLEAR!"

The machine charged up quickly and the paddles were now being used to shock her friend. She found herself up against a wall, her fingers trying to dig into it desperately as she watched Arch's body jerk violently. Everything else in the universe faded away as she watched the awful scene. He was flat lining, no heartbeat. Just like her Jack. It all came flooding back.

Again.

"CLEAR!"

Nothing.

"You really need to cooperate, Riker! Come on, man!" the doctor was yelling.

"CLEAR!"

The monitor registered a blip, then another, then another. Success. Needles and tubes appeared and were inserted into and attached to the patient. An intravenous drip was started. Minutes passed out of sync as time seemed to warp. The orders and conversations in room six blended into one big blob of sound.

Connie had unintentionally melted down the wall till she was sitting on the floor with her knees up to her chest. She could pick out the beat, beat, beat of Arch's heart as a machine broadcast the precious sound throughout room six and beyond. She thought for a moment or two that she might need the electric paddles applied to her next but she hung in there breathing shallowly. Melinda Goodwinter came rushing through the door.

"What the hell happened?!"

"He passed out as soon as we got here and his heart stopped beating, there was not a second to lose!" cried Connie. Her mouth was dry and the color had drained from her face. "I'm so glad you told us to come here! If you hadn't-" she couldn't finish the sentence. Tears ran down her face.

"I was coming here anyway but they paged me and I came over as fast as I could. Let's get you off the floor. Come on." Melinda picked the forlorn woman up and got her into a chair. "I'm going to talk to the attending physician. I'll be right back."

Connie became one with the chair. She would not move until they forced her to.
Chapter 6

Qwilleran stepped out the back door of the house and walked to his car. He didn't get far before his foot came down into a squishy, steaming pile of pellet-shaped unpleasantness. Apparently, Linda didn't like him, or maybe her ire was raised because they were now making sure to close and lock all doors to the house in anticipation of another one of her visits, so she had recently left a large pile of goat pellets right near the car. Life is all about timing.

Swearing away and scraping the mess off of his shoe on the grass, he got the garden hose and gave it a good washing before anything dried. Then he took out a shovel and buried the rest of the pellets so that he wouldn't encounter them again. Somehow, the present she'd left for him wasn't on par with the pastry 'gift' she had helped herself to while in his house recently. He nosed the car to the foot of the driveway and braked to check for traffic as something caught his eye in the rearview. Things didn't look right. Carefully stepping out of the car again, he walked over to the flower beds that lined the porch along the front of the house. Correction: He walked over to what was left of the flower beds, which wasn't much. He correctly identified the eating machine which had destroyed every single flower bed and eaten every single flower as the same culprit who had left him a big mess to step in that morning; the same evil doer who had previously broken into the house and stolen his donuts. Linda's list of crimes was growing rapidly, but he wasn't going to stand for it. He recognized a serial criminal when he saw one, and he was formulating a plan to deal with her.

He wasn't far into his trip to the museum when the car bumped over something in the road and a popping sound was heard. The driver pulled over to the shoulder of Ittibittiwassee Road as a hissing sound heralded the flattening of his tire. Perfect. He told himself before he got out of the car that he'd better not find any tooth marks on the tire or he would go buy Linda from her owner just for the pleasure of shooting her personally. In actuality, he wouldn't have the heart to shoot her, but he sure could sell her to a rancher in Wyoming. That, he could do.

"Damn it, anyway!" More cussing followed as the man got out of his car and popped the trunk open. He always travelled fully prepared, so a full-sized spare tire of somewhat questionable quality, a jack, and a lug wrench waiting to be pressed into service smiled up at him. Good thing he was equipped with two pieces of homemade apple pie just in case he got stranded and had to fend off starvation while fighting for his life against marauding bunnies and crafty raccoons.

Before he could get the tire out of the trunk a friendly driver pulled his pickup truck in front of the car and jumped out to help. He was tall and muscular, and happened to be wearing scrubs.

"Hey, need a hand?"

"Well, seeing you're half my age and pretty strong looking I'd say, sure, I'll take all the help I can get."

"No problem. Wouldn't want you having a heart attack or anything like that. Just had one of those admitted to the hospital where I work over on Crossover Road."

The good neighbor took everything out of the trunk that he needed and got to work. Not only was he strong, he was fast. He had the flat tire off in no time. Qwilleran tried to ignore the fact that the young buck naturally assumed he was a candidate for a heart attack due to the fact that he no longer looked as young as he would have liked to. Reality is overpopulated with things we don't care to think about.

"That's too bad. It must be hard to watch people get so sick. I admire health care workers and their dedication to taking care of us all."

"Yeah, thanks for that. Like I was saying, some newspaper editor from the Something died and we brought him back." There was a long pause while it sank in. The owner of the flat tire suddenly felt his stomach muscles involuntarily tighten.

"What did you say?"

"I said some guy around your age from the Something just died of a heart attack and we brought him back. Good thing his doctor had just told him to check in for a couple days. He'd been sick with high fever and wheezing and coughing. Lucky for him he went to Dr. Goodwinter."

"When did this happen?"

He glanced at his watch. "Not quite three hours ago. I was ready to end my shift when in came this little lady trying to hold up this guy who looked like he was going to faint, which is exactly what he appeared to do once I got a chair under him. Turns out he went code blue immediately, just completely quit breathing. Had to shock him three times to get him back. We had to work fast. Dr. Bridges and I threw him up on a table and the doc started doing CPR and I ran for the defib and everyone got to work. It was touch and go there for a while-he didn't respond to the first two attempts to shock his heart back to beating. I thought I was looking at my first goner for sure. Then the doc yelled at him pretty good and bingo, he came back the third time. Guess we should always yell at all our patients when they code like that!"

The friendly helper already had the new tire in place and was tightening the lug nuts back up making sure the wheel cover was securely in place. Then he stood up.

"There you go. There isn't a ton of tread on your spare, so I'd get a new tire mounted as soon as possible. Can't be too careful."

"Forgive my lack of manners. I'm Jim Qwilleran," said the grateful driver as he stuck out his hand.

"Alvin Lake, call me Al."

Well, thanks for your help, Al. I truly appreciate it. A very kind and neighborly thing to do."

"Say, I've heard your name bandied about. Are you Miss Klingenschoen's nephew? I liked Miss Fanny. She was a great old gal. I did some work on her garage for her the year before she died. I'm a full time nurse but I do carpentry on the side. She was a right pleasant lady."

"No blood relation but I called her Aunt Fanny. Say, how is that patient doing?"

"When I left he was doing all right. They're treating him for the fever and wheezing. He'll have a chest x-ray tomorrow. He looks weak, but you'd never know the guy died a while ago to look at him. This flu is flat taking people out all over the country this year. Wicked stuff."

"Again, thank you, Al. You've been more help than you know."

"See you around."

****

"Can you tell me what room Arch Riker is in?"

"He's in intensive care, no visitors. There's a lady waiting to see him, too, in the waiting room. I told her she can't see him but she won't leave."

"Thanks." Qwilleran strode into the waiting room at the hospital. Connie McCloud was sitting in a chair looking deflated and pasty. The color which had drained out of her face earlier that day and had not yet returned. When she saw him she jumped out of the chair.

"Oh, Jim, it was awful, just awful!" she began to cry again as he put his arms around her. He held her and she let loose with a torrent of tears she had been holding in since reliving the scene which was identical to the one which had taken her husband from her a few years earlier.

"Connie, what happened?! Take your time." They sat down as she composed herself.

"We went to see Dr. Goodwinter because Arch was so feverish and felt so badly, wheezing and coughing like a broken accordion or something," she said between sniffles. "He just sounded awful and his temperature was well over a hundred. Melinda said he should be admitted and she made the arrangements while I drove him to the hospital. When we got there, a nurse got him a wheelchair right away and he sat down and he died right then and there, Jim! As soon as we walked through the door! They kept shocking him and he didn't want to come back at first. It was just like that when my husband died!" Another torrent of tears followed. He comforted her till she calmed down.

"Sounds to me Arch is lucky to have you for a friend. When was the last time you ate?"

"Breakfast I suppose."

"I have an idea. Since we're not allowed to see Arch, how about we go get some dinner and fuel up before we come back here later on or tomorrow and give these good folks the stink eye if they still won't let us see him? You look exhausted."

"What if he asks for us?"

"He's not going to do that right about now. He's probably having tests or sleeping. He needs his rest. Let's go."

"It feels funny leaving him here."

"I get the feeling he's in very good hands. Dr. Bridges saved his life and is overseeing his care now and so is Melinda. He's in good hands, Connie." The man wanted nothing more than to see his sick friend at that moment in time but he had to take care of his other friend now as best he could.

They walked out and took his car to a quiet upscale restaurant and ordered short ribs roasted with potatoes and carrots along with steamed vegetables for him, and lentil soup with smoked pork and salad for her. To their surprise, they were hungrier than they imagined they would be under the circumstances. The food was spectacular, the first thing that had gone right that day. The cheesecake they had for dessert was as good as the meal itself. They felt themselves beginning to relax.

"I feel some strength coming back to me now. Dinner was a good idea," said Connie. "I apologize for going to pieces back there. I don't usually do that sort of thing but it so reminded me of the scene when my husband died. I'm sorry.

"You owe me no apology, don't be silly. And I feel better, too, now that we've eaten dinner. I'm going to stop and see Melinda tomorrow and thank her."

"Thank her for me, too, would you? Just think if she had sent Arch home," she shuddered involuntarily.

"Thank God she didn't. We may be in the sticks up here but the medical care has been superior so far from what I've seen and experienced in the time I've lived here."

"Mildred and I are such close friends, and you know I've become fond of Arch the longer I've known him. Mildred just adores him. For this to happen to him at such a young age just doesn't seem fair. A heart attack took my Jack right after his fortieth."

"I wish life was fair. We don't do fairness very well here on this planet."

"That reminds me. You never made it to the museum today, did you?"

"No, I didn't. I left the house later than I wanted to as you know. Then I made a stop to pick up some sundries for myself at the drugstore and then I got a flat tire on the way to the museum. The guy who stopped to help me out is the one who told me about Arch. Apparently, he's the nurse who got you the wheelchair as soon as you walked in. He told me the story while he changed my tire for me. I never told him Arch is a friend, just let him talk. Not the kind of news I wanted to hear."

"What a way for you to learn about what happened. I forgot my phone at home or I would have given you a call to let you know. But it was nice of that Good Samaritan to change your tire for you."

"I suppose I'm starting to officially look like an antique now. The guy said he stopped to help me because he didn't want me to have a heart attack changing the tire myself. Then he went into his story about a newspaper editor around my age from the Something whom he had just worked on with one Dr. Bridges. I couldn't believe it. I turned around and shot over to the hospital as soon as we parted."

"So when do you think you'll get around to visiting the museum?"

"I'm going to spend a good part of tomorrow with Arch if they'll let me. You're welcome to come if you feel up to it. Then I'll worry about paying a call on the museum director later this week. I'll call the Something tomorrow and fill them in on what's going on with Arch after I get an update on his health."

"That sounds like a good idea. My, I'm suddenly very tired. I could fall asleep right here, and it's still early."

"Then I think we should head home. Processing extreme emotions can be exhausting. I'm feeling it myself. We'll circle back to the hospital and pick up your van." And with that, they paid the bill and left.
Chapter 7

MOOSE COUNTY SOMETHING:

This just in: The grand opening of our new museum directed by Miss Loretta Garver will be delayed by approximately two weeks. We'll keep you advised of the new opening date coming in May. It'll be out of this world!

She had hated to do it, but delaying the opening till they could get a handle on what was taken and a total reconciliation of the inventory remaining simply had to be done before they could continue. M.A. Mazola was now working five to six days per week to help get things back on track. He would have worked seven days a week for free if he'd been asked, but he cashed the checks and was thrilled to be doing what he was doing. Additional shipments which had to be inventoried and dealt with had come in since the break-in. There was enough work for four people.

"I think we have a good count now, Miss Garver. I've reconciled the inventory from the first shipment but something's not right."

"Whhah?"

"Well, according to my count and after cross-checking each piece twice, there isn't anything missing. I don't get it."

"Thett khennott bay rate. "Hyou masst chikk ett heggenn, HemmAyyy, place."

"I certainly will, but gee, Miss Garver-I've already checked it twice. I'll do it again."

"Ahh well hallp yhou."

Together they went through each piece cross-checking the item to its inventory tag and cross-checking that to the inventory supplied by the sender who had lent out his private collection to them. Then they recounted each column of their spreadsheet which they had separated by type of artifact and got a total for each column. Then they added the columns together. Everything tallied perfectly. Again.

"Ahh doe nett henndarstenndd ett."

"That's what I was saying. There is nothing missing."

"Whhah wedd crammanals brekk enn endd staale noothenngg?"

"My point exactly. And they even locked back up after they left. I've never heard of criminals doing stuff like that. I'm going to take this reconciliation down to the police station and let them know. I promised them I would do so as soon as we got everything figured out. There's some high strangeness going on here, Miss Garver. Gee, golly!"

"Sennkk yhou, HemmAyyy."

M.A. Mazola left and drove to the police station with the inventory list he had copied and marked up for the officers who had interviewed him regarding the break-in. He asked for Officer Rinaldi and was told he was on patrol.

"I'm Officer Goddard. Can I help you?" The cop was interrupted by a crack of thunder which prompted him to gaze out the window. "Looks like it's going to rain. Ninety percent chance I'd say."

M.A. told his story to Officer Goddard at the desk and why he needed to get the list to the little cop. Shift was ending in ten, so if he wanted to wait a bit he could give it to him personally or the desk cop offered to give the list to the little cop for him. M.A. decided to wait. In a few minutes cruisers began to pull into the lot signaling the change of shift. M.A. went out to the parking lot and approached short cop Jeff.

"Hi, Officer. I have that inventory list I promised you."

"Good. Tanks."

"There's something weird going on. We counted at least three times but nothing was missing. Not one thing."

"S'weird all right. Ya sher 'bout dat?"

"Specifically what's not missing?" chimed in tall cop Mutt.

M.A. stared at him. "Nothing is missing. Specifically."

"An yer sher?" said little cop Jeff.

"We counted and cross-checked repeatedly! We couldn't be more sure! Are you kidding me?"

"Ok, calm down. S'weird, dat's all."

"About as weird as locking up after themselves when they left, agreed," said M.A.

"Perzackly."
Chapter 8

"I just called the hospital. Arch is in critical but stable condition. We still cannot visit. They may allow us in tomorrow but nothing for today, Connie."

"That makes me nervous. What if he got worse?"

"They said his condition is the same, no change from yesterday but they are doing some more tests today. Looks like I'm going to do some detective work on my own then since Arch is in no shape to do it for me. Wish I felt more motivated to jump on that today, but I just don't."

"Don't push yourself, Jim. What ghastly business to begin with. Poor little Koko finding a dead body-poor little thing!"

Upon hearing his name, said cat rolled over and stuck his front feet in the air and stretched his long back legs out straight from his nesting spot centered right on the seams of two adjacent couch cushions.

"My, what a beautiful tummy you have, Koko," said the housekeeper. The sleepy cat loudly purred his way back to dreamland with his back legs hanging off the couch. "Someone's jealous."

Yum Yum walked into the room and jumped up into Qwilleran's lap. "Don't you worry sweetheart, you're beautiful, too. Such a sweet, lovely girl." The little female put her front paws on her human's chest and put her dark brown muzzle on his shoulder. She sat like that making her own soft music as he held her and stroked her fur gently. Though he had taken over care of both the cats at young ages from others who had passed away, he loved his little charges as if they had always been his. After all, they allowed him to live in their house and pay the bills. Life just doesn't get any better than being owned by a cat, unless you're owned by two.

Whereas Koko was super smart and outgoing, he was not usually a lap cat. That was Yum Yum's department providing she liked you. Though she was getting better about it with age, she was normally wary of strangers and would usually watch them from afar. If she sensed gentleness in a soul she would make herself available to such if she also determined they liked cats, which cats can always sense. She loved to snuggle, and Qwilleran often woke up with her either burrowed under his arm or sleeping full length up against him in the morning. He had learned to turn over carefully in bed, if at all. God forbid he should hurt his darling girl. He would never forgive himself.

Connie McCloud was someone Yum Yum had taken to quickly. Qwilleran had met her while doing a story down below years earlier when he was a feature reporter and she owned her own restaurant there. A murder occurred nearby while he was putting the story together, and he had immediately begun snooping around for clues. A crime reporter is always a crime reporter no matter what else they busy themselves with. He had been assigned other feature duties at the Daily Fluxion which had him interviewing various restaurant owners in the area at the time, but his senses remained sharp in his former area of expertise. Having been widowed some years earlier, Connie was feeling the need for change. Around that same time, he was making some changes of his own and having heard about the death of her husband, he called her and asked if she might want to come up north and cook and clean for him. He had been making do with a cleaning service after the unfortunate demise of his previous housekeeper/cook who had also been a transplant from down below, so he was thrilled when she jumped at the chance. Everything became much more pleasant for them both after she arrived. That she liked to clean, did so excellently, and was an outstanding cook was a blessing for him. She was also a great conversationalist with a great sense of humor. They laughed a lot together and dwelled comfortably in the vintner's house. She needled him regularly and he loved it. Life is all about timing, and the times were changing for Qwilleran and Connie, though they didn't quite realize that yet. Some thought it odd that this was the second time the man had a housekeeper/cook come up to join him from down below. With any luck, this one would survive the experience.

"Ok, despite the fact that I'm unmotivated I shouldn't wait any longer. I'm going to swing by the coroner's office today and ask about the identity of the body and the cause of death. They'll either talk to me or they won't, but I shouldn't just sit here anymore."

"I don't know what to do with myself today. We can't visit Arch and I'm on edge about that whole thing. Maybe I'll bake another pie."

"There cannot be too much pie in the world. That would be like saying there's too much ice cream, and that's impossible."

"You never made it to the museum the other day. Did you eat the two pieces of pie I sent you off with?"

He looked at her but didn't speak.

"You did. I knew it. Don't complain to me when your pants no longer fit."

"It's a sin to waste food."

"Pie keeps in the fridge several days."

"I personally never believed that."

"Just as you never believed ice cream keeps very long in the freezer. Got it."

"One should not be persecuted for the way one was raised."

"Then one is going to need bigger pants."

****

Yum Yum was still attached to her dad as he took comfort in her overwhelming affection. She had fallen asleep against his chest and he wasn't quick to move. This pushed his agenda to the afternoon. Seeing no reason he could not fit both excursions in, Qwilleran decided to stop off at the museum to introduce himself first and then swing by the coroner's office afterward. He let his sleeping girl doze for quite some time before he transferred her to the couch near her boyfriend. Operations performed before he'd met them assured the cat's love for one another would always be pure, and that was just fine with the man. It did not dampen the sweet affections of the Siamese for one another.

He stopped into Shorty's for a quick bite rather than bother Connie to fix him something for lunch. The usual conversations could be heard as he ordered himself a burger and fries.

"That's just not normal I tell you."

"Why didn't he just say so?"

"That's too much technology if you ask me."

"Times were simpler back then."

"I can't stop the tractor on a dime, y'know."

"The guy had a heart attack after he ate here!"

"I don't care, it's creepy!

"Another break-in?"

"The tall one is stupid."

"The short one ain't no better."

"She used her shotgun for a crutch and shot herself in the foot."

Qwilleran downed his food and a cup of coffee and headed to the museum building. He pulled in and saw two police cars in the parking lot. He walked in the front door on the heels of an officer he was not familiar with. Inside there was a young guy who looked to be in his twenties standing over a woman wearing a dark brown and fawn colored caftan who was sitting in a chair in a state of obvious despair in the very large front room of the museum. M.A. Mazola was trying to comfort the woman but she was apparently having a nervous breakdown and didn't wish to interrupt herself with the employment of sensible behavior.

"AHHHMAHHHGAHHDDD!! NOTT EHHGHENN!! AHH KHENNOTT BELLAAVE ETT! AHLL HOURR WHERRK ROWENNNTT!! EHHGHENN!! OWW NOOO!! AHH KHENNOTT TEKK AINEEMORR!! MAHH LAFF ISS ROWENNNTT!! EHHGHENN!!"

The cop stared at the woman, confused. Qwilleran stared at her, likewise confused.

"Miss Garver, you're hyperventilating, please breathe into this paper bag!" said M.A. For some mysterious reason she did so instead of arguing with him. The police officer staring at the woman still looked confused. So did Qwill.

"I'm Officer Webster. Something tells me this conversation won't be very upbeat," he said as he glanced over at Loretta, then redirected his attention to M.A. "So, what happened? You called about a break-in?"

"Yes, we had another one!"

"EHHGHENN!!" Loretta took a break from the paper bag. Everyone looked at her, then back at M.A. who helped the museum director put the bag back up to her mouth.

"Ok, let's take this from the beginning." Identities were established as was the date of the first break-in.

"So, what's missing this time?"

"As soon as we clean this place up and find all the inventory and get it checked off again, I'll have to let you know," said M.A. "They did the exact same thing the first time! And they didn't take a thing then!"

"What exact same thing?"

"They took stuff out of the containers they were shipped here in, threw stuff all over the place in just the same fashion."

"What do you suppose they're looking for?"

"Darned if I know. Are you kidding me? Skulls and tools and a little rough jewelry if you even want to call it jewelry, that's all that's in here. That and a few mummy parts."

"VENNDELLS!! AHHH!!"

"Breathe, Miss Garver, breathe!" The woman went back to huffing into her bag.

"Not exactly what your average run of the mill thief would be after. Did they vandalize anything? Maybe it's a couple of kids up to mischief?"

"Well, if it is, then they're up to mischief of the weird kind. Who picks a lock and doesn't leave any evidence and locks the place back up when they leave? Twice? Are you kidding me? This doesn't make any sense. We weren't here this morning, just planned on coming in this afternoon. When we got here and saw the mess I looked at the lock in the front and the one in the back and didn't see a scratch anywhere."

"Maybe they used a window."

"The only windows in this place are in the intake area and they're about 25 feet off the ground, so I doubt that. The ceilings in there are really high. You're free to look around all you want."

At that point in time, two familiar cops walked into the large room from the intake area. Qwilleran felt a wave of "Oh, not again" wash over him briefly but said nothing.

"We didn't find anything indicating a break-in, specifically," said Mutt to Webster.

"Dem windas in dere is real high; how d' ya s'pose dey got in dere, perzackly?" said Jeff to Webster.

"I won't know anything till I check out the back room and examine both the lock up here and the one back there," answered Webster. The Dynamic Duo then noticed Qwilleran standing there quietly.

"Say, ya gotta habit o' bein' around crime scenes, don't cha?"

"Officer Rinaldi, how pleasant to see you again," said Qwill. "Officer Schodowski." The greetings were not returned.

"It would seem so lately. I just stopped to introduce myself to Miss Garver. My aunt donated this building to the city before they sold it to a private firm. I wanted to see how things were progressing here and give Miss Garver my condolences on the first break-in. From what I'm hearing there's been another one?"

"Yer real sharp dere, chief," said short cop Jeff.

When Loretta realized who the tall man with the large moustache was, she took time out from her nervous breakdown to introduce herself. "Whirr air mahh mennairrs! Ahh emm Lovettahh Gahhvahh. Soo plissed tow mate yhoo." The hyperventilating woman had stood up and removed the bag from her mouth. She walked over to the visitor and stuck out her hand.

"Miss Garver, I'm Jim Qwilleran. I've heard a lot about the good work you're doing here."

"Pliss, cull may Lovettahh."

"I will certainly do that, Lovetta."

"Ett's Lovettah."

"Yes, _Loretta_ , please forgive me."

"Sairtainnlaay."

"I'm going to check out your back room, Miss Garver. I'll be back in a bit," said Webster.

"Sennkk yhoo soo match, Effessairr."

Mutt was walking backwards away from them for some reason and he was just about to step on an artifact lying on the floor.

"NOOOOO!! DOE NETT BERREKK ETT!!" screeched Loretta at the top of her lungs right at Mutt.

The tall cop got so scared he stumbled into the abandoned chair she'd just gotten up from and fell on his backside on the floor, but somehow managed to miss the artifact he had not noticed being there anyway. Rushing over, she suddenly looked like a ten-foot caftan-wearing Siamese cat baring its fangs and unsheathing its claws to him. He had a look of abject terror on his face as he scrambled up and ran back into the intake area in back. He needed a paper bag himself now. She grabbed hers and started huffing into it again.

Qwilleran and M.A. shook hands and introduced themselves. After a short conversation he could tell that there would be no calming Loretta down anytime soon, and that there was nothing else to learn which he had not already gleaned from standing listening to the goings on of the last few minutes. He asked M.A. if he could stop in again when things calmed down and the answer was an emphatic and gracious yes. He exchanged mobile numbers with the young man and called out goodbye to the discombobulated museum director as he left.

As he drove he recognized a familiar figure ambling by the side of the road. A brown and white goat was being led home on a rope around it's neck by farmer Abel Derrick, who was retrieving her from her recent activities around town. Qwilleran pulled over to the shoulder and parked and got out.

"Say, you must be Abel Derrick. I'm Jim Qwilleran. Nice to meet you."

"Same."

"Say, Abel. Would this be the famous Linda?"

"Yep."

"I thought I recognized her. Linda paid me and my housekeeper a visit the other morning. Walked right into our kitchen. Can you believe that?"

"Yep."

"Say, Abel, how exactly does Linda manage to escape your farm day after day? Word has it she's in town more than she's home safe in her pen." Qwilleran walked along with Abel and his goat while they talked.

"Fence needs fixin'."

"She also left a pile of goat pellets in my yard which I stepped in just recently. Can't say I appreciated that after she walked in my house and stole the pastry off my table beforehand."

"Sorry 'bout that."

"So, are you planning on fixing the fence soon, I take it?"

"Keep fixin' it. She keeps breakin' it."

"Is there anywhere else you can keep her that she can't get out of?"

"Got nowhere else."

"How would you feel about steel fencing just for little Linda here?"

"Expensive."

"My treat. What say we meet at your place tomorrow morning and review the options?"

Suddenly, an ear curdling scream at maximum volume came out of the goat who had stopped walking and turned around to face Qwilleran. The sound was so loud and so unexpected that he jumped a foot and staggered. This had never happened to him in the city. Meowing, barking, chirping, and a few angry squirrels making chittering noises, but no animal screaming had ever happened to him down below.

"MY GOD!! HOW IS SHE DOING THAT?!!"

"They do that when they get mad." Abel never missed a beat.

Qwilleran's heart was still pounding. Now he knew that the goat understood English and obviously did not want a steel fence keeping her from her appointed rounds. And she could scream. Who the hell knew goats could scream?!

"Well, let's take the chance anyway. I'll see you in the morning. Is that okay with you?"

"Fine."

He hurried back to his car and sped away.
Chapter 9

Qwilleran drove down Dawson and turned left on Main. Some two miles later he turned right on Taylor and arrived at the morgue building, which also housed a number of business offices and an outpatient clinic on the upper floors. He hadn't had a conversation on the lines of the one he was now going to undertake in well over a decade, and he hoped he remembered enough to impress the coroner with his acumen, however much of it was still intact. During his crime reporting years, he knew as much as a neophyte could gather from reading many autopsy reports and having several follow-up conversations with coroners at various locations. He could hold his own back in the day. Though he never enjoyed it, he could talk guts and gore with the best of them then. He preferred not to have to, but he had no similar contacts in his current home town, so it had now become a necessity. You just don't leave a dead body in the woods for his cat to find and not expect him to go snooping. The fact that Koko had known the body was there was a miracle in itself, as it always was whenever the cat imparted one of his famous clues, but Qwilleran had tripped on the body in question personally, and that impelled him to find out whatever he could firsthand since that had become necessary for his peace of mind. It was going on two o'clock.

He entered the Moose County Morgue building and looked around for signs of life. Walking up and down a couple of hallways calling out hello, he found he was alone. Morgues usually keep their guests in coolers in basements, so he started looking for an elevator or a stairwell. He found the elevator and got inside and pushed B. It descended ever so slowly as elevators usually do when they don't have very far to go. The door opened in the basement in a short hallway. There was another open door in front of him which led to a room which smelled like all the familiar chemicals. He walked in and looked around. There were two guests resting under sheets on two steel tables in front of him to his left. He had never enjoyed seeing the necessary physical proof of crime associated with autopsies, and he was thankful that the guests were covered up.

