Full dark, no stars

“A thief as well as a murderer,” Little Driver said in his droning deadvoice. “Isn’t that nice.”

“Shut up, Les,” she said, and left. – 43 -

Before you shoot yourself, why don’t you think for yourself?

As she drove the old pickup back down the windy road to Alvin Strehlke’s house, she tried to do that. She was starting to think Tom, even when he wasn’t in the vehicle with her, was a better detective than Doreen Marquis on her best day.

“I’ll keep it short,” Tom said. “If you don’t think Al Strehlke was part of it-and I mean a big part-you’re crazy.”

“Of course I’m crazy,” she replied. “Why else would I be trying to convince myself that I didn’t shoot the wrong man when I know I did?”

“That’s guilt talking, not logic,” Tom replied. He sounded maddeningly smug. “He was no i

“Business partners.”

“Brothers are never just business partners. It’s always more complicated than that. Especially when you’ve got a woman like Ramona for a mother.”

Tess turned up Al Strehlke’s smoothly paved driveway. She supposed Tom could be right about that. She knew one thing: Doreen and her Knitting Society friends had never met a woman like Ramona Norville.

The pole light went on. The dog started up: yark-yark, yarkyarkyark. Tess waited for the light to go out and the dog to quiet down.

“There’s no way I’ll ever know for sure, Tom.”

“You can’t be certain of that unless you look.”

“Even if he knew, he wasn’t the one who raped me.”

Tom was silent for a moment. She thought he’d given up. Then he said, “When a person does a bad thing and another person knows but doesn’t stop it, they’re equally guilty.”

“In the eyes of the law?”

“Also in the eyes of me. Say it was just Lester who did the hunting, the raping, and the killing. I don’t think so, but say it was. If big brother knew and said nothing, that makes him worth killing. In fact, I’d say bullets were too good for him. Impaling on a hot poker would be closer to justice.”

Tess shook her head wearily and touched the gun on the seat. One bullet left. If she had to use it on the dog (and really, what was one more killing among friends), she would have to hunt for another gun, unless she meant to try and hang herself, or something. But guys like the Strehlkes usually had firearms. That was the beauty part, as Ramona would have said.

“If he knew, yes. But an if that big didn’t deserve a bullet in the head. The mother, yes-on that score, the earrings were all the proof I needed. But there’s no proof here.”

“Really?” Tom’s voice was so low Tess could barely hear it. “Go see.” – 44 -

The dog didn’t bark when she clumped up the steps, but she could picture it standing just inside the door with its head down and its teeth bared.

“Goober?” What the hell, it was as good a name for a country dog as any. “My name’s Tess. I have some hamburger for you. I also have a gun with one bullet in it. I’m going to open the door now. If I were you, I’d choose the meat. Okay? Is it a deal?”

Still no barking. Maybe it took the pole light to set him off. Or a juicy female burglar. Tess tried one key, then another. No good. Those two were probably for the trucking office. The third one turned in the lock, and she opened the door before she could lose her courage. She had been visualizing a bulldog or a Rottweiler or a pit bull with red eyes and slavering jaws. What she saw was a Jack Russell terrier who was looking at her hopefully and thumping its tail.

Tess put the gun in her jacket pocket and stroked the dog’s head. “Good God,” she said. “To think I was terrified of you.”

“No need to be,” Goober said. “Say, where’s Al?”

“Don’t ask,” she said. “Want some hamburger? I warn you, it may have gone off.”

“Give it to me, baby,” Goober said.

Tess fed him a chunk of the hamburger, then came in, closed the door, and turned on the lights. Why not? It was only her and Goober, after all.

Alvin Strehlke had kept a neater house than his younger brother. The floors and walls were clean, there were no stacks of Uncle Henry’s Swap Guide, and she actually saw a few books on the shelves. There were also several clusters of Hummel figures, and a large framed photo of Momzilla on the wall. Tess found that a touch suggestive, but it was hardly proof positive. Of anything. If there was a photo of Richard Widmark in his famous Tommy Udo role, that might be different.

“What are you smiling about?” Goober asked. “Want to share?”

“Actually, no,” Tess said. “Where should we start?”

“I don’t know,” Goober said. “I’m just the dog. How about some more of that tasty cow?”

Tess fed him some more meat. Goober got up on his hind legs and turned around twice. Tess wondered if she were going insane.

“Tom? Anything to say?”

“You found your underpants at the other brother’s house, right?”

“Yes, and I took them. They’re torn… and I’d never want to wear them again even if they weren’t… but they’re mine.”

“And what else did you find besides a bunch of undies?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

But Tom didn’t need to tell her that. It wasn’t a question of what she had found; it was a question of what she hadn’t: no purse and no keys. Lester Strehlke had probably thrown the keys into the woods. It was what Tess herself would have done in his place. The bag was a different matter. It had been a Kate Spade, very pricey, and inside was a sewn-in strip of silk with her name on it. If the bag-and the stuff in the bag-wasn’t at Lester’s house, and if he didn’t throw it into the woods with her keys, where is it?

“I vote for here,” Tom said. “Let’s look around.”

“Meat!” Goober cried, and did another pirouette. – 45 -

Where should she start?

“Come on,” Tom said. “Men keep most of their secrets in one of two places: the study or the bedroom. Doreen might not know that, but you do. And this house doesn’t have a study.”

She went into Al Strehlke’s bedroom (trailed by Goober), where she found an extra-long double bed made up in no-nonsense military style. Tess looked under it. Nada. She started to turn toward the closet, paused, then pivoted back to the bed. She lifted the mattress. Looked. After five seconds-maybe ten-she uttered a single word in a dry flat voice.

“Jackpot.”

Lying on the box spring were three ladies’ handbags. The one in the middle was a cream-colored clutch that Tess would have recognized anywhere. She flipped it open. There was nothing inside but some Kleenex and an eyebrow pencil with a cu

“Yours?” Tom asked.

“You know it is.”

“What about the eyebrow pencil?”

“They sell those things by the thousands in drugstores all over Amer-”

“Is it yours?”

“Yes. It is.”

“Are you convinced yet?”

“I…” Tess swallowed. She was feeling something, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Relief? Horror? “I guess I am. But why? Why both of them?”

Tom didn’t say. He didn’t need to. Doreen might not know (or want to admit it if she did, because the old ladies who followed her adventures didn’t like the ooky stuff), but Tess supposed she did. Because Mommy fucked both of them up. That’s what a psychiatrist would say. Lester was the rapist; Al was the fetishist who participated vicariously. Maybe he even helped with one or both of the women in the pipe. She’d never know for sure.

“It would probably take until dawn to search the whole house,” Tom said, “but you can search the rest of this room, Tessa Jean. He probably destroyed everything from the purse-cut up the credit cards and tossed them in the Colewich River, would be my guess-but you have to make sure, because anything with your name on it would lead the police right to your door. Start with the closet.”