As more people from the south moved in, the camp became known as Little Tenn. The migrants worked the woods and tended the mushroom houses that dotted the rolling countryside, low and vaulted, like windowless barns. But the people living at Little Tenn didn’t mind the mushroom houses that ringed them in, because the work paid their bills and kept their heads a desperate fraction above the line that separated them from the welfare blacks and Puerto Ricans.
That’s what made it bearable for the pineys, Gideen had told Selby, to be able to stand in line at the Muhlenburg stores and markets and pay cash for their vittles while strapping black men (or more likely, their women) handed over, in shame, the strips of food stamps.
Barby Kane lived with her mother, Coralee Kane, in a two-room caravan model, with worn carpets, flowered draperies and a nineteen-inch television set. With her small face and white-blond hair, Coralee Kane looked more like Barby’s older sister than her mother. Selby knew Barby as one of Shana’s school friends who came to play in the meadow with her, listen to records or drink cocoa upstairs and skate on the pond when it was safe.
He’d found Shana lying in the small, airless bedroom of the trailer, a pale blue blanket pulled up around her throat. Her face was turned to the wall; he couldn’t make out her expression, but he saw the damp stains on the blanket, dark, uneven blotches below her narrow hips.
“Didn’t you bring a blanket, daddy?” she said, without turning her head. “I’ve ruined this one. I’ve made a mess of Mrs. Kane’s blanket. Didn’t you bring one of ours?”
“Never mind the blanket, honey,” Coralee Kane said, fingering her curlers. “You can take hit.”
“It’s all dirty, it’s filthy.”
“I said you could take hit. Needs to be cleaned anyway.”
“Did you hear, daddy? We can go now.”
“Your daddy can bring hit back. Get hit cleaned like new and bring hit back.”
“Momma, will you stop talking about that goddamn old blanket,” Barby Kane shouted. “Will you just shut up about it, momma?”
“Child, I been on these two feet of mine for ten hours, and I don’t want no blasphemy from you, hear? Blanket’s ruined anymore, but I told him to take hit.”
“I wish you’d stop about that blanket, it’s already been worse places tonight.”
“You want a whipping, you keep hit up, Barby. Go on, Mr. Selby, take your child home.”
Selby lifted Shana and carried her to his station wagon through the rain. Barby walked with them, holding a plastic pillow over Shana’s head. Residents of Little Tenn stood in their lighted doors watching them. Selby saw Casper Gideen, tall in a black raincoat, walk up to the staring men and women and speak to them. His words were carried off by the wind, but their effect was obvious; the gawkers pulled their heads in and slammed their doors.
On the way home Selby looked at his watch. It was nearly two-thirty. The interior of the car was warm and close, sour with the mud and the damp and the acid sharpness of his daughter’s sweat.
Selby had adamantly refused to allow troopers Karec and Jimson to either question or examine his daughter.
“But we got to get a line on this thing.” Milt Karec had been angry and confused, standing at the fire in the foyer, rain dripping in a steady stream from his hat brim to his thick, black boots. “We got to get a description of the guy and a make on the car. The perpetrator could be gone the hell clean out of the country if we keep stalling around. This is a felony, Mr. Selby, and you just can’t—”
“Now hold it, goddammit. I’m her father and she won’t even talk to me. She’s been raped and badly beaten. She doesn’t need cops standing over her asking for details.”
“But we can’t—”
“I want her examined by a policewoman. Nobody else is going to talk to her until Dr. Kerr gets here.”
Milt Karec had called Sergeant Ritter at the substation near Muhlenburg. The sergeant agreed to contact Paramedic Redden, but warned Karec that this would waste valuable time.
Paramedic-Sergeant Edith Redden had arrived an hour or so later. After assisting Dr. Kerr tend to Shana — the doctor had reached Selby’s house only minutes before the nurse — Redden had questioned Shana briefly, eliciting a tentative description of the man who had kidnapped and raped her.
This information had been reported to the East Chester Detective Division, which had the investigative responsibility for such felonies. The description of the rapist and his car was processed for preliminary evaluation and priority by the shift supervisor, Sergeant Burt Wilger.
When Dr. Kerr came downstairs, Selby started to get up, but the doctor said, “Sit still, Harry. Shana’s sleeping now. I’ve given her something that will let her sleep for another eight or ten hours. When she wakes she’ll be hungry. I’ve told Mrs. Cranston what to give her. Then see that she takes the pills I’ve left, every six hours. She’s all right, in one sense. It’s her period, I mean. But I want her to stay absolutely quiet for a few days. No visitors and not too much time on the phone. If you don’t put your foot down, her friends will swarm around like it’s a damn skiing accident, and they’ll want all the details and it’s too early for that. She needs rest and sedation. If she’s fretful or angry, or won’t talk to you, don’t be upset, that’s normal.” He winced at the word “normal” in such a circumstance.
Dr. Kerr gripped Selby’s shoulder; Selby felt a tremor in the old man’s hand. “Goddammit, Harry, a thing like this makes my whole life seem like a waste. You work so hard to bring them into the world, to take care of them, teaching them what you think is right. Maybe the bad old days with a hanging tree and a whipping block weren’t so bad after all.” He looked at his watch. “If she wants to talk about what happened, I won’t put any restrictions on that. But don’t press her. It’s too late to say good night, so I’ll say good morning, Harry. I looked in on Davey, by the way. He’s restless but he’ll be dropping off soon. I’ll see myself out.”
Then Selby was alone, the untouched whiskey beside him, a thin white light rising above the meadow. He couldn’t quite see the pond, only the beech trees that screened it from the house. The rain had turned their trunks black. They were saplings when Sarah planted them. She could circle them with her hand.
Blazer came down from Shana’s room and padded into the kitchen. Selby heard him drinking from his stoneware bowl. The big shepherd then prowled quietly around the first floor, finally settling beside Selby in the study.
Shana hadn’t got a good look at the man; her description was emotional, splintered, charged with panic and hysteria. A wild kind of look in his eyes, twenty-five, thirty, she couldn’t be sure, dark (the night? the man?), anger...
Blazer growled and raised his head. Davey called from the top of the stairs, “Dad, please come up, hurry. Shana’s talking...”
Selby took the stairs two at a time. Davey stood at the open door of her room, eyes bright under his tousled hair.
“She said something about ‘hornets,’ dad. It was real clear. I came out here and listened, and she said some other things I couldn’t understand. Then she said, ‘hornets’ again, and she was crying.”
Blazer tried to push Selby aside with his head and crowd into Shana’s room.
“Hold it, stay, Blazer. Goddammit, stay.”
Selby went in and put a hand on her forehead. It was cool and dry. He touched her shoulder, she didn’t move. Her breathing was soft and shallow. The room smelled of talcum powder.
Shana’s desk was covered with books. A tennis racket stood on end in the window embrasure. An assemblage, covered with glass and framed in dark wood, hung above her bed. The wood was painted in alternating stripes of yellow and green and red, and the bottom strip displayed a narrow brass plate with the etched legend: Munich, 1972.