by Jan Burke
“Thanks.”
“John Walters wants to talk to you.”
She was right. I had just picked up the two envelopes that constituted O’Connor’s mail and was about to sit down, when John yelled across the room, “Kelly, get over here.” “Here” was Lydia’s desk; he had apparently cornered her the moment she walked in.
I stuffed the envelopes in my purse and made my way slowly over to Lydia and John. He was leaning his ample behind on Lydia’s desk, watching me. As I got closer, he glanced at my forehead, and said, “You’ll be better off if you don’t sit down for a while. Try to keep moving around a little.” Lydia looked at him in surprise — Walters as caretaker was a rare sighting.
I asked what I could do for him.
“We did a short piece on the car chase yesterday, but I could use more information than I’m getting from the cops.”
So someone at the paper had picked up the calls going out to the accident, I just hadn’t seen any reporter before we left for the hospital. That story was pretty late-breaking, and must have just made the final edition.
“You want me to write it?” I asked.
“Sure, why not? But first tell me about it, so Lydia can get some people on any other angles we might need to cover.”
“It’s a complex story. I’ve got something here that ties in.” I handed him the computer drawings of Hannah.
“Who is it?”
“That’s Hannah.”
“Hannah who?”
“Handless Hannah, the woman O’Connor wrote about every year; the Jane Doe they found under the pier in 1955.”
“What does this have to do with an attempt on the lives of a cop and a reporter?”
“I think it has something to do with the murder of O’Connor as well.”
I told him about Hernandez, the skull, and MacPherson. As I spoke, I could tell I had started to pique John’s interest, but he didn’t have that look that said I had sold something for page one. Nothing to do but finish telling him the story. “I’ve been thinking about it, John. For some reason Woolsey didn’t follow up. Why not? He may have intentionally misled O’Connor for years. I think someone should talk to Woolsey.”
It was the first time I had mentioned Woolsey’s role, and John and Lydia exchanged a wide-eyed look.
“What’s wrong?”
Lydia reached across her desk and pulled a large sheet over — copy for today’s run. She handed it to me.
“Dr. Emmet Woolsey,” I read aloud, “former Coroner for the City of Las Piernas, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds early Tuesday evening…”
I stood there, re-reading it, trying to let the words sink in. John was telling Lydia that we needed to have someone go back over the Woolsey story. He looked at me.
“Go on with your story, Irene.”
I told him about MacPherson getting the computer images made, about taking the skull and being followed, and the chase.
“Any ID on the guys in the Lincoln?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ll put a call in to Pete Baird — he’s one of the cops working on this with Frank Harriman.”
“What about this Harriman? Is he gonna make it?”
I then told him about Frank’s injuries, trying to sound clinical and shoving away the memories of the wait for the ambulance.
“Hmm. So you want me to run the pictures on A-one in hopes that someone comes forward and says, ‘Oh yeah, this girl stopped in and bought a taco from me in 1955. I remember it well.’”
“You have a lovely way of putting things, John. No, I want you to run the pictures on A-one because it’s tied into everything that happened to us yesterday, and probably everything that’s happened for the last few days to several other people, including Woolsey. I think it will make someone nervous, and nervous people tend to make mistakes.”
“Nervous people can also be dangerous — and if you haven’t figured that out by now, you’ve got a thicker skull than old Hannah there.”
“It’s a break in a case that everyone who ever read O’Connor’s column knows about.”
He made a motion as if waving off a pesky fly. “I’ll think about it. Go back to work.”
I TURNED ON the computer at O’Connor’s desk, thinking that it might still hold clues about Hannah. I also owed Wrigley some work on that mayor’s story. I signed on and was getting ready to do the write-up on the chase, when the phone rang.
“Kelly.”
“Hi, Irene. Pete Baird. Just wanted to let you know I saw Frank this morning and he’s doing a lot better.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“I also wanted to let you know what we learned about the guys in the Lincoln. Couple of local hoods, Bob Cully and Jimmy Blake. I don’t suppose you knew them?”
