The foyer seemed less welcoming than usual. The fireplace was cold and the four-foot Oriental vases flaking the registration desk were empty. Quill, never too enthusiastic about mail to begin with, paused to consider the vases. She was never entirely certain how soon the bronze spider chrysanthemums she used at Thanksgiving should be replaced by pine boughs. She usually waited until the `mums began to droop. The shipment this year hadn't lasted long, and the first week in December was too early, she'd thought, for pine, so she'd waited, and now it was practically Christmas. She kicked disconsolately at the vase.
Dina Muir, their receptionist, was yawning her way through a textbook at the front desk. She looked up.
"Whoa," said Dina. "You're still here? I thought you were going to lunch with the sheriff. Anything wrong?"
"Not really."
"That's just what John said when he stomped out of the office a few minutes ago. I asked him, `Anything wrong, John?' `Not really, Dina,' he said back, when it was perfectly clear that something was really, really bugging him just like it's perfectly clear something's really, really bugging you. Is it the lunch with the sheriff?"
"Did he say anything to you?"
"John? Yep. I just told you. He said not really."
Quill, putting off the inevitable, was glad, for once, that Dina was inclined to chatter. "How are things?"
"Fine," Dina said brightly.
"School going okay?"
"Yep."
"Dissertation coming along? Are you reading a text for it?"
Dina lifted the book in her lap. `You mean this? No. I figured I'd better take a look before he got here, is all."
"Before who got here?"
"Evan Blight. He wrote this book that's made everyone so mad."
"You're actually reading it? The Branch of the Root?"
"Well, sure."
Quill took the book. The cover was a painting - a bad one - of a dark tree with the kind of roots found on a banyan. The leaves were vaguely oaklike. The branches were widely spaced and symmetrical, like a Norfolk pine. The title, The Branch of the Root by Evan Blight, was metallic, in Gothic type. Inside, the typeface was small, the paragraphs dense. The chapters had subtitles like "The Father-Spirit" and "The Soul of the Tree." Quill flipped to the back leaf. Evan Blight looked like Robertson Davies. Quill was conscious of a spurt of annoyance. She liked Robertson Davies a lot. She didn't want somebody who wrote a book that had caused as much trouble as The Branch of the Root to look like one of the better writers of the twentieth century. "Can I borrow this after you've finished?"
"Sure. But I'm only halfway through and it's due back at the Cornell library next week. Mrs. Doncaster at the library here said the waiting list is two weeks for the Hemlock falls copy. You could buy your own copy. The Wal-Mart's carrying it. It's been deep-discounted to twenty bucks."
"Twenty dollars? I'll get on the waiting list at the library."
"That won't give you enough time. You want tot read it before he gets here, don't you?"
"Before who gets here?"
"Evan Blight."
"Evan Blight? Evan Blight's coming to Hemlock Falls?"
"Well, sure."
"Wow."
John, walking into the foyer, shook his head, gave Dina a pat on the back, and opened the office door, gesturing Quill in side. "After you, you felon, you," he said, and shut the door in Dina's interested face.
Quill walked over to her desk and regarded the pile of mail stacked in her In-box. John settled into the leather chair behind the desk. She tugged at her hair and attempted unconcern.
"Quill. Some of this mail has been sitting here for two weeks."
"Hmm," Quill said. "Anything urgent?"
"If you mean are we going to get the phones cut off, like the last time you let the mail sit, no. But there's this." He waved a scarlet envelope at her.
Quill sank meekly into the chair in front of the desk. "What/"
"It looks like a bench warrant."
"A what/"
"A warrant for your arrest. For a speeding ticket."
"Me? I didn't get a speeding ticket." Quill took the envelope with a strong sense of indignation. "I would have remembered getting a speeding ticket. Now the equivalent of a parking ticket, yeah. I remember that. Last week."
"You didn't remember the phone bill last year," John said mildly. "And the phones were shut off for three hours."
"Yeah, but." She opened the envelope and took out a piece of cardboard marked Bureau of Traffic Violations, Village of Hemlock Falls, Notice of Violation and Impending Default Judgment. This is your final notice.
"I never got a first notice," Quill said indignantly.
John waved a second, unopened envelope at her.
Quill ignored it and stared at the warrant. "We don't' have a Bureau of Traffic Violations in Hemlock Falls."
"We do now. Sheriff Dorset and Bernie Bristol arranged for it last week. Don't you read the Gazette? It was part of their campaign platform."
Quill turned the cardboard over. "It says here I can plead not guilty by requesting a hearing Wednesday morning at nine a.m. Which Wednesday?"
"Any Wednesday."
"But I didn't get a speeding ticket!" She read it again. "This says I got a speeding ticket last Friday. Davy Kiddermeister stopped me near the school. He gave me a warning and the equivalent of a parking ticket. But he didn't' give me a speeding ticket."
"You'd better give Howie a call and get on down to the courthouse tomorrow to get it straightened out."
"I won't. This is ridiculous!"
"Then they'll come after you."
"Who's going to come after me?"
"Deputy Dave, most likely. Maybe Dorset himself."
"I'll just call Myles. Oh. I can't call Myles, can I? He's not sheriff anymore. And besides.... " She trailed off. John's eyes were uncomfortably shrewd.
John held one hand up and took the phone with the other. He dialed, waited a moment, got Howie Murchison on the line, described the situation briefly, then said, "I can't, Howie. I've got a meeting with some suppliers. Meg will have to do it. You want tot talk to Quill? She's right here."
He held the phone out.
"Do what?" asked Quill, hesitating to take the receiver. "What will Meg have to do instead?"
"Just talk to him, Quill. He's agreed to represent you in traffic court tomorrow, but he wants more details."
Quill put the receiver to her ear. "Howie?"
Howie, who was one of the most patient, equably tempered men Quill knew, was admirably calm and agreed to meet her at the courthouse the following morning. He asked her questions about the ticket. Quill expostulated, Howie demurred; Meg, he said, would be needed as a character witness. He'd heard odd things about this sheriff. Quill thanked him, hung up, and looked at John. "Are you still upset?"
"About the mail? No, Quill. I know about you and mail. About the traffic ticket, yeah. It's dumb. Meg's told me often enough about you and traffic tickets. When you offered to take care of the mail last week when I was finishing up the year-end accounting, I should have followed up. But this ticket stuff isn't anything to mess with. I've heard funny things about this new sheriff."