Just After Sunset

10

“She asked me how come I didn’t know,” Monette told the hitchhiker. “And before I could say anything, she answered herself, so I guess it was a whatchacallit, a rhetorical question. She said, ‘You didn’t know because you didn’t care. You were almost always on the road, and when you weren’t on the road, you wanted to be on the road. It’s been ten years since you cared what underwear I have on-why would you, when you don’t care about the woman inside it? But you care now, don’t you? You do now.’

“Man, I just looked at her. I was too tired to kill her-or even slap her-but I was mad, all right. Even through the shock, I was mad. She was trying to make it my fault. You see that, don’t you? Trying to lay it all off on my fucking job, as if I could get another one that paid even half as much. I mean, at my age what else am I qualified for? I guess I could get a job as school crossing guard-I don’t have any morals busts in my past-but that would be about it.”

He paused. Far down the road, still mostly hidden by a shifting camisole of rain, was a blue sign.

He considered, then said, “But even that wasn’t the real point. You want to know the point? Her point? I was supposed to feel guilty for liking my job. For not drudging through my days until I found the right person to go absolutely fucking bombers with!”

The hitcher stirred a little, probably only because they’d hit a bump (or run over some roadkill), but it made Monette realize he was shouting. And hey, the guy might not be completely deaf. Even if he was, he might feel vibrations in the bones of his face once sounds passed a certain decibel level. Who the fuck knew?

“I didn’t get into it with her,” Monette said in a lower voice. “I refused to get into it with her. I think I knew that if I did, if we really started to argue, anything might happen. I wanted to get out of there while I was still in shock…because that was protecting her, see?”

The hitchhiker said nothing, but Monette saw for both of them.

“I said, ‘What happens now?’ and she said, ‘I suppose I’ll go to jail.’ And you know what? If she’d started to cry then, I might have held her. Because after twenty-six years of marriage, things like that get to be a reflex. Even when most of the feeling’s gone. But she didn’t cry, so I walked out. Just turned around and walked out. And when I came back, there was a note saying she’d moved out. That was almost two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen her since. Talked to her on the phone a few times, that’s all. Talked to a lawyer, too. Froze all our accounts, not that it’ll do any good once the legal wheels start turning. Which will be soon. The caca is going to clog the air-cooling system, if you take my meaning. Then I suppose I’ll see her again. In court. Her and Cowboy Fucking Bob.”

Now he could read the blue sign: PITTSFIELD REST AREA 2 MI.

“Ah, shit!” he cried. “Waterville’s fifteen miles back thataway, partner.” And when the deaf-mute didn’t stir (of course not), Monette realized he didn’t know the guy had been going to the Ville anyway. Not for sure. In any case, it was time to get this straightened out. The rest area would do for that, but for a minute or two longer they would remain enclosed in this rolling confessional, and he felt he had one more thing to say.

“It’s true that I haven’t felt much for her in a very long time,” he said. “Sometimes love just runs out. And it’s also true that I haven’t been entirely faithful- I’ve taken a little road comfort from time to time. But does that warrant this? Does it justify a woman blowing up a life the way a kid would blow up a rotten apple with a firecracker?”

He pulled into the rest area. There were maybe four cars in the lot, huddled up against the brown building with the vending machines in the front. To Monette the cars looked like cold children left out in the rain. He parked. The hitchhiker looked at him questioningly.

“Where are you going?” Monette asked, knowing it was hopeless.

The deaf-mute considered. He looked around and saw where they were. He looked back at Monette as if to say, Not here.

Monette pointed back south and raised his eyebrows. The deaf-mute shook his head, then pointed north. Opened and closed his fists, showing his fingers six times…eight…ten. Same as before, basically. But this time Monette got it. He thought life might have been simpler for this guy if someone had taught him the sideways figure-eight symbol that means infinity.

“You’re basically just rambling, aren’t you?” Monette asked.

The deaf-mute only looked at him.

“Yeah you are,” Monette said. “Well, I tell you what. You listened to my story-even though you didn’t know you were listening to it-and I’ll get you as far as Derry.” An idea struck him. “In fact, I’ll drop you at the Derry Shelter. You can get a hot and a cot, at least for one night. I have to take a leak. You need to take a leak?”

The deaf-mute looked at him with patient blankness.

“A leak,” Monette said. “A piss.” He started to point at his crotch, realized where they were, and decided a road bum would think he was signing for a blowjob right here beside the Hav-A-Bite machines. He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the building instead-black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.

This his passenger got. He shook his head decisively, then made another thumb-and-forefinger circle for good measure. Which left Monette with a delicate problem: leave Mr. Silent Vagabond in the car while he did his business or turn him out into the rain to wait…in which case the guy would almost certainly know why he was being put out.

