She thought he was alive. She thought she could find him.

  Lawson thought she was nuts.

  Back in Chicago he’d dealt with psychics before: a bunch of self-professed, self-serving, egotistical misfits that would—dollars to donuts—send him scurrying off in the wrong direction every time. Like when the DA turned up missing, her car abandoned in an empty lot, court papers and briefs thrown to the wind. Yes, they were called in, to give their pronouncements of “lake” and “train trestle” and—in the case of something that needed interpretation—“frisbee.” And all the while the DA was at the bottom of a dumpster just fifty feet away.

  The skepticism must have showed on Lawson’s face because Harriett Gipple had reached out across the desk, taken his coffee cup, closed her eyes, then opened them and said, “Prostrate problems in a man of your youth are unusual.”

  With the help of Harriett Gipple, Lawson found Kautz, buried in a cornfield in a wooden box. Though the executive was alive, physically, the traumatic experience rendered him dead, mentally.

  As Roy Kautz’s brilliant career went nova, Lawson’s lackluster one began to shine.

  “We’re all done out here, Lieutenant,” said a sergeant who stood in the bedroom doorway.

  Lawson looked at Harriett, who was rising up from the bed and avoiding his stare.

  “I guess we are too,” he said, picking up the black panties that had fallen onto the floor. He went over to a dresser, its top covered with perfume bottles and makeup, and put them away, in the drawer where he’d found them.

  “Probable homicide, Lieutenant?” asked the sergeant. “Missing person,” said Lawson. “Until we find a body.”

  Lawson followed Harriett out, into the living room, which was as blandly decorated as a Montgomery Ward floor display. The beige carpet looked new, spotless—except for the thin trail of blood leading off to the bathroom.

  Lawson and Harriett left out the back, down a short flight of steps, and into the alley behind the house. The night was lit by a ghostly white moon; shapeless black clouds floated across it, spirits from another world.

  The late fall wind sent dry leaves and debris dancing and swirling around their legs as they walked quickly along. At the mouth of the alley, a cat digging in garbage saw them, arched its back and hissed.

  Around the corner, Harriett’s car was parked at the curb. They stopped on the sidewalk a few feet from it. “What happened?” asked Lawson quietly as he faced the woman. “Why didn’t you see her?”

  Harriett was silent for a moment before she said, “I didn’t say I didn’t.”

  “Then, what? Is it so horrible . . .?”

  Harriet shook her head.

  “Tell me!” said Lawson, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Where is she?”

  Harriett looked up, toward the source of the light. “She’s there.”

  “Where?”

  “There. On the moon.”

  The women stood motionless, all in a row, their clothes splotched red, their hands bound in front, slashes of gray duct tape covering their mouths.

  Despite the thick ropes that looped around their hands, many held sticks. And at the end of those sticks were signs that read: stop violence against women!

  Jane Yeoman squinted her eyes against the brilliant autumn-day sun as she watched Jack Lawson enter the police station, just across the street. She put down her sign, shook off the ropes, untaped her mouth, and said to the woman standing next to her, “I’ll be back.”

  Then she picked up her bag from the sidewalk, and started across the street, weaving in and out of the traffic that had slowed to a crawl as drivers and passengers gawked at the demonstrators.

  Once in the building, she hunted him, her ketchup-stained corduroy skirt swishing, brown loafers slapping the tiles as she walked. On the third floor she found him, bent over a water fountain.

  “Mr. Lawson,” she said, approaching the sandy-haired man of average build who she guessed was in his early thirties.

  He stopped drinking and straightened up. Water dripped from his unshaven chin, and he wiped it away with the back of one hand. His white long-sleeved shirt and black trousers looked slept in.

  “Ms. Yeoman,” he said with a smile she didn’t believe for a moment.

  “Why haven’t you found Rita Cato?” Yeoman demanded.

  Lawson’s smile turned patronizing. “We’re working around the clock,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m very busy.”