Standing next to the table where the far resident lay was a plump little woman of about five foot one. She had a chest cracker in her hand and was just about to draw back the sheet on one of her guests when Qwilleran cleared his throat loudly.

"Please pardon the interruption. I'm looking for the coroner." The woman spun around.

"Well you found her." Then as if answering speaking into a microphone, she said loudly in a perfect announcer's voice: "Boros Mortuary: You Stab 'Em, We Slab 'Em!" as she walked over and peeled off her gloves in preparation for a handshake. "I'm Sara Boros, what can I do for you?"

"I'm Jim Qwilleran, Sara. Nice to meet you. I found a body about a week and a half ago. I was wondering if I could ask you if the deceased had been identified yet."

"A week and a half. That would be the one from the woods?"

"That's the one. Found it under a pile of leaves and branches off of Ittibittiwassee."

"That's right. Let me get that report." Thankfully, she had put the chest cracker down and left the sheet covering guest number two in place, then walked over to a filing cabinet at the end of the room. She pulled out a folder and started looking through it while the Scotsman wandered over to peek at it with her. He towered over the little woman as he scanned everything the coroner was looking at. Then Boros looked through some recent mail.

"Nope. It doesn't look like we've ID'd that body yet. When they called me I went into the woods to take a look at the body before they moved it. It was quite a ways in. You some kind of hiker or something?"

"I do like to walk, but my cat got away from me that day and by the time I found him he was way back in the woods, and I that's how I found the body."

"What do you let him loose outside for then?"

"I don't. I was taking him for a walk. He was on a leash and wearing a harness. It's a long story. Were you able to determine the cause of death?"

"You walk your cat?"

"Yes."

"That's weird."

"Were you able to determine the cause of death?"

"Doesn't he pitch a fit and try to get away?"

"Yes, that's exactly what happened. Have you-"

"Some harness. Hope you didn't pay much for it."

"So, tell me, Sara, have you found the cause of death yet?"

"He hadn't been under the leaves and brush for long when you found him. I'm expecting test results back in another week maybe. Labs are not fast at returning results, if you know what I mean. He's got enough blunt force trauma on him to do the job due to internal bleeding, but I won't know the definitive cause for sure till the blood test results come in."

"Was there a missing person's report issued recently that you know of?"

"I haven't heard. Cops can fill you in on that. You're Fanny's nephew."

"Yes, I am."

"She belonged to the Mystery Society Club in Mooseville, you know. Darn good at solving crimes before anybody else did. Deaf as a stone but smart as a whip right till the end. We had our last club meeting about a month before she passed. I sure hated seeing her come in here. Shame that boy pushed her down the stairs, just a shame. Almost didn't have the heart to work on her when she came in."

"Thank you for that. So the corpse was male as I thought it was. I didn't want to turn him over or pollute the crime scene before the police arrived. Approximate age?"

"Around 45 or 50. Had a big moustache just like yours."

"Did he? At least he was distinguished. Is there anything else you can tell me about the body?"

"He was around 6'1" or a little better and probably weighed around 200 pounds while he still drew breath. Actually kind of fits your description now that I stand here looking at you. Even had your hair and eye color. Of course, he was thinner than you are. Got any family up this way?"

Qwilleran immediately sucked his belly in as best he could.

"No, I don't. Was there any ID on him?"

The coroner walked over to a large plastic box which contained the corpse's clothing and opened it. She dug around inside for a while and pulled out item after item. The visitor looked on as jeans, shirt, socks, underwear, coat, shoes, and gloves. Then she dug out some folded papers.

"This is all he had on him at the time we collected him from the woods. Not even a wallet. Cops leave stuff here half the time after they're done examining it." Boros handed the papers to him. "You have any talent for solving crimes like your aunt?"

"I used to be a crime reporter for the Daily Fluxion down below many years ago actually. Always been a keen area of interest to me. I don't do too badly at sniffing out clues." He declined to mention that a ten-pound Siamese cohort was much better at the process than he himself was.

"What am I reading?"

"Looks like a picture of a couple of cats. No idea what the text means."

"Do you have a copy machine around here by chance? I'd love to take a crack at this, amateur sleuth that I call myself. I'd love a full size copy of this."

"Not supposed to do that but since you're related to Fanny and you're the one who tripped over your twin there, I'll make an exception. Wait here while I go make you a copy. Only take me a few minutes. Gotta go down the hall and up a floor then down another hall."

Qwilleran was glad to have the place to himself while the coroner walked away to make the copy. He quickly went over to the file and took his mobile phone out of his pocket. He shot a picture of each page. Then he went over to the clothing box and sorted through everything while searching the pockets for missed clues and shot a few more. He took a shot of everything. Nothing in the pockets. In the cuffs of the jeans the deceased had been wearing he felt something. He ran his fingers deeper into one of the cuffs and removed an item which he quickly pocketed. The coroner's footsteps could be heard approaching as he stepped back to the spot he had been standing in before the woman left to make the copy.

"Here you go." She had cooperated beautifully in giving him private time in the room with all the paperwork he wasn't officially privy to.

"Thanks so much. I'll be sure to give this some thought. Say, Sara, I don't suppose you would let me take a look at the body, would you?"

"Sure, why not. Come on."

Walking over to a wall of shiny steel drawers she grabbed a handle and pulled till the table slid out revealing a body covered with a sheet. Not one for relishing such things, a slight shiver went up the tall man's spine as he readied himself for the big reveal.

"I'll give you two some alone time. No hurry. Gotta tend to one of my fresher ones over there. They're droppin' like flies lately." The coroner pulled the sheet back from the face and stopped. "Oh, wait-that's not him." She pulled the sheet up and shut the drawer.

She went to another drawer and opened it and took a peek. A quizzical look came on her face and she said, "Huh?" She pulled the sheet back up and rolled that body back into its chilly vault.

She went to a third drawer which was over at the end of the row. As she pulled back the sheet, she exclaimed, "By God, I think I lost him! I hate it when they reanimate!"

Qwilleran looked at her, wide-eyed. The thought of a coroner who lost dead bodies was mighty disquieting to him. She looked at him and let out a hearty laugh.

"Bingo! I knew I didn't lose the critter but I always worry they'll get up and start walking around-you do know they move after death, right?" she said with a huge grin on her face. "You should see your face!

The Scotsman smiled as best he could but didn't know quite what to say, so he said nothing.

"Oh, shoot, the dead have no respect for organization or protocol whatsoever. Here you go. Now I've got some fresher ones to attend to. Droppin' like flies!" She returned to her spot across the large room.

That bit of conversation conjured up a visual in his mind's eye of a horde of zombies walking out of the morgue heading toward the street. Crime investigator or not, Qwilleran had no affinity for dead bodies, especially of the vintage type, or gory things of any nature. His time in the service had given him a strong dislike for anything of the kind, but something was telling him to check this corpse out up close. He moved into position to get a closer look at the face and took a look. What he saw was eerily familiar. The little woman had helped him in this regard with a remark she'd made earlier. You can stare at someone and not be able to tell how you know them or where you know them from, but they look familiar and you are sure you know them from somewhere. But in cases like this, you can't quite put your finger on it. Down to the very shape of face, the dead man looked like the man staring down at him. Another shiver ran up the spectator's spine. If Jim Qwilleran had been given a brother in this life, he would have looked like the man on the slab, right down to the moustache. His own moustache started vibrating and tingling and didn't stop for quite some time. A feeling of genuine foreboding came over him. It was as if he was looking at himself lying there.

"You can pull the sheet back and see the contusions and some cuts and such if you like. He won't mind. Maybe he'll ask you out on a date," the coroner laughed heartily at her own joke. Just then, a horrifying noise came from the area the coroner was in as she opened up guest number two's chest cavity with the cracker. Qwilleran winced noticeably.

Starting at the feet, he pulled back the sheet and checked out the corpse's legs and lower body. There were bruises on the legs. Then he covered that part and checked out the upper body. He saw bruises on the arms and shoulders. There were some bruises on the hands. He made out what looked like bruises in the shape of boot prints on the chest and abdomen. They corresponded to the pattern of dirt he'd seen on the man's shirt but were even clearer than that. In addition to beating the hell out of him, someone had stomped the man with freakishly large boots. That fact aside, it would take one big, very strong man to hurt a man of John Doe's size this badly. The face had been left remarkably untouched.

"Mind if I snap some photos? It would help me with my sleuthing. Maybe I could join your Mystery Club sometime."

"I'm not too keen on that. If people thought I let folks in here to photograph their dead loved ones the upshot of that would be ugly, I can promise you."

"I would never abuse the privilege."

"Then go ahead, just don't tell anyone I let you do that. Say, you could have taken a pic of that page I went and copied for you. Too bad we didn't think of that at the time. And we'd love to have you in the Mystery Club, by the way."

"I really wanted a full size copy of that, so thank you. And I promise no one will know." He purposely did not remark on joining the Mystery Club again in the hopes she would forget his use of the attempted bribe. Then he took his phone out again and began clicking away.

When he had taken all the shots he wanted, he went across the room to where she was working in order to thank her. He tried not to look at the body she was working on. As he reached her, he saw something move to his left. The right arm of the body she wasn't working on unceremoniously fell off its table, fingers twitching. Qwilleran's eyebrows shot up to the ceiling while his eyeballs popped open wide right along with his mouth.

"Damn! I haven't had one do that in a while! And just in time for your visit! You should feel honored!"

Somehow, though, he didn't. He was attempting to get his mind back on track while simultaneously trying to retrieve his eyebrows from the heavens above.

"You sounded surprised. I thought you said they do that all the time?"

"No, I said they move after death just to get a rise out of you. They don't do that very often at all, actually. But this guy's fresh and the electricity hasn't all left his muscles yet which is why he's still trying to play the piano for you over there. But they do rise after death frequently."

"What?" Qwill's eyes darted back to the gyrating fingers on his other side and subconsciously moved a step away from them. "Are you saying they sit up?!"

"Not exactly. The technical term is priapism: the post mortem erection. It typically happens after a sudden, violent death like the one your friend over there suffered."

"I don't wanna know if-"

"Don't worry, none that I saw."

It was far too late for her to try to say anything comforting at all, but he was glad she didn't go into that detail about his dead twin. It was unnerving enough to have the ghost of Mozart tickling invisible ivories right next to him.

He thanked her again as he bid her goodbye. He was walking out the door when he heard her say, "Damnit, man, didn't anyone tell you that you're dead? Ok, then. You could at least play me some smooth jazz!"
Chapter 10

Large double doors swung open admitting the couple to the third floor cardiac unit. They walked toward the nurse's station to get directions to room 321. It had been a few days since their friend had had a heart attack, died instantly, and was miraculously brought back to life by the charge emitted from a small electric machine. One could argue that old Frankenstein movies instigated the invention of the defibrillator, but however it came into existence, the friends and family of Arch Riker were utterly grateful for it. Connie McCloud and Jim Qwilleran went down the hallway and turned left. 321 was the second on the right. They walked into the private room and saw an empty disheveled bed; their friend was sitting up in a chair in the corner. Connie went over and put her arms around Arch and hugged him ever so gently as a tear came to her eye. The memory of the trauma came flooding back but she made the effort to regain control of herself so as not to upset her friend. She stepped back and the patient stood up and took a couple of steps.

"Mildred's down in the cafeteria getting herself some coffee. They want me to walk but they've got me all hooked up here, so I just pull my rolling bag of who knows what which they've got up there dripping into my arm along with me when I get the urge to go hot footin' around."

"My God, Arch, how are you doing?" the tall man took his friend's arm and said, "Why don't you get back into bed? I'll help you." Qwilleran's low blood pressure approach to most things in life held steady through his intense concern for his friend ever since the event had occurred. His personal belief was that it usually did no good to have emotional episodes though progressing age was making it more difficult to adhere to that philosophy now. It was fitting that he was not one to indulge in them very often, though he was finding aging challenging lately, and noticed one side effect was that he became annoyed more easily than ever before.

"I'm not even going to fight with you about it. I've done all my required activity already today and I'm feeling it." They went slowly to the bed and Arch was tucked in safely.

"To answer your question, the doctors are marveling at my resilience, especially seeing that I apparently stopped breathing for some minutes when Connie dragged me in here, for which I will be eternally grateful to her. They make you get up and walk as soon as you can do so without signs of excess stress, and I was up the next afternoon and I took some steps. My tests were very good considering, so they let me leave intensive care and put me in this room. I'm really lucky, they tell me this flu is killing people as effectively as a heart attack can."

"You owe Connie a debt you can never repay, that's for sure. You look good, Arch. You look amazingly well-as if you'd never had a heart attack," said Qwilleran.

"I'm on some kind of medicine I can't pronounce and they tell me I'll have to take it from now on. They have scanned and x-rayed me and searched my arteries in a most invasive manner. They didn't give up till they found the reason for it."

"The reason you had the heart attack? How many clogged arteries do you have? Are they going to operate and clean them out or what?"

"Two of them are partially clogged. They discussed it with me and I know I need to let them do that. Being in a compromised state like that seems to invite this vicious flu bug to kill a person."

"My sister-in-law had that operation seven years ago and she is one hundred percent better to this day," said Connie.

"So the Press Club diet finally got you. Now every time I go to eat something fattening I'm going to think twice about it. Too much rich pastry, too, no doubt. I know you love pecan pie," said Qwilleran.

"Look who's talking," said Connie.

"That wasn't the cause," said Arch.

"What are you talking about? Then what was the cause?"

"This is all your fault. It was the mooseburger."

Everyone laughed. He'd have to have the operation, get totally rid of the flu, and then he'd have some rehab. But his sense of humor was in excellent working order and Arch was going to be all right.

"Are they saying you can have the procedure very soon? No sense in discharging you if that's the case. You will have around the clock nursing care paid for as my gift to you as you recover. What do you say?"

"Let me talk to my doctor and I'll let you know." The patient closed his eyes and looked like he was going to fall asleep.

"Jim, I think we've tuckered him out. Let's not overstay our welcome."

"You are right, as always. Arch, Connie and I will be on our way. You get some rest and we'll be back tomorrow to visit you." Arch blinked his eyes slowly, nodded goodbye, and promptly fell asleep.

****

"That's her pen. Keeps breakin' the fence. I keep fixin' it.

"Ok. How's about we pen all the goats inside steel fencing they can't break? What would you say to that? Would it suffice to have this entire area we're looking at enclosed by steel fencing?"

"That oughta do it. Mighty nice of ya. You don't owe me anythin', y'know."

"Yes, I know. But I'll be honest, Abel, if it'll keep Linda out of my kitchen and from leaving me presents in my yard and eating my flowers-did I mention she ate all of them?-it's worth it to me. Plus, you won't have to spend hours every day chasing her down and retrieving her. The law could get after you about that. They could actually put her down for destructive behavior if it were to continue and they received enough complaints."

"She's pregnant. Nobody wants to kill a mama with a baby inside her. Nobody would have the heart to do that, would they?"

"I doubt it, but I was just saying if she continues to be a nuisance the law has that option to choose from if they so desire. Let's keep mama and baby-to-be safe and pen this up in steel. I'll make some inquiries and get someone out here to talk to you. I'm paying for this, don't worry about a thing, Abel."

"Like I said, mighty nice of ya. I'll try to keep a better eye on her, too."

"Good luck with that, my friend."
Chapter 11

The man sat fingering the piece of jewelry he'd removed from the cuff of the dead man's jeans. It was a decent size pearl topped by a small diamond, very tasteful, nothing flashy. It looked as if it belonged around a woman's neck on a chain but there was no chain; there was only a small ring where a chain could be attached. The small ring was bent out of shape as would be the case if the wearer had gotten the jewel caught on something and pulled, or if one had yanked the necklace off the wearer's neck abruptly. He turned the jewel around a few times as he inspected it. It was a tasteful piece, nothing strange about it at all-but something nagged at him. His thoughts were interrupted by Yum Yum, who had seen the reflection of the diamond in the sun and had become absorbed by the need to procure it for her own enjoyment. She leapt from the floor into Qwilleran's lap and made a stab for the jewel with a dark brown paw as the only father she had ever known closed his hand around it. She tapped his hand with a velvety paw as he smiled at her. She tapped his hand again which in this case meant, "I want that!" in Cat. He chuckled and said, "I see you've noticed my little treasure here." He opened his hand and showed it to her while keeping a hold on it so the little thief-in-residence could not abscond with it as he knew she would try to do. He held onto the pearl while Yum Yum became transfixed with the shining diamond. Her violet tinged eyes became filled with fascination and her pupils grew large. She decided she must have the jewel so she made a stringent attempt to acquire it. He closed his fist and laughed as the little female grasped it in both her paws and tried to pry his hand open. After much trying, she did something he'd never experienced before. She took his thumb between her teeth and stared up at him as if to say, "Hand over the loot or I'll have Lefty here take a chunk outta ya." A stare-off ensued as the man decided to wait it out to see if his little girl would actually bite him, which he knew she would never do.

"OW!!" Disbelief.

"What's gotten into you, Yum Yum?! I can't believe you did that! How rude! I'm familiar with all your little tricks but that's a new one and I don't like it at all!"

If he thought he was going to cause Yum Yum any shame, he was mistaken. He had pushed her off his lap after she had sampled his thumb but she jumped right back up and continued her quest to make off with the treasure tightly hidden away in Qwilleran's fist. She actually didn't bite him that hard; just hard enough to let him know she urgently wanted the shiny thing he was so cruelly keeping from her. As far as she was concerned, the house rule was that all shiny things belonged to her, along with all small objects which made good toys and anything else she decided seemed interesting. It was so written in the chapter on _Acquisitions: If You Want It, It's Yours_ in _The Book of Cat_. This tendency had earned her the nickname Yum Yum, the Paw. It was, in fact, the feline version of Lefty.

He tucked his thumb away and held his arm up in the air. Then he showed her the jewel for a second and then shut his fist again quickly. Now his little charge started a formal protest.

"Yowowow!" said Yum Yum. Normally pretty quiet, she decided to continue doing this till the man gave her the shiny thing. After a couple of minutes he was ready to break down and hand it over but it was evidence the police had missed and which he himself had no business having, and he couldn't do it. He would have to distract her.

"Say, it's about time for dinner. How about some crab meat? Let's go into the kitchen." He rose from his chair and went to the pantry and took a can from the shelf dedicated to food for the cats, then went into the kitchen. He pocketed the jewel carefully and got the can opener and opened the tin of crab and began warming it gently in broth. A thundering of paws was heard as Koko came running into the kitchen and yowled his delight and approval of the offering of crab meat as he sniffed the air approvingly. Yum Yum was still protesting up until she stuck her nose into the dish of deliciousness and ate heartily. This trick worked for the time being.

Qwilleran decided to go out for Chinese to get out of the house and satisfy a taste for shrimp fried rice which had suddenly presented itself. He walked into Ming's Golden Dragon several minutes later and was seated promptly. The place was three quarters empty and he had an entire section to himself. He ordered and then poured himself some ice water from the pitcher the server left on his table. Ming's was the place for good old American style Chinese food in Pickax as far as he was concerned. His tastes in food ranged from the expensive to the dirt cheap, and some old habits die hard or not at all. Cheap, good Chinese food was one of them.

He reached in his pocket and took the jewel out once again. There was something familiar about it but he couldn't place it. It nagged at him as he stared at the pearl topped by the diamond. Who used to wear a piece like this? He was certain he'd seen it or one like it before but it wasn't coming to him. He couldn't remember any such thing from recent years; maybe this was from long ago? The harder he tried to remember the more elusive the missing piece of information became. If he could place the piece and who it belonged to that might help to solve the murder of the badly beaten corpse in the morgue. He put the piece down on the table and took out his phone and took a few pictures of it from different angles. His conscience told him he'd have to either give the piece to the police or sneak it back into the morgue into the cuff of the deceased's jeans.

A couple sitting a few sections away began talking in an animated fashion. Their conversation became louder by the minute as it became clear they were disagreeing about something. Their voices echoed through the place now just loud enough for him to hear.

"I'm telling you, that's him. Can you imagine having all that money? Geez!" said the woman.

"Be quiet or he'll hear you. Stop being rude. He does a lot of good things with the K money. We're better off having him here than not," said the man as he glanced in Qwilleran's direction.

"That's one way of looking at it. Did you hear that librarian jilted him? I heard they were engaged and she just took off for somewhere in Europe just like that. Wonder why."

"I didn't hear about any engagement but I did hear she just up and left him and didn't even give him a reason. Poor guy."

"You don't know why, Joe. He might be a creep."

"He doesn't look like a creep. And what kind of creep does all kinds of philanthropic work even though they don't have to? Doesn't add up. Maybe she was nuts."

"Maybe he likes 'em crazy. Didn't I hear he dated that lawyer, what's her name? Goodwinter. Penelope Goodwinter, that's it. And that loon killed herself. Maybe he drives 'em nuts!"

"That is purely not nice. Stop that. I never heard they dated. You mean he dated Melinda Goodwinter."

"I'm just sayin'. One kills herself, another one leaves the continent without notice. He must be a real winner!"

"Keep your voice down! Sound carries in this place-you know that!"

"I don't rightly care. He chases women away or drives them to suicide; who cares what he hears. I don't!"

"You've always had a problem with rich folks. Let the man be. I say he's all right."

"You're a man and you all stick together, money or no money!"

"Shut up, Louise."

****

Won ton soup, egg rolls, shrimp fried rice, and sweet and sour pork arrived at Qwilleran's table soon thereafter. His server was friendly and efficient. The food smelled delicious but the man didn't start eating right away. He was too distracted by what loud-mouthed Louise had said. As soon as he had heard her name, a memory flashed back from years earlier. He saw himself sitting across from a woman who had the little pendant around her neck. Penelope Goodwinter had owned a pendant just like the one he had in front of him on the table. He had seen her wear it on more than one occasion, including the day she died. He guessed it had been a favorite piece of hers. As she had been dead several years now, this fact wasn't helping shed light on the case. He didn't yet know how to connect the dots. At this point in time, he didn't even know what all the dots were. He reasoned that chances were the jewel pendant was likely a mass produced piece which may have inundated the market way back when. It might mean everything or it might mean nothing at all. He definitely needed more dots. He changed his mind and had his food packaged up to go and drove home.

****

"Sara? It's Jim Qwilleran. Do you have a minute?"

"Sure. What's up?" the coroner answered pleasantly.

"Did you happen to work on Penelope Goodwinter several years ago when her body came into the morgue?"

"Sounds familiar-I think I did."

"Are the records still accessible to you? I need some information before I can figure something out regarding John Doe."

"They never moved. We're still Stone Age around here. Everything's in the filing cabinets."

"Can you look up her clothing and anything else that was taken off the body?"

"Yeah. Lemme go get that file. Hang on." Two minutes later Boros came back on the phone.

"Got it right here."

"Did she have any jewelry on?" He could hear the coroner thumbing through sheets of paper.

"One ring, two earrings, one watch."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing listed. Note says we still have the stuff as it was never picked up. No one came to claim it. With all the Goodwinters in this town you'd think there would have been three or four of them up here fighting over the stuff. The earrings are pretty."

"What do they look like?"

"Each one has a small diamond on top of a larger pearl. Beautiful."

He drew a sharp breath. "Do you have a matching pendant there?"

"Not according to the photos taken at that time which I'm looking at. Let me go check the property box. Want to hang on or want me to call you back? Could take me a minute or two."

"I will gladly hang on till you come back to the phone." Boros went off in search of property boxes for the year of Penelope's death. She returned a minute later.

"Well, that wasn't hard. Right on the shelf at eye level staring me in the face. I'm taking the stuff out now."

He waited with baited breath on the other end of the phone.

"I can't believe no one has claimed these earrings. They're still here. Two earrings, one small gold ring, and one black Movado watch. The other stuff is just clothing and a pair of shoes. No pendant."

"I need to look at the contents of the property box in person, please, Sara. Would that be all right with you?"

"I'm here till four. Come on down."

"I'm on my way."

"Don't know what one case has to do with the other but I get the feeling you're going to solve this whole ball of wax before the cops do, you know."

"That's the idea. Hey Sara, do you like cats?"

"I love them. Have three of my own. My husband says we eat Floating Furball appetizers at our house before actual food ever enters our mouths."

"See you in a few."

"Ten-four, good buddy."

****

Qwilleran got out of the car and took Koko out of the pet carrier. He set him on the ground and started walking into the morgue holding the leash which was attached to the cat's escape-proof harness. The man opened the outer door and the Siamese strode in looking from side to side as if he was expecting a red carpet covered with rose petals to be rolled out before him. He sniffed the air disapprovingly and scrunched his nose up several times. He didn't know who lived in this place but he did know they needed to do a better job of perfuming it with nice smelling things like steak cooking, or crab simmering on the stove. The door to the elevator opened and he walked into the strange little box with his human. Ever the quickest paw on the draw, he noticed interesting looking circles on a control panel and jumped up repeatedly using both paws to touch every single circle designated for a floor they did not want to go to. And as he touched each one, it lit up! Bonus! By the time the doors had shut, a long, laborious route was programmed thanks to Koko's lightning fast effort, which had taken him all of two point five seconds to complete.

"Oh, no! What have you done?" said Qwilleran as they began ascending to the second floor. He picked the cat up moments too late to avoid the unwanted charter voyage to floors previously unexplored. The doors opened on two and the man pressed Door Close. They went to the third floor. Repeat. They went to the fourth floor. Repeat. Fifth. Sixth. Going on excursions with Koko was often like having a belligerent teenager making the arrangements faster than he himself could think or react. The only human in the elevator pressed B for basement and moved away from the control panel quickly as they finally started moving downward. Still transfixed by the circles, Koko reached out for them with his front paws but couldn't reach, so he stuck out a long back leg and tried to push them with the appropriately attached foot. Qwilleran grabbed the cat's back legs and held his ankles together in one big hand. Never having been one to peacefully accept an unwanted turn of events, Koko naturally started to holler at the top of his lungs according to instructions in the chapter on _Freedom of Speech: Thou Shalt Never Be Silent When They Wish You Would Be_ in _The Book of Cat_.

The doors finally opened on the lowest level and they made their way toward the mortuary where the coroner slabbed what others had stabbed. Qwilleran put Koko down on the floor and the cat made a face when a full onslaught of chemical smells assaulted his delicate, velvety dark brown nose.

"Well, look at you, you handsome thing," said Sara.

"Thank you."

"I was talking to the cat. And what's your name?"

"This is Koko, and he's pleased to meet you." Koko made another face, and sneezed three times.

"Sounded like you were killing him in the elevator. Can I pick him up?"

"I wouldn't let him push the buttons a second time after he took us to every floor, so he let me know he wasn't happy about that. He's not much of a cuddler but he'll probably tolerate it. He won't bite you if that's what you mean. Being held means a loss of freedom in his feline brain, so forgive him if he makes a fuss." The coroner bent over and picked Koko up and stroked his head and front paws. The cat rested his head on Sara's shoulder lovingly and held perfectly still while miming the consummate cuddle bunny. Then he looked over at his dad with a smug look on his little triangular face. Few things were as satisfying to a child as making a fool of one's parents. The man had temporarily forgotten that cats understand everything we say and think.

"What a handsome meezer you are, Koko! Oh, what do you know, Jim? He's a perfect gentleman, and so good-looking." Koko lapped up the attention, glancing over at Qwilleran once more. _See, I run things_.

"Can we look at that property box?"

"Sure. Got him?"

"Got the leash, just put him down." They walked over to a table near a new lone guest as Qwilleran glanced over at the body with an uneasy look on his face.

"Good thing for me somebody's always dyin' in Moose County!" the coroner said cheerfully. Qwilleran felt his stomach muscles involuntarily contract when she said that with such nonchalance. As long as Dead Dan didn't try to play the piano or move, he would be all right.

The items taken from Penelope Goodwinter's body years earlier had been laid out on the table by the little woman. He bent over the table for a good look and noticed the faintest scent coming from the clothing. It still carried the odor of Penelope's favorite perfume which had embedded itself into the fabric long ago. Qwilleran looked at the jewelry. The earrings were a spot on match for the pendant jewel in his pocket. He suffered no sudden urge to confess and return the piece he'd taken from the dead man's pant cuff during his previous visit.

"Since this was a suicide I take it nothing was dusted for prints?"

