With a hard click the message ended. Sheriff Kick felt chilled and jittery.

“Do you have his letters?”

“If he’s ‘FROM HELL HOLLOW,’ yes, I do, on file. You know”—the editor sighed, going limp with weariness and frustration—“prehistoric records, cave paintings and such.”

He raised a weak wave to indicate the cavernous room behind him, where in the shadows the sheriff could see several filing cabinets, and behind them big machines and trays of cast-metal type.

Fanta sighed again. “ ‘Noon is our new midnight,’ ” he quoted. “That’s not bad. The thing about poets…”

She stepped around his desk and past the cabinets and trays of type to inspect the back door. “I’m listening.” The jamb had been pried out and shredded on the lock side, the way a clumsy person in a fury might break-and-enter if he had no background in the craft.

“Poets don’t just change the channel,” Fanta told her with his voice raised. “They put a foot through the TV. Poets drive on the wrong side of the road. That’s their job.”

She returned. If the Rickreiners had left Town of Blooming Hill at the alarm, they were now about five minutes away. She took a latex glove from her hip pocket and put it on—just for show, she decided. She picked up the crowbar and faced Fanta, who fumbled with a pack of Winstons.

“Let me guess,” she said. “They changed the locks on you?”

“Yes.”

“Right now, are you trespassing?”

“Possibly.”

“You’ve been let go?”

He got his smoke lit, blew a gust toward the old building’s pressed-tin ceiling.

“Babette thinks so. But I’ve filed a few lawsuits, so at least my right to be here is legally contested.”

She sighed and put her notebook away. Her phone buzzed for attention again. She had to get back to Liberty Hill Road.

“OK,” she said. “Your right to be here is tied up in the courts. I can go with that.”

She raised the crowbar.

“I’m gonna file this bad boy in my trunk and give it to my husband.”

She kept her gaze on Fanta as he pulled on his Winston.

“I’m going to move your car around the block, Grape, so the Rickreiners won’t know you’re here, and so I won’t have to bust you for driving under the influence. Then I’m going to call ATD and tell them it was a false alarm. Stay out of sight while I deal with Babette and Barry. As soon as they’re gone, you’re going to call someone to fix that back door. Then you’re going to collect your stuff and leave, and you’re not going to do this again. Do we have a deal?”