Goodnight, Irene ik-1

by Jan Burke

  They went into the station and I walked across the street to one of the motels. This one was done up in a flying-saucer and rocket ship motif. Outdoors, it was like walking around inside a clothes dryer. But once I was back indoors, I got gooseflesh from the chill. I kept thinking that the local people must adapt to rapid temperature changes like nobody else on earth. I looked around and found a pay phone. I called the paper and asked for Lydia.

  “City Desk,” came the response.

  “Lydia? It’s Irene. I’m calling from Gila Bend.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Listen, are you near an open terminal? Or can you connect me to someone who is? I’m out here without a laptop or modem but I think I’ve got something that shouldn’t wait until I get back tonight. Can I give it to you over the phone?”

  “Sure,” she said, “hang on.” She covered the receiver and I could hear her shooing people away from her desk. “Okay,” she said at last, “I’m all set.”

  I gave her the story the best I could. I figured Wrigley would love touting the fact that largely through the efforts of O’Connor, a thirty-five-year-old mystery had been solved. We had found Hannah’s hometown just three days before the anniversary of her death. I briefly went over the work done by O’Connor, Hernandez, MacPherson, and law-enforcement officials in both cities that had led to the tentative identification.

  More gingerly than I should have, I told as much as I could bear to tell about Mrs. Owens, trying to avoid feeling that I had taken advantage of being there at a time when she was vulnerable.

  I also recapped the local angle: O’Connor’s death, his son’s beating, the deadly car chase and the sidewalk hit-and-run killing, all possibly linked to the old case. I wound up with the standard “investigations are proceeding” lines.

  “That’s it, Lydia,” I said when I finished.

  “Whew!” she said, “you’ve had a busy morning.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got pretty mixed feelings about it, too.”

  “You liked her mother, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. I guess I went too soft there. Hell’s bells, Lydia, you should have been there. I feel lousy about it. I haven’t gotten my hide thickened up enough yet. Give me another two or three interviews with parents of dead children and I’ll be able to do this kind of story without batting an eye.” I took a deep breath. I realized I was getting defensive. “I guess I can’t trade on anybody else’s misery right now. I’m too rocky myself.”

  “Believe me, Irene, I understand. You know how I hate that ‘invasive-but-it-sells-papers’ stuff that Wrigley’s so in love with. Besides, Phoenix is less than an hour’s flight away, so if Big Bad John doesn’t like the way you wrote it, I’m sure he’ll send somebody out there tonight to steal a photo of Jennifer off that shelf and take a few pictures of Mrs. Owens crying. By the way — he put your piece from yesterday on A-one.”

  “Slow news day, huh?”

  “Where is this modesty coming from?”

  “Must be the heat out here. Anyway, got a couple of other loose ends to take care of before I head back. Everything going okay with you?”

  “Nervous about my hot date tonight, but okay otherwise.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Hmm. I hope so. Well, I better flag John Walters down. I think he’ll be pleased, kiddo.”

  “Hope you’re right.”

  We hung up and I fished the number of the downtown branch of the Bank of Las Piernas out of my purse. I dialed and got through to the switchboard. “Ann Marchenko, please,” I said.

  There was a pause. “May I ask who is calling?”

  “Irene Kelly,” I said.

  There was another pause and then a couple of rings. I was surprised when a man’s voice answered. “Irene?”

  “Guy?”

  “Yes, hello! Why didn’t you tell me you were a famous newspaper reporter? I saw your byline on the front page today. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. And I’m not at all famous, but thanks for noticing the byline. I was trying to reach Ann Marchenko.”

  “Yes, I thought you might call today, so I asked the switchboard to give your call to me. Irene, I’m sorry, Ann Marchenko phoned in this morning and quit her job.”

  “Quit? Without notice? Why?”

  “She wouldn’t say why, she just told us she wouldn’t be in again. It leaves us in quite a fix, I’m afraid. But as for you — perhaps someone else can help? Really, if there is anything I can do, please allow me to help. The bank isn’t about to receive some bad publicity, is it?”

  “No, no, I doubt that’s the case. It was something else. Really, Guy, I can’t think of anything you can help me with right now. I really didn’t have anything specific to ask her. I’ll let you know, though.” I thought of Ramona Ralston. “Guy, I’m very sorry about — yesterday.”

  “That was not your fault, Irene. It was terrible, I agree. A horrible, horrible thing that happened. But it was not your fault.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And now I have a special favor to ask of you — perhaps it will provide a small distraction.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would be honored if you would be my guest at a rather boring affair — I am invited to a political fund-raising banquet for one of our major depositors, Andrew Hollingsworth, the district attorney. If you would not mind being my guest, I’m sure the evening would pass less painfully. I’m giving you short notice, I’m afraid — it’s tomorrow night. As an added attraction, you can enter the hallowed Sheffield Estate overlooking the beautiful Pacific. All this and the polite attentions of a former hockey player with a charming accent. What do you say?”