"I have no idea but I doubt it. Why would they bother? It was a classic suicide scene. It all came back to me as I was looking at the photos when you called." After he finished looking at everything, she put everything back into the property box with one sweeping motion of her arm across the table except for the photos.

He picked up the photos and leafed through them slowly. There she was. Death does weird things to a person's face, and asphyxiation was a friend to no corpse, ever. It had been several years since her death, and he struggled to remember her features precisely. You can even live with someone for decades but when they die suddenly they just don't look like themselves, even with funeral parlor makeup skillfully applied to make a corpse look like they're still breathing. They had been briefly acquainted in a business sense at best, and Penelope didn't look good on her last day drawing breath. The fact that she was so distraught that she had committed suicide seemed to make her look somewhat mortified with the choice she'd made. He wondered if at the last possible second she had decided against it, albeit, too late. He looked through the photos a second time; it was like looking at a stranger he'd never met.

"Sara-"

"I know, I know. Follow me; the light's better over here." She led him over by the far wall under a window and handed him a stack of color copies of the photos. "You need copies so I made some for you. Here. Keep them. Clear enough for you?"

They heard a thud behind them as Koko jumped down off a table and up onto another one.

"Don't mind him. He's playing watermill. He jumps from one surface to another all around a room like water pouring down from one level of a watermill to the next." Qwilleran absently let go of the leash as he thumbed through the photos.

"I wish I had his energy." They heard anther thud.

"Your copy machine has done a fine job with these. It's enough for a start." Thud.

"Feel free to ask for any assistance you need. This would be a good one for our Mystery Club!" Sara walked over to the body on the table and peeled back the sheet displaying blood all over the half-crushed upper torso of an unfortunate individual. Qwilleran stared.

"Car accident."

Without notice, Koko reappeared and somehow managing to land where there was no blood, he leapt squarely onto the abdomen of the now uncovered corpse which cooperated by immediately emitting a loud groan. Qwilleran took a quick step back from the ghastly sight.

"Oh, those are just built up gasses. Don't worry, he's really dead." The smile on the coroner's face betrayed the fact that she found this little development quite entertaining, then she started to laugh. "A mover and a groaner just for you, my clients really love you! Come back any time!"

_Well, priapism that!_ he thought. "Ok, then...we'll be running along now-thanks so much for your help! I'll be in touch!" The man turned and bolted out the door.

"Hey! Wait! You forgot your cat!" yelled Sara. "Come here, Koko." She scooped the naughty Siamese up and took off after the Scotsman, who grabbed the ten-pound bundle of squirming feline joy from her and dashed up the stairs, bursting outside into the sunshine as fast as he could.

Fresh air never tasted so good.

****

"Mrs. McCloud, this is the finest pot roast I've had in years. My hat is off to you."

"My husband always said that, too. I always figured he said things like that to keep our marriage going. Marriage is such work."

"Yes, it is, but pot roast like this one could hold it together, Connie."

"Speaking of such things, if I might be so bold, the best way to get over things is to get back on the horse as they say. I think you should dip your toe back in the relationship pond. It won't do any good for you to get any older all alone, and we all must adapt to change." He had grown used to her gentle meddling and non-solicited advice. Realizing it was one of the ways in which she demonstrated concern for him, he decided not to ask her how many dates she'd been on since her husband had passed away. We don't see what we're not ready to see.

"I agree. Please go to the fridge and whip me up a decent woman. I've dropped all my formerly shallow pretenses. Do you have a soulmate for me that you've been keeping in the vegetable crisper by chance?"

"If it were that easy. You haven't done any serious socializing in some time and no one is going to come walking out of the refrigerator for you, Jim. Did you see there is a walkathon for multiple sclerosis research in town this weekend? Everyone will be gathering there. You might check it out. I'd bring Koko if I were you. He'd love to walk around town strutting his stuff, you know he would, and what impels a woman to start a conversation more than a man with a pet? They're starting by the library and walking a five-mile loop swinging around the big church on Cason Street. And women are more like the cakes of the food universe; you'd have to combine flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix and bake them. Then you'd have to cool and frost and decorate them and put them out on nice cake dishes. Women would never tolerate being kept in the vegetable crisper. You keep squash in the crisper. Men are squash."

"Squash are very straightforward in nature. I'll remember that." Her sense of humor always made him smile.

They finished their meal and Connie brought out a fresh strawberry pie she'd made that morning and chilled in the fridge, and set it down on the table along with a big can of whipped cream. The dessert was cut and plated and Qwilleran did whipped cream duty for both of them. Then he tripled the amount he put on his own slice till the pie was hardly visible. His housekeeper gave him that look.

"Really?"

"Really."

"That much?"

"That much."

"It's your funeral. Speaking of which, how did your visit to the coroner go?"

"Sorry to say I didn't learn much because there wasn't much to learn."

"How did you like Sara? Quite a character, that one. I met her at an open house a few weeks ago."

"She was as helpful as she could be considering the fact that there is no conclusive cause of death known yet. At least now I have a good contact up here if I trip over any other bodies." He didn't allude to the fact that he had actually been delving into the details of Penelope Goodwinter's demise.

"So, cut down on that risk. Don't take Koko for walks." The subject of that thought walked into the room when he heard his name and jumped up on a chair to rest from the labors he did not perform.

"I don't think he'd like that very much. You know how wound up he gets. He needs the exercise."

"As if tearing around here with Yum Yum isn't exercise enough. I wish I had their energy. It would justify my having a nineteen-hour-a-day napping schedule, too. They sleep as hard as they play."

"Cats are God's idea of how he wants us to learn to enjoy life. Cats don't seek pleasure; they just seem to run smack dab into it all the time because they make everything pleasing to themselves." He smiled at Koko, who had now found an empty cardboard box in the corner of the room which was half his size. He had, of course, managed to get most of himself into it except for one leg, a thigh, and some of his face. Settling on what looked to be a most uncomfortable position, he squeezed his brilliant blue eyes shut and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 12

MOOSE COUNTY SOMETHING:

This just in: The grand opening of our new museum directed by Miss Loretta Garver will be delayed by approximately three more weeks. We'll keep you advised of the new opening date coming in June. The good news is that the third shipment of artifacts has just been received! It'll be out of this world-eventually!

The cleanup and reorganization of the museum had put Loretta Garver into quite a state. The first break-in had been bad enough; the second one had sent her over the edge into a mini nervous breakdown. Had it not been for M.A. Mazola, the artifacts would not have been re-inventoried (yet again) and accounted for. The weird thing about the second break-in was that it echoed the first; nothing had been taken and there was no sign of forced entry. It was as if the perpetrators had keys. The new surveillance system which Qwilleran had donated would assuredly help. The hush-hush installation was complete, and a lot of progress had been made in getting items set up for the grand opening. The headline regarding the June grand opening and mentioning a third shipment of artifacts having just been received broke the morning after the system had been installed and tested. There was an agreement in place between key players that no one else would know that the museum now had a hidden camera surveillance system in place which captured every corner of both the display room and the intake area. In case another break-in was attempted it would be caught on continuous feed and recorded permanently.

A decoy pallet holding six boxes of dry goods from the grocery store was set up in the intake area in preparation for catching the strange burglar who had apparently forgotten how to burgle. Captain Aaron Majors of the police department had agreed to have extra patrols set up in the area and two surveillance cars of the unmarked variety positioned at either end of the property on adjacent roads so that nothing and no one could enter or leave the museum area without being observed by well-hidden undercover officers. The Klingenschoen heir was covering payroll for the extra man hours and the cost of two unmarked rental vehicles to be used. Nothing about the operation would smell of police involvement.

The museum was closed and locked up for the day in late afternoon as M.A. and Loretta left and went their separate ways. It was a few hours later and nothing unusual had happened. The museum parking lot was well lit but nothing had been seen moving on the property at all. The officers were bored as they sat and watched the heaping helping of nothing going on. Even after shift change everything remained perfectly quiet, so when the silent alarm system notified the police department that there were intruders inside the museum, calls went out to the cars in the area but no one had seen a thing. Loretta was notified by the system at the same moment, and though she had previously provided the police with keys to the place, she came rushing to the property around one a.m. The two unmarked rental vehicles and two marked patrol cars had all pulled up and made their presence known surrounding the building. Loretta waited outside safely in her car while the cops went in both doors, guns drawn. Eight total officers swept through the two main areas of the museum building using high powered lights which illuminated the entire place. A thorough check of the intake area, main display room, and restrooms had proven fruitless. There was no one there who should not have been. Loretta was then allowed inside and she flicked on all the light switches as she walked around. She had grown weary of the break-ins and all the stress and work they had caused, so when she saw that someone had indeed opened all six boxes of goods from the grocery store which they were employing as decoys, she didn't have much anxiety left in her. Nothing but those six boxes had been touched. She pointed to the boxes which had been opened and routed through. She then told the police that "Thass whirr tha wherr," in Mystery English.

Facts were reviewed and the cops kept wondering how someone got past them. They reviewed tapes from the dash cams on their cruisers. Nothing. They walked the property. Nothing out of place. Puddles around the place from more spring rain did not reveal any footprints anywhere. They went back inside to view the surveillance recordings. Gathered around the big table in the intake area, they began scanning the footage which was now showing on a large monitor in front of them. Hours of nothing zipped by as they viewed in super-fast speed till someone saw something.

"There! Go back to that spot. Play it again. I saw something," said one of the officers.

They went back and reviewed in regular time and saw someone dressed in all black emerge into the intake area but they couldn't tell from where.

"Did you see that? Where'd they come from?" asked another.

"I didn't see it. Back it up again."

They reviewed the recording several times. Each time they saw a slight figure suddenly appear in the intake area and walk over to the boxes. The figure had on a cap pulled down over its face and quickly turned away from the camera as it sliced open the tape which had been used to seal the boxes full of flour and sugar and coffee and the like. It routed through each box at lightning speed and then walked off camera and wasn't seen again.

"Where's he coming from? And where's he disappearing to?"

"I think we can assume this is a female based on the way the figure is moving. Her center of gravity is different than that of a man's. Small shoulders, too."

"How did she get in? And how did she get out? We didn't fall asleep. Even if we had the cameras would have caught her entering and leaving."

"That's a good one. We have a faceless ghost burglar who wears black and appears and disappears without a trace. Wonderful." The conversation continued between the officers.

"There has to be another way in and out."

"Yeah? Where exactly is that? We've been over every inch of this place."

"There has to be. We'll go over it again."

With that, all eight cops walked every inch of the intake area and display room and restrooms. Nothing.

"We'll see you home safely, Miss Garver. Sorry we haven't been able to catch this criminal yet. We thought for sure the cameras would do the trick. Nice of Mr. Qwilleran to have them installed."

And with that, everyone exited the building. Two police cars followed Loretta Garver home and saw her safely inside, just in case. The report was filed at the end of shift that morning.

****

Qwilleran woke up with a headache and noticed that he felt achy as he got out of bed. His mobile rang and he took a quick call and then hung up. He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before standing, then got up and showered and dressed. He made his way to the vintage kitchen beckoned by the smell of bacon frying and pancakes cooking on the griddle. He poured two cups of his housekeeper's spoon-melting black coffee and took a seat as toast was being buttered. The conversation went this way and that before it worked its way around to recent happenings regarding the museum.

"No kidding, Connie, a ghost broke into the museum last night and the recordings show very little, just a shadowy figure. That's impossible. I reviewed the camera angles myself when installation was finished. I'm told you can't see where someone entered or where they let themselves out. I don't get it."

Koko ran over to a throw rug on the kitchen floor and plowed his face underneath. To be polite, he left his rear end up in the air looking back at the humans whom he allowed to occupy his house.

"How could that be, Jim? You told me some of the cameras pointed right at the doors in front and back of the building."

"And the windows are dozens of feet off the ground, but we covered those angles, too. I am mystified myself. We had eight cops on that place in total last night, four of whom never moved before the silent alarm went off. Every corner of the property was covered."

Koko ran to the other end of the kitchen, then ran back to the throw rug and stuck his face underneath it again, rear end stuck back up in the air.

"You should go check those recordings out. I just don't see how the cameras didn't capture everything. You should go. Really, you should."

"It won't take that much urging, I suddenly feel like taking a walk." He didn't really, but there was no way around it. "Better yet, I'm going to drive."

But at the sound of the word "walk" Koko had removed his face from under the throw rug and run to the coat pegs on the wall where his leash and harness were hanging. He jumped up and removed the leash from its peg in one smooth motion and brought it to Qwill.

"Looks like someone wants to accompany you, Qwill. He's so good at communicating, it's a wonder he doesn't have his own column for the Something. You should teach him to type."

"Believe it or not he already knows how to."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Now you know if you want to come with me you have to wear your harness and you have to promise to be good and not try to escape. Deal?"

Realizing he wasn't going to get away with only wearing his leash for this trip, Koko dropped that piece of equipment and ran to the hook where his harness was hanging. He jumped up and stood on two adjacent pegs which were next to his harness. Then he wrestled it to the floor and brought it over to Qwill.

"I guess that's a yes, Jim. Try not to find any dead people this time, Koko."

"Did you hear that, Koko? Connie doesn't want to hear about anymore dead people so try hard not to find any this trip." Harness and leash were placed on and attached to the waiting cat. Koko looked like the picture of obedience standing there waiting for the kitchen door to open.

The drive to the museum didn't take long and Qwilleran was glad he'd driven instead of walked. His headache was worse by the time he pulled into the parking lot. Loretta wasn't there as she had been awakened during the night and was sleeping in this morning. M.A. let Qwilleran and Koko in and locked the front door behind them. The young man was wearing a black tee shirt with a drawing of a big ape-like creature walking upright on the front of it above the words "Bigfoot Doesn't Believe in You Either".

"Say, that's one good-looking Siamese you've got there, Mr. Q!"

"Doesn't he know it." Koko flopped down on the floor of the display room and allowed himself to be admired as the young man squatted down to pet his feline highness.

"They say this breed is super smart and really energetic." Koko replied by saying "ik, ik, ik."

"They say rightly. Too smart and too energetic sometimes. I was going to walk over from the house today but I'm not feeling all that great so I drove. I was hoping the walk would tire him out a little bit. When he really gets wound up there's no calming him down."

"My mother uses flower oil drops on our cat when she gets that way. Rubs some inside her ears and it works like a charm. I'll write the name of the stuff down for you." M.A. stood up and scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Qwill.

"Thanks." Koko stood up and gave M.A. the feline version of the dirty eyeball as only a cat can do.

"I stopped by to review the recorded video from last night."

"I was looking at it myself earlier and it's the darnedest thing. Come on back. It's all queued up."

They made their way back to the intake area. Qwilleran held onto Koko as he watched the footage.

"See? You can see someone just appear in the frame from the far corner over there where's there's clearly no door or window and then they disappear the same way." M.A. backed the recording up and played it again for Qwilleran. The camera angle didn't show one hundred percent of that area but cut out a bit of the corner as there was simply no way in or out, and the installers wanted to be sure to capture all windows and doors in the place in both rooms. Though understandably not covered inside by cameras, there were no windows in the restrooms off the display area either; those rooms were like little vaults.

"Again." They watched it a third time. There was something familiar about the body language of the black clad figure he was seeing but he couldn't put his finger on it. His moustache began to vibrate as Koko began to squirm. He squirmed and yowled and managed to free himself with a sudden twist as he went airborne and got away from the men. The cat ran the length of the intake area, then raced around the display room, then back to the intake area, leash dragging behind him till he got himself caught on a piece of board on the floor.

"I'll grab him and get him untangled, Mr. Q."

"Be careful he's an excellent escape artist," but it was too late. His highness was off and running again as soon as M.A. released the mechanism that attached the leash to the harness. Koko ran around the intake room and dashed up a ladder, sniffed the air, then jumped down to the floor and continued running through the place till he had checked out everything. Then he ran down one pathway and launched himself back down the other way and wound up sticking his head underneath a throw rug which was underneath a very high-legged chest of drawers, rear end up in the air once again, in order to be polite.

"I don't know what's gotten into him today but he was doing that at home earlier. He fancied a certain throw rug in the kitchen and kept doing the same thing." With that, Koko took his head out from under the rug and repeated the ritual. When the man tried to get him out from under the throw rug, Koko pitched a fit and began yowling at the top of his lungs and digging his claws into the rug while trying to drag it with him. Qwill's moustache began to vibrate at an intense rate. If moustaches could talk, his would have said _Look down, man_.

"Ok, Koko. You win. I'm down on my hands and knees and I'm paying attention to whatever it is you're trying to tell me. Did I tell you Koko fancies himself a combination crime fighter/detective, M.A.?" He felt underneath the rug as he spoke.

"No, sir, but I do know these cats are really smart so I guess nothing would surprise me!"

Qwilleran lifted Koko out from under the chest of drawers. "Well, I'll be." The man stood to his feet. "Help me move this chest over there." The two men moved the heavy chest of drawers about four feet to one side of where it had been standing which was a corner not covered by the cameras. Having accomplished his immediate goal, Koko stood cooperatively out of the way.

The older man bent down and removed the throw rug. There was a handle sunken flush into the top of a door in the floor. If you didn't know it was part of the building, you'd never suspect such a thing was there. The Scotsman pulled on the handle and the trap door came up freely in his hands as it wasn't hinged.

"I'll be darned! Now this is one smart cat! Are you kidding me?! We never saw this!"

"Got a flashlight?"

"Got a couple of 'em someone left behind, we just put fresh batteries in them because the power wasn't on when we first started working in here. Lemme grab 'em."

Beams of bright light revealed a set of cement stairs leading to a level below the main floor of the building. The two men went down into the darkness as the flashlights lit their way. A ten-pound docent who could see in the dark had beaten them down the stairs and led the way to the far end of a rectangular room. One bare light bulb hung from the ceiling alongside a pull chain. M.A. reached up and turned it on. Much to their surprise, it worked. They looked around and saw a fireplace built right underneath the one on the main level in the display area. To the left of it was a good amount of neatly stacked firewood. To the other side was a red and white metal kitchen table circa 1950 and two metal chairs with upholstery that matched the colors and style of the table. A vintage stained glass lamp which also worked adorned the top. Fireplace tools and long matches were on the hearth. There was a neatly made up twin bed on the other side of the room and an old, small refrigerator next to a very narrow old stove with gas burners and a small oven. A quick inventory of the fridge revealed a container of orange juice, a package of cheese, and some yogurt; a loaf of bread and a package of crackers sat on top. The burners on the stove worked when M.A. tried them, and a door revealed a tiny bathroom which was just big enough to accommodate a toilet, sink, and bathtub. Qwilleran turned the light on in that room. Shelving above the toilet revealed a toothbrush and the usual toiletry items, a hair brush, a box of black hair dye, contact lens solution, makeup, and some bottles of what seemed to be herbs and natural remedies. The toilet flushed efficiently when tested. The floor was cement and there were no windows. There was a space heater in the bathroom and one in the living area. The walls looked to be good old-fashioned plaster, and the entire place was immaculate.

"Know anything about herbs, M.A.?" said Qwilleran as he picked up and read the names of various herbs.

"Not much, sir."

"Horsetail Grass, Fo-ti, Nettle, Pygeum. Never heard of any of this stuff."

There's an herbalist who just opened up a while ago on the town square. I bet she could tell you about that stuff. I've been in her shop with my girlfriend. It smells weird but the lady knew the answers to everything Tiff asked her."

Koko had jumped up on top of the pile of firewood and was sitting there pawing the wall next to it. Once their eyes had acclimated to the dimmer light at that end of the room, a door made itself evident right where the cat was scratching. The Scotsman walked over and patted Koko on the head taking the opportunity to reattach his leash to his harness.

"Whatever's behind this door is on you, Koko."

There was a doorknob but no locking mechanism. Qwilleran twisted the knob and pulled the door open. There was another small room which contained some women's clothing hanging on a newer looking wheeled rack and a small vintage dresser which contained a woman's things. Something about the room seemed familiar though he knew he'd never been there. There was a pleasant scent in the air. They walked to the end of that room where there was a door which did have a lock on it. He stepped on Koko's leash and picked him up before the cat could gallop ahead of them. He unlocked the door and they were in a tunnel. Carrying his little charge, the man walked with M.A. through the tunnel for a few minutes before coming to another set of stairs which led them to another trap door above their heads. They climbed out and found themselves roughly a third of a mile from the museum outside on the surface not far from a cul-de-sac which led to a newer housing development. The trap door was conveniently hidden by trees and bushes that had grown wild. Someone had cleared off the space above the door.

"That's one hell of a bomb shelter. I get the feeling we just walked through someone's hideout. Now we know how the intruder came and went easily without attracting attention. But why? What are they looking for? Whatever it is, they seem to think it's here or being shipped here but they don't seem to be finding it. The phony notice in the Something about a third shipment arriving flushed her out, not that it did us any good. The electricity and gas lines are all activated in the underground lair and the water is on. I get the feeling that's a recent development."

"Mr. Q, I've lived here all my life and I've never heard rumors about that underground place. It's just spooky enough to make the Moose County Halloween Story Board but I've never heard a thing about it. And you're right about the electricity and the gas and water. When we took the building over to make it into our museum we had to contact the power companies and get everything switched on and put in the name of the museum. Everything had been shut off for years beforehand they told us. Moose County Water came out and tested everything and got that all functional for us, too. Just think, without Koko's help, we never would have found the trap door or the lower level! You are one smart cat, K-Man!" Koko squeezed his eyes shut with a grimace, hoping his disapproval of the disparaging nickname would not go unnoticed.

"We need to find someone who knows the history of the museum building. No one could find all that stuff in just the right proportions to fit down there in a few short weeks. Skinny little stove, skinny little refrigerator from an era when refrigerators never died, old enameled kitchen table. Those are things from times long gone and you can tell it to look at them. I'm saying they've been there a very long time and the only new stuff down there is the stuff in the bathroom and the clothing we saw. What do you know about this development to our right?"

"You know how developers are; they come in and start eating up real estate and they advertise their projects as places to get away from it all and then they move a thousand people in till they're crammed to the gills. My mom and dad said that's what they all do. This one was built about five or six years ago, could be longer but that's the best I can remember."

Qwilleran tamped his moustache down with his knuckles. It had been vibrating consistently for some minutes. At least now they knew where to station watchers to catch the break-in artist. Koko was strangely quiet in the man's arms.

"M.A., why do you have so many skulls in the display? Is this an evolution display or something? I saw some of them in the front room and they look downright odd-all stretched out. Are they real?"

"No, not an evolution display, but, yes sir, about a third of them are the original skulls. The rest are exact replicas-molds which were made of ones which some museums won't lend out. We're lucky to even get the molds to use. There are a number of large and some elongated skulls in our display. Let's go back and I'll give you a private tour and show you some things we don't have out yet."

"Ok, we'll go back the way we came and turn out all the lights we turned on."

They headed back down the stairs through the trap door and walked back the way they came, making sure to extinguish all the lights before they emerged back in the intake area. A person could fit through the trap door and emerge from underneath the tall-legged chest which had previously been put above it by simply moving the door up and to one side as it was not hinged. But one misplaced leg and there would mean no more illegal excursions into the museum building. That wouldn't work to their advantage at this point in time, so they put the chest back exactly as they had found it and put the throw rug back where Koko had shown them it was.

"See these skulls here on this side of the room, just the ones in this case? These are from Peru. Notice the little bit of red hair on one side and the elongated shape of this skull in particular? From looking at the teeth we've judged this to be from a pre-teen child."

"That head looks big enough for an adult if you ask me. And why is it so-stretched out?"

"When you consider that it came from a line of giants, and their skulls were formed totally different from ours, it makes sense that this came from an adolescent. Even the sutures in these skulls are different than those of humans."

"Giants?"

" _There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:4."_

"Is this some kind of religious museum?"

"No, sir. Not at all. We have a little bit of everything. Scripture just happens to back up some of the things which have been discovered but so do lots of other references to them which we've found. Several areas of the world also have legends of a massive flood like the one we think of when we reference the story of Noah's Ark. Seems if several cultures tell the same story there must be some truth to it regardless of religious connotations implied by some cultural groups. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Tell me about these giants."

"They are actually called Nephilim, the products of the angels of God (aka, sons of God) mating with the women of earth whom they found to be very beautiful. Makes you think twice about what most people think an angel is. I don't think they were or are cute little cherubs who fly around supposedly doing nice stuff for humans. I think they were and are interdimensional beings who came and went as they pleased, and a good number of them decided to start a race of their own, as if to show God they were his equal. Even Native Americans have their own folklore about giants in North America. They call them 'cloud walkers' because some of them were reportedly dozens of feet tall and much taller. Lots of cultures indicate giants as part of their historical experiences."

"And you think they still exist?"

"Yes, I do."

"If they did, they would kind of stick out, don't you think?"

"They're too smart to tip their hand before they're ready. They live much differently than we do and don't show themselves in civilized places yet. It doesn't suit their ultimate purpose. I think they live in caves and underground mostly!" The boy was starting to look wild-eyed with excitement.

"Ready for what? Oh, never mind. My head hurts so I'm going to let that go for now. Maybe we'll revisit that later." He was afraid to ask if the kid really believed in Bigfoot, too, as he unconsciously glanced at the front of M.A.'s shirt.

"We're not putting this out yet so that no one gets a look before the grand opening but if you come over here I'll show you the grand prize of the show. It just came in right before you got here today!"

Qwilleran walked over to a large box while M.A. pulled its top upward as if removing a hat from a very large head. Inside was a very large head; or what was left of one. The skull was easily a yard tall.

"Now this one is clearly a molded copy; could you imagine the owner allowing the real thing out of his sight? Are you kidding me?! Even this mold is from a very private collection and we were super lucky to get it. I was really nervous about this shipment as it got lost along the way and had to make its way back to us here after a significant routing snafu. I thought it was lost for good! It just came in less than an hour or so before you got here today. Boy, am I glad it did!"

Hollywood is a wonderful place, thought Qwill. He enjoyed fiction entertainment except when little offbeat people lived there in their minds. He looked at M.A. and deduced the young man was absolutely sincere and not putting him on in the slightest. Generous doses of tact would be required.

"So you believe Gigantis here was a real man then?"

"Oh, absolutely! Good one, Mr. Q-I love it! We're going to call him Gigantis from now on! Yes, he was real and he's only one of several interesting specimens we have. Note the diameter of the foramen at the bottom where his skull connected to his spinal cord. It's gigantic all right." Qwilleran's moustache began to vibrate.

"What did you call that?"

"The foramen?"

"Ever heard the word foramina?" Koko's ears went up.

"Closest interpretation is: The plural of foramen is foramina." A mobile phone rang. "Let me get this, Mr. Q. Back in a sec." M.A. walked several feet away from the excellent snooper and Gigantis to take a call.

Qwilleran appreciated the timing as he thought he'd seen a wad of paper stuck down in the foramen of one of the smaller skulls in the same crate that housed Gigantis. He bent over and retrieved it carefully so that neither cameras nor his young host would notice. It went right into his pocket. M.A. finished the call with a quiet, "I love you, too" which sounded as gushy as young love usually did.

"Ok. Where was Gigantis' original skull found?"

"This one came from Peru. It was excavated in the 1930's. These photos will go alongside it when we're all finished setting up. Isn't it _spectacular?_ "

Qwilleran looked at mounted pictures portraying the huge skull showing through the dirt at an archeological dig with two normal size men crouching over it. It looked exactly like the model he was standing next to right down to the hole in the top off to the left where it looked like Gigantis had met his end by means of one very big shovel deftly wielded by an enemy. Rarely lost for words, and no longer wondering exactly what Koko had meant by leading him to the word foramina in the big dictionary, he wondered what secret the wad of paper held as well as what he was going to say next.

"Now, I'll let you in on a big secret. We have non-human non-giant skulls, too! And various bones and artifacts."

"The whole Darwinian paradigm?"

"Better! We have aliens!"

"Do tell? I'd love to see some of those." Qwill's head was throbbing now and he really didn't want to see anything but he liked the kid and didn't want to quash his excitement for his work.

"Over here...now you'll see another reason the contents of our show has been kept under tight wraps. Here you go!"

The exuberant young man rolled out a mobile display case and said, "Are you ready?"

"Couldn't be readier."

