Full Dark, No Stars

smal woman with an elfin face, a shy smile, and a job writing cozy mysteries, but a big guy with a big hat shading his sunburned brow and grizzled cheeks, letting a bul dog hood ornament lead him along the mil ion roads that crisscrossed the country. No need to careful y match her clothes before public appearances in that life; faded jeans and boots with side-buckles would do. She liked to write, and she didn’t mind public speaking, but what she real y liked to do was drive. After her Chicopee appearance, this struck her as funny… but not funny in a way that made you laugh. No, not that kind of funny at al .

- 2 -

The invitation from Books & Brown Baggers fil ed her requirements perfectly. Chicopee was hardly more than sixty miles from Stoke Vil age, the engagement was to be a daytime affair, and the Three

Bs were offering an honorarium of not twelve but fifteen hundred dol ars. Plus expenses, of course, but those would be minimal—not even a stay at a Courtyard Suites or a Hampton Inn. The query letter

came from one Ramona Norvil e, who explained that, although she was the head librarian at the Chicopee Public Library, she was writing in her capacity as President of Books & Brown Baggers, which

put on a noon lecture each month. People were encouraged to bring their lunches, and the events were very popular. Janet Evanovich had been scheduled for October 12th, but had been forced to cancel

because of a family matter—a wedding or a funeral, Ramona Norvil e wasn’t sure which.

“I know this is short notice,” Ms. Norvil e said in her slightly wheedling final paragraph, “but Wikipedia says you live in neighboring Connecticut, and our readers here in Chicopee are such fans of the Knitting Society gals. You would have our undying gratitude as wel as the above-mentioned honorarium.”

Tess doubted that the gratitude would last much longer than a day or two, and she already had a speaking engagement lined up for October (Literary Cavalcade Week in the Hamptons), but I-84

would take her to I-90, and from 90, Chicopee was a straight shot. Easy in, easy out; Fritzy would hardly know she was gone.

Ramona Norvil e had of course included her email address, and Tess wrote her immediately, accepting the date and the honorarium amount. She also specified—as was her wont—that she would

sign autographs for no more than an hour. “I have a cat who bul ies me if I’m not home to feed him his supper personal y,” she wrote. She asked for any further details, although she already knew most of what would be expected of her; she had been doing similar events since she was thirty. Stil , organizational types like Ramona Norvil e expected to be asked, and if you didn’t, they got nervous and started to wonder if that day’s hired writer was going to show up braless and tipsy.

It crossed Tess’s mind to suggest that perhaps two thousand dol ars would be more appropriate for what was, in effect, a triage mission, but she dismissed the idea. It would be taking advantage.

Also, she doubted if al the Knitting Society books put together (there were an even dozen) had sold as many copies as any one of Stephanie Plum’s adventures. Like it or not—and in truth, Tess didn’t

mind much one way or the other—she was Ramona Norvil e’s Plan B. A surcharge would be close to blackmail. Fifteen hundred was more than fair. Of course when she was lying in a culvert, coughing out

blood from her swol en mouth and nose, it didn’t seem fair at al . But would two thousand have been any fairer? Or two mil ion?

Whether or not you could put a price tag on pain, rape, and terror was a question the Knitting Society ladies had never taken up. The crimes they solved were real y not much more than the ideas of crimes. But when Tess was forced to consider it, she thought the answer was no. It seemed to her that only one thing could possibly constitute payback for such a crime. Both Tom and Fritzy agreed.

- 3 -

Ramona Norvil e turned out to be a broad-shouldered, heavy-breasted, jovial woman of sixty or so with flushed cheeks, a Marine haircut, and a take-no-prisoners handshake. She was waiting for Tess

outside the library, in the middle of the parking space reserved for Today’s Author of Note. Instead of wishing Tess a very good morning (it was quarter to eleven), or complimenting her on her earrings (diamond drops, an extravagance reserved for her few dinners out and engagements like this), she asked a man’s question: had Tess come by the 84?

When Tess said she had, Ms. Norvil e widened her eyes and blew out her cheeks. “Glad you got here safe. 84’s the worst highway in America, in my humble opinion. Also the long way around. We

can improve the situation going back, if the Internet’s right and you live in Stoke Vil age.”

Tess agreed that she did, although she wasn’t sure she liked strangers—even a pleasant librarian—knowing where she went to lay down her weary head. But it did no good to complain; everything

was on the Internet these days.