"Only the twistle-twig rocker, but I donated it to a charity auction once before and had to buy it back because Koko went on a hunger strike. The myth is that anyone sitting in it will think great thoughts."
"Where do you keep it?" Polly asked. "I haven't seen it for years!"
"Well, the barn interior looks best with no-nonsense contemporary. I keep the twistle-twig in the cats' apartment. Yum Yum gives it a wide berth, but Koko likes the bowl-shaped seat. Well, see you tomorrow after the show."
As Qwilleran drove back to the barn, it occurred to him that the twistle-twig rocker might account for Koko's remarkable psychic ability. Qwilleran had always attributed the cat's foresight to his sixty whiskers - sixty instead of the standard forty-eight; but perhaps that crafty little animal had also been sitting in the bowl-shaped seat of the twistle-twig and thinking extraordinary thoughts.
The "Smart Koko" was dancing in the kitchen window when Qwilleran drove into the barnyard; it meant there was a message on the answering machine.
A man's voice said, "Qwill! Don't run anything in the paper about the reunion! We have some bad trouble here! This is Mitch."
Unable to believe his ears, Qwilleran listened to the message a second time. At the same moment Koko, who was right at his elbow, stretched his neck and uttered a howl that would chill the blood.
It started in his lower depths and ended in an unearthly shriek! It was not the first time Qwilleran had heard Koko's death howl, and he knew what it meant. Wrongful death . . . someone . . . somewhere.
Linking Mitch's cryptic message and Koko's doleful one, Qwilleran refrained from phoning the farmhouse for more particulars; he could imagine the frenzy that had replaced the happy scene.
Instead, he took a shortcut; he phoned the newspaper.
Chapter 10
The newspaper published no edition over the weekend, but a deskman was always on duty in the city room, answering the phone and listening to the squawking of the police-band radio.
Qwilleran recognized the voice that came on the wire. "Is this Barry? Qwill here. Any trouble reported in the North Middle Hummocks? I just received a queer tip."
"Yeah, the sheriff and his dog are searching for a missing person. Rabbit hunter. Probably some guy at a family reunion got lost in the woods."
"Or got shot by another rabbit hunter," Qwilleran said, thinking of Koko's anguished howl.
"Ain't it the truth, Qwill! Out where we live, there are so many rifle shots in the woods, come weekend, that it sounds like the Fourth of July. How they can avoid shooting each other is a mystery. . . . Hold it! . . ."
Qwilleran waited. But both he and Koko had the answers.
The cynical deskman came back on the line.
"What'd I tell ya? Another rabbit hunter bit the dust. Only ten thousand left. Gotta hang up."
Qwilleran preferred not to picture the scene at the goat farm, and he regretted that his friends would be deprived of good news coverage. As for himself, his time and recording tape would not be wasted. He could write an anonymous description of an ideal family reunion, where all the adults are happy and all the children are well behaved and all the conversation is upbeat and all the food is delicious.
On the other hand, he could cut his losses and scrap his notes. He and Polly discussed it on the phone that night. She had worked at the bookstore so that her assistant could entertain visiting relatives. She needed to rest up before a busy Sunday: church, then lunch with the Rikers, after which they would go to the Big Burning show downtown, and then there would be Wetherby's supper party.
Clarissa had dropped into the bookstore and was thrilled with her new job and looking forward to the pizza party but was worried about the health of Aunt Doris and Uncle Nathan. Clarissa wanted to return the valuable ring and explain the breakup with Harvey, but she could talk only with a housekeeper.
Qwilleran listened to it all with appropriate reactions but contributed no newsbites of his own. He merely said he would like to go into a trance on Sunday before switching identities with an imaginary nineteenth-century newscaster. He said he would see Polly at Joe's party.
"À bientôt," she said.
Once more Qwilleran played to a full house on Sunday afternoon. The audience reaction was always the same:
A woman sobbed audibly as she listened to accounts of family tragedies and remembered the stories told in her own family.
A man blew his nose loudly over the plight of the father trying to save his two children.
There was heavy silence as the audience pictured hundreds of victims taking refuge in the new brick courthouse, the same building where one now went to pay property taxes or apply for a marriage license.
"Devastating" . . . "unbelievable . . . "heartbreaking" were the words Qwilleran heard when he appeared in the lobby after the show.
