Following an unseasonable thaw and disastrous flooding, spring came early to Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere. In Pickax City, the county seat, flowerboxes on Main Street were blooming in April, birds were singing in Park Circle, mosquitoes were hatching in the bogs, and strangers were beginning to appear in the campgrounds and on the streets of downtown.
One afternoon in late May, a brown van pulled into a parking lot alongside a small green sedan, and a man wearing a black jersey slipped out of the driver’s seat. He glanced furtively to the left and right, and, leaving the motor running, he opened the tailgate. Then he unlocked the trunk of the sedan and quickly transferred something from his vehicle to the other, after which he lost no time in driving away. An out-of-towner, witnessing the surreptitious maneuver, might have described him as a Caucasian male, middle-aged, about six feet two, with slightly graying hair and an enormous pepper-and-salt moustache. On the other hand, any resident of Pickax (population 3,000) would have recognized him immediately. He was James Mackintosh Qwilleran, columnist for the Moose County Something and—by a fluke of fate—the richest man in northeast central United States. He had reason to be furtive about the parking-lot caper. In Pickax, everyone knew everyone’s business and discussed it freely on the phone, on street corners, and in the coffee shops. Individuals would say:
