The bland interstate scenery held no interest for her. Jessie kept her eyes on the road, her mind turning over thoughts and theories about the murders in Concord. As dusk fell, she relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. She wore long sleeves and driving gloves. Once, years ago, she’d been burned in the bright light of the sun, and had no desire to ever experience that again. Even with the car’s darkly tinted windows she took extra caution. Now, with the last light disappearing below the tree line, she tossed her sunglasses onto the passenger seat and peeled off the gloves. Reaching into her leather backpack purse, her fingers searched for a pack of cigarettes and her lighter. She smoked for a while, her mind drifting away from Concord toward a nebulous empty calm, lulled by the boring drive. The CD player was set to shuffle. Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, John Coltrane’s Blue Train, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out and Chet Baker’s The Italian Sessions, all just for the drive.