“Never heard of them.”
“They’ve got records. Ballistics made a match between the Desert Eagle .357 we found in their car and the bullets lodged in your wall.”
“You’ve made a lot of progress then.”
“It get better. When we went to check out their home sweet homes, it turns out Cully had a little factory set up in his garage with the makings for an explosive device — the bomb squad is still checking that out, but it seems pretty likely that these guys are the ones who set up your friend. Cully had priors on explosives and Blake was a gunman. Up to now they mainly stuck to holding up jewelry stores and blowing safes, but I guess they were looking for career advancement.”
I knew Pete was waiting for me to say something, but I was choking with rage. A simple hundred-miles-per-hour head-on collision with a garbage truck was an easy way out for the people who had killed O’Connor. It was too easy, and way too quick.
“Irene, you okay?”
“Sorry, Pete. Any chance they were acting alone?”
“I don’t believe it for a minute. Do you?”
“Not for half a minute.”
“So those names don’t give you any ideas, huh?”
“No, I’m sure I’ve never met or heard of them. I’ll look through O’Connor’s computer notes, but I doubt he mentioned them.”
“Probably not. Just hired hands.”
“You know about Woolsey?”
Pete sighed. “Yeah. Strange. I had some questions for that guy.”
“You’re not the only one. Any ideas on why he shot himself? Are you sure it’s a suicide?”
“It looks like it, though it takes a while to really check that out. Hernandez got back in today, so he’ll do the work on it. As for why — no note or anything. His wife died about a year ago; he lived alone. Neighbor was out in the backyard, just a few feet from his window, and heard the shot.”
“This whole thing just gets harder and harder to grab on to.”
“I know what you mean, but I think you’re right about Hannah. It’s got to be connected. We’ll send the drawings out today, along with a letter explaining why we’re just now tracking her down.”
“Great. Is MacPherson okay?”
“LAPD found him safe and sound.”
“Were Cully and Blake the guys who went after Kenny?”
“No, I guess they had a good alibi for that one — not that it does them any good now. They had appointments with their parole officer.”
“Same parole officer?”
“Yeah. We think that’s how they met — waiting around before their appointments to see this parole officer. We really rehabilitate them, don’t we?”
“Well, Pete, I’d better get some of this into a story, or I’ll be out of a job again. Thanks for calling. And thanks for letting me know about Frank.”
I hung up and got to work on the story. It felt good to be writing like this again. Something came alive in me, a part of myself I had not used in a long time. The uncertainty left me after about the fourth sentence. It was going to be a good story.
I finished, let John know, and he called it up on his screen. I watched his face as he read it. I don’t know why; as usual, he was like granite while reading
a story. You never knew if he loved it or hated it.
He got to the end and looked up from the screen. “Nice to have you back, Irene. But why are you standing around kibitzing? You need another assignment?”
“Nice to be back, John — I’ve missed you so much.”
At O’Connor’s desk, I started looking through the computer files. His code wasn’t so hard to decipher on the computer — no drawings or shorthand. But he did use nicknames and even had a way of making a rat nose: =o=.
On one of the more recent entries, I found another reference to campaign fund-raising banquets:
RCC — DA + MYR =o=. LDY? $ VS $ BLP AM W/C.
Rubber-chicken circuit, district attorney and mayor. Rat nose. I wasn’t sure about the rest of it. Something about money and then a note that someone “will call.” I studied it for a while, but couldn’t make out any more. I went back a few pages, to an entry marked with arrows:
>>>MYR PD FR DA RCC $? CK W/AM @ BLP.
Mayor paid from DA’s fund-raiser money? Check with AM at BLP.
Who was AM at BLP? Someone who was going to call O’Connor about the BLP or about the district attorney and mayor’s races? Did AM know O’Connor had died? Or would I get another call at some point, like the one from MacPherson?