"Walah!!" M.A. whipped a large piece of shiny fabric off the top of the case and flung it behind him like a true Las Vegas magician. He was breathing hard, pupils dilated. Koko squirmed and wanted to run away to chase the shiny flying fabric. His pupils were dilated, too.

Inside the case were skulls that looked like they had once belonged to the little 'green' men now commonly referred to as 'greys'; the little skinny guys with the huge wobbly-looking heads and gigantic eyes that had no whites. The aliens of legend which fell to earth in 1947 when the United States government allegedly covered up their arrival by claiming their craft had actually been only a weather balloon. Those aliens. Being in the newspaper business for a very long stretch, the ex-crime reporter had heard stories about just about every legend that had ever come down the pike, and though the story about giants had escaped his notice, the one about aliens was no exception. So the building Aunt Fanny had once donated to Pickax City which was then sold to a corporation was now being leased out as a museum to house giant and alien skulls, and accompanying artifacts. He imagined her overtly direct reaction to her building being used like this and could hear her voice saying, "Hogwash! What are you-crazy?!" A smile came to his lips at the memory of her.

"So, tell me, M.A., is there much interest in this sort of thing?"

"You betcha, Mr. Q! I belong to three online clubs about giants alone, and four about aliens! We're a whole Internet community!"

"That's truly amazing. I have learned a lot today. I had no idea about a lot of this stuff. Truly amazing. Thanks for educating me and giving me a sneak peek."

It was only going on eleven in the morning and the day felt like a long one already. Qwilleran was feeling even more tired and out of sorts than he had just an hour earlier, and while he wasn't normally given to unwise utterances, the achy-headachy-tired part of him was instructing his lips to say, _Are you nuts, boy?_ So he made doubly sure to shut his mouth before his cantanker- met up with his -ous.
Chapter 13

Three days passed quickly as often happens when one is asleep most of the time. The man woke up one morning later in the week to find most of the persistent headache had lifted and his bones didn't ache nearly as much. He had been feverish and down for the count with the nasty virus which was invading the entire country, kept alive by a steady diet of toast and chicken noodle soup lovingly made by his excellent chef. Connie had summoned Melinda for a house call to give the patient an exam, seen to it that he drank enough liquids to avoid becoming dehydrated, seen to it that he had eaten what little bland food she could get down his gullet, and made sure he didn't roll over and smother little Yum Yum who was affectionately glued to her daddy's chest or armpit most of those three days. Even Koko spent a good deal of that time on the bed a short distance from his dad whenever he wasn't running 5K's through the house. Yum Yum joined her brother a few times in that regard but quickly returned to the main bedroom and did her best to impart healing energy to her human, as cats do when their beloved fall ill. Neither cat complained about the showers the man couldn't take for the duration. Now that's love.

Qwilleran sat on the edge of the bed and waited to see if the action of sitting up would make him dizzy as all movement had for the last few days. Not too bad. He stood slowly and waited. Then he walked carefully to the bathroom. Feeling markedly better than he had all week, he made the decision to take a much needed shower. He turned the hot water on, shucked his PJ's and stepped into the enclosure. Twenty minutes later he was clean, shampooed, shaven, deodorized, had sparkly clean teeth, and was getting dressed. He squinted and made a face as he took his well-ripened pajamas and deposited them in the hamper. He'd been using a bedroom on the second floor since moving in, but started bunking on the ground floor master suite since illness befell him. Though normally given to more modern decorative taste, the longer he stayed at this house the more he liked it. The large kitchen had been recently updated but retained the flavor of a bygone era due to a few vintage things left in place, including a tall antique Glenwood gas stove. It had two ovens and a large storage bin and had been restored to looking as if it had just come off the showroom floor. The cats had been known to leave their blue refrigerator pillow and curl up on the storage bin at the top occasionally in order to enjoy the heat from the ovens below. They wisely never got on the griddle or burners even when all was cold; they seemed to know this should be a cat-free zone for good reason, and they innately respected that fact in the interest of self-preservation.

"Good morning, Connie."

"I thought I heard the water running in your bathroom. How is the patient?"

"He's doing much better, thanks to your nursing skills. Thank you for not letting him die."

"Melinda came over to see you and take your vitals. You didn't seem to appreciate the fact that she was here."

"If she was the blue and yellow clad monster who squeezed my bicep in a black torture wrapping thing, I think I hated her at the moment."

"You kept telling her to stop taking your blood pressure because your arm was going to explode. You had quite a fever there for a while. She told me if it climbed any higher I was to call an ambulance and have you taken to the hospital and admitted. I was tempted to haul you up there myself right after she left. You gave us a scare there."

"I don't get sick very often and it's rarely anything serious when I do. Thank you again for taking care of me. Above and beyond your call of duty for certain."

"I can't help myself. I like you for some strange reason." Never shy with women, for some reason he felt himself blushing.

"Between Arch and me you've certainly been put through your paces in that regard lately. By the way, how is he doing?"

"He had the surgery the other day while you were hallucinating about giants and little grey aliens. The procedure went flawlessly and he's recovering well, I'm happy to report. He's been asking about you."

"I was saying things about giants?"

"And little grey aliens. And you kept saying, _'Are you nuts, boy?!'_ emphatically."

"I do not remember any of that. Must have been really out of it."

"Oh, you were."

"I am going to spend some time reading today and getting back into the groove. I can't wait to get out of the house."

"I'll drive you wherever you want to go, but I wouldn't take any walks or try to drive yourself yet. Please."

"I will keep your offer in mind. I've got some work to do here anyway. What's for breakfast?"

"How about some eggs and toast? Do you think you could tolerate some sausage with that?"

"My stomach just said yes."

"Coming right up."

****

He went into the library of the old house and sat in a comfortable leather chair at a large three-section leather top desk. Taking a few items out of a file folder he'd brought with him as well as a few things out of his pockets, he spread everything out on the section to his left. He took a pad of legal paper from the drawer to his right which he had stocked with some minor office supplies and wrote the current date on the top right-hand side.

He unfolded the copy of the paper Sara Boros had made him on his first trip to the morgue. Someone had torn a page out of a magazine or book showing four Siamese cats under which were written the words "This is what they look like" in cursive in a very feminine hand. Next he took the stack of copies of the photos Sara had given him on his second visit and put them in a pile to his left. He set the diamond and pearl pendant jewel in front of him a few inches from the top of his pad of paper. He picked it up again and looked at the back of it to make sure he hadn't forgotten any key details during his illness. Other than a stamp in the white gold which read 14k, there was nothing there. The diamond was a high quality stone and the pearl was a good size and color. He'd learned a lot about jewelry from the different women who had travelled through his life over the years. He noticed things men who are not jewelers usually don't. He had learned to spot phony gems and metals without outside assistance and was just about always correct in his conclusions. There was nothing phony about the pendant jewels. Yum Yum decided he needed her help so she jumped up on the desk and sat on his pad of paper in front of him. She stared into his eyes with her slightly crossed blue/violet ones. She could sit like that for lengthy periods of time staring at him adoringly, and often did just that. Koko then walked into the room and dropped something on the floor. His sister looked down at it and leapt off the desk immediately. She ran over and began batting the item around the library floor with gusto. She and Koko played hockey with the item till he chased it down and took it in his mouth again. He walked over to the desk and jumped up on top of it.

"No, I do not have time for fetch today. I really need to put down what I know and what I need to know, Koko. I need to make sure I didn't forget anything during my comatose days. Please play with Yum Yum." He took the cat and put him on the floor. Koko jumped back up on the desk. They did this a couple more times until Koko finally opened his mouth and dropped his 'toy' onto Qwilleran's pad of paper. It was one of the earrings from the property box at the morgue.

"KOKO! What did you DO?!" His moustache started vibrating as he picked the earring up. Koko sat staring at him with an innocent look on his face. _You're welcome._

"What in blazes are you trying to tell me, boy? That Penelope Goodwinter has risen from the dead? Or that you just wanted to pick up a shiny toy for Yum Yum?" But his moustache wouldn't let him get away with that last question as it continued doing its thing. Considering the astounding record of accuracy over the years, he knew that the cat and his moustache worked in cahoots, and were trying to tell him something.

Then Yum Yum jumped up on the desk again and both cats began singing the song of their people loudly and insistently. Earring hockey could really make a cat hungry.

"Ok, ok. You want to eat. Let's go to the kitchen and get you something to eat."

Eight dark brown paws landed noisily on the floor as the cats ran into the kitchen calling him impatiently along the way. He opened the fridge and took out some leftover fish, cut it up and gently heated it in stock while they continued assuring they were properly communicating what they wanted, and right now if not sooner. He fed them and walked back to the library. It felt good to start doing normal things again. No more dizziness or smelly pajamas.

He drew a line down the center of the paper in front of him. Above the left column he wrote: What I Know. Above the right one he wrote: What I Don't Know.

What I Know:

• Several weeks ago I tripped over the body of a dead man in the woods.

• He had not been dead longer than a day or two.

• He looks like me.

• He has not been identified yet.

• The cause of death has not been determined yet.

• The photos I took of the body indicate a very large person stomped on his torso.

• He had several bruises in different places.

• He had a picture of Siamese cats in his pocket which it would seem someone had given him to teach him what the breed looks like. Feminine writing.

• He had a familiar-looking piece of jewelry in his pant cuff which the police missed. It has been rehomed.

• Penelope Goodwinter had jewelry like this. Could have been commercially prevalent at the time I knew her.

• Her belongings went unclaimed and her earrings were still at the morgue until just recently.

• Koko takes after me.

• The museum has been broken into numerous times-apparently by a woman.

• Nothing has been stolen.

• Someone is looking for something but not finding it. They are living in the secret quarters underneath.

• M.A. and I found two secret rooms underneath the museum building and an underground tunnel leading away from it.

• The rooms smelled like Penelope Goodwinter's favorite perfume.

• Koko thinks all these things are related.

• The coroner has a morbid sense of humor.

• I hate being sick.

What I Don't Know:

• Who the dead man is.

• Who killed him.

• Why he looks so much like me.

• Why he needed to know what Siamese look like.

• Why the handwriting on the picture of the cats looks familiar to me.

• How the pendant jewel got into his pant cuff.

• Who the jewel belonged to.

• Who is living under the museum and why.

• Who wears the same perfume Penelope used to. Get the brand name.

• What they are looking for and what they stand to lose if they don't find it.

• How someone who has been dead several years (Penelope) is seemingly tied into this.

• How I am tied into this.

Summation:

• The museum squatter needs to find something they think arrived at the museum in a shipment which can incriminate them in some fashion.

• This isn't over by a long shot.

****

The phone conversation was lengthy and detailed. Convinced he had gotten his point across, Qwilleran hung up the phone after thanking the other party for their assistance. As soon as he hung up it rang again.

"Jim, it's Sara down at the morgue. Have some news for you."

"Sara, nice of you to call."

"We have a definitive cause of death and a positive ID."

"I'm ready. Hit me." His mouth suddenly went dry in anticipation.

"Winston Dana LaGrange, age forty-seven, born to a poor family in McDowell, West Virginia close to the Kentucky border. I was talking with the cops about him when they informed me of his ID for my files. He was a petty criminal convicted on numerous theft and fraud charges, writing bad checks-that sort of thing. Been to prison six times, just recently got out. Not the kind you want for a neighbor. Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull and torso causing intense internal bleeding in the brain and chest. No drugs or alcohol in his system, no known ties here in Moose County. From what I can see his only other accomplishments in this life were managing to grow an obscenely large moustache like yours and getting himself murdered."

"You think my moustache is large?"

"Do birds poop in mid-air?"

"I always thought it was rather debonair. Thank you for the information, Sara. I truly appreciate it."

"Debonair? That thing looks like it could reach out and strangle little children. No problem." Click.

****

"I was doing laundry and I found this in your pocket. It was all wadded up like this so I left it that way," said Connie.

He stared blankly at the paper she had just handed him. The virus had caused him to forget that he had taken it from a box of skulls at the museum.

"Did you wash it?"

"No, I caught it before I put your pants in the washer. Nice and dry. I know you don't store garbage in your pockets, so I figured you needed it." It didn't look as though she had unfolded it. The initial wad of paper looked just as it had when he'd palmed it. Now he remembered.

"Thank you. I'm off to do some more reading." He went toward the library with eight brown paws following behind.

He thought to himself that the odds of a person not unfolding the wadded up ball of paper and reading it out of curiosity were really low. He liked the fact that while Connie did care enough to give him her unsolicited advice, she was not adroitly nosey and did not ever breach his privacy in any sort of serious way. He was growing fonder of her as time went on.

Qwilleran sat down on the couch facing the door of the library. Koko sat next to him a foot away and Yum Yum jumped up on the back of the couch and settled in with the front half of her body on her dad's shoulder. She nuzzled him and purred. He reached up a hand and gently stroked her face. Then he started pulling the wad of paper open. He smoothed the sheet out on his leg and turned it right-side up.

It took several seconds for what he was looking at to begin to make any sense. It was a copy of a photograph which had been taken years ago of him and Penelope Goodwinter as they sat together at a fundraiser dinner. The picture had been blown up on a good quality copier, the images being quite clear. Underneath was written:

"I don't have time to do this in person and as you know I can't be seen, so I'm sending this to you the best way I can. This is the man I need you to handle. Do this and you will never want for anything again. You will find him at..." an address followed. An arrow was drawn pointing clearly to Qwilleran. The note was signed "BP". He stared at the handwriting which he thought resembled that of Penelope Goodwinter. There was no mistaking anything about the picture or the instructions given or whose handwriting he was looking at. But who was BP? A chill went up his spine. His senses dulled as his thoughts were now intensely focused on what he'd just read, and there was no question as to exactly what it meant. It's not every day you get hold of your own death warrant.

She would have had to plan this before she took her own life so many years earlier. So, why would she have killed herself if she'd had such grandiose plans? Guilt? And what would she have stood to gain by his death even back then? Fanny's lawyers had told him that her will had ironclad stipulations in it about what would happen to her money in case of Qwilleran's death. Not being one who had a taste for such things, he had not actually read it himself, but had trusted the attorneys. Now things weren't adding up. In order for someone to get at Fanny's money after Qwilleran's death, Fanny's will would have had to have been written entirely differently than the way they told him it had been. As his thoughts progressed something made him stop and read the note again paying better attention to detail.

The address on the paper was that of the vintner's house at which he had recently begun staying. Several years earlier, there would have been no way anyone including he himself could have known he would be living where he currently was. His head began to spin and his mouth went suddenly dry. Now he knew why the museum break-in artist had broken in. She was after this piece of paper which he had wisely palmed before she had a chance to find it and take it for herself. This meant 1. Someone was either imitating her to facilitate a confusing and dastardly plan, or 2. Penelope Goodwinter had come back from the dead.

Qwilleran chose option one.
Chapter 14

"That's the weirdest thing I've heard in twenty years," said Arch. Qwilleran had just finished bringing his friend up to speed on the goings on of late and the piece of paper he'd found in the skull at the museum.

"They corpse looked just like me, Arch-just like me! Why would someone be using a lookalike-and exactly how does someone just happen to find one that looks like the long lost brother I never had?"

"A. To try to fake legal papers. B. They say everybody has a twin somewhere. C. Your kind of money is enough to make someone have plastic surgery in order to attempt to stand in your place."

"That's the only thing I could come up with. And the doppelganger winds up dead when it's clear I was the actual target. Guess someone messed up somewhere along the line."

"There has to be a third party involved. Someone giving instructions and someone carrying them out; the same person who told Mr. Double to play his part like an actor would."

"That's the conclusion I came to myself. The fact that they have the vintner's house address doesn't make me feel too warm and cozy, let me tell you."

"Did you take care of that?"

"I sure did. There's constant surveillance at the house and on me everywhere I go and the cops are watching the museum again now. The cameras have been repositioned to capture absolutely everything. Funny thing is, once we went through and found the secret underground domain, no one has seen hide nor hair of the museum trespasser. Dead silence in that regard I'm sure because there was no announcement about the last crate which contained the note being missing in the first place, then being found and arriving late. For the record, we were careful not to leave any evidence of our being down in the tunnel or those rooms."

"What does that cat of yours say?"

"Nothing lately except that he didn't like the turkey dark meat he usually loves which I tried to serve him last night for some reason. Yum Yum gulped that down while I had to cook his highness a separate meal."

"Next time he pulls that tell him you have a hankering for cat stew. That should straighten him out." Arch teased.

"Well the museum is finally having its grand opening this weekend and I for one intend to watch the attendees very carefully. You know criminals like to mill around in the crowd at their own crime scenes. I've got the feeling our culprit will be there, so I'm going to check out everyone who attends. I don't care if I have to scan 300 people, I'm not leaving till I see every face."

"And I'll video the affair. I'm feeling a lot better since my procedure. I've been walking on the treadmill and doing some light resistance training the doctor prescribed and I feel my strength increasing by the day. I can stand around chatting while I video folks under the guise of recording the opening itself. That should help."

"That's a great idea, Arch. I really appreciate that."

"We just accepted advertising that will break in tomorrow's newspaper and I hear Loretta's been advertising the opening down below for weeks now. You're going to love it-trust me."

"So what is the description of the thing anyway going to read like? Weird Bone Heads On Parade?"

"Better. I'll let you read it yourself in the morning. Like I said, you're going to love it."

"I'll make sure to accost the newspaper delivery boy first thing."

Arch nodded his head and smiled at the phone call he anticipated he would receive in the morning.

****

MOOSE COUNTY SOMETHING:

The grand opening of our new museum directed by Miss Loretta Garver is finally here! Come join us this Saturday at 4 p.m. when the doors open for the first time to reveal The Stranger Than Fiction Exhibit! See authentic evidence of Sasquatch, Mothman, The Jersey Devil, Flat Woods Monster, Chupacabra, Dogman, Wendigo, Aliens, and Giants, as legends turn to facts before your eyes! It's a costume affair so dress up in kind and join us-it'll be out of this world! Humans welcome! Be there or be square! Tickets available at the Pickax post office, Shorty's Diner, Mama Joon's Bar-B-Que Heaven, Clyde's Scientific Emporium, and online.

Qwilleran picked up a soggy copy of the Something which the paperboy had left in the usual spot on the front steps. Absent was the plastic sleeve it usually arrived in, so the paper was a sopping pile of wet mush after several hours of heavy downpour inundated Pickax in the early morning. It was going on eight o'clock and there was no newspaper to read with breakfast which was one of his old habits left over from yesteryear. Nevertheless, a busy day was ahead of him, so the man picked up an umbrella and ventured out after he finished eating. The rain had slowed to a steadily lighter pace but it wasn't giving up just yet. He had a doctor's appointment in town, a meeting at the insurance company's office about the damage at the loft, a consultation with his lawyer, Bart, and an appointment with Lanspeak's Department Store to search for a birthday present for Connie. He made his rounds while a police car followed him everywhere he went. Moose County could not afford to lose its most generous benefactor so they did a scrupulous job of making sure Qwilleran was safe and whole at all times, especially considering current circumstances.

He finished up at the clinic and headed for the insurance office. He had not anticipated what he was told there. There was no saving any of it, the loft was gone. They showed him pictures of what was left of the structural supports after all the refuse had been cleared away. It had had a good run, but the loft had seen its last days. He would think of what to do with the land later. County assessor records of the building value were produced, consideration for furnishings and such were figured in, and a payout was agreed upon. Qwilleran signed off on the transaction after agreeing to have the money deposited directly into his bank account. Then he left to go to Bart's office to review the will Fanny had made. Less than an hour after his arrival they had finished going over every point and what would happen if this and if that. His previous impression was that unless he were to marry, upon his death the assets would revert to a trust set up to benefit the area.

"Bart, have you heard anything about someone trying to break the will? Or challenge it? Has anyone come to you attempting to do that?"

"No, if they had I certainly would have mentioned it to you. Who would do that? She didn't have any actual heirs who were physically related to her. How could anyone think they could lay claim to her fortune? Fanny was a canny businesswoman and she knew how to tie business up with a nice, neat bow. She made sure no one could lay claim to the money while you were alive."

"Where would someone have to go to protest a will or try to change it?"

"They could go to whomever handled it, and they'd have to file a claim in probate court, or they could engage their own representation and go at it from that direction. They could also sue the estate directly, but at this point in time everything is in your possession, so no one can challenge anything this long after the fact and succeed. It wouldn't make sense to try. You've passed the five-year mark, which means everything is yours, period. Only if you legally named an heir and then die could anyone come forward and claim the money and assets. That's the only way anyone could ever get their hands on it. Or if you were to get married. Your spouse would naturally wind up with your assets upon your death. And since Fannie's private investments have grown at such a healthy rate since you moved up here you're a cabillionaire in your own right now, and the will can't take those profits away from you no matter what. You keep giving money away but you're so rich it's ridiculous."

"I thought in the event of my death everything reverted to a trust for the local citizens? That's what I was told way back when."

"Who told you that?"

"Penelope Goodwinter, one of my aunt's lawyers at the time. She and her brother shared a law practice and they handled all the paperwork regarding the will and Fanny's wishes for the future of her wealth."

"Well, I have news for you. This Penelope Goodwinter lied to you. That money was not going anywhere unless you wanted it to-nice of you to set up the Foundation to benefit the area anyway. I'd like to see copies of the paperwork you were given at the time. I'd really like to see that because I am going by documents filed with the county before the Goodwinters got their grubby little hands on Fanny's or your business dealings. Did you read through it all personally?"

"Bart, you know I hate that kind of stuff. I fall asleep trying to balance my bank statements once a month."

"You only balance your bank statements once a month?"

"Yes, now that I am once again trying to live like a normal person does. I miss normal."

"Man, in this day and age you have to check your account balances several times throughout each month to assure no one has breached security protocols and stolen your identity and/or your money. This is the twenty-first century, Qwill. Life isn't simple anymore. You should also have account alerts set up so that you get emails and alerts on your mobile phone from your bank whenever a transaction occurs whether or not it's you doing the transacting. Those are priceless tools for personal financial protection."

"I hate it. This kind of money is a burden. I never realized it till I had so much of it. I already gave lots of it away."

"I know you did. But untouched investments in the way of certificates and stocks in the personal portfolio Fanny gave you have grown exponentially just in the few years since you joined us up here. Jim, you need to keep up on this stuff. Now that I know you don't I'm making myself a note to help you do so from now on. And everyone has to keep an eye on their accounts these days no matter how much or how little one has in them."

"I hate it. Life was simpler when I was poor. What's that you said about if I were to get married?"

"A spouse always has first dibs on everything, especially if there are no children and assuming you do not, they are the ones who wind up with it all."

"Do me a favor. Can you look up marriage licenses online? Has technology so insinuated itself into our lives that this is perhaps now possible?"

"It certainly is."

"Look up my last name and the name Goodwinter and see who holds marriage licenses in those names, please. I've got a funny feeling." The funny feeling was manifesting in the form of one large moustache suddenly being at unrest.

"I'll get right on it. Want to wait?"

"No, I have an errand to do. Call me with whatever you find out."

"Will do."

****

The rebuild of the place had gone well, but even at that, department stores are no place for confused shoppers. Not being one who had yet mastered the online shopping experience, Qwilleran walked into the jewelry department of Lanspeak's to look for a watch for his housekeeper. Her everyday watch was looking well worn, and he wanted to get her a new one for her birthday. He walked over to a counter and looked for women's watches. After fighting off two sales women who were determined to sell him everything they possibly could, he left with a nice silver watch which was attractive but not showy. Connie was not a showy woman, plus, the watch was for daytime, not evening. It had been giftwrapped for him quite nicely. Now all he needed was a card.

Stopping at the greeting card section he looked at all the humorous birthday cards and then read some of the sincere ones. That left him nowhere as the goofy ones were too goofy and the sincere ones housed sentiments which made him uncomfortable. He read about how adding another year onto one's life made certain body parts droop. No. Then he read one complete with cartoon pictures of old people dancing around naked. No. Then he read one suggesting older women should meet up with younger men and conduct themselves in an undignified manner. Definitely no. So he switched back to serious cards. He read about how his love for her should make them soar like birds of a feather. No. Then he read one that said there had never been a friend like her. No. The next one said it had taken him a lifetime to find her. Technically true but still no.

He ultimately chose one with a colorful front cover and nothing written inside. He was a reporter who had spent most of his life writing for a living, he would think of something appropriate. He headed back home while it was still raining lightly. Then he sat down in the easy chair in his bedroom and tried to think of something to write in the card which would adequately sum up what Connie meant to him and why he appreciated her.

"Connie," was as far as he got before he felt himself becoming suddenly quite tired. He sprawled across the bed and fell promptly asleep. When he awoke some time later he checked his watch. It was going on four o'clock which meant he'd been asleep for hours. The museum opening was at hand and he didn't want to miss any of the attendees. He was going to look at every face just as he had told Arch he would. He put the watch he'd bought Connie in the nightstand along with the card and the pen he'd been using. Then he checked himself out in the bathroom mirror and ran a comb through his hair. A glance out the window revealed it had finally stopped raining and the sun had come out. Four p.m. half-sun was better than no sun. He went downstairs to find a note on the kitchen table that said, "Jim, you were snoring away and I figured you needed your rest so I drove to the museum by myself. See you there. Connie."

Qwilleran grabbed the coffeepot and poured cold brew into a paper cup to take with him. Then he got into his car and made the short drive to the museum under the watchful eye of the Pickax police. He pulled in and left the vehicle with a valet in attendance. The huge parking lot was almost full as he made his way forward dodging puddles which were everywhere as he waited in line behind others trying to get in. He happened to look down and over to one side and saw the biggest footprints he'd ever seen next to the sidewalk leading to the front door. Still shaking off sleep, there was something about those prints which rang a bell. Taking his phone out of his pocket he checked some photos he'd taken at the morgue. After going through most of them he found the ones he wanted. The tread on the clothing and chest of the dead man, who had now been identified as Winston Dana LaGrange, looked a lot like the tread impressions in the mud outside the museum. He put his phone into camera mode and took several shots of the footprints, letting others get ahead of him in line in order to do so. Then he went inside to discover what looked like a Halloween convention in full swing.

There were little aliens everywhere along with bigger aliens, a couple of werewolves, and a short chubby guy wearing a mask with glowing red eyes and a long black stinger where his nose should have been, big red and black striped wings, and a black leotard which helped to emphasize his fat belly. There were all sorts of other weird non-human creatures, including a very tall Bigfoot standing over to one side along with a robot that looked like it had escaped from the set of Lost in Space. Most people were in costumes and masks or costume head pieces. Looking at every face was actually not going to do Qwilleran much good. He brought his gaze back around to see Arch coming toward him as he picked his way through the crowd.

"So this is what you didn't tell me about when I said I was going to look at every face. Nice."'

"Didn't you read the article in the Something?"

"Thanks to several hours of heavy rain and the lack of a plastic sleeve my copy was sopping wet wood pulp by the time I picked it up off the porch, thank you. I had no idea. Hello, Mildred." He gave his best friend's wife a kiss on the cheek.

"Qwill, how are you? You look like you just woke up from a nap."

"Getting over the flu but doing better. I love your costume." He didn't, but he was too much of a gentleman to say so. She was a fairy complete with pink hair, wire wings wrapped with some kind of glowing sparkly pink material, shiny pink body suit-like thing attached to a tu-tu, magic fairy wand, pink tights, and little pink glittery slippers that had turned up toes. She looked like a bottle of Pepto Bismol had gotten into the hallucinogens and learned how to walk.

"Thank you. I made it myself. No costume for you either, Qwill?" she asked as she gave Arch a brief disparaging look per his lack of the same.

"Oh, that's not me. I sure am enjoying looking at all these other folks, though. Are you taking good care of our boy here?"

"Unhealthy fats and unhealthy food are off the roster if that's what you mean. I make sure he takes his medication and eats correctly and does his daily walking. Doesn't he look wonderful?"

"That he does." Someone bumped him from behind as he said those words. It was Bigfoot, who apologized without looking at him and walked away. Qwilleran looked around as the huge creature worked the room.

"Isn't it great, Qwill?" asked Mildred. "Loretta hired all these little aliens and Bigfoot and a few other creatures around here to welcome and guide the public through and give little docent speeches all over the museum. I think she's done a fantastic job! Speak of the devil! Here's our superstar!"