  I laughed. “It’s the best offer I’ve had all day. But I must warn you that I probably would have been sent along by the paper, so in turn you must warn the Hollingsworths that your guest is there as a working journalist.”

  “Oh, so I have invited you somewhere you would already have gone on your own. That’s not so fun. Still, I think you are saying yes.”

  “I am.”

  “Can I pick you up about seven, then?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where?”

  This posed a problem. I didn’t feel comfortable giving out Lydia’s address, even to people who probably weren’t at all involved in this mess. I was running low on clean clothes over at Lydia’s, and anything fancy enough to wear to a political fund-raiser would be back at my house. I hadn’t been there to collect my mail either. I gave Guy my address.

  “Bien. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Guy, I do have a favor to ask. Would you please call Ann Marchenko at home and ask her to give me a call at the paper?”

  “The bank is not involved?”

  “I doubt it very much.”

  “Well, I will ask her to call you then.”

  I gave him the number at the paper and hung up. My twenty minutes were up, so I walked back to the sheriff’s station. Pete and Enrique Ramos were standing in the lobby.

  “So,” Pete said, “think it will make page one?”

  “Have you got that motel pay phone tapped?” I asked Ramos.

  “Come on, old Pete here would be a pretty lousy detective if he couldn’t guess what phone calls a reporter would run off to make on a story like this.”

  “Yeah, give me a break, Irene. Besides, I promised Frank I’d keep an eye on you. So who was the second call to?”

  “Never mind the second call.”

  “Oooh, aren’t we touchy?” he said.

  I felt like bashing him one, but I figured he probably knew how to bash back. Besides, I was in a sheriff’s station.

  He smirked. “I made four calls myself. One to the department, the second to Phoenix Homicide, and the third to St. Anne’s. Frank’s not there anymore.”

  “Not there?”

  “Nope, so I guess that eliminates St. Anne’s as your second call. Too bad. Anyway, they sent him home. That was the fourth call. They sent Mike Sorenson over to kee
p an eye on him, and the big lout answered the phone when I called over to Frank’s house. Almost wouldn’t put me through — can you imagine? Frank sounds a hell of lot better than he did yesterday. Says hello to you and wants to know if we’ll stop in if we get the chance — he’s already got cabin fever, I guess.”

  “That would be great. I can’t believe he’s home already.”

  “Pretty standard for his type of injuries, I guess. If it’s just a matter of hurting, they send you home to heal — better that way, you don’t have to keep eating hospital food. Speaking of food — Enrique here is going to show us where we can find genuine Mexican food. Right?”

  We ate lunch at one of those hole-in-the-wall cafés that are always the best for Mexican. Pete offered to drive back to Phoenix, so I had a cold cerveza with my enchiladas. Just knowing how hot it was outside made the beer taste better. The spicy sauce made it mandatory.

  After a brief tussle over who would treat whom to lunch, Las Piernas hosted Gila Bend, and we thanked Enrique for all his help. With assurances that we’d keep each other informed, we drove off.

  “Now,” said Pete, turning up the road to Phoenix, “we’ll go visit the City Mouse.”

  26

  IT WAS ABOUT 2 P.M. when we got back to Phoenix. We had four hours before our flight back. Pete got talkative again, this time about an ex-wife who could have doubled as any of your basic shrews. He wound down on it pretty quickly, though, ending up on a long spiel about how tough it is to be married to a cop. Again meaningful looks.

  “Pete, do you like being single?” I asked, thinking I could get him to see the possibility that I might enjoy it as well.

  “Sure I do. I mean, once in a while I wish there was somebody special, but I keep busy. And I’ve got friends. I’m not such a lonely guy. But I get you. You think I’m nagging you about being single at your age. Well, you know, they say you got a better chance of being hit by an A-bomb than gettin’ married at your age.”

  “I don’t think they call them A-bombs anymore, Pete.”

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I mean, especially if you’ve never even been married once. Hell, if I were you, I’d run around telling people I was divorced. At least it would sound like somebody took an interest at one time, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. I just listened to a half-hour speech on what a crappy marriage you had. Gee, is this the great kinda stuff I’ve been missing all my life? And to think I’ve been such a wallflower the whole time, never knowing so much as the blush of romance! You got a date Friday night, oh, man-in-whom-someone-once-took-an-interest?”

  “So what if I don’t. You don’t either.”