I leaned back in the chair and tried to stretch a little. Time to do some moving around or I’d be walking like Frankenstein by the end of the day.
O’Connor was pursuing the possibility of something dirty going on in the mayor’s and DA’s races. After lunch, I’d go down to City Hall, and then maybe over to the California Fair Political Practices Commission office in the City of Industry; campaign-funding reports were on file there.
I also wanted to go over to the hospital and visit all my friends and relatives — the walk would be good for me. I turned off the computer monitor and slowly stood up. I started to push the chair in and swore under my breath — my purse was on the floor. I bent over — a big mistake — and couldn’t make myself straighten up again. Blood started rushing to my head as I stared at my purse and the floor.
I made a grab for the shoulder strap of the purse, and managed to dump its entire contents all over the floor. My head was throbbing and I could tell my face was red. The swearing was getting out from under my breath now. I turned my head a few degrees to see if anyone was nearby. John Walters was. I looked back down in mortification.
IT WAS THEN that I noticed the two envelopes that had been O’Connor’s mail. The return address on one of them was “The Global Guru,” O’Connor’s nutty travel agent. Had O’Connor been planning to go somewhere?
20
I PICKED UP the envelopes just as John, still chuckling, came over to help. “It’s not funny, damn it,” I said, but proceeded to disprove that by laughing myself. I managed to creep back up into a standing position with his support.
He was good enough to gather up my pens, notebooks, hairbrush, wallet, and other assorted items that had spread across the floor.
“What?” he said with mock surprise. “Where the hell could that lipstick have gone to? And where did that mascara go?”
“I only wear makeup on Holy Days of Obligation and you know it.”
“Your religion must not have had a feast day since the Flood.”
“Since before the Flood.”
“You okay now?”
“Yes, thanks, John.”
He walked off, still snickering. I opened the letter from the Global Guru. The familiar letterhead proclaimed, “Peace, Love and Understanding Through Travel.” The Global Guru was Fred Barnes to those of us who knew him in high school. Poor old Fred just never got over the sixties. I could picture him in his bell-bottoms and beads, burning incense in the travel agency.
The strange part was that, for all the trappings, he was a real wheeler-dealer. He could find low fares going anywhere, anytime. He knew his stuff — so I guess he was a sort of a guru. He actually had a pretty-decent-sized client list. O’Connor said he liked going to Fred because Fred had flair. In that way, he was much like all the people O’Connor went to for services, a little oddball but highly capable.
The envelope contained a single round-trip ticket for a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday — tomorrow morning. The letter explained that a rental car would be waiting there for O’Connor, and that if he changed his mind and decided to stay overnight, he should give Fred a call to arrange lodging.
A trip to a sunny border state, with an Hispanic population. And some high fluoride levels. I reached for the phone and dialed Fred.
“Global Guru, Shalom.”
“Specials on Israel this month, Fred?”
“Irene? Oh, Irene. I’m so sorry about O’Connor. He was a true human being. I know he’s around here, watching all of us and having a laugh, but I will miss him. I wonder what he’ll come back as? Something inquisitive. Did you know I just mailed some tickets to him?”
“Yes, I’ve got them. That’s why I called.”
“Oh?”
“Did he tell you why he was going to Phoenix?”
“He wasn’t going to Phoenix,” he said. “I mean, he wasn’t staying there. That was just the closest spot with an airport.”
“Where was he going from Phoenix?”
“I was afraid you’d ask that. Well, let’s see. It’s a funny name, something to do with lizards, I think…”
“He was going somewhere to do a story about lizards?” My hopes momentarily sank.
“No, no, no! Oh, I see what you mean! Oh, no. Not about lizards, I mean the name of the town has something to do with lizards. Iguana? No, no iguanas. Oh, now I remember — Gila monsters!”
“Gila monsters?”
“No, the name of the town is Gila Bend. Gila Bend, Arizona. Near the Gila River. Yes, that’s it.”