Qwilleran winced as Loretta Garver, wearing a long shiny silver sequined dress and two sparkling antennae on her head walked up to them. He knew he would need more coffee in order to try to understand her but there just wasn't time. Looking around to see where the trusty interpreter was, he saw that M.A. was clear at the other end of the place so no assistance would be coming from him. The young man had never clarified the nature of the trauma the museum director had endured which had led to her expert mangling of the sounds the rest of humanity referred to as 'words'.

"Hello! How are you all doing? What do you think of our little museum? Are you enjoying it? What do you like best?" Loretta had somehow magically abandoned Mystery English in favor of being understood. Qwilleran stared at her for a moment before speaking.

"Loretta, this is spectacular. I can't wait to see all the exhibits. I'm working my way around the room. Congratulations! Well done!" said Qwilleran. Similar compliments came from Arch and Mildred.

"What do you think Fanny would say?" asked Loretta as she turned to Qwilleran and stared into his eyes while wearing a big smile. _Oh, heck_.

"I think she would marvel at everything and just be speechless with amazement." And if you were lucky, she would stop there.

Loretta laughed loudly as he excused himself and walked toward a different section of the museum. The exotic scent of Eau De Distillery sought out his nostrils as he passed by her. So, the medication M.A. had previously indicated she told him she took was widely available without prescription at your average liquor store. He wondered if the kid knew that fun fact. The difference in the museum director's speech once medicated was phenomenal, especially seeing that verbalizing usually worked the other way around when one heavily imbibed. Miracles happen in reverse sometimes.

Pickax's most famous citizen worked his way around the room as little grey aliens offered trays of appetizers to him. They were surprisingly good and he munched on a few different kinds. His stomach was awakening now and told him about the nutrition deficit it had suffered through while he fought off the flu for so many days, so, he looked around for more little aliens bringing food. Most of them were significantly under four feet tall and wore very small tennis shoes. Someone said they were from Miss Grammerton's third grade class at the local grade school. He found a nearby alien and helped himself to some spicy cream cheese and pineapple crackers. It would have to do till he relocated the extraterrestrials who had the trays of mini chicken tacos. Robbie the Robot teetered on through crying "Danger, Will Robinson!" but since he didn't have any food in his pincer-like hands, he was allowed to continue teetering along.

The place was packed except for one spot a few feet away from him which suddenly caught the ex-crime reporter's attention. On the floor in the open space there were what was left of some muddy footprints which were exceptionally large, and they seemed to match the prints he had seen outside as he waited in line. They reminded him of the tread marks on the body of the man whom he had tripped over in the woods weeks earlier. He needed to find the shoes that had made those footprints. His moustache began to tingle in confirmation of that fact as young M.A. approached him with a friendly smile. He was wearing a shiny green metallic outfit from head to toe. Every inch of skin on his hands, neck, and face was painted green, he had large green flippers on his feet, and there was a large red-ringed eyeball painted in the middle of his forehead.

"Mr. Q! Great of you to make it! What do you think? Isn't this great? You've got to me kidding me!" The young man was clearly excited and proud at the same time. "My mouth is dry-let me get a slurp," said M.A. as he raised a bottle of water to his intensely green lips.

"M.A., I'm actually quite astounded. There aren't many actual humans around here from what I can see. Where did they get all these fine actors?"

"Well, the little grey aliens are from the elementary school, Mothman with the long stinger and red glowing eyeballs over there is a local police officer doing a little moonlighting because his wife is pregnant again, the werewolves are from the high school, and the others are from here and there. I think maybe Bigfoot is new to the area, don't know him, said he needed to make money whatever way he could when he answered our ad. I believe he has genuine Nephilim blood in his veins! Not many people reach the 7'4" mark like he has. To tell you the truth, he kind of gives me the creeps." They both stared across the room at the man dressed up like a gigantic ape-person. Qwilleran's moustache continued to tingle.

"I know what you mean, but I'd sure like to get a better look at him. That's some costume there." They began walking to the spot where Sasquatch was holding court. People began clearing away from that area as the tall actor looked around and lifted up the front of his mask while shoving a handful of appetizers he'd gotten from one of the little greys into his mouth. He was happily munching away as the two men walked up to him. Qwilleran stole a glance down at his feet and looked back up at the man they belonged to before Bigfoot noticed the two of them. The hairy costume covered most of the man's shoes, but at that height your feet would have to be enormous and they looked it from what he could see. If he could just get a good look. Upon turning around, the tall man's demeanor changed and he drew back from Qwilleran and M.A. As well camouflaged as they were, the eyes looking down at them were clearly shocked at what they were seeing. He stared at the Scotsman as if he couldn't tear his eyes away. His physical demeanor changed completely and his shoulders went slack.

"Say, we were just admiring how you look in your costume," said M.A.

More staring ensued. Then Bigfoot picked his head up, squared his shoulders, and looking even taller, abruptly walked away.

Qwilleran stared after him as a feeling of foreboding returned.

****

Evening approached as the Klingenschoen heir glad-handed everyone and made more friends and influenced countless people. Attendees were generally having a lot of fun as the photographer for the Something snapped away taking lots of pictures as promotional director Hixie Rice, another transplant from down below, worked with her to ensure specific types of shots were captured. The morning edition would be interesting for sure. The Sunday paper was always larger than weekday editions, and they planned on giving the opening a lot of space.

"I've been meaning to ask you what exactly was the traumatic event which caused Loretta's speech to become garbled?"

"Well, I guess I can tell you now, Mr. Q.," said M.A. "Several years ago Miss Garver was abducted by honest to God aliens! They took her up in their ship and everything! She told me she was never the same since!" Timing being the stuff of life, Qwilleran then heard a clearly comprehensible voice behind him saying, "...and the beam of light sucked me up into the ship! I was paralyzed-paralyzed I tell you! They did horrible things to me!" A circle of guests had surrounded Loretta as she continued her one-woman show.

He kept his face carefully placid and other than a bit of rapid eye blinking one would never know he was currently wondering if anyone else realized that Loretta was, in the opinion of what had to be many, a few cards short of a deck. Or perhaps he himself was simply not the sort aliens would want to abduct. They had certainly selected the perfect person to direct this type of museum, though. He could not argue with that. Chicken Taco Alien came back around and the men helped themselves to more of the little delicacies. Little cups of gourmet macaroni and cheese topped with crispy bacon and green onion accompanied by tiny little spoons came around next so they stopped that little grey and took a few. The little kids didn't argue, they just gave the men food and stared up at them with super large, dark, slanted alien eyes which looked kind of spooky.

"Ouch!" Qwilleran had turned partway around and banged into one of the actors. "I'm so sorry-I didn't see you there. I apologize. That was my fault."

Red eyes glowing and long black nose stinger quivering, one short, chubby Mothman emphatically replied, "Perzackly!"
Chapter 15

Time is a marvelous curative for most things. The pain from lost jobs, broken marriages, and the death of most loved ones will dull to differing degrees over time providing one is not determined to remain in the throes of grief forever. Though some losses are harder to deal with than others, a sure fire way to ensure you remain traumatized is to keep rehashing the should haves, could haves, and what ifs of your life. Regret is a merciless master until you take away its whip. Jim Qwilleran was at a point in time where he felt the need to do things differently.

He had not heard from Polly Duncan in a very long time. Her abrupt and unannounced departure had hit him like a hammer strikes a nail. He had not known she was unhappy or restless. If there had been signs, he had not picked up on them. The brutality of her actions was something he did not discuss with anyone; he wasn't the kind of man to plumb the depths of his innermost emotions or let anyone perceive them very often. He was, however, approaching the point in life where he'd grown tired of musical partners and relationship uncertainty. Though he had once believed he would never marry again, recent events had begun to make him think more deeply about the subject. He was in the half century neighborhood and things suddenly began looking different from that vantage point. He was now unable to escape the fact that his past taste in women could frequently have been described as being based on superficial requirements. This had manifested in his experiencing a number of women who had underdeveloped character and overly-developed vanity in the past. The less character they possessed, the harder and emptier their hearts had often been where the proverbial rubber met the road. When the world applauds you for your beauty, it automatically sends you the message that you just don't have to try very hard across the board, and Qwilleran had noticed that a lot of beautiful men and women just don't delve too deeply into certain life tasks like good character development. His experience with Polly in particular had been rooted in what he believed were more substantive mores. Having tasted the vigors of being in love more than once, he now wondered if that in itself was nothing more than a trap to ensure the human race procreated within the confines of family units as opposed to more indiscriminating practices, which they also excelled at. He had to admit that he certainly didn't seem to be able to recognize when a woman truly cared for him or not. Having your belief system in something impactful rocked to its core becomes harder to abide with age. Realizing his relationship record was in hideous shape was not something he had ever actually owned up to previously. His mother had raised him on her own, and he believed her to be a very good woman with high moral standards; she also had an air of refinement about her. An air of refinement. Maybe he'd be better off with less of that and more heart? Does fickleness hide behind refinement? Surely it was an individual thing. Ultimately he decided he'd been looking at the wrong aspects of a woman's personality significantly clouded by how long she could discuss subjects 99.9 percent of the population could not care less about, combined with what size skirt she wore. The arrow of truth had hit its mark; he suddenly began getting the kind of headache that often accompanies a good long look in The Ugly Little Mirror.

Dinner was delicious that evening. Connie had outdone herself with a scrumptious fettucine Alfredo topped with grilled shrimp, mixed vegetable salad, and homemade chocolate cheesecake topped with toasted pecans and drizzled with white chocolate in a dark chocolate cracker crust. Qwilleran ate more than he should have. He'd dropped some poundage years before at the behest of his doctor, but now he wondered if old age came along with certain privileges which could never be revoked, such as getting fat without being stared at. Then he remembered the unhealthy aspect of gaining the weight back. His pants had begun to feel somewhat tight lately. Drat.

"I didn't see you at the museum opening. What time did you arrive?" he asked Connie.

"I was there before you woke up, but then Loretta asked me if I could help out in the back room area where the caterers had set up. They were having various equipment failures and needed to get some things done remotely so I wound up running back and forth to the house to cook and re-heat and help out. I felt sorry for them. They were quite appreciative. Good thing we live close. And I'm really glad the vintner installed a modern eight-burner cooktop along with the new double wall ovens instead of just relying on the antique stove they also left in our kitchen. Everything came in handy for sure. I'll have to go back to see more of the actual displays and such. It seems I ran back and forth till closing time dragging aliens of varying ages with me as pack mules to load and unload the van with the boxes and trays of food. I didn't see you there either. The place was jumping, wasn't it?" she smiled.

"It sure was. The place is deceptively larger than you think it is when you first walk in. I wonder what kind of use that building was put to when Fanny owned it. That is a fun fact I will have to acquire. She and I never spoke about the place. Bart made me aware of its existence some years ago but he didn't go into detail."

"I hear it was some kind of manufacturing business. I forget the exact nature of it. Records at the City Hall should have something on it if Bart doesn't have access to all the details of Fanny's business dealings from past years."

"The Goodwinters should have turned those records over. I'm going to ask him to snoop through them. He'll find out for me. Let me help you with those dishes." They cleared the table together and loaded plates and pans into the dishwasher.

"I'm afraid you're right, Connie. My pants are getting tight. I think I'd like to go for a walk tonight. Do you feel like accompanying me, by chance?"

At the sound of the word 'walk' Koko appeared out of nowhere with his ears perked up as his pupils grew large and hopeful.

"Not you, young man. I am not in the mood to contend with you tonight. Connie?"

"I'd love to, Jim. Let me change my shoes."

The evening wore on with the two of them enjoying a moderate amble towards town and back as they discussed their more personal lives among other things. About ninety minutes later they returned home and sat on the expansive porch in comfortably padded individual gliders as they sipped glasses of lemonade. Lemonade goes with summer like hot chocolate goes with winter. It was turning out to be a perfect evening.

****

"I told you, there are no more pallets left here. Nothing was left behind. Check for yourself."

"I will do that."

The woman's apparel would have met with Audrey Hepburn's approval. She wore a long, straight cream color skirt with a matching cashmere sweater neatly tucked in at the waist, and a thick dark brown belt. A tasteful scarf covered her dark hair which had been put up in a French twist, and she looked at the man through large, old Hollywood style sunglasses which she did not remove at any point during her visit. She walked around the loading dock of the shipping and receiving facility and looked at every skid personally. She read every address label and then came back to the dock master and asked to see his records.

"My God, if it'll shut you up and get you to leave me alone, HERE YOU GO! How many times do we have to do this? You didn't believe me over the phone despite multiple calls, so here you are in person. That's rich." The man sighed in disgust and handed a clipboard over to the exceedingly well-dressed brunette.

She thoroughly scanned the papers on the board and said, "I'd like to see the records in your computer, please."

He stared at her the way you stare at a relative you seriously hate but have to invite to holiday dinner anyway.

"I'll make it worth your while." He wanted to slug her.

"Tell me the day you're concerned about and I'll check that for the twentieth time. You can't expect me to just turn the computer over to your control. Which day are we talking about AGAIN?"

She gave him four dates.

He searched each date and told her which shipment numbers went to the destination she was questioning him about and when.

"Those are the shipment numbers I already have. You're certain there was nothing else?"

Realizing there was no other way to make this onslaught come to a halt, he rolled his chair back from the desk in resignation and gestured to indicate she should come around and read the records for herself. If it would get rid of her, he was now willing to violate company policy and do it her way.

He stood up and gave her the chair. She searched the dates she'd given him and muttered to herself, "There has to be some mistake. I'm missing something here."

"Oh, lady, _please_."

"Very well. There are no other records here which you haven't told me about." She thanked him as she pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill from her purse and tried to give it to him.

"Keep your money, Miss Parker. Your payment to me is that you promise you will never come back here and never call me again."

"Of that I can assure you."

She spun on her expensive heel and left.

****

"Qwill, I've got the information you asked for," said the attorney.

"I'm on my way into town now. Can I stop in quickly?"

"I'm free till one today, then I have appointments."

"I'm about five minutes away, let me park and I'll be in."

"Sounds good. Need to talk to you about something else while we're at it." Minutes later Qwilleran wheeled his car into the parking lot of his attorney's office building and parked.

"Bart, you're looking well. What did you find out?" he asked as he took a seat.

"The museum building was built in 1920. It was used to make hats from the twenties through the fifties. Your aunt Fanny owned that business which was called MC Hats, Inc. There are folders of records about everything under the sun relating to all her business ventures, some of which are complete with pictures. Here are some pictures of her biggest selling hats. There was a storefront in one portion of the building and they also shipped hats all over the country to prestigious department stores and they took catalog orders to boot. Then people stopped wearing hats of that nature in the early sixties and that business wasn't lucrative any longer. Being the crack businesswoman she was, Fanny then turned it into a clothing factory which sold pop culture sixties type of clothing; miniskirts, Twiggy style clothing for super skinny girls, Beatle jackets and Beatle boots, anything you'd find on Carnaby Street you could find at Fanny's place. Then she moved onto flower child type stuff; tie-dyed this and that, bell bottom jeans-she really kept up with the times. Look at this stuff."

"She kept all this stuff in her files? I'm impressed. No stone left unturned and everything cataloged neatly. Yep, that was Fanny's personality about everything back in the day."

"She continued with clothing manufacturing till it became too cost prohibitive to do so in this country for the level of quality she wanted to maintain. Being that she'd already made a boatload of money from this branch of her business empire she sold the business name and left the building empty for quite some time before donating it to local government. They didn't really have excess money to be able to turn it into much of anything so it sat unused for a while till a private corporation bought it. VacuCorp manufactured different products there for a few years till they started leasing it out to whomever had the rent money. Family feud type situation. And that's how the museum came to be. Rumor has it they want to unload it but can't find a buyer."

"Did you by chance find any building sketches?"

"Sure did. Here's the layout of the entire place."

Qwilleran took the sketches and paged through them till he found the underground level all drawn out precisely matching what he and M.A. had found on their venture beneath the intake area of the museum. Nothing they had found indicated how anyone could or would know about the building's best kept secret.

"It seems some of the Goodwinters kept trying to buy Fanny out over a period of time when she had the hat and clothing business. She wasn't selling though. She kept some handwritten notes on that sort of thing. They were jealous of her wealth and thought they could talk her out of keeping the business as she got older. It didn't work."

"The Goodwinters knew about this building?"

"Sure did. Check out her notes here."

Qwilleran read about ardent would-be buyers being disappointed by her refusal to sell her business to them. Then he read the last paragraph on one handwritten page that ended with, "The girl's mother found the tunnel. Damn her!"

They sat in silence for some time as Bart noodled away on his laptop and the heir went through the files for several minutes. His most important client devoured page after page before Bart spoke.

"While I was going over the files I noticed something else that will be of certain interest to you. Fanny was being defrauded of funds. The Goodwinters were pilfering from her estate."

Qwilleran stared at his lawyer. "Not possible. Fanny was an astute businesswoman. She would have caught that mighty fast. What makes you say that?"

"Look at these fund transfers. The monies were barely recorded and they were whisked out again via checks Penelope was writing under the guise of management fees for other properties. Try as I might, I couldn't see where those funds were accounted for logically anywhere else despite tax returns and financial reports being present. I'm saying it was her because of the handwriting I've seen all over here being like the signature and other handwriting she affixed to legal documents for your aunt. Banks used to return paper checks to their account holders back in the day, and some of the fraudulent checks which someone forgot to remove slipped through and remained in the monthly envelopes from the bank in question. Then that someone went through and removed just about all the fraudulent checks but, as I said, they slipped up a few times and here are a number of those checks in matching handwriting. I suspect the account used to siphon off funds was one that belonged to Penelope personally but that's hard to say as it was a numbered Swiss account. You might remember there's been a lot of noise lately about forcing Swiss banks to reveal identities of numbered account holders who have no doubt been evading taxes for decades. Not all of the banks in that country are complying but enough of them have so that a lot of very questionable people have pulled their funds out and moved them to other locales. Fanny was getting up there, bless her heart, and that kind of money is a lot for a little old person to keep up with. Plus, I'm betting she trusted Penelope and her brother a lot more than she trusted the generations before them which tried to buy her out of her clothing business. After a certain number of years without issues that's just about inevitable. People get tired, and they relax. Check the endorsement handwriting on the back of the checks you have in your hand. Who do you think wrote in the name of the management company?"

"Penelope Goodwinter. I'll be damned."

"That's not the good part though. Glad you're sitting down. Is there something you recently forgot to tell me about? A life happening of some significance, by chance?"

"I don't think so. What do you mean?"

"You asked me to check out some other information the other day, remember? And with good reason. You apparently got married a couple of months ago to one Brooke Parker."

They stared at each other for several seconds as the light bulb went on.

"Here's the license and the signatures of both husband and wife. Anything look familiar?"

"Yes. Brooke Parker could forge Penelope Goodwinter's handwriting any day of the week. Needless to say, I am not married."

"This other signature looks as if someone tried to duplicate yours convincingly. The license was applied for and the ceremony took place in Las Vegas. Here's a copy of the marriage certificate, too."

"So this is how they're trying to get at Fanny's money. I get it now. What I don't understand is why someone is setting this up to look like the part of my new wife is being played by a dead woman."
Chapter 16

"Yes. As detailed as you can get about every aspect of it is what I want. You understand me perfectly. The authorization and payment was couriered to your office about an hour ago. Did you receive it? Good. Thank you. I understand." Click.

****

It had been a few days since the museum grand opening, and while he was feeling much better after his bout with illness, Qwilleran decided he would turn in early anyway. Koko was nowhere to be found but Yum Yum hopped up on the bed with her dad and tucked herself under his arm, which was her favorite place to sleep. His energy level still wasn't where it needed to be so he decided a little extra rest wouldn't hurt. He decided to steal a look at an episode of Star Trek before calling it quits for the night. The TV he'd bought for his bedroom had shed new light on his understanding of why people liked to watch the telly in bed. This concession to getting older didn't sit well with him initially, but he was getting used to it. Actor Roger C. Carmel was playing Harcourt Fenton Mudd, con artist extraordinaire who liked to create beautiful identical female machines which looked like actual women in the year 2268. It was a largely humorous episode which was just what was needed before powering down for the night. When it was over he shut the TV off and laid still on his back so as to ensure he didn't crush his special little girl cat. He fell asleep to the sound of her soft purring as she lay up against his side in the darkness.

Two hours had passed when he suddenly awoke to the sound of a screech followed by yelling. Someone was in his bedroom and they definitely didn't belong there. A scant bit of moonlight streaming through the drapes illuminated the outline of a very tall figure at the end of his bed and it was swearing and swinging at something that was running around the room. Koko was tearing around and jumping all over the bed and then up onto the intruder who, as it turned out, was wielding a knife that glinted eerily in the small amount of moonlight shining into the room. The man lunged at Qwilleran who scooped up Yum Yum and rolled over and jumped out of bed just in time. True to form, Koko was doing his best damage unfazed by the size of the attacker. As soon as the little cat would jump off the man, he would bounce off the bed and jump right back up onto him. More screaming ensued as the brave Siamese dug his claws deeply into the man's neck and raked it open. The Scotsman snapped on the light to see the person he was supposedly being murdered by. Despite a stocking cap pulled down over the face, he knew whom it had to be-the height fit perfectly. Qwilleran grabbed the bat he kept nearby and started swinging whenever Koko was clear. He made glancing contact with the huge skull of the giant as the man crumpled to his knees, but Koko didn't stop trying to save his dad. He jumped on the man's head and just missed his intended target as the man brought up an arm to shield his eyes from the ferocious little ten-pound merchant of death. The very angry kitty cat delivered enough deep rips and scratches and tears to make it possible to strain the water out of a pot of macaroni using the criminal's face for a colander. Koko dug his back claws into the man's skull and neck and ripped them again to the sound of more screaming.

Connie came running in and shrieked as she ran for her phone and called the police. Qwilleran swung at the man's head again but the target rolled over and jumped up to his feet before this blow landed. He ran out of the room bleeding up a storm with Koko in hot pursuit. The tall man leapt down an entire flight of stairs in two bounds and bolted for the door. He barely made it out of the house ahead of the little guard cat who had just kicked his gigantic ass.

****

Though the police were supposed to be constantly parked out front of the property, as bad luck would have it, they had missed the intruder during a shift change. It was a good thing that the next car wasn't far away as the incoming protection detail arrived. The radio crackled out the distress call and they bolted into action making it into the vintner's old house in record time to the sound of one excited Siamese growling inside the front door at their feet. Koko's back was arched as he hissed profusely and screeched a few times for dramatic effect. He did, however, reign in his instinct to attack a new pair of uninvited guests. He sensed no danger from them but was far from calm at that moment.

"Koko, it's all right boy-good job! Come on, boy! Please don't kill the police!" Qwilleran implored his little charge as he ran down the stairs in his pajamas, no time for a robe.

The officers froze just inside the front door. They realized their presence was aggravating the fur clad owner of eighteen razor sharp knives located at the ends of his paws. They stood perfectly still as they stared down at the blood spattered cat.

"Are you alright Mr. Qwilleran?!"

"Yes, we're fine! None of his blows landed but a lot of Koko's did! My cat attacked when he saw the man standing inside my bedroom! He's very protective of me!"

"What happened?!"

Koko decided the atmosphere was no longer charged with violence so he sat down and started licking his fur. Qwilleran picked him up and put him on a nearby table and hung onto him.

"If you want samples of the attacker's blood you'd better get them before Koko decides he needs to take a complete bath right here and now. I'll hold him for you. He's calming down now. It's okay boy, it's okay. You did good!"

"His coat is full of blood. That's great evidence. Good job, Koko," one officer said. Detectives arrived and a forensics team was close behind. Qwilleran held the hero cat while samples of blood were taken from his coat. One of the team spoke quietly to the cat and asked him if she could please examine his paws. Koko cooperated beautifully and allowed himself to be inspected. Qwilleran had long known that animals understand us, it's we humans who don't understand them. The technician then asked if she could remove some skin from under Koko's claws and once again, the Siamese allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do to him. So, Moose County now had its own Cat Whisperer. Yum Yum watched from the top of the stairs where Connie sat holding her in her arms with the cat tucked inside the bathrobe she had thrown on over her pajamas. Thoroughly frightened, the little female peeped out from the robe not moving a muscle, grateful that she was, of course, totally invisible.

The story unfolded and the detectives took copious notes. There were technicians all over the crime scene areas gathering evidence. It turns out Koko's fur wasn't the only thing the would-be murderer bled on. There was blood on the stairs and in the bedroom where the action had occurred. A small piece of fabric was found in the bedroom where Koko had ripped a corner of the man's shirt clean off. Hercule Poirot had nothing on Koko, The Cat Who Could Do It All: protect, defend, formulate clues, and gather evidence all at the same time.

The Cat Whisperer had a way with the Siamese and he calmed down greatly as she worked with him. She gathered her evidence carefully, talking to him the entire time. He rubbed his face against her arm being careful to avoid the nasty smelling latex gloves she had on her hands. When she was finished she wiped the blood off his fur with a moist paper towel and removed her gloves. Then she took him in her arms where he laid for some time, squeezing his eyes together for a mini nap while she held him. Sounds of the investigation faded away and he slept. Saving your human was exhausting work, but his job was done for the night.

As the professionals filed out of the house, the detectives assured Qwilleran that the protection detail would now be doubled and two officers would remain behind the house at all times as well as the two who would remain in front of it. There would be no more unprotected moments during shift changes or anything else. The Scotsman insisted on paying for the extra man hours this would require and his offer was gratefully accepted.

Cat Whisperer/crime scene investigator Ellie Beckendorf was still holding Koko when it was time to leave. She set him down on the table where she had worked on him and upon awakening the cat began studiously grooming himself after he went in for one last nuzzle.

"You know he's worried about you. He still senses danger around you. He loves you very much."

"I know he loves me. I love him right back. How do you know he still senses danger around me?"

"He told me so. I've been able to understand animals since I was a teeny little kid. I feel what they feel. I receive their thoughts and their other communications in pictures and words and impressions, too. People don't understand them because they don't slow down and listen. But they understand us perfectly whenever they choose to pay attention."

"Based on the way you handled Koko tonight I would not disagree with you. He's an outgoing little fellow, but not one to let virtual strangers fiddle with his feet, that's for sure, let alone allow someone to take a tweezers and poke around his claws and toes. I was holding my breath hoping he wouldn't take a swipe at you to let you know he'd had enough of your finagling, but he was the perfect gentleman. You've got a gift, that's for sure. And I do believe you about communicating with them and vice versa. I know you're right."

"Gift from God I always say. I hope the next time we see each other it's in a non-professional way. My husband and I are taking our kids to the Pickax Annual Picnic in another month. Maybe I'll see you and the Mrs. there," said Ellie as she glanced at a nearby couch where Connie was now sitting with Yum Yum who was still hiding inside her robe. "That little kitty on the couch is still very frightened, by the way. She's a gentle touch I can tell. She's not the tough guy her brother is."

"We're not-" Qwilleran was cut off.

"How do you know she's a girl from all the way over there?" asked Connie.

"I felt her energy and I thought she was so I asked her in a thought and she confirmed that she's a girl. I'd take extra care not to make any loud noises or startle her; she's trying to process all this but she's terrified right now. Best of luck to the four of you."
Chapter 17

The room was peaceful as the cats came in rather quietly, almost unnoticed. You would have never known the house had experienced violence the night before. Koko was calm but there was something wrong with his companion.

Yum Yum came limping up to Qwilleran and held up her left front paw and whimpered softly in an appeal for help.

"What's wrong with my girl?" the big Scotsman bent over and picked the little Siamese up gingerly and set her in his lap, being careful not to let her put any weight on her injured foot.

"Look, Jim, there's blood on the floor where she just walked in." Connie came over to where they were sitting as the examination of the little cat's foot got under way.

"She's cut. Her foot is cut." He carefully took her tiny leg and looked at it all over, then began examining the rest of her gently before going back to her foot.

"I didn't see anything last night when I was holding her. She seemed physically fine then, but then she was wrapped up in my robe with me and wasn't moving at all."

Yum Yum cried out in pain and the examination came to an abrupt halt.

"I'm taking you to the vet, sweetheart. The doctor will be able to help your foot get better." The little cat whimpered softly. "Connie, call the vet and see if we can get in today, would you, please? I wonder how she cut her foot?"

"Beats me. Like I said, I didn't notice anything odd about her last night except that she was scared to death. I wonder if that monster stepped on her!"

The call was made and the vet said to bring the cat right in. Qwilleran packed Koko into the car, too, just for good measure as it had been a traumatic night for the whole family. Having fallen in love with the cats upon meeting them, Connie insisted on going along.