Only it wasn’t a problem at all, he decided. There was no money in the car, and his personal luggage was locked in the trunk. There were his sample cases in the backseat, but he somehow didn’t think the guy was going to steal two seventy-pound cases and go trotting down the rest area’s exit ramp with them. For one thing, how would he hold up his I AM MUTE! sign?

“I’ll be right back,” Monette said, and when the hitchhiker only looked at him with those red-rimmed eyes, Monette pointed to himself, to the restroom icons, then back to himself. This time the hitchhiker nodded and made another thumb-and-forefinger circle.

Monette went to the toilet and pissed for what felt like twenty minutes. The relief was exquisite. He felt better than he had since Barb had dropped her bombshell. It occurred to him for the first time that he was going to get through this. And he would help Kelsie get through it. He remembered a quote from some old German (or maybe a Russian, it certainly sounded like the Russian view of life): Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.

He went back to his car, whistling. He even gave the coin-op lottery-ticket machine a comradely slap as he went by. At first he thought maybe he couldn’t see his passenger because the guy was lying down…in which case, Monette would have to shoo him upright again so he could get behind the wheel. But the hitchhiker wasn’t lying down. The hitchhiker was gone. Had taken his pack and his sign and decamped.

Monette checked the backseat and saw his Wolfe amp; Sons cases undisturbed. Looked into the glove compartment and saw the paltry identification kept within-registration, insurance card, AAA card-was still there. All that was left of the bum was a lingering smell, not entirely unpleasant: sweat and faint pine, as if the guy had been sleeping rough.

He thought he’d see the guy at the foot of the ramp, holding up his sign and patiently switching it from side to side so that potential Good Samaritans got the complete lowdown on his defects. If so, Monette would stop and pick him up again. The job didn’t feel done, somehow. Delivering the guy to the Derry Shelter-that would make the job feel done. That would close the deal, and close the book. Whatever other failings he might have, he liked to finish things.

But the guy wasn’t at the foot of the ramp; the guy was completely AWOL. And it wasn’t until Monette was passing a sign reading DERRY 10 MI. that he looked up at the rearview mirror and saw that his St. Christopher’s medal, companion of all those millions of miles, was gone. The deaf-mute had stolen it. But not even that could break Monette’s new optimism. Maybe the deaf-mute needed it more than he did. Monette hoped it would bring him good luck.

Two days later-by then he was selling the best fall list ever in Presque Isle-he got a call from the Maine State Police. His wife and Bob Yandowsky had been beaten to death in the Grove Motel. The killer had used a piece of pipe wrapped in a motel towel.

11

“My…dear…God!” the priest breathed.

“Yes,” Monette agreed, “that’s pretty much what I thought.”

“Your daughter…?”

“Heartbroken, of course. She’s with me, at home. We’ll get through this, Father. She’s tougher than I thought. And of course, she doesn’t know about the other. The embezzlement. With luck, she never will. There’s going to be a very large insurance payment, what they call double indemnity. Given everything that went on before, I think I would be in moderate to serious trouble with the police now if I didn’t have a cast-iron alibi. And if there hadn’t been…developments. As it is, I’ve been questioned several times.”

“Son, you didn’t pay someone to-”

“I’ve been asked that, too. The answer is no. I’ve thrown my bank accounts open to anyone who wants a look. Every penny is accounted for, both in my half of the wedded partnership and in Barb’s. She was financially very responsible. At least in the sane part of her life.

“Father, can you open up on your side? I want to show you something.”

Instead of replying, the priest opened his door. Monette slipped the St. Christopher’s medal from around his neck, then reached around from his side. Their fingers touched briefly as the medal and its little pile of steel chain passed from hand to hand.

There was silence for five seconds as the priest considered it. Then he said, “This was returned to you when? Was it at the motel where-”

“No,” Monette said. “Not the motel. The house in Buxton. On the dresser in what used to be our bedroom. Next to our wedding picture, actually.”

“Dear God,” the priest said.

“He could have gotten the address from my car registration when I was in the john.”

“And of course you mentioned the name of the motel…and the town…”

“Dowrie,” Monette agreed.

For the third time the priest invoked the name of his Boss. Then he said, “The fellow wasn’t deaf-mute at all, was he?”

“I’m almost positive he was mute,” Monette said, “but he sure wasn’t deaf. There was a note beside the medal, on a piece of paper he tore off the phone pad. All this must have happened while my daughter and I were at the funeral home, picking out a casket. The back door was open but not jimmied. He might have been smart enough to trig the lock, but I think I just forgot and left it open when we went out.”

“The note said what?”