Rath got out of the Scout down the street from the Dress Shoppe. Running into Madeline was the last thing he wanted.
He stood on the sidewalk and took in the street. The church at the top of it, the fire station just across and up from the Dress Shoppe. Perhaps Test was right. Perhaps there was something to Luke Montgomery. Test’s instincts were sharp. Better to be thorough and at least eliminate all doubt.
Rath took a breath and entered the store, the bell above him clacking.
Gone were the racks of splashy late-summer clothes on late clearance that had occupied the front of the store a few weeks earlier, before his lone, failed date with Madeline. In the place of the summer sale clothes stood racks and tables of sweaters and slacks and cords in fall hues of brown and rust and black. Rath wondered why people wore bright colors in the summer, and drab colors in the winter. He’d have thought it would be the opposite. But, what did he know? His Johnson wool jacket was infested with burdocks and, he noticed now, too late, gave off a pissy scent of whitetail doe urine he’d accidentally spilled from its bottle onto the jacket cuff when going through his hunting gear, and his born to run T-shirt beneath the jacket had a coffee stain along the contours of the Big Man’s sax.
The store’s earlier powdery scents had given over to odors of cinnamon and nutmeg that made Rath want a slab of apple pie à la mode. His stomach rumbled. He’d not eaten in two days.
The shop stood quiet. Not even the low background hum of holiday Muzak. His first time here, several clerks had circled him as a prospective patron. Now, a lone teenage girl stood at the back of the store near the cash register, folding turtlenecks and placing them on a display table.
She did not notice Rath, had not heard the door’s bell clang apparently.
Rath took a step to ease into her peripheral vision without startling her.
She whirled around, plucked earbuds from her ears, a blush of guilt shadowing her look of alarm, as if she’d breached store policy by wearing the earbuds and thought for a moment she’d been caught by a supervisor.
In seeing Rath, a strange disheveled man, the girl tensed and her look of surprise morphed to guarded suspicion. She smoothed a palm over the turtleneck at the top of a stack, tucked its price tag inside its collar.
“May I help you?” she said, apprehensive, as if Rath had stumbled in to seek directions to the nearest gun show.
Rath welcomed her caution. He hoped Rachel made strange men earn her trust.
“Are you lost?” the clerk said.
She fingered a strand of her lank brown hair behind her ears as she approached, stopping at a distance that did not permit shaking hands.
“I’m looking for clothes and a coat,” Rath said. “For my daughter.”
The girl nodded, but the veil of suspicion in her eyes did not clear.
“Madeline helped me, a few weeks ago,” Rath said.
“Oh,” the girl said, her smile awkward. “OK. How old is your daughter?”
Too quick, Rath thought. She’s too quick to let her guard down to a man who looks so out of place, just because I dropped a familiar name. Trust via association was misplaced trust. Cons used familiar names to disarm marks. Child abductors often mentioned an abductee’s parents’ names to lull the child.
While relieved Madeline was not on the clock, Rath wished she were here for her professional input; she’d nailed Rachel’s tastes.
“How about I let you roam free,” the clerk said as if Rath were a wolf granted freedom in Yellowstone, free except for the tracking collar. “And I’ll find what I think your daughter would like?”
She retreated behind the counter, and the song “Horse with No Name” began to play softly over the speakers.
Rath browsed. His desire to get things perfect for Rachel crippled his usual decisiveness.
After mulling over clothes with more deliberation than a juror on a capital murder trial, Rath had selected just one sweater and was not sold on it.
He hummed “Horse with No Name.” He’d be humming the damn song all day now. He didn’t care for faux ’70s folk. Give him Springsteen. Dark Springsteen. Nebraska. Darkness on the Edge of Town. The River’s despairing tracks. “Stolen Car” and “Drive All Night.”
The clerk strode over, arm draped with apparel. The tops, pants, and jackets were perfect. Where had she found them? Rath had not seen half these items, and the half he had seen he’d dismissed, yet they now seemed ideal.
It was a matter of trust. He trusted the clerk’s eye.
The clerk held far more garments than Rath imagined he’d need. The prices terrified him. He selected several pieces, and a black coat.
The clerk rang him up, folded and bagged the clothes.
Three bags total, so heavy their rope handles dug into Rath’s palms. The clerk got the door for him. As he squeezed past her, he said, “Tell Madeline I said hello.”
“She doesn’t work here anymore,” the girl said.
“Oh,” Rath said. “Do you know where she works now?”
Suspicion returned to the girl’s eyes. “No.”
“Right.” Rath walked out into the fog and got into the Scout to drive toward the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury, realizing facing Madeline had not been the last thing he wanted after all.