"You must not let that happen, Chrysalis. Tell me about the trial. What did you think was wrong about it?"
"Well, first, the court-appointed attorney wasn't even there for the arraignment. He phoned to say he'd be late, but the court didn't want to wait around."
"That sounds like a violation of constitutional rights," Qwilleran said.
"How did we know? We were just Taters. Then Forest was held without bail, and the attorney said it was for his personal safety because the whole town was out to get him. My brother! I couldn't believe it!"
"If there was so much animosity, didn't he try for a change of venue?"
She nodded. "It was denied." "What was the attorney's name?" "Hugh Lumpton."
Qwilleran huffed into his moustache; another one of those ubiquitous Lumptons!
Chrysalis said, "He didn't put a single defense witness on the stand, and he let the state's witnesses get away with lies! The jury brought in a guilty verdict so fast, we hardly knew it was over!"
"I'm no lawyer," Qwilleran said, "but it seems to me you should be able to get a new trial. You'd need a different attorneya good one."
"What would it cost? We tried to borrow money to hire one when Forest was first accused, but the banksbeing mixed up with the land speculators, you knowrefused to give us a mortgage. They advised us to sell, but you wouldn't believe what the speculators offered for our choice piece of the mountain. But now it doesn't matter; we'd sell our land for any amount of money if it would get Forest out of prison."
"There might be another way," Qwilleran said, smoothing his moustache. "Let me think about it. But your brother would still have to convince a jury that he's innocent."
They finished the meal with sparse conversation. The salad dressing also was salty. Chrysalis moodily declined dessert and simply sipped a cup of tea, silent behind her staring, hollow-cheeked mask.
When they left the dining room, it was still only partially occupied, and there were plenty of empty tables with a view of the golf course. Qwilleran told his guest to wait in the vestibule while he had a few words with the hostess. Eight words were sufficient. Speaking calmly he said, "Give this to the management with my compliments," and he tore up his membership card.
It was still full daylight, and Chrysalis said, "Would you like to drive up to Tiptop the back way? It's only a logging trail, but it goes up the outside of Big Potato, and there's something I want you to see." She directed him through a maze of winding roads in true wilderness. "There!" she said when they reached the top of a knob. "Stop the car! What does that look like?"
Qwilleran saw a vast area of wiped-out foresta tangle of stumps, fallen trees, and dead branches. "It looks like the aftermath of a tornado or a bombing raid."
"That's slashing!" she said. "Everything is leveled, and then they take the good straight hardwood and leave the rejects. Maybe you've seen the logging trucks leaving the mountains. This is what'll happen to the whole outside of Big Potato if we don't stop them, and this is what speculators would like to do to L'il Tater."
The logging trail narrowed to a mere wagon track twisting upward. She pointed the way, and Qwilleran clutched the wheel as the car lurched through the rough terrain.
"Would you care to come in for a nightcap?" he asked when they finally reached the Tiptop parking lot.
"No, thank you, but I enjoyed the evening, and thank you for listening. It was very kind of you."
He walked her to the decrepit army vehicle. "I'm sincerely sorry about your brother's predicament. I hope something can be done."
She climbed into the driver's seat. "It would be easier to move a mountain," she said with a helpless shrug.
Qwilleran watched her leave before mounting the steps to the veranda. Koko was waiting for him in the foyer, prancing back and forth as if he had something urgent to report, but Qwilleran had other things on his mind. He went directly to the phone and called Moose County without waiting for the discount rates.
"Polly, this is Qwill!" he announced abruptly.
"Dearest! I'm so thankful you called. We have terrible news. Halifax Goodwinter has taken his own life!"
"NO!"
"He buried his wife last Friday, you know, and last night he overdosed."
"This is hard to believe! Did he leave an explanation?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all. But the rumor is circulating that his wife's death was a mercy killing. She'd been hopelessly ill for so long, and the poor man was going on eighty. There'll never be another country doctor like Dr. Hal. The whole county is grieving. Melinda is definitely moving back from Boston to take over his practice, but it won't be the same."
"I agree," said Qwilleran with a gulp. He was worrying less about Moose County's medical prospects than about his own personal relationships. Before Melinda moved to Boston, she had been hell-bent on marriage, and he had been equally determined to stay single, even though he found her disturbingly attractive.
"Now that you've heard the bad news, Qwill," Polly was saying, "how's everything in the mountains?"
"I'm spittin' mad," he said.
"That sounds like mountain vernacular, and you've been there only three days."
"I've just had an infuriating experience at a restaurant."
"What did they do wrong?"
"Everything! They gave me the worst table in the place. The service was abominable. The soup was cold. The food was too salty. It was the salty food that explained the whole conspiracy."
"Are you saying it was done purposely?"
"Damn right it was! I made the mistake of taking the wrong person to dinner. My guest was a mountaineer. They're called Taters around here."
"Really! Are they so undesirable?"
"They're an unpopular minority, although they were here first, and they get a rotten shake at every turn. In Moose County we have cliques but no prejudice like this, and I was unprepared. The whole dinner was an embarrassment."
"What are you going to do?" Polly knew Qwilleran was not one to turn the other cheek.
"I've got to think about it."
"I'm sorry you're so upset."
"Don't worry," he said, his anger subsiding. "I'm going to consult Koko. He'll come up with an idea. How's Boot-sie?"
"He's fine. He weighs ten pounds."
"Ten pounds going on thirty! And how are you?"
"I'm fine. The library board is giving a formal dinner Friday, and I'm altering the neck of my long dress so I can wear my pearls. I miss you, dearest."
"I miss you, too." There was a breathy pause. Despite his facility with words, Qwilleran found terms of endearment difficult. "A bientot," he said with feeling in his voice.
"A bientot, dearest."
He went outdoors and walked briskly around the veranda a few times. The sun was dropping behind the West Potatoes, and the dragon clouds were waging a riotous battleviolent pink and purple against a turquoise sky. When a damp chill from the northeast chased him indoors, Koko was still prancing.
"What's on your mind?" he asked absently.
"Yow!" said Koko with urgency, running back and forth through the living room arch.
"Where's Yum Yum?" It occurred to Qwilleran that he had not seen her since returning from dinner. Immediately he checked all the comfortable chairs in the living room and all the beds upstairs. Calling her name he rushed from room to room, opening closets, cabinets, and even drawers. Thenback in the living roomhe saw Koko dive under the floor-length skirt that Sabrina had draped on a round table.
"You devils!" he muttered as he fell on his hands and knees and peered under the skirt. There they were, both of them, wearing beatific expressions, and on the floor between them was a stamped, addressed letter with perforations in two corners. "Who stole this?" he demanded, although he knew Koko was the culprit, attracted by the adhesive on the stamp and the envelope. Although Yum Yum's famous paw pilfered Scrabble tiles and cigarette lighters, Koko specialized in documents, leaving fang marks as evidence. Qwilleran dropped the Peel & Poole letter in a drawer of the Fitzwallow huntboard for safekeeping until he could mail it, noting as he did so that it was addressed to Sherry Hawkinfield in Maryland probably a bill for Sabrina Peel's appraisal services.