"I'm so glad you finally decided to get actual pet carriers for the cats, Jim. That picnic basket thing you used to carry them around in was for the birds. Say, have you heard there's this new-fangled thing called color television nowadays? No more black and white." She sparkled a smile at him. Her good natured needling pleased him more than he let on.

"Ya don't say? Next thing ya know they'll have air conditioning in cars. Amazing." They pulled into the vet's parking lot a few minutes later and brought Koko and Yum Yum inside.

"Qwill, Connie. What's wrong with our little patient today?" Terry Broomfield opened the first carrier door and said, "My dear Miss Yum Yum, would you mind joining us on the exam table here?" and she did exactly that, limping her way onto the surface of the stainless steel table.

"Must be hurting her pretty badly, she was crying before we called you," said Qwilleran.

"Then I'll be extra careful with this tiny little paw here." The vet gently examined the meezer's foot and leg, and gave her a complete going over while he was at it.

"How long has she been favoring this leg?"

"We just noticed it this morning. We had an unfortunate incident at the house last night, a break-in with some violence involved, and I'm wondering if she may have gotten stepped on in the shuffle. Not sure. We're all ok except our little girl here."

"Sorry to hear about that. Well, she definitely has a gash on her foot and I would suspect the cut is older than a day as it's already a tad infected. Glad to say no broken bones from what I can tell, but I'm going to take her in the back and get an x-ray just to be safe. I'll close her wound with a couple of stitches after I deaden the area with local anesthetic. My assistant will hold her down and keep her comfortable and she'll never even know what happened. Then I'm going to beg her forgiveness in case she figures that part out and give you some antibiotic pills for you to give her twice a day till she's taken all of them; it's important to make sure she takes every last one. I'm also giving her a shot of antibiotics to get a jumpstart on this thing and I'll rub the cut with some antibiotic ointment, too. It's anybody's guess as to how this happened. Cats have the ability to do mysterious things we will never figure out, and I don't have to tell you that they're awfully good at getting into things they shouldn't."

Yum Yum was taken into the back room after a few more things were checked out by the doctor. Qwilleran and Connie sat quietly in the examination room while their little darling's foot was tended to, which only took a few short minutes. Terry emerged from The Little Shop of Horrors with the subdued female under his arm and put her back on the exam table. He then put a cone on her neck which matched the immaculate white gauze bandage she had on her damaged paw, and put her gently back into her carrier.

"The cone is for her protection; we don't want her pulling her bandage off or yanking at her stitches with her teeth. I'd like to see that bandage remain on her for the first 48 hours. I'm happy to report she laid perfectly still and was very polite the entire time. What an angel; all my patients should be so well-behaved. Now it's time for how to give a cat a pill class. Many a human has been defeated by a small but adept feline when it comes to taking much needed medication in pill form. Here's what you have to do. I think Yum Yum has had enough of me for one day. Koko, are you just along for the ride or will you be the first aid model for me?"

"Koko was in the midst of all the unpleasant action last night and he was literally tearing into the burglar tooth and claw and he removed some skin from the guy, so he could use a good once over to put my mind at ease, doc," said Qwill. Koko was hauled out of his carrier squalling and bawling at the top of his lungs in true Koko style.

"Koko! I haven't even done anything to you yet! What would you do if I had to give you a shot today?"

At the sound of the word "shot" the ornery Siamese popped his blue orbs open so wide that his pupils enlarged and covered the entire surface of both eyeballs. Then he turned his head to one side and cocked it at an angle. He looked like a deranged chicken stuck inside a cat suit.

"I'm going to give you a little examination here to make sure you came through the scuffle all right, my man. Let me listen to your heart." Silence ensued as the exam continued with the vet pressing and palpating this and that. "Ok, now we're going to take your temperature" said Terry, as the thermometer found its mark. A look of shocked indignation came on the face of Deranged Chicken Cat which could have withered the Cedars of Lebanon one by one or all at once. _Unhand me, sir! How DARE you!_

"Temperature is normal. Now I'll show you how to give a cat a pill." _That's what you think, human!_

"You start by pressing on either side of the jaw right here till the cat opens its mouth. Holding it open with pressure..." (Koko's eyes darted back and forth repeatedly) "...pop this here imaginary pill in and push it to the back of its throat with your finger, all the way in like this." Gagging noises ensued. If they were going to choke him to death, Koko was not going down without a fight.

"Then firmly clamp the jaws shut, holding the neck up in extended fashion as you push upward on the chin, and rub the neck like this several times. That makes the cat swallow of its own accord and walah, you're done. Works every time." Though he found the thought of cooperating completely revolting at that current time, Koko swallowed on cue in spite of himself.

"That didn't look too hard."

"It never looks difficult when a vet does it, Jim," said Connie with a knowing look on her face.

"Our girl knows this is important and I know she will cooperate fully, won't you, honey? You want your little foot to get all better now, don't you?" Yum Yum stared back at her dad innocently from inside her carrier.

Connie picked up Yum Yum's carrier. "Come on Toots, we're takin' you and your little foot home," she said as she shot a look at Qwill. The man was adorably soft-hearted when it came to his little ones.

"In this day and age where men are supposedly more sensitive and caring than ever, you mock me? You realize these are the only children I will ever have, correct?"

"I'm not mocking you at all. You've never given a cat a pill before, have you?"

"Can't say I've had the need to."

"Well, then, you have a lot to look forward to, dearie."

"Don't let Connie worry you, Qwill. If you do exactly what I showed you to do the way I showed you to do it, you can't fail."

"I'm confident, Terry. Thanks so much for seeing us so quickly. I sure have been worrying about Yum Yum since she came limping over to me this morning, and glad you gave Koko his clean bill of health today. We appreciate it."

"Hey, Qwill. I couldn't help but notice that Koko the Assassin could use a really good bath. Looks like he's got some blood on his fur."

"I don't know if I'm that brave right now, Terry, but I'll keep that in mind."

"There's a groomer one block over at the corner of Chicopee and Blanche. I hear good things about the place; you should check them out."

"That's a thought. And I'm sure I'll keep more of my skin if I let them tangle with my little man here. Thanks, again."

The pair drove for a minute and parked in front of Pet Wash Alley. They were waited on by a technician named Randy. It turned out that the groomer had a cancellation and could shampoo Koko right away. Because they were first time customers, they would blow dry him for free, no coupon necessary. Qwilleran agreed and said to Connie, "This ought to be interesting. I kind of feel bad doing this to our little guy," to which she retorted, "Better them than you."

"I have to ask you-is your cat a biter? Does he normally lash out at you if you do something to you that he doesn't like? Or would you describe him as gentle and laid back?" asked Randy.

"Well, he's an outgoing little guy and not what you'd call a biter, but I wouldn't exactly call him laid back either." Qwilleran then explained a bit about the night before in an effort to clear up any question as to how his cat's fur still had some blood on it where Koko's tongue had not been able to reach.

"Got it. Not to worry, your little guy's had a hard night so we'll be ready for anything. Paul, get the flower oil drops out, will ya?" Another tech nodded and went to fetch them.

"Has your cat ever had a bad reaction to flower oil drops, Mr. Q.?"

"I've heard about the stuff but haven't had a chance to try them on him when he gets wound up, so I honestly don't know how he will react."

"Good enough. We'll keep an extra special eye on him to make sure he's okay."

Randy took Koko out of his carrier and brought him to the shampooing area where the meezer suddenly began looking smaller and smaller to his human parents who were able to watch everything unfold from the waiting area. Paul appeared with a bottle of flower oil drops which were then rubbed into the inside of Koko's ears and a little was rubbed onto the end of his nose for quick results seeing as he had had such a rough night. Water was run in a large tub and then Koko was put in there with it. When the warm water engulfed his feet and a couple inches of his legs, he was temporarily silent as he looked down and tried to figure out what was happening to him. When the tech turned on the sprayer and doused the cat down gently and soaked him down to his skin, that's when they started having a sharp difference of opinion. The cat was determined to get himself out of the tub but Randy was determined to keep him in it. Paul came over to help restrain his highness and shampoo was generously put all over Koko as every possible part of his being was then rubbed and scrubbed and rinsed gently but profusely.

"Connie, I think he's drunk. Look at him! He hasn't made a sound!"

"Yet." Wait for it.

"Wow-oooo-ow-oooo-ow-oooo-ow-oooo!" said Koko in a low, slow-sounding voice.

It was a sound he had never made before in his life, but under the circumstances it was the best he could do. He had been 'invaded' by the vet, and now he'd been drugged so that his very person could be assaulted yet again by strangers wielding strange smelling goop. And so it was written in _The Book of Cat_ in the chapter on _Disruption: You Shall Make Your Protest Known No Matter What They Try To Do To You._

"Wow-oooo-ow-oooo!"

"Oh, he sounds pitiful, Connie! I hate this!"

"I feel badly for him, too, Jim, but he'll be fine. They'll get the blood out of his fur and he'll be just fine." She said that before the blow drying leg of the journey began.

The water was let to run down the drain as the rinsing part of the process was finally over. Koko was then squeezed by Randy's large male hands and then he was covered with a towel and scooped up by the tech. He was then squeezed some more and a fresh towel was applied. He was dried by hand to the point he could be as he stood on a padded table. The towel came off momentarily and Koko shook as hard as he cold to get his fur to stop feeling all clumped together. Then he was put into a harness which was adjusted so his little toes just touched the table and they turned the blow dryer on.

Randy aimed the hairdryer at Koko and began drying him with comfortably warm air. Being that he was basically a short-haired cat, this process didn't take terribly long. It would have gone more quickly had Koko not decided to perform his own version of The Nutcracker Suite while trying his best to get away. He went up higher on his toes and tried to run away but it didn't work. The harness was then adjusted higher till his toes barely touched the table at all. Then Randy dried his head and Koko decided that he actually liked the feeling of the warm air on his face so he stopped squirming. The dryer went up and down his back again and then each leg was done. They took him out of the harness and laid him down and dried his tummy.

"Jim, do you see this? Our boy is asleep!"

"Hey Randy, is Koko still breathing?" shouted Qwilleran over the hairdryer.

Randy bent down and checked the little cat, then watched to see if his ribcage was moving to indicate breathing. Then he shook his head yes and gave the thumbs up sign.

Their business was transacted and Koko was handed back to Qwilleran, who made sure his boy was alive and well, which he was, of course. Grateful to be smelling something familiar again, the cat opened his eyes sleepily and looked at his dad, then shut them again and laid his head on the man's chest. Qwilleran stroked his head for a bit and put him in his carrier. Then he changed his mind and asked Connie to drive so he could hold his boy in his arms. Qwill got into the car and Connie shut his door for him because his arms were full of Koko. She tucked the pair safely inside with a gentle smile on her face. Koko purred quietly, then gave a little sigh and slept all the way home.

****

It was an uneventful ride. They stopped at the grocery store to get the cats a special treat, and Qwilleran waited in the car guarding the precious cargo while Connie dashed inside for a few goodies. Later that night all four of them had wild caught Alaskan salmon fillets. Koko and Yum Yum were not offered any of the salad or potatoes which comprised the rest of the meal, but everybody got a piece of coconut cream pie, which was one of the favorite desserts of all four of them. The cats' pieces were small, but they were too thrilled with their treat to notice the disparity. The cone was removed from around Yum Yum's neck for dinner and put right back on once she finished eating so as to obstruct her ability to remove her bandage or chew her stitches, and the device did its job just as the vet said it would. The cats wolfed down the fish and their small pieces of pie with gusto. Yum Yum was still limping around after dinner with an even stranger gait than before due to the fact that the local anesthetic hadn't worn off yet. So she stumped around the kitchen oblivious to the pain she had previously been in, at least for a while.

"Remember, she doesn't get any pills till tomorrow."

"Got it. They ate well considering what they each had to go through today."

"It's a good thing they're not spoiled or anything. Gourmet salmon fillets which I know you wanted me to get just for them, and bakery coconut cream pie at that. I'm glad we got some of those goodies, too. And I didn't even have to bake today."

"You only go around once, Connie. I try to live by that credo every day. And my doctor doesn't mind my having a dessert now and then."

"Now and then? So 'now and then' is the reason your pants need to be let out. Scottish logic. Got it."

He smiled and ate the last bit of his pie.

"I enjoy this."

"I can see that. You are enjoying your second piece."

"Well, that, too. But I meant I enjoy your company at dinner. I would miss you if you weren't here."

There. He said it out loud and felt strangely relieved after having done so. Having eaten enough dinners alone to last a lifetime, Qwilleran was admitting to himself that the latter years he did not want to acknowledge he was approaching can serve to drive home the jagged edge of isolation till it feels razor sharp. If he were to be honest with himself, he hadn't truly opened his heart up all the way to anyone of the human variety since his marriage had ended in divorce so many years earlier.

"Well, thank you, and ditto." She winked at him with a warm smile. She was glad the two of them got along so well, and often ruminated on the fact that her employer was a very kind man.

The fact that Connie usually came straight to the point and was not one to waste words very often was something he had learned to appreciate, especially in light of his taste in women earlier in his life, for all the good that had done him. He reflected again on his recent realization that they formerly had to wear a certain size clothing and ramble on inanely about things almost no one cared about. As he got up to help clean the table off, he was wondering what he had ever seen in those types. In his case, they had been the kind who were almost always focused on things that didn't really matter, self-centered, and as memories came flooding back to him about his different relationships, were uninteresting on the whole. He held himself responsible for all of it. He was the one who had been previously drawn to those types like a moth to a flame. No one had made him date any of those women, or sustain a relationship with any of them. He was face-to-face with himself again now, in The Ugly Little Mirror. Why had he never prized the traits of a woman like Connie before? He feared she was too ordinary for the old Qwilleran. The Qwilleran who had been rather soundly stood up and abandoned by his ex-love, Polly Duncan, who had left the country and him without so much as a word. How had he managed never to see that side of that woman before? To realize the cruelty she was clearly capable of? The coldly truncating heart she so obviously possessed? He still had not heard a single word from her though it had been months, had only picked up second hand news which had told him she was all right and enjoying France. He suddenly realized he had forgotten that fact till just now, and he just as suddenly realized that he didn't care if he ever heard from her again. Dishwasher loaded, it was time to burn calories.

"What say we do a few laps around these huge country blocks, Jim?"

"You beat me to the punch. Let's do it."

They chatted and walked for a long time that night with a police car trailing obediently behind them some thirty feet away and one in front of them by about the same distance. It was hours later when they returned to the vintner's house, said good night, and turned in.

****

Qwilleran awoke the next morning to find Yum Yum plastered to his side sleeping under his arm as best she could while wearing her cone. He had made sure to put her pills inside the nightstand drawer so he could give her the first dose of the day upon arising. He reached into the drawer and felt around for his glasses. Then he pulled out the pill bottle and removed one pill. He sat up with her in his arms and said hello to the sleepy cat and let her wake up a little bit. She purred as he stroked her luxurious fur and cuddled her.

"Ok, honey, it's time for your medicine. Here we go," he said as he removed her cone to administer the antibiotic pill.

He began doing as the vet had shown him. Apparently, Yum Yum did not appreciate having her jaws pried apart this early in the day. He applied pressure on either side just as he was instructed to do. Yum Yum stared up at him with a quizzical look on her face. So, this is our new game? I don't like it. Stop doing that!

He had great dexterity for a big man with big hands, and he popped the pill into her gullet and pushed it to the back of her throat. Then as he had also been shown, he clamped her mouth shut, held her chin upward and stroked her throat several times while keeping a firm hold on her body. Nothing.

"Yum Yum, please swallow your pill." _Dad! Something weird just flew in my mouth – let me go!_

"Yum Yum, please." _It's still in there! Help!_

This went on for a while.

"Ok. We will sit here till you swallow your pill." Her slightly crossed eyes betrayed her puzzlement as she stared up at him since he still had hold of her chin and she could not move her head. Minutes passed. Her gaze never wavered nor did she blink. More throat rubbing.

"Was that a swallow? Did you swallow your pill, girl? Let's see." He opened her mouth and saw the pill sitting in her mouth just where he had left it. _Help! Help! Do you see it? Take it out!_

"Yum Yum, you need this medicine so that the infection goes away and so that your foot heals. It's very important that you swallow your pill. Please." He began rubbing her throat again. She began making the ever pleasant cat-puking sound as her little eight-pound body began to convulse.

He set her on the floor and she promptly spit the intact pill out of her mouth as he was reminded that cat's understand us IF they are paying attention. Yum Yum clearly had her attention on other things at the moment. Maybe he should have talked with her in more detail before he shoved the pill down her throat.

"All right. I must have done something wrong," he said aloud to himself. "I'm going to do my morning grooming ritual and we'll revisit this when I'm done." He made sure the bedroom door remained shut before he went into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later he came out showered, dressed and freshly shaven.

"Round two." Qwilleran picked the cat up and started over after opening the bedroom door. Connie was coming out of her room then and stopped to exchange pleasantries. When she saw what he was attempting to do, she hung around to watch. Another stare-off unfolded after he popped the pill back into her mouth and pushed it back into swallowing position. He aimed her chin back up at the ceiling and rubbed her throat several times. Koko took a break from incessantly trying to lick the shampoo smell off of his fur and watched from his perch atop the dresser in fascination. He had no idea what was going on but he was rooting for Yum Yum, whatever the case. Normally a fan of such, he wondered if he was going to get his throat rubbed next. If left up to him, he would skip the jaw prying leg of the journey.

"Yum Yum, swallow the pill. Now." She kept staring at him with a startled look on her face. "Now."

You know what happened the last time you put your finger in my mouth! The thing is back and it flew in again! Help!

"We will sit here all day, young lady, until you swallow the pill. Now swallow it!" To his relief, she finally swallowed. He let her go after thanking her for her cooperation.

Both cats ran out of the bedroom into the hallway at that point. Koko headed down to the kitchen, but Yum Yum stopped a few feet down from the stairway off to one side and began twisting her head around, opening her mouth wide. She quietly deposited the pill onto the carpet and looked back at Qwill. Then she took off like a shot. Connie grinned.

"How did you do that? How did she do that? She swallowed the pill! I felt her throat when she did so!"

"Welcome to _Giving A Cat A Pill, 101. Never Swallow Anything They Put Into Your Mouth, Ever_." The woman was smiling broadly. She didn't know anything about _The Book of Cat_ , but if she had she would have realized she was quoting it chapter and verse.

"I FELT her throat move as she swallowed the pill! And that was my second try."

"No, she did not swallow the pill, which is why she had no trouble depositing it so quickly on the carpet with a minimum of sound. She tucked it under her tongue and swallowed nothing so that you would let her go."

"What?! That's the kind of thing an evil genius would come up with!"

"Or your average neighborhood kitty cat. Yessir, she got you."

"Well, she won't get me again. Where did she go?"

"Good luck finding said cat now that she knows what you want to do to her."

They hunted the upper floor and then went downstairs. It took some time for them to find said cat, who was sitting underneath the tall, long-legged antique stove in the kitchen.

"Let me try to get her out from under there. You should leave the kitchen." He disappeared down the hall as Connie got down on her hands and knees and began talking to one very wary meezer. In the end, she pulled Yum Yum out from under the stove where she was hiding from the thing that kept flying into her mouth, and hung onto her while Qwilleran came in to get his little darling and start the exercise all over again.

"Why don't you troubleshoot and tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

"You think you're going to win. That's what you're doing wrong." His human housemate was grinning from ear to ear in anticipation of continuing entertainment.

Starting over from step one, the man put the pill into the little feline's mouth and went through the entire GACAP course all over again. Koko watched from a kitchen chair, folded up turtle style. It wasn't fair. All this throat rubbing, and none of it was his.

"This time really push the pill down her throat-further." He did. Unfortunately for him, Yum Yum had just realized that her loving daddy was the one putting the 'flying thing' into her mouth-on purpose-and she didn't like that one bit.

"Ouch! She bit me!"

"I forgot to mention she might bite you when you do that. You have to keep your fingers out from between her molars."

"Thank you, Connie!"

The woman tried but could not stifle a hearty laugh.

"Different strategy is called for. If she spits that pill out one more time, I'll brain her!"

"No, you won't and she knows that. She's playing with you now. She's superior to us when it comes to this and she knows it."

"Oh, yeah! Watch this. Bring her into the guest bedroom and hang onto her." He shook his throbbing forefinger as if trying to shake the pain out of it.

He went into the oversized downstairs bathroom and got a large bath towel out of the built-in cabinet there. He spread it out flat on the bed.

"Put her right there on the towel on her back and don't let her get away." Connie did as she was told still wearing a big grin.

"What's so funny?"

"I told you this wasn't going to be easy."

He began wrapping the little cat up like a papoose, tucking her front legs in, and then her long, thin back legs into a very neatly folded terrycloth cat package. All she needed was a little bitty turban and cucumber slices placed on her eyelids for the full spa experience, along with someone to clip and polish her claws.

"There!" He would have felt more satisfied if Yum Yum had not looked so utterly content wrapped up in her very own bath towel. She made herself a mental note to remember to take it and hide it for future purposes once she finished using it this time. Let the games continue.

"What's she doing?"

"Well, it looks like she's getting ready to take a nap, Jim."

"Well, isn't that just too bad? This is it. She isn't going anywhere this time. I can smell success!"

Then Yum Yum did the most unexpected thing. As she saw Qwill's giant hand coming toward her tiny face, she opened her mouth wide and just left it hanging there.

"See? Now she knows I mean business! In we go, all the way. Close. Swallow. There. She swallowed it." He pried her mouth open and did a pill search. Gone. Connie still had a little smile on her face.

"Let's not go through this every single dose, ok? You just make up your mind to take your medicine this easily twice a day and we will remain a friendly family." The little cat blinked at him twice as if to say, "Yes, dad." She was silently lying to him in Cat, of course.

"She looks awfully comfortable wrapped up like that. Maybe you should let her sleep that way for a bit. Let her decide when she wants her freedom."

"Good suggestion, Connie. Let's do that." The pair went into the kitchen to get breakfast started. They heard it about a minute later.

"What's that noise?" They heard a thump and then a familiar sound. They looked up to see Yum Yum quickly finish throwing the pill up on the carpet where the hallway met the kitchen doorway.

"AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!!"

Peals of laughter erupted from Connie as she saw the look of bewilderment on Qwilleran's face, which completely matched the anxiety in his raised voice. She couldn't stop herself, nor did she want to. She sank into a chair holding her stomach while she laughed some more.

She pointed at Yum Yum, who was now studiously cleaning herself after having been freed from the dreaded cone which interrupts most of what a cat does all day long. It was as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary as far as she was concerned.

"Thank you for your support." He signed heavily. "What am I going to do?"

"Well, if she keeps this up, which is what most cats do when you try to give them a pill, you might have to kennel her and let Terry administer her medicine for the next several days. I'm convinced vets have some secret thing they do even while you watch them which makes cats swallow pills and not puke them back up. Without feline consent, most cats will simply not swallow a pill no matter what you do to them, sorry to break it to you. But I did try to warn you."

"I would only kennel her as a last resort. We'll have breakfast and then I'll think about that. I don't want to send her away but that infection has got to be dealt with."

"Good thing he gave her an antibiotic shot to start off with."

At the sound of the word "shot", Koko's ears went up sharply and he ran out of the kitchen. However, not one to ever pass up things that were none of his business, he stopped abruptly near the doorway and sniffed something on the carpet as his little companion busily dragged her new towel behind her down the hallway and disappeared out of sight.

"What's he doing, Jim?"

"What?"

"Koko. What's he doing over there?" The tall man got up and took a look, then sighed in exasperation.

"I don't believe it. He just ate the pill!"

****

Crowds had not thinned out yet due to the fact that Loretta Garver had a hit on her hands. As more marketing was done, out-of-towners were travelling from surrounding states to attend, and things were ratcheting up, not down. Apparently, there really was a community of people interested in aliens and other unconventional creatures which long ago were relegated to folklore status in the minds of so many, just as M.A. had indicated to Qwilleran.

Dusk turned into night as a couple got out of a sports car and walked into the museum together. The man had on a full body costume including a headpiece which totally concealed any trace of his identity as did his companion. She was Lizard Woman with a pointed snout and he was Gort, the robot from The Day The Earth Stood Still. The little grey aliens weren't allowed to be out in the later evening hours, so they wouldn't be sashaying around with trays of mini chicken tacos or anything else most nights of the week anymore, though they'd done a smashing job during opening week. Lizard moved over to one of the recently added appetizer tables and put a few pineapple cream cheese crackers into her pointy beak as Gort circulated throughout the room looking earnestly at the displays. There were so many stretched out skulls now officially designated as "elongated" that many were wondering how they got that way, especially when it came to the extra-large variety. A docent dressed as the Jetson's dog, Astro, was educating those who stood within earshot as their robot maid, Rosie, stood nearby with a tray of chilled champagne:

"What you see here is a small corner of the elongated skull universe. If you look carefully you'll detect the differences between those born with elongated skulls versus those whose heads were shaped by what is known as head binding, a custom which is still practiced in some parts of the world today."

"Why would someone be born with that kinda head? You talkin' about birth defects here?" asked someone in the crowd.

"Well, if you bear with me I will explain that. Think 'out of this world' if you will."

"You sayin' they're aliens?" asked the same questioner.

"Well, I'd like to tell you a story about that if I may," continued Astro.

"So, they ain't aliens then? What are they?" At that precise moment someone bumped into the talkative visitor with force and he spit a recently inserted appetizer out of his mouth involuntarily. He walked away to find a restroom where he could clean the mess off of his shirt as the grateful docent continued.

"As you can see on this model of a human skull, the skull sutures-these lines I'm pointing to are called sutures-are always formed in this type of pattern. If you compare these sutures to the ones on this skull next to it, you can see a world of difference. Notice the different pattern. Even if a culture indulges in head-binding-this third skull on the right here-the suture patterns are the same even as the skull elongates due to the skull bones being squeezed inward and upward as a child's head forms the ultimate shape it will carry into adulthood and for the rest of its life. This is the coronal suture, the parietal bone, and this is the lambdoid suture. See the pattern formed? Here is the squamous suture and the occipital bone. Now look at this skull here in the middle and its suture patterns. Notice anything? Darn right you do. The suture patterns are completely different. That is how you come to realize you are not looking at a human skull."

"So, it's a monkey. Big deal." The talkative visitor had returned. Unfazed, Astro continued.

"And here to the far right is the skull of a chimpanzee next to the skull of a gorilla. Notice that these skulls look nothing like human skulls. They are shaped very differently." Talking Man had nothing to say to that.

"Here are each of the ape's sets of fangs clearly visible. I'm going to turn these skulls on their swiveling bases so that you can see them from a different angle. As you can also see from this angle, again, even if they had no fangs at all, the head shapes are completely different."

A girl of about twelve raised her hand. The docent nodded in her direction.

"What's wrong with this skull here?" She was pointing to a strangely shaped larger than human model with very large holes where the eye sockets were.

"I'm so glad you asked that question. That is a model of an alien skull. When I use the word 'alien' in this frame of reference I mean an extraterrestrial-a being from another planet. You've probably heard of little greys?" She pointed to an artist's rendering of one, and then pointed over at a docent dressed as one. "Cyril is taller than a grey because our original greys we had helping us here at the museum have to go to bed early during this last week of school before summer vacation, so the accurate-sized ones are only here on weekends this week." She then thanked Cyril who waved back at her with a four-fingered hand. "Many people from around the world have claimed to have seen or even been abducted by aliens." She went on for a bit about experiments and proposed alien/human hybridization before moving on.

"Now if you care to walk over this way a bit, you will see some of the most different looking skulls you may ever see. These are from the race referred to as the Nephilim. They were giants from many years back in our history. Some people believe they are extinct, and some believe they thrive as an underground and cave dwelling race to this day. Having never seen a live one in the flesh myself, I'll let you decide that for yourselves. Historical references and documents from many different cultures around the world talk about having giant tribes in their midst. This entire section is dedicated to the giants of various types and sizes. Notice also the different suture patterns evident here. We included this diagram of a human skull here to remind you of the human pattern versus the Nephilim patterns evidenced here. Some historians think that the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti descended from of the race of giants and that DNA from Nephilim has drifted into the human bloodline thanks to inbreeding having begun back in Old Testament times. Some believe that The Great Flood, which is also present in historical teachings in multiple cultures around the world, happened in an attempt to eradicate giants from our planet. Without imputing religion here, it's interesting to note what the Old Testament has to say about Noah:

"These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:9.