  He turned away from her, walking on.

  “I see,” said Yeoman, standing her ground by the water fountain. “Of course, you found Roy Kautz in twenty-four hours. But then, he was an important citizen . . . not an insignificant housewife. He was a man . . . not a woman.”

  Lawson stopped in his tracks, looked back at her with what she thought was amused disgust. He started to say something, but must have thought better of it. Then he continued down the hall, disappearing into a room.

  “And I’d like to know,” asked Yeoman, now standing in the doorway of his office, “why that husband of hers isn’t in jail!”

  Lawson, seated behind his desk, shuffling papers, didn’t bother to look at her. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the case with you,” he said flatly.

  Yeoman moved in front of his desk. “You know she’s been murdered . . . from the rope and the tape and the blood in the bathroom! And he did it!”

  Now Lawson looked at her. “Ms. Yeoman, we’re pursuing every available avenue to solve this thing. But there’ll be no arrest until we have proper evidence.”

  Yeoman rummaged around in her bag, pulled out a videotape, and placed it on the desk. “Then perhaps,” she said, “this might help.”

  Lawson looked at the black cassette, then back at her.

  “It ‘stars’ Rita Cato,” Yeoman explained. “She came to see me last month at the Women’s Resource Center.”

  Lawson leaned back in his chair. “Do you always videotape your clients?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “But if they’ve been battered—like Rita—I do. In case they change their mind and want to file charges.” She paused. “They’re aware I do it,” she added.

  Lawson reached out, picked up the tape, turning it over, like he’d never seen one before.

  “Well?” Yeoman said after a moment. “Shouldn’t we look at it?”

  ” ‘We’?” He used the word disdainfully. “I’ll look at it when I get around to it. Now, why don’t you be a good girl and run along, back to your little group.”

  “Disturbing you, are we?” Yeoman sneered.

  “Can I give you some advice?”

  “What? Not ‘friendly’ advice?” she smirked.

  “If I were you, I’d be careful about picking a team mascot until I found out the score.”

  “If you were me, you wouldn’t be a condescending sexist jerk.”

  His smile was typically smug. “Wouldn’t I?” he asked.

  She grunted, threw her bag onto her shoulder, and stormed out.

  On the front steps of the police station, Yeoman spotted a TV crew, across the street, filming the bound and gagged women, and her frown disappeared.

  “Jane!” called out the perky, petite newscaster Yeoman recognized as Heather Hart, coanchor of the local Channel Eight News.

  “Could you answer a question for our six o’clock edition?” she asked the approaching Yeoman, then laughed, “No one else here seems to be able to talk!”

  “Certainly,” said Yeoman, businesslike.

  Heather gave her long blond hair a toss and licked her pink lips as the cameraman with Minicam stood nearby, ready to roll.

  Then she pointedly asked Yeoman, into the microphone, “Just how long do you plan on keeping up this vigil?”

  Yeoman looked into the camera. “The Women’s Resource Center, along with friends and concerned citizens of Rita Cato, will keep up our vigil—here in front of the police station—until they find her, and the man responsible for this horrible atrocity is brought to justice.”

  Yeoman went on. “Nearly every ten seconds a woman becomes the victim of a brutal crime and . . .”

  “Thank you, Jane Yeoman. Founder of the Woman’s Resource Center. This is Heather Hart, Channel Eight Eyewitness News.”

  “Sorry, Jane,” said Heather after a moment when the cameraman stopped filming. “Sound bites. We need sound bites.”

  As the woman walked away, Yeoman pursed her lips and glared. “Airhead,” she said under her breath.

  She was the worst, thought Yeoman, watching Heather leave in the news van. The real lack of support for women’s rights didn’t come from men—who could be made to feel guilty—it came from the white-collar women who saw their suffering sisters as just less competition.

  “I’m going home,” Yeoman said, disgruntled, to the woman she’d talked to earlier when she’d spotted Lawson. “Can you handle the second shift?”

