Full dark,no stars

For those wishing to journey beyond the welcome screen, there were four or five choices, including phone numbers, rates, and testimonials from satisfied customers. Tess skipped these and clicked on the last one, which read CHECK OUT THE NEWEST ADDITION TO OUR FLEET! And when the picture came up, the final piece fell into place.

It was a much better photograph than the one of Ramona Norville standing on the library steps. In it, Tess’s rapist was sitting behind the wheel of a shiny cab-over Pete with RED HAWK TRUCKING COLEWICH, MASSACHUSETTS written on the door in fancy script. He wasn’t wearing his bleach-splattered brown cap, and the bristly blond crewcut revealed by its absence made him look even more like his mother, almost eerily so. His cheerful, you-can-trust-me grin was the one Tess had seen yesterday afternoon. The one he’d still been wearing when he said Instead of changing your tire, how about I fuck you? How would that be?

Looking at the photo made the weird rage-serum cycle faster through her system. There was a pounding in her temples that wasn’t exactly a headache; in fact, it was almost pleasant.

He was wearing the red glass ring.

The caption below the picture read: “Al Strehlke, President of Red Hawk Trucking, seen here behind the wheel of the company’s newest acquisition, a 2008 Peterbilt 389. This horse of a hauler is now available to our customers, who are THE FINEST IN ALL THE LAND. Say! Doesn’t Al look like a Proud Papa?”

She heard him calling her a bitch, a whiny whore bitch, and clenched her hands into fists. She felt her fingernails sinking into her palms and clenched them even tighter, relishing the pain.

Proud Papa. That was what her eyes kept returning to. Proud Papa. The rage moved faster and faster, circling through her body the way she had circled her kitchen. The way she had circled the store last night, moving in and out of consciousness like an actress through a series of spotlights.

You’re going to pay, Al. And never mind the cops, I’m the one coming to collect.

And then there was Ramona Norville. The proud papa’s proud mama. Although Tess was still not sure of her. Partly it was not wanting to believe that a woman could allow something so horrible to happen to another woman, but she could also see an innocent explanation. Chicopee wasn’t that far from Colewich, and Ramona would have used the Stagg Road shortcut all the time when she went there.

“To visit her son,” Tess said, nodding. “To visit the proud papa with the new cab-over Pete. For all I know, she might be the one who took the picture of him behind the wheel.” And why wouldn’t she recommend her favorite route to that day’s speaker?

But why didn’t she say, “I go that way all the time to visit my son?” Wouldn’t that be natural?

“Maybe she doesn’t talk to strangers about the Strehlke phase of her life,” Tess said. “The phase before she discovered short hair and comfortable shoes.” It was possible, but there was the scatter of nail-studded boards to think about. The trap. Norville had sent her that way, and the trap had been set ahead of time. Because she had called him? Called him and said I’m sending you a juicy one, don’t miss out?

It still doesn’t mean she was involved… or not knowingly involved. The proud papa could keep track of her guest speakers, how hard would that be?

“Not hard at all,” Fritzy said after leaping up on her filing cabinet. He began to lick one of his paws.

“And if he saw a photo of one he liked… a reasonably attractive one… I suppose he’d know his mother would send her back by…” She stopped. “No, that doesn’t scan. Without some input from Ma, how would he know I wasn’t driving to my home in Boston? Or flying back to my home in New York City?”

“You googled him,” Fritzy said. “Maybe he googled you. Just like she did. Everything’s on the Internet these days; you said so yourself.”

That hung together, if only by a thread.

She thought there was one way to find out for sure, and that was to pay Ms. Norville a surprise visit. Look in her eyes when she saw Tess. If there was nothing in them but surprise and curiosity at the Return of the Willow Grove Scribe… to Ramona’s home rather than her library… that would be one thing. But if there was fear in them as well, the kind that might be prompted by the thought why are you here instead of in a rusty culvert on the Stagg Road… well…

“That would be different, Fritzy. Wouldn’t it?”

Fritzy looked at her with his cunning green eyes, still licking his paw. It looked harmless, that paw, but there were claws hidden inside it. Tess had seen them, and on occasion felt them.

She found out where I lived; let’s see if I can return the favor.