She barked out a laugh. “Tom? You gotta be kidding. He was stuffy about sex. Lot of guys, you can tell just by looking they got a problem around dominance. Ass grabbers and pinchers, fellows telling dirty jokes and gawking at your boobs. They wouldn’t mind a quick bounce on the front seat of their pickups, but believe me, romance is the fartherest thing from their minds. Tom was always pleasant. I’ve never known him to flirt and I never heard him make any kind of off-color remark. What makes you ask?”
“I thought he might have been at the Rainbow for a rendezvous.”
“Oh, a rahndez-vous. That’s rich. Listen, if you’re fooling around in this town, you’d best meet somewhere else unless you want everyone to know. Why take the risk? If his sister’d showed up, she’d have spotted him first thing. Cecilia’s not that fond of Selma, but she’d have told on him anyway. That’s how people around here operate. Anything you find out is fair game.”
“I take it word’s gone out about me.”
“You bet.”
“What’s the consensus? Anybody seem upset?”
“Oh, grumbles here and there. You’re picking up notice, but nothing serious that I’ve heard. Town this size, everybody has an opinion about somethingespecially fresh blood like yours. Some of the guys were wondering if you’re married. I guess they noticed no wedding ring.”
“Actually, I took my ring off to have the diamond reset.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, really. My husband’s huge. He’s always pumped up on steroids so he’s touchy as all get out. He’d tear the head off anyone who ever laid a hand on me.”
She laughed. “I bet you’ve never been married a day in your life.”
“Alice, you would be surprised.”
As predicted, the weather was turning nasty as the front moved in. The morning had been clear, the temperatures in the fifties, but by early afternoon, a thick mass of clouds had accumulated to the north. The sky changed from blue to a uniform white, then to a misty-looking dark gray, which made the day seem as gloomy as a solar eclipse. All the mountain peaks had been erased and the air became dense with a fine, biting spray.
Here’s what I did with my afternoon. I drove into town and went to the copy shop, where I made copies of my typewritten report and several cropped five-by-seven photocopy enlargements made of the head shot of Tom Newquist. I dropped the original photograph and the original of my report in Selma’s mailbox, drove six blocks over, and left the flashlight inside the storm door on James Tennyson’s front porch. And I still had hours to kill before I could decently retire.
In the meantime, I was bored and I wanted to get warm. Nota Lake didn’t have a movie theater. Nota Lake didn’t have a public library or a bowling alley that I could spot. I went to the lone bookstore and wandered up and down the aisles. The place was small but attractive, and the stock was more than adequate. I picked up two paperbacks, returned to the cabin, crawled under a pile of blankets, and read to my heart’s content.
At six, I hunched into my jacket and walked over to the Rainbow through an odd mix of blowing sleet and buffeting rain. I ate a BLT on wheat toast and then chatted idly with Nancy while she rang up my bill. I already knew what she had to say, but I quizzed her nonetheless, making sure Alice had reported accurately. At 6:35, I went back to the cabin, finished the first book, tossed that aside, and reached for the next. At ten o’clock, exhausted from a hard day’s work, I got up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and climbed back in bed, where I fell promptly asleep.
A sound filtered into the tarry dream I was having. I labored upward, slow swimming, my body weighted with dark images and all the leaden drama of sleep. I felt glued to the bed. My eyes opened and I listened, not even sure where I was. Nota Lake crept back into my consciousness, the cabin so cold I might as well have slept outside. What had I heard? I turned my head with great effort. According to the clock, it was 4:14, still pitch black. The tiny scrape of metal on metal . . . not the sound of a key . . . possibly a pick being worked into the door lock. Fear shot through me like a bottle rocket, lighting my insides with a shower of adrenaline. I flung the covers aside. I was still fully dressed, but the chill in the cabin was numbing to both my face and my hands. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, felt for my shoes, and shoved my feet in without bothering to tie the laces.
I stood where I was, tuned now to the silence. Even in the depths of the country with minimal light pollution, I realized the dark wasn’t absolute. I could see the blocks of six lighter gray squares that were the windows on three sides. I glanced back at the bed, empty white sheets advertising my departure. Hastily, I arranged the pillows to form a plump body shape, which I covered with my blankets. This always fooled the bad guys. I eased over to the door, trying to pick up the scratchings of my intruder over the pounding of my heart. I felt along the door jamb. There was no security chain so once the lock was jimmied, there was nothing else between me and my night visitor. The cabin, though dark, was beginning to define itself. I surveyed the details in memory, looking for a weapon somewhere among the homely furnishings. Bed, chair, soap, table, shower curtain. On my side of the door, I kept my fingers on the thumblock to prevent its turning. Maybe the guy would assume his skills were rusty or the lock was stiff. On the other side of the door, I could hear a faint chunking across wood chips as my visitor retreated in search of some other means of ingress. I tiptoed to the table and picked up a wooden chair. I returned to the door and eased the top rail under the knob, jamming the legs against the floor. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it might slow him down. I took a brief moment to bend down and tie my shoes, unwilling to risk the sound of my laces clicking across the expanse of bare wooden floor. I could hear faint sounds outside as the intruder patiently circled the cabin.
Were the windows locked? I couldn’t recall. I moved from window to window, feeling for the shape of the latches. All of them seemed to be secured. A slight parting of the curtains allowed me a thin slice of the exterior. I could see dense Christmas tree shapes, a series of evergreens that dotted the landscape. No traffic on the highway. No lights in neighboring cabins. To the left, I caught movement as someone disappeared around the side of the cabin toward the rear.
I crossed the room in silence, entering the darker confines of the bathroom. I felt for the shower curtain, hanging by a series of rings from a round metal rod. I let my fingers explore the brackets, which were screwed into the wall on either side of the shower stall. Carefully, I lifted the rod from the slots, sliding the curtain off, ring by ring. Once in hand, I realized the rod was useless, too light, too easily bent. I needed a weapon, but what did I have? I glanced at the frosted glass of the bathroom window, which appeared infinitesimally paler than the dark of the wall surrounding it. Framed in the center was the intruder’s head and shoulders. He cupped his hands to the glass to afford himself a better look. It must have been frustrating to discover the dark was too dense to penetrate. I stood without moving though I could see his movements outside. A snippet of sound, perhaps the faint scrape of a clawhammer being eased into crack between the frame and the glass.
Feverishly, I reviewed the items in the cabin, hoping to remember something I could use as a weapon. Toilet paper, rug, clothes hangers, ironing board. Iron. I set the curtain rod aside, taking care not to make a sound. I moved to the closet, feeling through the dark until my forgers encountered the ironing board. I raised up on tiptoe and lifted the iron from the shelf above, shielding the contours with my hand so as to avoid banging into anything. I searched for the end of the plug, holding the prongs while I unwrapped the cord. Blindly, I felt for the outlet near the sink, inserted the prongs, and slid the heat lever on the iron as far to the right as it would go. I set the iron upright on the counter. I glanced back at the window. The head-and-shoulders silhouette was no longer visible.