The Cat Who Tailed a Thief Read Free Page B

together.”
    Qwilleran hesitated. “Well. . . it’s rather short notice, you know.” Willard, he decided, was okay, but the googly-eyed Danielle made him uncomfortable.
    Carmichael went on. “I’m baching it tonight. Danielle is taking our houseguest to Otto’s Tasty Eats—a vile restaurant, if you ask me—so I told her I had to work. Her cousin is spending the holidays with us.”
    “Well. . . with a little judicious finagling. . . I could manage to be free. Where would you like to go?”
    “Where could we get pasties? I’ve never had a pasty. I don’t even know what it is.”
    “It’s the official specialty of Moose County, dating back to mining days,” Qwilleran said. “And it’s pronounced to rhyme with nasty, by the way.”
    “I stand corrected,” the banker said.
    “It’s an enormous meat-and-potato turnover—okay for a picnic but not for a civilized dinner. Have you been to Onoosh’s café?”
    “No, Danielle doesn’t like Mediterranean. When I was in Detroit, though, I used to haunt Greektown for shish kebab, taramasalata, and saganaki. . . Oopah! Oopah!”
    “That’s the spirit!” Qwilleran said. “Suppose we meet at Onoosh’s whenever you’re free. I have to go home and. . . feed the cats.” He was wearing knockabout clothes, but if he had said, “I want to go home and change,” Willard would have said, “Don’t bother. Come as you are. I’ll take off my tie.”
    Going home to feed the cats was an excuse that was never challenged.

 
     
TWO
     
    Qwilleran drove home to Indian Village in his four-wheel-drive vehicle, considered advisable for winter in the country. Having traded in his compact sedan for a medium-size van, he was pleased to find it convenient on many occasions, such as trips to the veterinarian with the cats’ travel coop. It was almost new—only thirty thousand miles—and Scott Gippel had given him a good trade-in allowance.
    Indian Village on Ittibittiwassee Road was well outside the Pickax city limits. It was debatable whether the drive was more beautiful in summer’s verdure or winter’s chiaroscuro, when bare trees and dark evergreens were silhouetted against the endless blanket of white. Along the way was the abandoned Buckshot mine and its ghostly shafthouse, fenced with chain-link and posted as dangerous. Just beyond was the bridge over the Ittibittiwassee River, which then veered and paralleled the highway to Indian Village and beyond.
    Geographically and politically the Village was in Suffix Township; psychologically it was in a world of its own, being an upscale address for a variety of interesting residents. At the entrance, a gate gave an air of exclusivity, but it was always open, giving an air of hospitality. The buildings were rustic board-and-batten, compatible with the wooded site, summer and winter, starting with the gatehouse and the clubhouse. Apartments were clustered in small buildings randomly situated on Woodland Trail. Condominiums in strips of four contiguous units extended along River Lane, close to the water that rushed over rocks or swirled in pools. Even in winter a trickle could be heard underneath the snow and ice.
    As Qwilleran neared his own condo in Building Five, he began to think about his housemates. Would they greet him excitedly?—meaning hungrily. Would they be dead asleep on the sofa, curled together in a single heap of fur? Would they have pushed the phone off the hook, or upchucked a hairball, or broken a lamp during a mad chase?
    Before unlocking his own door, he delivered the groceries he had picked up for Polly. He had a key to her unit at the other end of the row. Even while unlocking her door he began talking to her watchcat, Bootsie, explaining that he was there on legitimate business and would simply refrigerate the perishables and leave.
    His own Siamese were in the window overlooking the riverbank, laying contentedly on their briskets, listening to the trickle beneath the snow and ice. The wintry sun