Full Dark, No Stars(67)

“Not here,” Tess said. “Don’t worry.”

“Not even in the parking lot? If you ran into trouble there, I’ll have to have Mr. Rumble talk with the security staff. Mr. Rumble’s the boss, and security’s supposed to check the video monitors regularly on busy nights.”

“It happened after I left.”

I really do have to make the report anonymously now, if I mean to report it at all. Because I’m lying, and she’ll remember.

If she meant to report it at all? Of course she did. Right?

“I’m very sorry.” Neal paused, seeming to debate with herself. Then she said, “I don’t mean to offend you, but you probably don’t have any business in a place like this to begin with. It didn’t turn out so well for you, and if it got into the papers… well, my gran would be very disappointed.”

Tess agreed. And because she could embellish convincingly (it was the talent that paid the bills, after all), she did. “A bad boyfriend is sharper than a serpent’s tooth. I think the Bible says that. Or maybe it’s Dr. Phil. In any case, I’ve broken up with him.”

“A lot of women say that, then weaken. And a guy who does it once—”

“Will do it again. Yes, I know, I was very foolish. If you don’t have my purse, what property of mine do you have?”

Ms. Neal turned in her swivel chair (the sun licked across her face, momentarily highlighting those unusual blue eyes), opened one of her file cabinets, and brought out Tom the Tomtom. Tess was delighted to see her old traveling buddy. It didn’t make things all better, but it was a step in the right direction.

“We’re not supposed to remove anything from patrons’ cars, just get the address and the phone number if we can, then lock it up, but I didn’t like to leave this. Thieves don’t mind breaking a window to get a particularly tasty item, and it was sitting right there on your dashboard.”

“Thank you.” Tess felt tears springing into her eyes behind her dark glasses and willed them back. “That was very thoughtful.”

Betsy Neal smiled, which transformed her stern Ms. Taking Care of Business face to radiant in an instant. “Very welcome. And when that boyfriend of yours comes crawling back, asking for a second chance, think of my gran and all your other loyal readers and tell him no way Jose.” She considered. “But do it with the chain on your door. Because a bad boyfriend really is sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”

“That’s good advice. Listen, I have to go. I told the cab to wait while I made sure I was really going to get my car.”

And that might have been all—it really might have been—but then Neal asked, with becoming diffidence, if Tess would mind signing an autograph for her grandmother. Tess told her of course not, and in spite of all that had happened, watched with real amusement as Neal found a piece of business stationery and used a ruler to tear off the Stagger Inn logo at the top before handing it across the desk.

“Make it ‘To Mary, a true fan.’ Can you do that?”

Tess could. And as she was adding the date, a fresh confabulation came to mind. “A man helped me when my boyfriend and I were… you know, tussling. If not for him, I might have been hurt a lot worse.” Yes! Raped, even! “I’d like to thank him, but I don’t know his name.”

“I doubt if I could do you much good there. I’m just the office help.”

“But you’re local, right?”

“Yes…”

“I met him at the little store down the road.”

“The Gas & Dash?”

“I think that’s the name. It’s where my boyfriend and I had our argument. It was about the car. I didn’t want to drive and I wouldn’t let him. We were arguing about it all the time we walked down the road… staggered down the road… staggered down Stagg Road…”

Neal smiled as people do when they’ve heard a joke many times before.

“Anyway, this guy came along in an old blue pickup truck with that plastic stuff for rust around the headlights—”

“Bondo?”

“I think that’s what it’s called.” Knowing damn well that was what it was called. Her father had supported the company almost single-handed. “Anyway, I remember thinking when he got out that he wasn’t really riding in that truck, he was wearing it.”

When she handed the signed sheet of paper back across the desk, she saw that Betsy Neal was now actually grinning. “Oh my God, I might actually know who he was.”

“Really?”

“Was he big or was he real big?”

“Real big,” Tess said. She felt a peculiar watchful happiness that seemed located not in her head but in the center of her chest. It was the way she felt when the strings of some outlandish plot actually started to come together, pulling tight like the top of a nicely crafted tote-bag. She always felt both surprised and not surprised when this happened. There was no satisfaction like it.

“Did you happen to notice if he was wearing a ring on his little finger? Red stone?”

“Yes! Like a ruby! Only too big to be real. And a brown hat—”

Neal was nodding. “With white splatters on it. He’s been wearing the damn thing for ten years. That’s Big Driver you’re talking about. I don’t know where he lives, but he’s local, either Colewich or Nestor Falls. I see him around—supermarket, hardware store, Walmart, places like that. And once you see him, you don’t forget him. His real name is Al Something-Polish. You know, one of those hard-to-pronounce names. Strelkowicz, Stancowitz, something like that. I bet I could find him in the phone book, because he and his brother own a trucking company. Hawkline, I think it’s called. Or maybe Eagle Line. Something with a bird in it, anyway. Want me to look him up?”