  The silent, muzzled woman nodded.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Yeoman walked to her car, which was parked on the street a block away. She got in and started the engine.

  “Hey! There’s Jane Yeoman, the women’s libber!” she heard a bystander say as she drove off.

  How Yeoman hated that label. But there were worse ones, like troublemaker, lesbian, and PMS-er. Men who fought injustice received distinguished titles like “advocate,” and “protector of consumer affairs.” Hell, even comic-book superheroes got more respect—there was no “Justice League of America” for those who fought the feminist battle.

  But Yeoman hadn’t planned on becoming a feminist.

  As a little girl, growing up in a small town in Iowa in the 1960s—the heyday of the women’s movement—Jane didn’t even know what a feminist was. The third child born to Elizabeth and John Yeoman, she remembered being told more than once that her arrival “wasn’t planned.”

  Her mother, a cold and calculating social climber, and father, a never-at-home auto parts salesman, paid little attention to the girl. Jane spent her childhood starved for affection. Though she had older twin brothers, they teased her relentlessly, nicknaming her “Clarabell the Clown” because of her thick red hair. When the boys went off to college, her father saw his responsibility as done and moved out.

  But there were a few bright spots in Jane Yeoman’s life. In high school, with the help of a kind drama teacher, she excelled in theater. A shy, quiet introvert, she blossomed when performing on the stage. Then an unexpected scholarship let her escape to the University of Colorado.

  It was there, on a ski slope in Boulder during Christmas break, that she ran into Bob. Literally. She tripped him, coming down a run, and they landed in a twisted pile, him hurting his shoulder and her an ankle. They hobbled back to the lodge, where, as an apology, she bought him a drink. As they sat in front of a crackling fire, she couldn’t believe how funny and attentive he was. Tall and muscular, dark and handsome, he was a Prince Charming if ever she saw one. And they found an immediate common ground: both hadn’t gone home for the holidays because they hated their families.

  After a short, whirlwind, passionate courtship, they drove off to Las Vegas and got married. And she happily sacrificed her scholarship to go to work in a bank in Boulder so he could continue his studies. But then, just a few months into the marriage, Jane began to discover that her Prince Charming was really a toad.

  It began in the form of what he called “constructive criticism,” but really it was vindictive browbeating, designed to undermine her assertiveness and chop away at her self-esteem. At first she compiled with his wishes and tried not to “be so selfish,” thinking, because of her upbringing, she just didn’t know what it took to make a good marriage.

  But then nothing she seemed to do was right, and he would fly off the handle, throwing and breaking things; if she threatened to walk out, he would cry and promise her the moon. So they would make up, and he would be nice—for a while. But pretty soon it would start all over again.

  It was such a shame, Jane had thought, because he was so good in bed!

  When he broke her nose, though, she moved out, taking the cat, to an apartment of her own. That’s when he started in with the threats and harassment that sent her into a tailspin of fear. He began following her, and phoning her at all hours and hanging up. Once when she went out to her car, it was covered with raw eggs; another time her tires were slashed. But the final blow came when she arrived home from work and could tell someone had been in her apartment. The place wasn’t ransacked, but drawers had been gone through, and a bottle of what used to be their favorite wine had been left, empty, by the sink as a calling card.

  And the cat was missing.

  When she called Bob on the phone and confronted him, he denied ever being there, acting all sweet and innocent, saying he was concerned that she might be losing her mind.

  It was pretty damn frightening.

  The next day, putting groceries away, she found the cat. In the freezer. She sat hysterically crying, holding her dead pet, until the poor thing thawed out. Then a calmness settled over her.

  Something had to be done.

  That night, she waited in the darkness, behind the wheel of her Cherokee Jeep, in the parking lot of a bar outside Boulder on Shadow mountain. When Bob came out with a slut on his arm, Jane slumped down in her seat and watched as they got drunkenly into his Pinto. They made out for a few minutes before Bob started the car and eased it out, heading down the winding hill.

