"You want to sit down? I'll make us some coffee." His expression was wistful. "I haven't been able to talk about her to anyone yet. She didn't want anyone to know about us."
"Was there a reason she didn't? I mean, other than the fact that she thought it'd be better for the station not to know she had a personal life?"
"God, I don't know. I teach ninth grade math at the University High School. Nora knew a lot more about the real world than I did."
"You never went to law school?" Quill asked. "Or banking? You were never interested in banking?"
"Me? Heck, no. I like kids. I've always liked kids. That was the one area Nora and I never did agree on. I wanted to get married and she - Say, are you sure you wouldn't like me to make you a pot of coffee?"
"No. Thanks." Quill, feeling more traitorous every minute, was positive that her cheeks were red. "I've got to get back to the, um, hotel."
"Where're you staying?"
"The Hyatt," said Quill. There had to be a Hyatt in Syracuse. Every large town in America had a Hyatt.
"I didn't know we had a Hyatt," said Joseph.
"Could you give me your phone number?" Quill said desperately. "I'll be sure to call you about the... you know."
"The funeral. Yeah. You have a piece of paper?"
Quill drew her Investigations notebook out of her purse and took out a pen.
"It's a local area code, 315. And it's 624-9123."
Quill wrote this down. After this was all over, she could call and explain and apologize. He might forgive her. By the next millennium. "I'll let you know as soon as everything's been completed." She shoved the notebook back in her purse, dislodging the computer disks she'd stolen from Nora's desk. She laughed, "Ha-ha!" stuffed them clumsily into the depths of the purse, and held out her hand. "Goodbye, Joe. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah. Can I drop you off at the Hyatt? It must be new. Of course, you know us teachers. Never pay much attention to anything outside of test scores."
"It's really more toward Rochester." She shook his hand. "We'll keep in touch."
She clattered down the stairs, her purse banging against the wall, warm with embarrassment. No detective she'd ever read in any of her favorite fiction, from Philip Marlowe to Dave Robicheaux, ever got embarrassed in the middle of an investigation. And they were sensitive guys. She'd have to work at being tougher.
She pushed outside to the sidewalk. The snow was falling faster now, and the temperature had dropped. She slid on the sidewalk. The OIds' windshield was covered with a thin coat of icy mush. She scraped it free with her bare hand, and removed the flyer some enterprising entrepreneur had stuck under the wipers with a click of irritation. She balled it up and wiped futilely at the glass, then turned and opened the driver's door. She glanced up. Joseph Greenwald stared at her through the living room window. She forced a smile, waved, and caught herself just before she tossed the flyer in the street. "Red-haired, early thirties," Greenwald would tell the cops. "Said she was Nora's sister. No, we've never met. But Nora told me a lot about their life together as kids. And I tell you this, Officer, Nora's sister was no litterer."
The OIds started, as always, with a cough and reliable roar. Quill buckled herself in and took a right off Westcott onto Argyle, from Argyle to Genesee and from Genesee to the entrance ramp of 81 north without really seeing anything at all.
She became aware of the intensity of the snow when she almost hit the car in front of her.
Its taillights flashed. Quill braked automatically, and the Olds skidded on the rutted slush, narrowly missing the car on her left. There was a blare of horns, a shout, and the Toyota next to her swung wide. She swerved into the skid and came to rest against the ramp curb. Behind her, a line of cars slowed, and inched by her stopped vehicle, an occasional hollered curse adding to her misery.
She pounded the wheel and yelled, "Ugh. Ugh ugh, UGH!"
It snowed harder as she watched, moving from a veil to a heavy curtain in minutes. She waited until her heart slowed and her breath was even, then inched out into the traffic. She made it to the expressway. The snow was thick, gluey, and treacherous. Her windshield wipers were on full speed, but the snow fell faster than the blades were moving. Quill hunched forward in the classic posture of the snow-blind driver and followed the taillights ahead of her.
She switched the radio on, punching the buttons until she hit the Traffic Watch.
"Seven to eight inches expected before nightfall," came the announcer's excited voice. "Most major thoroughfares have been closed to all but emergency traffic. High winds are expected to pick up as a front moves in from Canada. Our travel advisory has become a snow emergency. The sheriff's office has ordered no unnecessary travel, I repeat, no unnecessary travel."
Why, thought Quill, do these weather guys always sound as though we're about to be bombed by Khaddafi? Half of her anxiety about driving in snow came from the we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you tone of this guy's voice.
She drove on, keeping her speed under thirty, and told herself that somewhere on the continent the sun was shining, the roads were dry, and the outside temperature wouldn't kill you if you fell asleep in it. She imagined a map of the United States, with the sun shining everywhere but this little stretch of Interstate 81 north. She pretended that all she had to do was drive a few miles more, and she would break into clear roads and blue skies.
The line of cars in front of her exited at the off ramp at 53. She looked in the rearview mirror. There were a few sets of headlights in back of her, not many. The snow whirled and spun like a immense bolt of cotton, now obscuring the road altogether, now whipping aside to reveal snow as high as her knees.
She switched the radio, found Pachelbel's Canon, which she'd come to loathe, then a mournful harpsichord version of Claude-Marie deCourcey's Spring Fate.
"Oh, humm," Quill sang. "Hummmm hummm." She shivered, despite the fact that the heater was going full blast.
She checked her watch. Three-thirty. At the rate she was traveling, she wouldn't be home before five. When it would be dark.
"This is stupid," she said aloud. She'd take the next exit, find a motel, and call Myles, then Meg, and tell them not to worry, she'd be back home in the morning.
The miles crawled by. On her left, headed south, two exits went by. The next one northbound would be 50. It was on the outskirts of the city, and her chances of finding a motel right off the ramp were not good, but at least she'd be close to the ground, near a gas station or a diner, where there would be light, and the warmth of human beings, and an end to the white that so ruthlessly wrapped the car.
She checked the rearview mirror. The traffic was gone, the road almost empty but for a pair of headlights traveling at speed in her lane. She slowed again, to under twenty-five, and signaled a move into the far right-hand lane. The headlights moved, too. They were high above the ground, shining eerily above the piled snow, plowing through the drifts like a fish through water. Four-wheel drive, Quill thought glumly. I should have taken the Inn pickup.
She turned her attention to the road in front. The Olds was lugging a little, the snow was halfway up the hubcaps. Her headlights were almost useless, bumping above the snow as often as they were obscured by drifts.