Julia sighed. “Sorry, Edmeister. I know that one was stupid. I’m tired, that’s all.” She looked over at me. “We’re not going to do this kind of day again, are we?”

I hadn’t wanted to have such a long day in the first place, but my boss, Graydon Cain, director of the Chilson District Library, had asked us to try it. Though he was a decent guy, he’d only been director for a few months, and I wasn’t sure enough of our relationship to say a flat-out “no” when he asked if the bookmobile would be willing to attend a township board meeting in the farthest-flung corner of Tonedagana County.

“It’s a night meeting,” he’d said, “but it starts at seven and the township clerk says their meetings hardly ever run more than an hour. The days up here are so long you’ll be back before sunset.”

He’d been right, but only partly. Though the meeting, which included a tour of the bookmobile by the board members, had indeed lasted less than an hour, the sun was dropping behind the tree line as we pulled out of the parking lot. Twilight lingered long in midsummer, but now that the equinox was approaching, it would be full dark in less than half an hour.

“It was a long day,” I said to Julia. “A good one, though, don’t you think?”

“Huh.” She tapped the cat carrier with her toes. “Did you notice that, Eddie? She didn’t swear on a stack of first-edition Angela Thirkell books that we are never, ever, ever going to spend another fifteen-hour day in the bookmobile.”

Assuming we didn’t get lost on the way back to Chilson, which was unlikely since I’d driven this route through the county’s hilly back roads a hundred times in the last two years, her number was an exaggeration by at least four hours. “Ours not to reason why,” I said. “And the board members really enjoyed going through the bookmobile.”

“Sure, but there’s no way we can fit another stop into our route. We’re already starting to turn people away from some stops to get to the next one on time. And soon we’ll have to be dealing with snow and our driving times will be a huge question mark.”

These were all things I knew. And Julia knew that I knew, because we’d already talked about them ad nauseam.

“It’s only September,” I said.

“Mid-September.” Julia slouched down. “Look out there. The leaves are starting to change.”

I squinted through the windshield. Sure, there were a couple of orange- and red-tipped maple leaves in the passing trees, but roughly 99.9 percent of them were still a lush green.

“It’s only September,” I repeated. “There are weeks to go before we have to start thinking about snow-covered and slippery roads.”

“Minnie, how are—”