For example, everywhere he went he seemed to be haunted by a blue pickup truck. There was one parked in front of the post office, its truck-bed empty except for a rolled tarpaulin. There was another in front of the bank, hauling shovels and a wheelbarrow. On the highway the driver of a blue truck had tooted his horn and waved. And the truck that had followed him on the Pickax Road the night before was blue.

Tugging the visor of his orange cap down over his eyes he approached a log cabin with

a freshly painted sign: Information Center — Tourist Development Association. The interior had the pungent odor of new wood.

Behind a desk piled with travel folders sat a pale young man with a very black beard and a healthy head of black hair. Qwilleran realized that his own graying hair and pepper-and-salt moustache had once been equally black. He asked: "Is this where tourists come to be developed?" The young man shrugged apologetically. "I told them it should be tourism. But who was I to advise the Chamber of Commerce? I was only a history teacher looking for a summer job. Isn't this great weather? What can I do for you? My name is Roger. You don't need to tell me who you are. I read the paper." "The Daily Fluxion seems to have a big circulation up here," Qwilleran said. "The Fluxion was almost sold out at the drug store yesterday, but they still had a big stack of the Morning Rampage." "Right," said Roger. "We're boycotting the Rampage. Their travel editor did a write-up on Mooseville and called it Mosquitoville." "You have to admit they're plentiful. And large." Roger glanced aside guiltily and said in a lowered voice: "If you think the mosquitoes are bad, wait till you meet the deer flies. This is off-the-record, of course. We don't talk about deer flies. It's not-exactly good for tourism. Are you here to write about our restaurants?" "No, I'm on vacation. I'll be around for three months. Is there a barber in town?" "Bob's Chop Shop at the Cannery Mall. Men's and women's hair styling." Roger handed Qwilleran another copy of the Mooseville brochure. "Are you a fisherman?" "I can think of things I'd rather do." "Deep-sea fishing is a great experience. You'd enjoy it. You can charter a boat at the municipal pier and go out for a day or half a day. They supply the gear, take you where the fish are biting, even tell you how to hold the rod. And they guarantee you'll come back with a few big ones." "Anything else to do around here?" "There's the museum; it's big on shipwreck history. The flower gardens at the state prison are spectacular, and the prison gift shop has some good leather items. You can see bears scrounging at the village dump, or you can hunt for agates on the beach." Qwilleran was studying the brochure. "What's this about a historic cemetery?" "It's not much," Roger admitted. "It's a nineteenth century burial ground, abandoned for the last fifty years. Sort of vandalized. If I were you, I'd take a fishing trip." "What are these pas ties everyone advertises?" "It's like a turnover filled with meat and potatoes and turnips. Pasties are traditional up here. The miners used to carry pasties in their lunch buckets." "Where's a good place to try one?" "Hats-off or hats-on?" "What?" "What I mean-we have some restaurants with a little class, like the hotel dining room, and we have the other kind — casual — where the guys eat with their hats on. For a good hats-off place you could try a little bistro at the Cannery Mall, called the Nasty Pasty.

A bit of perverse humor, I guess. The tourists like it." Qwilleran said he would prefer real north country atmosphere.

"Right. So here's what you want to do: Drive west along the shore for about a mile.

You'll see a big electric sign that says FOO. The D dropped off about three years ago.

It's a dump, but they're famous for pasties, and it's strictly hats-on." "One more Question." Qwilleran touched his moustache tentatively, as he did when a situation was bothering him. "How come there are so many blue pickup trucks in this neck of the woods?" "I don't know. I never really noticed." Roger jumped up and went to the side window overlooking the parking lot of the Shipwreck Tavern. "You're right. There are two blue pickups in the lot… But there's also a red one, and a dirty green, and a sort of yellow." "And here comes another blue one," Qwilleran persisted. It was the truck with the shovels. The agile little man who jumped out of the driver's seat wore overalls and a visored cap and a faceful of untrimmed gray whiskers.

"That's old Sam the gravedigger. He's got a lot of bounce, hasn't he? He's over eighty and puts away a pint of whiskey every day — except Sunday." "You mean you still dig graves by hand?" "Right. Sam's been digging graves and other things all his life. Keeps him young…

Look at that sky. We're in for a storm." "Thanks for the information," Qwilleran said. "I think I'll go and try the pasties." He glanced at his wrist. "What time is it? I left my watch at the cabin." "That's normal. When guys come up here, the first thing they do — they forget to wear their watches. Then they stop shaving. Then they start eating with their hats on." Qwilleran drove west until he saw an electric sign flashing its message futilely in the sunshine: FOO…FOO… FOO. The parking lot was filled with pickups and vans.

No blue. He thought: Why am I getting paranoid about blue pickups? The answer was a familiar uneasiness on his upper lip.

The restaurant was a two-story building in need of paint and shingles and nails. A ventilator expelled fumes of fried fish and smoking hamburgers. Inside, the tables were filled, and red, green, blue, and yellow caps could be seen dimly through the haze of cigarette smoke. Country music on the radio could not compete with the hubbub of loud talk and laughter.

Qwilleran took a stool at the counter not far from a customer with a sheriff's department patch on his sleeve and a stiff-brimmed hat on his head.

The cook shuffled out of the kitchen and said to the deputy: "We're in for a big one." The brimmed hat nodded.

"Another roadblock last night?" Two nods.

"Find anything?" The hat waggled from side to side.

"We all know where the buggers go." Another nod.

"But no evidence." The hat registered negative.

The waitress was standing in front of Qwilleran, waiting wordlessly for his order.

"A couple of pasties," he said.

"To go?" "No. To eat here." "Two?" Qwilleran found himself nodding an affirmative.

"You want I should hold one back and keep it hot till you eat the first one?" "No, thanks. That won't be necessary." The conversation at the tables concerned fishing exclusively, with much speculation bout an approaching storm. The movement of the lake, the color of the sky, the behavior of the seagulls, the formation of the clouds, the feel of the wind — all these factors convinced veteran fishermen that a storm was coming, despite predictions on the local radio station.

When Qwilleran's two pasties arrived they completely filled two large oval platters.

Each of the crusty turnovers was a foot wide and three inches thick. He surveyed the feast. "I need a fork," he said.

"Just pick' em up," the waitress said and disappeared into the kitchen.

Roger was right. The pasties were filled with meat and potatoes and plenty of turnip, which ranked with parsnip at the bottom of Qwilleran's list of edibles. He chomped halfway through the first pasty, lubricating each dry mouthful with gulps of weak coffee, then asked to have the remaining artifacts wrapped to take home. He paid his check glumly, receiving his change in dollar bills that smelled of cigar smoke.

The cashier, a heavy woman in snugly fitting pants and a Mooseville T-shirt, leered at his orange cap and said: "All ready for Halloween, Clyde?" Glancing at her blimplike figure he thought of an apt retort but curbed his impulse.