"Note it says Noah was perfect in his generations. That can be interpreted to mean he and his family had no Nephilim blood in them, that they were one hundred percent human. So, you have the flood to wipe out the Nephilim giants which are a perversion of God's original creation according to what can be gleaned from scripture, and you have Noah and his family being saved from perishing in order to eventually give the earth a new jumpstart utilizing only human DNA for procreation."

The docent went on for some time giving a detailed talk on the subject. The entire museum was abuzz with conversation from both docents and visitors.

Gort listened in on several conversations as he made his way over to the area where Bigfoot was giving a talk about his species and their habits, and while appearing not to, the robot visitor watched the docent intently. Having a full headpiece on had its advantages in this case. The tall ape man clicked a button on a device at his station and a video presentation came on a large screen showing supposed evidence of giant ape men like himself who were recorded in sketchy fashion in shadows and behind trees. Lizard Woman drifted over and pretended to watch the presentation while she was actually intently spying on Bigfoot through her beak instead. The super tall docent stepped back and off to the side away from the crowd watching the video and turned his head from side to side as if he was uncomfortable. Checking to make sure he was not being observed, he reached a hairy hand up and lifted up his headpiece a bit. He put his head back and rubbed his neck in the front and on the sides when he thought he was not being observed. Clearly visible to anyone looking were long, deep scratches like the kind an angry cat would make if it had a mind to attack you. Bigfoot removed one of his hairy glove hands and there were deep scratches on his actual hand, too, which he then began rubbing. Lizard Woman and Gort looked at each other. Bingo.
Chapter 18

"Terry said we can stop and pick up extra antibiotics for Yum Yum anytime, depending on how many Koko decides to eat for her," said Connie as she removed the cone from around the little female's neck.

"It can't be good for him to eat those things."

"I inquired. Turns out they won't hurt him but we should be sure to pick up any that she decides to-repurpose so that he doesn't continue to do that." There was that smile again.

"I have decided to keep her home with us and figure out a way to get her to take the pills."

"Because it's worked so well thus far."

"I have hope."

"The vet said he'd give her another shot if need be. He doesn't want to kennel her either but will be glad to do so if it means she heals up faster and the infection is killed efficiently."

Qwilleran took the bottle of antibiotics out of his pocket and looked around. "It's time for another dose."

Connie fought the urge to say, "You mean the first dose she will have received here at home successfully," but she let it drop.

"Where is our little princess?" He looked around. "Wasn't she just here?"

"She was. She is no longer. I think she heard the pills rattling around in the bottle when you took them out of your pocket. It's all about strategy, Jim. You tipped your hand."

"I'm leaving the bottle here while I go hunt for her." He left the sitting room and started walking through the large, old house calling out to Yum Yum.

She came streaking into the sitting room. She stared at Connie and said, Don't rat me out! in Cat.

"She's in here, Qwill!" Yum Yum gave Connie the shocked version of the dirty eyeball. Such treachery would not go unrewarded. The little cat ducked under the loveseat on the far wall. Qwilleran walked back into the little deceiver's den.

"She's under there," said Connie and pointed across the room.

Qwilleran got on his hands and knees intending to pull the unwilling Siamese out from underneath the furniture.

"She's not here. You sure this is where she went?"

"I was sitting right here when she ran in here and dove underneath that loveseat. Yes."

"Well, you can come and look for yourself if you want to, but she is not there now."

"That doesn't make sense." Connie went over and got down in like position and looked under the loveseat. "Where in the world could she go?"

Neither of them could see Yum Yum squashed up close to the wall as she hung onto the back of the upholstery fabric which covered the loveseat with all her might while they looked underneath it.

When they began pulling the piece of furniture away from the wall in order to check for loose boards and such behind it, the little cat got down quietly and crawled back underneath the piece, handily remaining hidden from them. Everything looked fine to them both as they pushed it back in place. Life is all about timing.

"Let's look behind the books, they love to sleep there." The bookcases were checked. No cats.

"Yum Yum! Come in here!"

"You really think she's over her newly acquired trust issues already?" asked Connie.

"It's been an entire day already. One can hope."

He walked through the house continuing to call the little Siamese. As he reached the far end, she came crawling out from under the loveseat in the sitting room where Connie had seen her vanish. The woman saw movement out of the corner of her eye and put her book down. The murder mystery she was reading was getting really good, and she didn't feel like being interrupted to hunt for the uncooperative cat anymore that afternoon.

"You little stinker. Where were you? Hmm?" She got up to try to capture the cat and it seemed she was going to succeed when Yum Yum suddenly leapt away and ran out of the room. Connie heard Qwilleran calling the cat throughout the house before he eventually returned to the reading niche.

"I can't find her anywhere."

"Shake the pill bottle again and you never will."

"Ok, rookie mistake."

"You know, she just ran out of here not long ago and she was running at a good clip on that foot, not limping. I just realized that now."

"She ran out of here? Where was she hiding? We have to find her. Help me."

"Believe it or not, she came out from under the loveseat." They stared at each other for a second. Then they went through the house looking everywhere for her but Koko was the only cat they encountered. Having had no neck rubs lately, he was becoming more offended by the hour.

They came walking back through the formal dining room on their way back through the length of the house. As if he knew where they were headed, Koko led the way. He jumped up onto one of the extra formal dining chairs which was up against a wall and gazed upward nonchalantly. Perhaps someone would see it properly extended as they walked by and rub his neck now. His vibrant blue eyes set on a target and didn't move. Connie noticed the cat's fixed gaze and followed it to the ceiling. She began to look away and then she saw it. The heavyweight vintage, rustic style chandelier had apparently grown a long, thin, dark brown tail.

"Jim, stop. We don't want any accidents here so don't make any sudden moves. Look up." He did, but by that time the tail had curled itself up out of the way.

"What am I looking at?"

"The long brown tail that was hanging down from the chandelier a minute ago." Yum Yum was cleverly hidden behind the large lamps that went around the circumference of the huge vintage light fixture.

"Ok, I'm getting a chair."

"I wouldn't do that!" But it was too late. By the time Qwilleran had pulled a chair out and stood quickly on the seat, Yum Yum leapt off of the chandelier, bounced off the formal dining room table, and streaked out of the room. The huge fixture swung ominously from side to side in her wake. They heard a crash in another room.

****

They ran into the kitchen to find that the eight-pound cat had dislodged every single baking sheet and tray in the pantry and dumped them all on the floor in one fell swoop.

"So, I guess this means she has not forgiven me yet."

"I would agree. You run around chasing her but I'm hungry so I'm going to fix myself a snack."

"I'll make the coffee. Want some?"

"Sure do." He went about the business of perking a pot of coffee that could melt spoons and singe your eyebrows while Connie pulled out crackers and Brie and heated the cheese slightly in the microwave. Qwilleran picked up the baking trays and restacked them.

They sat at the kitchen table with one blue eyed Siamese on his blue cushion perch atop the fridge. His other half was absent. His house humans sat chatting and eating crackers and Brie for a while. When he could stand it no more, Koko alighted and hopped onto the table. He sat demurely at first, staring at Qwilleran.

"You want some Brie, Koko? Mmmm. Yum Yum doesn't know what she's missing." He put some of the soft cheese on a cracker and put it in front of Koko, who stared at him. This wasn't going to do it at the moment.

"What's wrong, boy? You ok?" Koko then laid down with his head on Qwill's wrist.

"Is he all right?"

"This is new. I don't know. Maybe he's still in shock from his bath experience." Qwilleran picked up the little cat's face and did a visual examination. "He looks ok." He released the little triangular face and the cat rested it once again on Qwill's wrist. Then he moved his neck back and forth in a rubbing motion.

"What the heck is he trying to tell you?"

"I don't know." He looked deeply into Koko's eyes again as he cupped the cat's face in his big hands. "He looks all right to me." Ok, that does it.

"Yargle! Yargle! Yargle!" said Koko at the top of his capable lungs. You can lead a human to cheese and crackers, but you apparently cannot make them rub your neck!

"What's wrong, boy?"

"YARGLE-YARGLE-YARGLE-YARGLE-YARGLE!!!!!"

The cat went over to Connie and sawed his neck back and forth across her forearm.

"Jim, he wants us to rub his neck. Come here, honey, have we been neglecting you?" Koko made his best booboo face and sniffed a few times while Connie rubbed his neck.

"He's been seeing us pay all sorts of attention to Yum Yum and you've been rubbing her neck a lot, and we forgot that when not receiving medication, all kitties love having their necks rubbed. We are sorry, Koko. Daddy and I apologize. Can you forgive us?" Connie was so sweet to the cat that he immediately started purring from his perch, which was now in her lap.

"Well, well, well. My little man is not a lap cat, but I see he is today. We're sorry, Koko." Qwilleran loved that Connie adored the cats so much, and that Koko was currently adoring her right back. It had to be a sign. After eventually eating some cheese, the pampered cat got up onto his blue cushion on the fridge to commence his nineteen-hour-a-day nap-a-thon.

"I don't know how this happened but you-know-who is now on the blue cushion up on the fridge cuddling with Sir Sleeps A Lot. Don't make any sudden moves," said Connie. "I did not see her get up there."

"So, she's learned how to climb up the back of the stove? Someone is obviously much more intelligent than we are."

Yum Yum remained perfectly still inside her cloak of invisibility, convinced that she had just now vanished from sight once more. Well, if you can't figure out I laid down behind our cushion and hid for a while to throw you off my trail after those nasty trays attacked me, I guess that's true.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to jump up in a minute and grab her. Why don't you go over by the door and head her off at the pass in case she gets away from me?"

"Will do."

Once Connie was in position, the man made his move. He stood swiftly and reached up on the fridge and tried to grab Yum Yum, who was having none of it. Never say aloud what you intend to do hoping a cat doesn't understand what's going on. The little cat jumped right onto the tall man's head grabbing onto his scalp with her claws to steady herself. He yelled in pain as she jumped down onto the table, off onto the floor, and sped away right between Connie's feet, escaped handily into the hallway and just kept going. The two house humans stood there looking at each other for a second before Qwilleran charged after her. Connie stood to one side to let him pass, mashing her lips together in a supreme attempt to stifle a laugh, at least until the man shot by her. Once she heard him get farther away, she let out a roar and laughed till tears ran down her cheeks.

She heard him yelling and calling the little cat. Ten minutes passed till he found his way back to the kitchen empty-handed. Defeated once again, it was time for a different approach in multiple areas.

If this was war, he had just been declared the loser.

****

"I don't know what was funnier; watching you try to dislodge those fierce little feline machetes from your scalp or the look on your face after being defeated by our eight-pound furbaby once again."

"Since you're so smug, why don't you try your hand at it?" the resident Scottish warrior said as he dabbed his faintly bleeding scalp.

"I thought you'd never ask. As soon as we locate her highness, I'll give it a shot. As I told you, I used to have cats myself, so I've been down this road a time or two."

"I'll bet you a new car you can't get her to take a pill."

"Ready to kennel her for a few days, I see?"

"If you don't win the bet, yes. As much as I don't want to, we'll have to do that."

"You're on. You realize you just made a one-sided bet, don't you? If I lose, I won't be buying you a new car-just so we get that straight."

"Absolutely." He had grown tired of the GACAP fight, as well as watching Connie drive around in an older model van which needed to be replaced. So, he had two reasons to hope she would succeed in getting a pill into Yum Yum which would not come back out.

"I want an SUV."

"Done. Pick the one you want."

"I'm going to cook some more fish tonight in an attempt to draw her out of her hiding place. They both come running and rub against my legs whenever I fry up fish. How about some trout tonight? Come on Kitty Girl; Mama needs a new SUV!" said the excellent chef as she put one hand on her hip and looked over the top of her glasses at him.

"Trout will be outstanding. I look forward to it, Mama."

"I will cook their fish and feed them first, and you will be nowhere in evidence because we know it doesn't work to have you anywhere near her lately. Please put the pill bottle on the counter by the stove. I'm running out to the fish market. Back in a bit."

****

The fried trout was delicious that night. Homemade coleslaw perfectly balanced out Connie's excellent super thin cut homemade French fries. They would have ice cream for dessert, but first, the cats were fed.

Koko needed no encouragement once he smelled the fish frying. Qwilleran kept his distance and Yum Yum crept down the hall to the kitchen keeping a wary eye peeled for him. She would not be ambushed again, no sirree. Now that she knew her dad was putting something in her mouth on purpose, she would not be taken unawares again. She entered the kitchen and stopped to look around. Once satisfied that he was nowhere in the vicinity, she went to the area where her dish was and began eating her portion of trout, which Connie had wisely taken up off the floor in an attempt to keep Koko from wolfing down the little female's dinner after he finished his own. He was also fed an extra-large portion that night to keep his nose in his own dish and out of hers. As the cats ate, Connie petted them both and talked soothingly to them. As Yum Yum finished her fish, this is how the conversation went.

"Yum Yum, I owe you an apology. Daddy doesn't know how to give a kitty her medicine. I never should have told him you were under the loveseat. I'm sorry. Can I talk to you for a bit?" The cat allowed herself to be picked up and held as Connie sat down at the kitchen table with her.

"You know, sweetie, we took you to the doctor because you got a gash on your foot and we were worried about you. We wanted to make sure you were all right and that your foot would heal up without a problem. That's why there's been so much stuff going on lately. I know it's weird to have someone put their finger into your mouth. It must feel strange." Yum Yum looked at her with forgiveness in her heart. Yes, it is.

"You know the thing daddy tried to make you swallow is medicine, it makes your foot heal up and makes you feel better. We want to be really careful with your health. There's been too much excitement around here lately and we want to be sure you are completely all right. When we saw you limping around the other day and bleeding on the floor, we were afraid. That's why we took you to the doctor in the first place. I know they stitched up your cut and put more medicine on it. They said you were a perfect little patient and that all the cats who go there for help should be as cooperative and well-behaved as you were. You made mommy and daddy proud, so thank you for that." Purring began and petting continued as Connie and Yum Yum stared deeply into each other's eyes.

"I need your help with something. You see, we have more medicine to give you, but you have not been swallowing it. I imagine it isn't very comfortable having daddy put his finger into your mouth. He has such big hands. He doesn't mean to hurt you or make you uncomfortable. He's only trying to make sure you get better and that our girl is well and healthy. You understand, don't you, honey?" Yum Yum looked away for a second and then back at Connie. Well...

"We are not trying to force you to do something you don't want to do, but as your parents we have to give you medicine. We don't want to have to bring you back to Dr. Terry whenever you need a pill. Two times every day we need to give you a pill for the next few days. We could let you live with Dr. Terry for a while so he can give you your medicine, but we would miss you so much. Please don't make us have to do that, Yum Yum. Please." Connie felt tears begin to well up in her eyes but held them back as she continued talking ever so gently to the little cat in her arms. It had been a rough week for all of them.

"I am asking you to please let me give you your medicine. My hands are smaller than daddy's and I will give you your pills twice a day if you will let me. You won't have to run away or hide in the chandelier anymore. Is this something we can come to agreement on, sweetie? Is it ok if I give you a pill now? We so want your foot to heal up and for you to be all better, and we want you to be home with us. Ok?" Well, since you put it like that.

Connie picked up a pill which she had strategically put on the kitchen table and let Yum Yum sniff it. When she got the signal that it was now ok for her to give the cat her pill, she opened the meezer's little mouth and put the pill on the back of her tongue.

"Swallow for mommy, honey." The woman rubbed the cat's throat gently and Yum Yum miraculously swallowed her pill all the way down, minus even the slightest hint of protest. They sat together for a while. Connie leaned her head down a ways and kissed the cat's dark brown nose.

"Good girl. Now, if your medicine stays in your tummy, guess what? We have vanilla ice cream and I'm going to give you your very own dish for being such a good girl!" The little cat purred.

"I love you, sweetheart." Yum Yum rubbed her face against Connie's.

"Well, I'm good to my word. I'm going to get you and your brother there some ice cream, and I won't let him eat any of yours." Both cats enjoyed their ice cream immensely, and the pill stayed where it belonged.

"I don't believe it." Qwilleran had ever so quietly gotten as far as the kitchen door without being perceived and had listened to the entire conversation. He got a lump in his throat as he listened to Connie's extremely tender conversation with his little girl cat, but his outdated man training lingered long enough to help him avoid shedding actual tears.

"Believe it."

"You got her to take her pill. I cannot believe that."

"Blue with a white leather interior. I'll pick out the make and model and let you know. They might have to build one especially for me in order to get the colors I want just right."

"It will be exactly the way you want it. My hat is off to you. You baby talk the cat and she takes her pill for you with no problem. Amazing. Mama gets a new SUV."

"Some of us have the touch."

"I concede."

****

As she portioned out balls of her special recipe homemade milk chocolate chip pecan cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, Connie smiled as she listened to the conversation Qwilleran was having with an unknown party on the other end of the phone. Despite being an expert finagler, his attempts to deflect and refuse the request for help was falling on deaf ears. The caller was talking loud enough for her to hear a voice though she couldn't make out words.

"Well, thanks for thinking of me but I really don't think I can help you there. I have no talent whatsoever in that area."

The voice of the caller continued in a persuasive tone that sounded to her like the adults did whenever they spoke in Charlie Brown cartoon specials.

"You know I'm from the city, right?"

"Wah wah wah WAH. Wah wah wah WAH WAH."

"I'm from Chicago."

"Wah wah wah."

"I am the dumbest person around when it comes to-"

"Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. Wah wah wah. Wah wah wah wah wah. Wah?"

"I really appreciate the faith you have in me but-"

"WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH!"

"Then I'll see you at two this afternoon."

"WAH wah." Click.

He closed his eyes in defeat.

Smiling broadly, Connie said, "So what have you gotten yourself into now?"

Sighing heavily, the Chicagoan said, "You're not going to believe this."

"Try me."

"They want me to judge some livestock in the local competition at the fair today. Me, judging animals because I know so much about the farm types, of course. I can't believe I let them talk me into it."

"Talk about a lack of advance notice."

"The judge that does this every year came down with a bad case of something or other."

"Who was the judge supposed to be?"

"Someone named Shoobie Willis, I think."

"I didn't know she did that. Oh, Shoobie's not sick. Hung over maybe, but she's not sick. I just talked to her last night. You might say she's a fan of the grape and she was making good use of it and was already three sheets to the wind while I was talking to her."

"I see. Well, they're going to think I'm hung over when I go to judge farm critters. I have no idea what makes a good farm animal. What are they supposed to do? How big are they supposed to be? Do they sing and dance? Where does their talent lie? Who knows?"

"I think they're supposed to look healthy and produce healthy offspring. Use that for a start. Maybe someone at the fair can clue you in before you do your thing."

"Let's hope so. The mayor can be quite a handful. I tried to say no but she wasn't having it. Lord, help me."

"This should be fun. If you do a bad job they'll talk about you for years, you know that."

"Goody."

****

Qwilleran had not planned on attending the fair in the first place, but he donned jeans and old hiking boots he'd forgotten he had, and an appropriate plaid shirt which had a properly rural flavor to it. He put his favorite orange baseball cap on his head and took a look at himself in the full length mirror. Casual, prepared to take long treks through the wilderness or stack firewood, he was satisfied that he did not look like a guy from the city. Connie had left earlier and driven her van to the fairgrounds so he drove there by himself.

The fair was being held in a vacant field close to town. Pens had been set up to hold animals who looked nervous to be in a place they were unfamiliar with. Fairgoers were serenaded by moos, baas, neighs, clucking, braying, and oinking among other songs being sung by the livestock. Farm animals brought their own brand of special perfume with them everywhere they went, so if your ears weren't being properly assaulted, your nose surely was. Despite the attack on the olfactory senses of attendees, they were chowing down on chili, hot dogs with every imaginable topping on them, fried dough, and burgers among a host of other things.

When the word spread that Qwilleran was doing the judging instead of Shoobie Willis, owners of the odoriferous drifted over to him and followed him around chatting him up as he jotted down notes and privately graded the entries as best a Chicago boy could.

_Contestant Number One_ : "JoJo is the lead on my team, isn't he magnificent? He's a purebred Shire-very rare-and goes seventeen hands! He's sired eight fillies and six colts. If I do say so myself he is one magnificent specimen of horse flesh, wouldn't you agree? Oh, listen to me bragging!"

_Contestant Number Two_ : "Cindy is my best layer, she's a Rhode Island Red, isn't she a beauty? Moira is a Golden Comet, she lays brown eggs for me-scrumptious. Persephone is another of my best girls, she's an Ameraucana so she lays different colors of eggs and has a personality that matches her namesake-but boy those eggs taste good!

_Contestant Number Three_ : "Master Blaster is a full blood Berkshire that I keep for stud. I bred his parents, his grandparents, his great-grandparents and many generations before them, too. He is descended from some of the best pork chops around!"

_Would Be Contestant Number Four_ : "Well, I was gonna bring Suzy and Iris, but they both came down with orf and even though the sores aren't too prominent, I couldn't take a chance that the girls could infect someone else, y'know. But I hear Abel brought some of his goats. He's got some beauties as far as capra aegagrus hircus go."

Having gone into a mind coma while he was being descended upon by farmers eager to win first prize, Qwilleran snapped to attention when he heard the last remark. Simultaneously, he looked over at the next pen which contained four goats. In the midst of them stood Abel Derrick next to a familiar brown and white figure. The newly appointed judge passed by that pen carefully as he smiled at Abel, who nodded and skipped the flattering remarks the rest of them were making about their animals. He got points for that in the Scotsman's book. If there had been a category for Farmers Who Don't Brag to Judges at Fairs, Abel would have won it hands down. A lengthy walk around the entire place culminated in a preprinted template now full of completed grades in every category and for each key characteristic.

The mayor who wouldn't take no for an answer called the proceedings to order and did a brief introduction to the judging process.

"And now without further ado, I'm handing things over to Pickax City's most famous citizen, Jim Qwilleran!"

Hearing himself called the most famous citizen of Pickax-which was much more country than it was city-made him wince internally as it always did. He stepped up to the microphone to the sound of hearty applause and greeted the crowd. Then he worked his way down the list of categories which he had been given to judge one-by-one. He read them off as the winners stepped forward to receive their various color ribbons depending on how they placed. More applause accompanied each name he read. When the category for goats came up, he suspected his first place choice would cause controversy but he honestly could not see a way around the revenge that he somehow knew would rain down on him if he made a different call. Since cats perfectly understand every word we say when they care to pay attention, he was betting goats did, too.

"For the category of goats we had a lot of good entries. Third place goes to Chopper, a buck owned by Brent Hartigan." Applause. "Second place goes to Crunch Baby, a doe owned by Caroline Bradley." More applause. "And last but certainly not least, first place goes to one really beautiful brown and white doe named Linda owned by Abel Derrick!" Fainter applause. Comments could be heard in the background wafting up to the stage area as the proceedings wrapped.

"First place?! She ate all my petunias!"

"She leaves big piles of pellets in my yard every other day!"

"She screams at my daughter!"

"I don't care if she's pretty! She knocked the bumper off my car!"

"Bet she'd make good meatballs."

"So his taste in goats matches his taste in women-I told you he was creepy!"

"Shut up, Louise."

****

Connie made her way over to the stage as her companion returned to ground level.

"Linda? Really?"

"I was too afraid not to. That goat is spooky, Connie. I'm a coward. Can you imagine what she would have done had another goat taken first place? She might figure how to use matches and set our house on fire!"

"I'm sure that's exactly what would have happened. It's totally logical. I'm heading home to put some ribs in the oven to cook ever so slowly and then fall off the bone several hours later covered in barbecue sauce. No rush."

"Then I'm saving my appetite for that for sure. I'll be along in a bit."

Linda's newfound admirer pulled out of the fairgrounds and headed to the main road which would take him back to the vintner's place. Just as his police escort pulled out behind him he heard a commotion. Several animals had broken out of their pens and were spilling out onto the road. They decided in one corporate mindset to follow him home, so that's what they did. The animals got between him and the cops. He sped up and some of them started to run in a Pied Piper line behind him. Panicking farmers ran to gather their flocks as a couple of prize chickens landed on the hood of Qwilleran's car. One gripped onto the lip of the hood near the windshield wipers and stared into the vehicle at its occupant with its head cocked to one side looking startled and completely insane as chickens often do. Then the other one turned around and stared at him, too. Ever a newsman, the inevitable story line immediately presented itself: Shocked Chicken Accosts City Slicker-Film at 11. He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped in order to give the chicken and its friend time to dismount, but they did not appear to want to do so.

"Hey...I can't remember your name...chicken! Get down from there and take your friend with you! Off my car, please!"

He knew that some birds would attack you if they got mad enough so he continued imploring the pair to leave of their own accord. They weren't having it, so he came up with an idea he planned to refer to as "Remote Frightening" in case anyone ever asked him how he had managed to survive the Great Chicken Attack of the 21st Century. They would never know it was him causing them to be frightened. They were chickens.

Slowly, he reached for the controls and turned on the windshield wipers. To his amazement, instead of getting scared and jumping down from the car, the chickens began staring at the wipers and moving their heads in a back and forth sweeping motion that imitated their movement. He pressed the washer fluid button and the orange liquid sprayed the glass, but the chickens were so busy dancing with the wipers themselves that they didn't seem to notice that. He exhaled heavily, then had another idea.

He reached over and turned the radio on to his favorite oldies station. It Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner boomed out of the speakers as he turned the volume way up. Instead of becoming startled and leaving as Qwilleran hoped would happen, the chickens began bobbing their heads to the beat of the music as they continued to move them back and forth aping the sweeping movement of the wipers at the same time. The Rockettes never had rhythm like this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, bob, bob, bob, bob. It was just his luck the chickens liked rock and roll and the smell of Rainex.

Patience growing short, he shut everything off including the engine and got out of the car.

"BA-GOCK!! BA-GOCK!! BA-GOCK!!" said the chickens, which meant "Why did you turn the music off?!" in Chicken.

"All right, ladies. Time for you to move along. Let's go! I mean it! Off of there!" They didn't move till he waved his arms at them. Then they cussed him out but good as they flitted to the ground and stalked away completely offended. They continued yelling at him loudly as they eased on down the road and then began discussing how some creatures just need a good pecking.

Considering himself lucky that they had not left any presents on his car, he started the engine back up and started driving. The interruption distracted him from the fact that his police escort was now stuck behind more chickens, two horses, sheep, goats, and a sampling of just about every critter that had been on display at the fair. He took off down the road totally by himself for the first time in a long time being careful to avoid the chickens he'd evicted from atop his car.

He drove a good ways before he encountered a large truck which veered over to his side of the road in what seemed to be an intentional attempt to side swipe him into oblivion. Lightning fast reflexes kicked in and Qwilleran sped up, went far to his left, and totally avoided the other vehicle. He gunned it and flew up the road, his police escort still stuck behind the animals which had gotten out of their pens.

****

"Mr. Q, am I glad you stopped in! We're not even open right now but I'm hearing noise in the basement. I called the cops but no one has shown up yet. I thought they were supposed to still be doing surveillance here! I have my own set of keys now, so I'm here alone, but I'm kind of afraid to go down there by myself."

"What kind of noise, M.A.?"

"I thought I heard yelling like people were arguing and some thumping sounds."

"I don't blame you for not going down there."

They had gone into the intake area of the museum and were listening for noises coming from underneath the high-legged chest of drawers where Koko had introduced them to the downstairs door.

"Curiosity is getting the better of me. We can't move the chest because that would make too much noise. But we can move the rug and remove the inset and listen." And with that, Qwilleran removed the hatch cover carefully and quietly. They heard voices a ways away and one of them sounded familiar.

A female voice said:

"You can just calm down. Throwing things won't help you. I don't care what you need, you didn't complete the job I hired you to do. And you won't get paid until you finish it. That's your motivation. Why is this so hard for you? He's just one man, he's not magic, he doesn't disappear or vaporize on sight, why can't you handle this? If you record is a true indication, you've never had a problem killing people before. I hired you because you're supposed to be good at this."

A voice belonging to an angry male replied:

"Look, I need money to live on. I can't live on what the museum pays me. I'll get the job done. This guy's got a way of slipping out of the noose but I'll get the job done. And you're right, I am good at this," his voice sounded menacing.