  Jane followed; lights out.

  On a particularly treacherous stretch of road, she floored her accelerator and rammed into him, hard. To her amazement, the rear of the Pinto burst into flames and the tremendous jolt caused the car to crash through a guardrail, where it sailed over the edge.

  Jane, unhurt, pulled her scorched Cherokee over, jumped out and looked down at the burning car, which was flipping ass over teakettle down the mountainside.

  She hadn’t meant for him to die. Exactly. But as she stood staring at the crimson flames, it reminded her of the beginning of their fire-side romance; and she was as happy as she was back then.

  With a large check from an insurance policy Bob had taken out on himself shortly after they were married, Jane returned to college, but back in her home state, at the University of Iowa. On campus she was active in school politics, off campus she worked for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and was instrumental in bringing to the public’s attention the dangerous rear-end collision problem of the Pinto. Eventually she changed her major to political science.

  After graduation, with the help of state and local funds, along with the last of the insurance money, she started the Women’s Resource Center in Iowa City. She wanted to help other women who had been abused like herself.

  But as of late, the Women’s Resource Center had fallen on hard times; the recession had put a stranglehold on community donations, and government dropped its funding. If something didn’t happen soon, the facility would go under.

  The high profile the center was now attracting, however, by rallying around Rita Cato, was beginning to help.

  Yeoman pulled her car in the driveway of her rustic, A-frame condominium on the outskirts of the city, and got out. She walked up the wooden flight of steps and around the tree-lined deck where yellow and orange mums, along with other potted plants, sat like patio guests, whispering in the cool breeze. Wind chimes dangled from the overhang, twisting, singing their monotonous tunes.

  She unlocked the back door and let herself in.

  Gloria, her calico cat, greeted her, weaving in and out of her master’s legs. Yeoman bent over and petted it. Then she threw her bag on a chair and went to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She took the glass of wine to the couch, where she flopped down, kicking off her shoes.

  She sat there, sipping her drink, staring into space, recharging herself, until at last she focused on a videotape on top of the TV. The tape was a dub of the one she’d given Lawson. She got up, turned on the TV, and put the cassette in the VCR.

  She’d never actually viewed the tape of her meeting with Rita—after all, she’d been there—and had only partially screened it, to make sure the tape wasn’t defective before dubbing it.

  Yeoman returned to the couch to watch.

  The woman filled the screen, from the waist up. She was lovely—beautiful really—despite her bruised face and distraught expression. She had long, raven-black hair, a delicately turned-up nose, and full, rounded lips. She spoke softly, hesitantly, like a little lost girl. She said her husband abused her.

  Yeoman leaned forward, eyes glued to the set. Even though her senses were dulled from the wine, something suddenly seemed wrong. She was reminded of a performance she had given in a high school play. She thought she had been wonderful, but later, watching a videotape a friend had made, she looked bad, stilted, over-rehearsed.

  Like Rita.

  Now the woman was emptying her purse into her lap looking for a Kleenex, and Yeoman saw something that made her drop down, off the couch, onto her knees, and crawl like a baby toward the screen to see better.

  Then Yeoman got up, grabbed her bag and coat, and went to her car.

  Rita Cato floated, dreamily, inside the tiny crater, its hot, bubbling liquid soothing her naked, voluptuous body. She looked upward. The earth, brown with swirling blue and white masses, seemed so very far away. Lazily, she turned her head, smiling at the sight of the silver space capsule, which rose phallically off the floor just a few yards away.

  She drifted, self-absorbed, until a rap-rap-rapping in the distance brought her back to reality.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  “Room service!”

  Rita got out of the whirlpool, reached for a white towel resting among man-made moon rocks, wrapped herself up, and answered the door.

  “Hello, Jaimie,” she smiled to the young dark man standing with a covered tray in his hands. “Come on in . . . there’s a beautiful earth out tonight.”