Beechum gave a sour look upward, perhaps searching for a black snake in a tree. "Won't git it," he pronounced.
Having disposed of the amenities, Qwilleran explained his problem. The workman nodded and followed him into the house, trudged through the living room without looking to right or left, lifted the bookcase off the base with ease, pulled the desk away from the wall without asking any questions, and returned to his work on the gazebo.
Taters were strong, silent types, Qwilleran reflected. They worked hard, lived long lives, never worried about being overweight, and did a little midnight farming as a hobby.
Koko was delighted to see the office open again. He immediately went in to sniff Lucy's mattress. Yum Yum, on the other hand, was sleeping off her medication on a down-cushioned chair in the living room. It was the one chair that was more comfortable than all the rest, and with true feline instinct she had commandeered it.
There was something in Hawkinfield's office that Qwilleran expressly wished to examine: a family photograph hanging on the wall. Seated in the center of the group was J.J. with his lofty brow and "important" nose, obviously the master of the house. Standing behind him were three bright-looking boys of graduated heights, and on either side were seated a pretty woman with a shy smile and a teenage girl with a sullen pout. She had the Hawkinfield nose and an exaggerated overbite. Was this the Sherry Hawkinfield, Qwilleran wondered, that he had invited to dinner? He could only hope she had improved with age.
Sprawling in J.J.'s lounge chair and propping his ankle on J.J.'s ottoman, he delved into another of the editor's scrapbooks and read attacks on the county animal shelter, Mother's Day, and the high school football coach. It was prose written by a madman with a passion for exclamation points. In one tirade he aimed his barbs at a sheriff who was running for re-election. This candidate, Hawk-infield pointed out, was three months in arrears on his water bill, regularly had his wife's parking tickets voided, and at one time succeeded in hushing up his own felonious bad-check charge. No name was mentioned, but even a stranger in the Potatoes like Qwilleran could guess that it was Uncle Josh Lumpton, who forthwith lost his post to Del Wilbank.
Koko, tired of sniffing Lucy's mattress and the law books on the shelf, suddenly landed on the desktop with whiskers twitching and paws digging. He wanted desperately to get into the center drawer, the shallow one that is usually a catchall. Qwilleran obliged him, having an avid curiosity of his own. In the compartments at the front of the drawer there were pencils, pens, paper clips, rubber bands, a few pennies, three cigarettes in a squashed pack, two large screws, and one stray postage stamp. Koko pounced on the stamp and carried it away to sniff and lick in some dark corner. Now how did that cat know it was there? Qwilleran asked himself.
At the rear of the drawer the miscellaneous papers and file folders included a large yellow legal pad on which Hawkinfield apparently drafted his editorials in longhand, using a soft lead pencil. The one on the pad was datelined two days after Father's Day of the previous year. It had never been published and had never journeyed beyond the center drawer of Hawkinfield's desk, but before Qwilleran could read it, the doorbell rang.
Beechum had finished the gazebo and was coming to collect payment. Qwilleran knew it was rash to pay for the work without inspecting it, but he trusted the man and even added a bonus for prompt service. He then asked the carpenter to move the desk back against the office door—but not before he had retrieved the yellow legal pad. After that it was time to shave and dress for dinner with Sabrina Peel, and Qwilleran transferred the pad to his own desk upstairs.
When Sabrina arrived she brought two pillows in bright red and gold, each a yard square, to stack on the living room floor between two windows. "I think they make the statement we want," she said. "They balance the color accents and add some desirable weight at that end of the room . . . How's the ankle, Qwill?"
"The Pain-and-Anguish Scale went down sixteen points when you walked in," he said, admiring the misty green silk dress that complemented her decorator-blond hair. "Shall we have a drink before we leave?"
"Mmmm . . . no," she said. "I've requested a choice booth, and they won't hold a reservation more than fifteen minutes. I hope you don't object to the no-smoking section . . . Where did you find that fabulous burl bowl? At Potato Cove? ... I see you need candles. I could have brought you some."
"I have plenty," he said. "The candle dipper sold me a lifetime supply, but I haven't found time to stick them in the candleholder . . . Let me check out the Siamese before we leave."