"Come back when the job is done and I'll pay you what we agreed on. I might add I'm still angry that you killed Winston. I still needed to use him for a while longer. I'm finished talking."

"I don't care what you're mad about. I'm not leaving till you give me something to live on. I need five grand to tide me over. I'm not leaving without at least five grand!"

"You'll get nothing from me. Execute your end of the contract."

"I'm going to execute something if you don't give me some money right now!"

"Are you threatening me? Who will pay you if you do away with the source of your future payday? Hmmm? Don't be an idiot."

"You calling me stupid? You don't want to do that!"

"You've been in jail thirteen times, you've spent most of the last twenty years incarcerated. How smart can you be? Go do your job."

"Quit talking to me like that!"

"Talking to you like what?" she said in a mocking tone.

"All high and mighty. You need to quit doing that." Rage continued to well up in him as he spoke. What she said made sense, he couldn't afford to eliminate his future payday, but you can only push a giant ape man so far.

"Get out."

"I'm going to say this one last time, give me money to live on, or else!"

She glowered at him disdainfully. In her arrogance, she was too stupid to be frightened.

"Go to hell! I'll shoot him myself since you can't seem to do the job! YOU'RE FIRED! GET OUT!"

His dark brown eyes suddenly seemed to turn black. He didn't think about it, he just reacted. He looked at her as she sank to the floor, blood appearing on her white shirt. The loud, sudden sound of it brought him back. He realized he had shot her with the weapon he'd recently lifted from the pawn shop. It was still in his hand but he didn't remember taking it out of the pocket of his jacket. He looked at her again as the life was oozing out of her onto the floor. Too late. This one will die. Have to find another way to get money. Damnit! He took off running down the tunnel.

After Qwilleran and M.A. heard the shot, they moved the chest of drawers off its spot and went carefully down the stairs. There were no more voices as they made their way from room by room of the underground lair with caution. The only sound they heard was that of heavy footsteps running away from them. The Tiffany lamp lay on the kitchen floor in pieces. When they got to the room where they had previously found a woman's clothing hung on a rack they saw someone on the floor, and they were bleeding badly.

They went to her and looked down at the woman who was perilously close to death. The puddle of blood on the floor around her grew quickly thanks to one well-placed bullet the shooter didn't even remember firing. Qwilleran blinked his eyes rapidly as if trying to clear something away from his line of vision. Then he knelt and picked up her hand as he searched her face. Despite the fact that her previously blonde hair had been dyed very dark, there was no mistaking the fact that the face belonged to someone who had supposedly died long ago.

Realizing it was too late to help the woman, M.A. said, "I'm going after him, Mr. Q!"

"No! Don't! He's armed! You called the police, let them handle him!" But the younger man had taken off down the tunnel in hot pursuit.

Still kneeling and holding her hand, Qwilleran looked back down at the woman and tried to read her expression. He saw recognition come into her eyes first. The man whose death she had ordered was now watching her expire. She realized who he was and he knew she did. Recognition turned into a look of guilt which was followed by shame and lastly, resignation. No two ways about it, this was Penelope Goodwinter, and she was breathing her last. Within seconds she was dead.

Again.
Chapter 19

Qwilleran turned down the busy street on his way to pick up a few things. He wanted fresh fruit from the small market on the square, steaks, potatoes and some other vegetables, broth, several fish fillets and a dozen cans of crab meat for resident royalty. He found everything he wanted easily enough, and put the groceries in the backseat. He belted himself in and started the car. Having reassessed the tire situation, he had previously returned to the dealership and had three more new tires mounted on the car to match the new spare in the trunk and the previously replaced flat. During that visit, he had new brakes put on and regularly scheduled maintenance done, too, so the feeling of safety overtook him as he pulled out of the store parking lot. He had watched another Star Trek marathon on the dealership's big screen while the work was being done on his car. The Trouble With Tribbles was now a favorite episode.

As so many had done throughout the centuries, the police were performing their current iteration of searching for Bigfoot and felt they were moving in on the giant criminal. They had asked the public for information and calls were coming in. The Scotsman knew the jailbird didn't dare show his huge face anywhere, so the feeling of calm thankfully continued settling on him after such an unpleasantly eventful week. After all, Bigfoot had killed the person holding out one very large carrot in his direction, so there was no way he would be paid for murdering Qwilleran now. Logically speaking, one would assume the assignment was cancelled by his own hand, and that there was simply no motivation for Bigfoot to carry out his former quest. Soon, this whole mess would be over with and all would be peaceful and quiet once again in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere. The good citizens had certainly seen their share of drama of late and craved a return to normalcy. However, not being known for his logical mind, emotional fortitude, or strength of character and self-control, Bigfoot saw things differently.

Turning out onto the road, Qwilleran looked for his police escort but didn't see it. He reasoned they were probably off chasing the big, hairy critter now so his state of relaxation was not in danger of disappearing. He accelerated to a more deserted part of the thoroughfare and was enjoying the ride when it happened.

A familiar looking pickup truck came up out of nowhere behind him and filled his rearview mirror. It struck his car and sent him careening off the road to the right onto the grass. This time it happened so fast that he didn't have time to react. The car stalled as he shook his head and got out. The driver of the pickup was waiting for him, but not for the purpose of exchanging insurance information. All seven feet plus four bonus inches of Sonny Elrod Beaver (minus his Bigfoot costume) was waiting for the six-foot-two-inch Scotsman.

"You cost me a lotta money! The cops are chasing me and I'll never get my fifty large now! That wildcat of yours tried to kill me, and on top of that I can't go back to my crappy job either and I have no money whatsoever! I'm not getting paid to kill you anymore, I'm just going to do it for the pure pleasure of it!"

And with that, the gigantic lummox bent down and charged the smaller man like a linebacker would charge an opponent on the field. Qwilleran turned and spun in a circular fashion away from him as the attacker's head crashed into the door of his car which dented upon impact.

The older man ran to the other side of the car and looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. He knew he'd lose a footrace against those long legs, and he also knew that if the big man managed to get hold of him, it would be all over. Sonny stood up unfazed by the impact to his head and neck, blinked a couple of times, and gave chase. They ran around the car a few times but the size of the attacker proved to be an impediment instead of a help as he slipped and fell twice. The smaller man was able to evade capture handily, even though his middle-aged knees were steadily lodging their complaints against the twisting and pivoting being required of them. He started to worry as he panted heavily and began to slow down, but unexpected relief came in the form of an unusual savior.

Suddenly, the giant's knees buckled and he hit the dirt again, hard this time. The object of his rage looked around the side of the car to see Linda standing on the back of one large heap of criminal flesh and bone she'd just viciously rammed from behind. Beaver flipped over as best he could and looked up in disbelief as Linda jumped on top of his ribcage and stomped him up and down several times vigorously. He tried to sit up but she head-butted him once, twice, three times, and then screamed a long, deafening scream right in his face from her perch atop his aching chest. The attacker froze in terror and could not catch his breath or assimilate what exactly was happening to him. Linda resumed jumping and stomping as she utilized all of her 147 pounds in an attempt to crush and break as many of Bigfoot's ribs as possible.

Then they heard the noise of sirens as several vehicles converged on the area simultaneously.

"Mr. Qwilleran, we lost you! But luckily we got a call saying Bigfoot was in the area and we followed the tip and caught up to you, too! We found him! We finally found Bigfoot!" Officer James Fay jumped out of his squad car panting and out of breath, weapon drawn and pointed at the ape man. Other officers poured out of their cars and joined in aiming their guns at the same spot. Sasquatch had nowhere to go.

"He told me he was going to kill me for the pure pleasure of it right before you got here!"

"Well, he's not going to harm anyone now! He's going to jail and with the list of convictions we are confident he'll receive, he'll never get out!" said Officer Fay triumphantly.

As if on cue, Linda gave the perp one last energetic, painful stomping and dismounted. Then Sonny Elrod Beaver was tied up with maximum strength rugged ties because handcuffs wouldn't fit around his huge wrists. He was ushered into the back of a police car at gunpoint. If looks could kill, Bigfoot's captors would have died on the spot.

"That goat busted my ribs! Oh-ow! I need medical attention! I'll sue! I'll sue!" he groaned.

"We'll take you straight to the hospital but don't get any ideas. We'll even be in the room with you while you're being x-rayed. You're not getting away so forget about it, Beaver!" said Fay. "And who are you going to sue? We just swore that goat in and she's got a badge and everything! That was a clean collar!" Officers could be heard chuckling away as they arrested the man for the murders of Penelope Goodwinter and Winston Dana LaGrange, breaking and entering the vintner's house, multiple attempts to murder Qwilleran, and intentional damage to his vehicle just for good measure. Then they read the giant his rights and called a tow truck for Pickax City's most famous citizen's damaged car. Fay stayed behind to give him a ride home.

Just as the police cars were pulling off, Abel Derrick came strolling onto the scene carrying a length of rope. He addressed his remarks to Qwilleran.

"I'm turrible sorry but Linda got out agin. Varmint's learnt how to chew her way out of the steel fence you kindly put up. Don't know what to do with her anymore. Sorry 'bout that. I know she's the last critter you wanna see."

The ex-crime reporter mulled over his newfound attitude of gratitude to the owner of the pair of horizontal pupils which had stared him down in his kitchen one morning not long ago as she stole his donuts. He reached out a hand and affectionately petted her head a few times, which she graciously tolerated for some strange reason. Then as if nothing unusual had just happened, Linda took a few short steps away and started happily munching some mushrooms she found growing under a tree.

"That's all right, Abel. Linda's my new best friend," he answered as the farmer looked at him with a confused expression on his face.

The first place ribbon had gone to the right goat after all.
Chapter 20

The couple relaxed quietly in two easy chairs as they enjoyed a late afternoon lemonade in the sunroom of the vintner's house. Two little dark brown faces peeked out from underneath the large bath towel which now belonged to Yum Yum. Despite the summer temperatures, and with considerable skill, they had taken the liberty of arranging it on a nearby padded chaise on top of their regular blanket. The little female sniffed the last remnants of the shampoo still present in her companion's fur which she was trying to get used to, and then squeezed her eyes shut and fell asleep. Koko half-snoozed and half-listened to the conversation his two favorite humans were having. He was a bit distracted as the sun glinted off of a very sensibly styled new silver watch which sat proudly on the wrist of the woman.

"Did I tell you I got the word that the loft will have to be razed and built all over again from scratch? I honestly can't see doing that, Connie."

"I thought they were going to rebuild it on its original frame?"

"That was the first line of thinking. I guess as the crews went through the place more deeply they saw the structure was totally compromised. Said it would be unsafe to try to save it so I settled with the insurance company already. I kind of like it here. I wonder if there have been any offers made lately. It's begun to feel like home."

"Well you didn't ask for it but you have my approval. I love this house. The kitchen is big and updated, and that stove! Who wouldn't love to own that touch of vintage elegance? You should make an offer, Jim."

"I think I'll call Bart and get him working on that. After all the happenings of late I'm finally relaxed and feeling rather content. I'm comfortable here," then he added "with you."

Connie smiled and said, "Well, I'm comfortable with you, too. Now please tell me how a dead woman arranged all the ruckus of late. I'm fascinated."

"You and Mr. Spock."

"You never watch TV. How do you know who Mr. Spock is?"

"Well, I confess I started watching the big screen TV while I was waiting in the car dealership to have them mount a new tire on the wheel where my tire had gone flat-you remember? I had other things done at the same time, so I was there for a while. That show unexpectedly grabbed me. It was on some old TV show rerun station. What can I say?"

"That is marvelous. Catching up with mid-twentieth century entertainment icons here in the twenty-first. There's hope for all of us," teased Connie.

"I watched a movie about a shark the other night. I'm still having nightmares," Qwilleran confessed.

"There are a lot of shark movies. Which one?"

"The one with Quint and Brody and Hooper. Afterwards I dreamt a big black shark was swimming around my bed even though there was no water anywhere. I saw that big fin circling me, going right through the wall and coming out the other side, circling and going around my bed. Then it was suddenly standing up on its tail in my doorway leaning on one fin using it for an elbow, grinning at me with one glittering tooth glinting at me like some big triangular-shaped diamond in its mouth. I couldn't get back to sleep. Why did that head have to fall out of the submerged boat?! I can still hear that music!"

"Jaws! One of my favorites! There's just something about it. I have to watch it every time it comes on TV-I can't help myself. It was released in 1975 so you're making progress. At this rate you'll be joining us in the universally accepted timeline within a couple of decades."

"God help me. I prefer the old ways."

"Change is often good even if it occasionally keeps us up at night. I never want to get to the point where I'm so stodgy that I won't adapt to better ways of doing things or more efficient ways of being scared to death."

"The closer I draw to senior citizenship-and you know how I loathe that term-the more I realize I've been guilty of still being stuck in the past. I think when we get enough of ourselves that's when we begin to change. I feel uncomfortable with a lot of what we call progress, but at the same time I feel the need for new things, some new ways of thinking. So I watch a little TV in secret now, the beginning of a slide down a slippery slope. It's a start."

"Agreed."

"Back to your question. Now you'll understand why I've been spending so much time doing research, talking to people, digging around, etc. Farfetched as it may sound, this is what I've determined actually happened. Several years ago there was a suicide here. One of the estate lawyers whom I inherited from Fanny along with her wealth was named Penelope Goodwinter, one of Melinda's relatives. She killed herself in the oddest of scenarios. No one could figure out why even after reading the supposed suicide note. You moved here several years after that happened so her name won't sound familiar to you. At the time it was thought that she did it because she was so embarrassed by the way certain things she was involved in with her brother unfolded but to be honest, that whole thing never made any sense to me at all. Sounded farfetched at the time but you have to believe a dead body when it's right in front of you and I did see a dead body purported to be hers, and it looked like her.

"As time went on nobody much thought about her. She'd never been one to draw close to the locals even though her own family had long been embedded in the community here. She felt herself above others and didn't make many friends at all. She and her brother were close due to the law practice they shared. Otherwise I never knew of one person who said she was a close friend.

"Well, appearances can be deceiving to say the least. Penelope closed herself into a garage and turned her car on which caused her to asphyxiate, or so everyone thought. Being that the corpse clearly had lungs full of the killer fumes nothing else was done in the way of an autopsy. The coroner didn't really know the victim very well at all, and the brother identified her so that settled that. The police also accepted that it was indeed her. Sara processed the death certificate with Penelope Goodwinter's name on. The victim had been found at Penelope's residence and wearing the clothes I last saw her wearing right down to the jewelry she had on. I saw the body after she died and was so shocked it didn't occur to me that something was off about her face because it looked an awful lot like her. The woman had a talent for finding lookalikes."

"You are kidding me! It wasn't really her? And I'd still like to know why someone kept breaking into the museum."

"No, it wasn't really her. But everything just slid under the radar, no questions asked. Penelope planned this whole thing in stages in the hopes that she would get her hands on Fanny's fortune one day and keep it all for herself. She went out and scouted for a girl with similar facial features and bone structure to her own. No one knows how long she had to look but she eventually found Kate Killian from down below, who thought she was coming here to do an acting job, an audition of sorts for a TV and movie career. Hungry young girls usually believe whatever you tell them, and Penelope set herself up as a theatrical agent in order to get the girl to go along with her. They were the same height and build, so she dressed the kid in her own clothes, did her hair and makeup to match her own, put her own jewelry on her, the whole nine yards. Then she gave the girl a shot of sedative which was never detected because the coroner stopped looking for the cause of death after she discovered the fumes in the girl's lungs which the girl inhaled as she lay dying, the sure cause of death as far as she was concerned. That was short-sighted on Sara's part for sure. Penelope's brother was in on the whole thing. She let time pass to quell any suspicion she felt might arise. The payout being as huge as it would have been, she wasn't taking any chances, so she just bided her time. Years later, as she planned on executing the next stages of her plan, she managed to accidentally drop a key piece of evidence into a crate of artifacts addressed to the museum, which is why she kept breaking in to try and find it and get it back. She couldn't afford to have it found and turned over to the police after my eventual demise. It was the note you found in my pants pocket. Take a look at it."

Connie took the piece of paper he handed her and gave it a good look, then put it closer to her face and read it again. "Oh, no! She even had your picture and her hideous instructions all written out neatly! What a load of greed! How did she just so happen to drop that into a crate headed here to begin with?"

"Well, sometimes karma strikes based on intent before the fact, I guess. She was apparently at a shipping place for a different purpose when she set her purse on a partially open crate that hadn't been completely sealed up yet in order to find something. That's when she accidentally dropped the thing into a crate bound for the museum, but she didn't realize it until she'd left and the crate was long gone. I guess she drove the shipping manager crazy repeatedly till he let her personally check his computer for information on shipments that had gone out. That's the only part of this that she handled sloppily. That, and hiring Sonny Elrod Beaver, but I'll tell you about him later.

"That was just phase one of her plan. She had absconded with enough of Fanny's money to go where no one knew her and lay low till she could execute phase two of her plan. She had previously replaced Fanny's real will with a different one which she had bent out of shape enough to allow for me to marry and leave everything to a wife upon my death. Alternately, she had it set up to give some of the money to the town so that everyone around here would be happy and totally taken off guard about what she was up to. Phenomenal luck struck twice when she came upon Winston Dana LaGrange who looked almost exactly like me. She also found him down below as she perused dating sites and public prison records, anything she could do to view catalogs of different men, and she promised to pay him handsomely to carry out a fake marriage using fake identification. Picking a false name for herself and securing proper ID in that name, she then married James Macintosh Qwilleran played by LaGrange as she played Brooke Parker, the new Mrs. Qwilleran. A footnote to that little happening is that Penelope didn't like parting with the money she promised to pay her accomplices, and I'm betting she refused to pay LaGrange on schedule in full. I'm thinking he got mad and yanked her diamond and pearl pendant off her neck and probably claimed he would sell it to get his full share which she owed him. That's how I think that piece of jewelry wound up in the cuff of his jeans when he yanked it and it went flying never to be seen again, at least till I found it in that exact spot on my first visit to the morgue. I knew there was something familiar about that piece but couldn't place it at the time."

"My head hurts."

"On to phase three."

"Oh, _God_."

"She knew she needed to do away with Fanny if her plan was going to succeed. Turns out she paid that boy to push my aunt down the stairs. Fanny's murder was premeditated, no act of passion or accident there as was thought at the time. So she had her main opponent out of her way. Then she got to work eliminating me but she knew some considerable time had to elapse in order to ensure nothing looked suspicious. She went to Las Vegas as Brooke and there she married Winston as me. So they had a 'valid' marriage license which would pass muster in court when she would go to claim my assets. Somehow she found out I was going on a week-long vacation recently and that's when they did the deed, which would later explain that we married when I was away. She would claim that was a secret I had kept to myself and planned on telling my friends about when I returned. She would make quick work of things and get out of town before the locals could get a good look at her in case someone would recognize her even with though she had dyed her hair dark. She cultivated the habit of wearing very heavy eye makeup which further changed her appearance and made her hard to recognize. Here's where things got muddy. She hired a felon to do the deed, but he didn't do his job very well. He surfaced in her search of prison records and she knew she'd found her candidate to be the killer. He was just getting out so she figured she'd make him an offer he wouldn't likely refuse. His profile fit just what she was looking for, except that he wound up killing the wrong guy. Winston didn't remain out of the public eye as she had instructed him to do till she would have finished using his services, plus, the guy certainly had no idea she planned on having him killed eventually to say the least. When Sonny Elrod Beaver-known to us as the museum docent dressed as Bigfoot-happened to run into Winston unexpectedly and saw that his face matched that of the guy in the picture he was given to go by, he thought he'd get the job done the easy way. Deviating from plan, he decided to take advantage of the opportunity he believed was presenting itself to him on the spur of the moment. He proceeded to murder Winston Dana LaGrange and dragged the body into the woods to hide it under leaves and debris where he took pictures to show Penelope for proof in order to be paid. Sara confirmed that my doppelganger died of blunt force trauma, the gigantic murderer kicked and stomped him to death. He took some pics of the body to show Penelope in order to be paid. Instead of being overjoyed, she was fit to be tied and berated him for his mistake which had resulted in his failure to take the real me out based on his refusal to follow her instructions on how to accomplish that and when exactly to do so. Old Sonny wasn't happy about being chewed out, but he was even madder about not being paid. That's when he broke into our house and Koko kicked his super tall behind and sent the guy away screaming. The second time he tried to kill the actual me by viciously side-swiping my car when I left the fair, well, he blew that, too, and he was pissed. He had done it wrong again, and he had absolutely no money. He begged her for money but Penelope held firm that he wasn't getting a penny till he completed the job she hired him to do. They argued and she wound up firing him, saying she'd kill me herself. I heard her say those words with my own ears. His patience being at an end, he lost his temper and he shot and killed her on the spot in the basement of the museum building with a gun he'd procured illegally. M.A. and I happened to be there at the same time and we went down there after we heard the shot but we were too late to save her. She bled out right in front of me as M.A. gave chase. Instead of being the grieving, terribly rich widow, she became the corpse for real this time."

"I am astonished! How did you put all this together, Jim? What kind of evil mind can put plan all this out in order to get hold of some money? Good Lord!"

"To answer your first question, Sonny Elrod Bigfoot Beaver sang like a canary which allowed me to connect the dots and fit a lot of the pieces of this gigantic puzzle together in addition to the work I'd already done on it. To answer your second question, a mind too evil for normal folks to understand, that's for sure. You know, as she lay dying with her very life force oozing out of her, I bent down over her to see if I could help. She stared at me and for a few seconds and a look of shocked recognition came into her eyes. I got the feeling she went into eternity wondering how much I knew, wondering if one of her intended victims realized what she had tried to accomplish. Then a look of resignation mixed with shame suddenly came on her face, and she died."

"This is a lot for anyone to process. What reaction did you have when she passed?"

"First off I was shocked that she was actually still alive. Then, the complexity of the plotting the whole scheme had required impacted me all of a sudden. It was like someone had punched me in the face even though I didn't know much at the time compared to what I found out later. Then I was shocked that she was dying right then and there. And finally, I felt sorry for her. What has to happen to a person in order for them to descend to that level of avarice? To indulge in that level of inhumanity to a fellow human being? Do they think material things will make them happy? People like that are never happy, even when they think they are. Then I wondered if M.A. had caught up with the person who had killed her."

"Well, she doesn't have to worry about any of that anymore," said Connie. Hell isn't hot enough for the likes of her, if you ask me. I'm wondering if Sara's tests will find any drugs in her system. From what I've noticed, a lot of greedy people are addicted to something. They can't seem to get enough of whatever it is they want. They collect a bunch of expensive things and just keep buying more. And drugs make them feel temporarily better. They can't seem to get any peace no matter what they do."

"God bless little M.A., can you believe he chased that big man down and tried to tackle him? By the time I ran through the tunnel and up the stairs to outside ground level, the tyke was hanging on the guy's back like a monkey! The kid had his hands on the gun the guy had and he was trying to take it away from him while he hung onto the guy's neck with his other arm, which must have felt great with all the wounds Koko inflicted there. I wouldn't have thought the kid had that much pluck, but he surprised everyone. No doubt he would have gotten himself killed had the guy not shaken him off and taken off running. He gets an award for pure courage in my book. Stupid courage, but courage. Thank God the guy dropped the gun in the scuffle and didn't stop to pick it back up. He was too busy running away to the sound of approaching sirens at the time. I think M.A. just shocked the hell out of him. And I told you how Bigfoot tried to get me again and what happened with that scenario."

"I wonder if that means we have to buy donuts every day and leave the kitchen door unlocked now out of gratitude. What happened to the brother?"

"And as for the brother, we're still looking for him."

"Remind me to congratulate Gort on his crime solving abilities next time I see him."

"Lizard Woman has my appreciation for all the assistance she rendered at the museum. Plus she makes fabulous pies and has a nice beak."

"You're welcome, Gort. There's just something about a man all dressed in metal."

Neither of them had noticed Koko leaving the chaise earlier on to go pursue other endeavors. Now he came back into the room carrying something in his mouth. He walked over to Qwilleran and stood up on his long back legs putting his front paws on his dad's leg. Then he dropped a piece of paper into Qwill's lap before rejoining the little female as he jumped lightly up onto their chair and got back under the bath towel carefully as if to minimize any disturbance he might cause Yum Yum.

Unfolding the crunched up piece of slightly soggy paper which had been tightly clenched in Koko's little teeth, he saw a picture of a bottle of wine and a bunch of grapes. He turned the paper over but the other side was mostly blank with a few scattered letters on it which made no sense. The paper looked like it had been torn or rather chewed out of a magazine and scrunched into a lump of sorts.

"What say ye, oh mighty crime solver? Is this a clue? Or do you want me to throw this so we can play fetch?" The feline to whom he was addressing his remarks had already closed his brilliant blue eyes. He was fifteen minutes short of his daily sleep quota so there was work to be done in that area. Snoozing had already commenced.

"What do you think of this, Connie?" he said as he handed her the piece of paper.

She looked at both sides of the paper as she straightened it out a bit more. "I think we ought to keep this locked up in the Future Clue Vault. That's what I think. God only knows when this one will come into play."

"Agreed. I'm going to put it in my desk to keep it safe. I wonder if anyone else has a cat as talented and smart as this one anywhere else on earth."

"I highly doubt it. This is just feline genius, plain and simple. Genius wrapped up in ten pounds of dark brown and fawn colored silky fur with arrogant taste in cuisine and a daddy who spoils him rotten."

"If we hear of one of the neighbors drinking themselves to death under suspicious circumstances, we'll know it was no accident."

He got up and put the paper in his desk drawer just in case.
Chapter 21

A lazy couple of weeks passed full of beautiful weather. The museum was humming with business, local crops had long been planted, the kids were out of school for summer vacation, and Bart had called with good news. The house was Qwilleran's if he wanted it. He did. The offer was accepted, the title work was done and there were no liens on the property which helped things go even faster. The papers were all signed, and the assessor updated his rolls to reflect the ex-vintner's former house as now belonging to James M. Qwilleran with a W. As part of the agreement, certain things were left behind for the new owner which included a lot of the furniture. The new appliances and the tall, vintage stove in the kitchen was part of that deal, which made one excellent housekeeper who was also a superb cook and very comfortable companion only too happy. The flower beds in front of the house had been replanted, and thus far, they had been left mysteriously intact. Qwilleran and Connie were once again relaxing in the sunroom, which was one of their favorite spots.

"They're fulfilling their nineteen-hour-per-day nap quota. I think I hear snoring," said Connie as she looked over at the cats.

"They should be tired. Koko was tearing through the place something awful today, wasn't he? Someone was telling me a while ago that I should get some kind of flower oil and rub it in his ears and it'll calm him down when he gets like that. Wonder if the drops they used on him at the groomer might be the same stuff." Qwilleran drew a piece of paper out of his wallet and showed it to Connie. Koko opened one eye and used it to glower at the man intensely from underneath the bath towel on the chaise.

"I don't know anything about brand names or anything like that. You should try ordering it from the Internet." Normally quite fond of her, Koko opened his other eye and glowered at Connie now.

"I think I'll do that. As soon as I learn how to do that. I don't suppose you would do that for me?"

"Sure, I will."

Koko's ears went up higher as he picked his head up and arched his neck pointing his dark brown nose downward. Had he been wearing glasses, he would have been staring at the pair over the top of them. Then he looked over at the telephone.

"He gave us the dirty eyeball, Jim."

"The cat has put us in the doghouse. Woe is us."

"There's the phone, right on cue."

Connie padded away to answer the house phone ringing quietly in the corner of the large room. Greetings were exchanged.

" _What? When?"_

She was silent as the caller talked for a while before the conversation ended.

"What's the matter, Connie? You sounded upset?" She came walking back over to him.

"You're not going to believe it, Jim! There's been another murder! And Koko is already hot on the trail!"

### THE END

I hope you enjoyed book one of The New Cat Who mystery series-I certainly enjoyed writing it. Please leave feedback at the purchase site and if you like, feel free to send me an email at thenewcatwho@gmail.com – I welcome your remarks and will reply personally whenever possible. I'll also put you on the mailing list to receive notification of future books if you choose. Here's to the beginning of a fun ride!

### Lane DeAngelo

## Stay tuned for book two

## of TNCW series,

# The Cat Who Crushed a Grape -

## coming soon!