I thought about the list MacPherson had given us. I was almost positive Gila Bend was on it. “Did he tell you anything more?”
“No, just that he had to see someone in Gila Bend. He wanted a flight in and out of Phoenix for the same day, no overnight stay.”
“You’re sure about Gila Bend?”
“Yes. No doubt about it.”
“Thanks, Fred.”
“Irene? Are you going to be using the tickets? Or should I refund them?”
I thought about this. “I’m not sure. Can I let you know by this evening?”
“Sure, that’s cool. Just let me know, okay?” He gave me his home number and told me that he could make changes in the tickets from his home computer.
“I appreciate this. Take care, Fred.”
“Peace.”
Poor Fred, flair or no flair, he had missed all the interesting parts of the last couple of decades. I was trying to remember what these were when my stomach growled and reminded me to go to lunch.
Before leaving, I made a quick call to Pete Baird to tell him about the tickets and have him check MacPherson’s list. Yes, Gila Bend was on it. Yes, it was one of the highlighted places on the list. Pete told me he would call the sheriff in Gila Bend after lunch — maybe someone was expecting O’Connor. I hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment, wondering about Gila Bend and what O’Connor might have been up to there.
“What have you found out?” It was Lydia. She had walked up without my noticing. I guess I was still jumpy, because I gave a start and felt it everywhere. “Sorry,” she went on, “didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that when you pull a little on your lower lip like that, I know you’ve just learned something — something’s up.”
I put my hand down from my face, caught in the act. “Didn’t realize I do that. Guess that’s another liability of staying single — no one to point out all your little idiosyncrasies.”
“I don’t know that I’d call that a liability.”
I filled her in on what I had learned. “I’m headed over to the hospital. See you later?”
“You know where I’ll be,” she said, looking over at the City Desk, where a general-assignment reporter wa
s waiting to see her.
WALKING OVER to St. Anne’s was a lot slower process than the day before, but moving around did make me feel better.
As I walked down the hallway, I tried to decide whether to see Frank or Barbara and Kenny first. I realized I was starting to think of Barbara and Kenny as one unit in the critical-care ward. She seemed so much a part of his being a patient here, that I couldn’t think of it as “seeing how Kenny is doing.” Since I had no reason to believe that Barbara would welcome my visit, I decided to stop by Kenny’s room first and get that over with.
As soon as I walked in, I noticed that more of Kenny’s face was showing, although he still had a great deal of swelling and bruising. Barbara sat next to him in exactly the same position I had left her in the day before. She turned to me and on her weary face I could see exhaustion taking its toll.
“Irene!” She stood up and came over and hugged me. I was so shocked that it took me a minute to hug back.
“Irene, I’m so sorry I was rude to you yesterday. Pete Baird came by — he’s been so good to me — and he told me about you and Frank. I felt so bad. I could have lost you — and the last time I might have ever talked to you, I was mean. I saw Frank. He looks awful. And look at your poor forehead!” She was crying.
I don’t know why, but these reconciliations with Barbara are so welcomed and yet so awkward that I always feel a little inner sting when they occur. It passes, and while I know that we will inevitably go back to driving each other crazy, for a few moments we both know how really important we are to each other.
“I’m okay, Barbara, but I’m really worried about you. Have you had any sleep at all?”
“A little.”
I could see how little. “How’s Kenny?”
“He’s actually doing a little better. He’s been conscious a couple of times — well, sort of — he didn’t know where he was or what was going on, but he opened his eyes. Today he looked at me and said, ‘Barbara? What are you doing here?’ It’s the most he’s talked. He recognized me; they tell me that’s a good sign.”
“Could you sleep here in his room?”
“I’ve tried, but it’s hard. People are constantly in here checking on him. I know I should go home and go to bed, but I just can’t make myself do it. What if he wakes up and he’s frightened or disoriented? He might need me.”