Full Dark, No Stars

She got into her Expedition and closed the door. A leaf spun down on the windshield, then dashed away. “I’ve lost my mind,” she said matter-of-factly. “It fel out and died in that culvert, or when I was walking around the store. It’s the only explanation for this.”

She started the engine. Tom the Tomtom lit up and said, “Hel o, Tess. I see we’re taking a trip.”

“That’s right, my friend.” Tess leaned forward and programmed 75 Lacemaker Lane into Tom’s tidy little mechanical head.

- 33 -

She had checked out Ramona’s neighborhood on Google Earth, and it looked the same when she got there. So far, so good. Brewster was a smal New England town, Lacemaker Lane was on the

outskirts, and the houses were far apart. Tess cruised past number 75 at a sedately suburban twenty miles an hour, determining that the lights were on and only a single car—a late-model Subaru that

almost screamed librarian—was in the driveway. There was no sign of a cab-over Pete or any other big rig. No old Bondo-patched pickup, either.

The street ended in a turnaround. Tess took it, came back, and turned into Norvil e’s driveway without giving herself a chance to hesitate. She kil ed the lights and the motor, then took a long, deep

breath.

“Come back safe, Tess,” Tom said from his place on the dashboard. “Come back safe and I’l take you to your next stop.”

“I’l do my best.” She grabbed her yel ow legal pad (there was now nothing written on it) and got out of her car. She held the pad to the front of her jacket as she walked to Ramona Norvil e’s door. Her moonshadow—perhaps al that was left of the Old Tess—walked beside her.

- 34 -

Norvil e’s front door had beveled glass strips on either side. They were thick and warped the view, but Tess could make out nice wal paper and a hal way floored with polished wood. There was an

end table with a couple of magazines on it. Or maybe they were catalogues. There was a big room at the end of the hal . The sound of a TV came from there. She heard singing, so Ramona probably

wasn’t watching Saw. In fact—if Tess was right and the song was “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”—Ramona was watching The Sound of Music.

Tess rang the doorbel . From inside came a run of chimes that sounded like the opening notes of “Dixie”—a strange choice for New England, but then, if Tess was right about her, Ramona Norvil e

was a strange woman.

Tess heard the clump of big feet and made a half-turn, so the light from the beveled glass would catch only a bit of her face. She lowered her blank pad from her chest and made writing motions with

one gloved hand. She let her shoulders slump a little. She was a woman taking some kind of survey. It was Sunday evening, she was tired, al she wanted was to discover the name of this woman’s favorite toothpaste (or maybe if she had Prince Albert in a can) and then go home.

Don’t worry, Ramona, you can open the door, anybody can see that I’m harmless, the kind of woman who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a distorted fish-face swim into view behind the beveled glass. There was a pause that seemed to last a very long time, then Ramona Norvil e opened the

door. “Yes? Can I help y—”

Tess turned back. The light from the open door fel on her face. And the shock she saw on Norvil e’s face, the utter drop-jaw shock, told her everything she needed to know.

“You? What are you doing h—”

Tess pul ed the Lemon Squeezer .38 from her right front pocket. On the drive from Stoke Vil age she had imagined it getting stuck in there—had imagined it with nightmarish clarity—but it came out

smoothly.

“Move back from the door. If you try to shut it, I’l shoot you.”

“You won’t,” Norvil e said. She didn’t move back, but she didn’t shut the door, either. “Are you crazy?”

“Get inside.”

Norvil e was wearing a big blue housecoat, and when Tess saw the front of it rise precipitously, she raised the gun. “If you even start to yel , I’l shoot. You better believe me, bitch, because I’m not even close to kidding.”

Norvil e’s large bosom deflated. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth and her eyes were shifting from side to side in their sockets. She didn’t look like a librarian now, and she didn’t look jovial and welcoming. To Tess she looked like a rat caught outside its hole.

“If you fire that gun, the whole neighborhood wil hear.”

Tess doubted that, but didn’t argue. “It won’t matter to you, because you’l be dead. Get inside. If you behave yourself and answer my questions, you might stil be alive tomorrow morning.”

Norvil e backed up, and Tess came in through the open door with the gun held stiffly out in front of her. As soon as she closed the door—she did it with her foot—Norvil e stopped moving. She was

standing by the little table with the catalogues on it.