Clearly, weather was the topic of the day, but I was pretty sure nothing anyone said was going to change it. I spent a brief moment wondering what the world would be like if complaining about the weather actually did change things and gave it up quickly. Far too many possibilities. Fun for the short term, perhaps, but probably bad long term.

“You’re up early,” I said. “Don’t tell me you got fooled by that warm spell last week.”

He snorted. “Not a chance. I been around the block more than once. False spring, we used to call it. Now.” Pug eyed Hunter up and down. “Who is this young man and what have you done with Julia?”

I made the introductions and the two men shook hands. “But, Pug,” I asked, “why are you up this early? I’ve never seen you here before the end of April.”

“That is about to change.” Pug, a stocky man in his late fifties, grinned hugely. “I’ve been working remote for years. It’s been harder for Sylvia, but she’s finally there. We’re moving up here year-round as soon as she does a last round of meetings.”

Pug worked for a car-parts manufacturer as a project manager. Sylvia, his wife, was a partner in a very successful firm of business consultants. Her specialty was data analysis, and there’d been a time or two when I’d come very close to understanding what she did all day.

“My theory,” he said, “is the more prepared the cottage is for her, the sooner she’ll abandon ship. I’ve actually been here a number of times this winter, moving up this and that, which is why I—” He broke off and squinted at us.

“Why what?” I prompted.

His squint continued. “I know how things work up here. Half the people are related, and the other half went to high school together.”

Not entirely true, but I knew what he meant.

Then he shrugged and laughed. “But if you can’t trust librarians, who can you trust? I’m up here right now because I made an appointment with that conservation officer. Jenica Thomas. I saw someone poaching last time I was up and want to make a formal report.”

“Poaching?” My brain went immediately to eggs, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he was talking about.

“Turkeys. Out of season.”

The intricacies of fishing and hunting rules and regulations were way outside my scope of interest. Rafe, my fiancé, did an annual November deer camp with a group of friends, but I’d never been convinced that any of them actually left the cabin for anything except food and beer runs.

“Hunting turkeys out of season is bad?” I asked.

Pug and Hunter exchanged a look, the patently male one that said, Here we go. Now we have to explain all this to a girl. Who’s going to go first?