  “Like hell I don’t. I’m going out to Sheffield Estates to see how the other half lives, on the arm of a tall dark stranger.”

  “Who the hell are you talking about? Frank’s laid up, I know for damn sure he’s not going out to the Hollingsworths’. Probably some nerd from the paper, going with you to cover some political powwow.”

  “Ha! Some detective.”

  “So who is it?”

  “Figure it out for yourself.”

  We were in downtown Phoenix at this juncture, and the temperature outside the car could not have been any hotter than the one inside. We pulled up to the headquarters of the Phoenix Public Safety Department in silence.

  “Pete—”

  “Aw, forget it. We got work to do. We can fight all the way home on the plane.”

  “Truce then?”

  “Okay, truce.”

  We shook on it.

  I followed him into the tall building. His call from Gila Bend had prepared the Phoenix police for our visit. We were escorted down a long hallway to a little room with burgundy couches and chairs. We sat there for a minute, fidgeting as if we were in church, when a statuesque beauty opened the door. She was tall and thin and had a single streak of gray that came out of one side of her long raven hair. She was a knockout.

  A heavyset man stopped behind her and said, “You using this room, Pazzi?”

  She told him she was, then turned back to us.

  “Pete Baird, Las Piernas Homicide?” she asked in a husky voice. “I’m Detective Rachel Giocopazzi, Phoenix Homicide. Or, as you’ve heard, ‘Pazzi’ around here. But that’s because Italian and words of more than two syllables are too much for these guys.”

  “Not for me,” said Pete, “my mother’s maiden name was Gigliotti.”

  “Ah, paesano!” she said with a smile that apparently came close to rendering Pete unconscious, as he just grinned back shyly. I couldn’t believe it. She looked over at me.

  “Irene Kelly,” I said, extending a hand. “Not half-Italian, not even a cop. But happy to meet you.”

  “Same here. I hear you’re following up a very cold trail?”

  “It’s heated up.” I gave her a brief version of the story of Jennifer Owens and the last few days in Las Piernas.

  “I’d say you’ve had a rough week, lady. So you want to talk to the cousin?”

  “Right,” Pete managed to say.

  “I think that can be arranged without much trouble,” Rachel said. “The family’s fairly prominent, but you’re not thinking of bringing charges against anyone in the family, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, “strictly trying to figure out what might have happened to the Owens girl.”

  “You’re going to have to stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ If I ever introduce you to my mother, call her ma’am. Meanwhile, I’m Rachel.”

  “Rachel.”

  “Buono! Shall we call first? She’s Elaine Owens Tannehill now. Her parents still live in the area, but they’re out near a country club in the desert. She and her husband live in the old family mansion.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to drop in unannounced,” Pete said.

  Rachel looked at him. “Why not? The maid will just give us the heave-ho if the lady of the house doesn’t want to talk to us.”

  She took us out through a blast of heat to a white police car and we drove off to a ritzy section of Phoenix. We wound our way up a road to a hilltop that overlooked the city. A long wrought-iron fence covered with vines ran for some distance. We came to a break in the fence where two brick pillars stood. I could see a similar set a little ways down the road. We turned right and drove up a sloping circular drive to the front of a place that could have been used to film Gone with the Wind, a white Georgian-style mansion that commanded a magnificent view in every direction. I found myself looking down at my simple outfit and immediately felt out of place. How had young Jennifer felt, coming here from the silver trailer?

  We went to the front door, a massive carved affair. Rachel seemed perfectly at ease. She rang the doorbell. As we waited I turned around and looked out across the perfect lawn to the road. I grabbed Pete’s arm in panic when I noticed a car at the entrance we had just come through. The driver was staring at me, grinning. As Pete turned around, the car peeled out, but not before I’d recognized the driver. “Hawkeyes,” I said aloud.

  “Who?” asked Pete.

  “Sorry. Name I made up for the guy on the plane — the last one on.”

  “Shit.” Pete pounded on the door.

  “Am I not clued in on something?” Rachel asked.

  “Irene just saw someone watching the front of the house — he may be someone who was on our flight from Las Piernas,” Pete explained. He looked around anxiously. “You know if there’s any other way in? This Elaine Owens could be in danger.”

  “You think he’s alone?”

  “Couldn’t be positive, but I think so. Irene, stay here.”

  “And let him come back and find me standing out here by myself? Forget it.”

  “Capa tosta!” Pete exclaimed and ran around to the back of the house.

  “Hardhead,” Rachel explained, and we started to run after him. I tried to keep up with her long strides as she followed Pete through a small gate. We rounded the corner of the house just
as he made his way through an open sliding glass door. He ran back out almost immediately. “Rachel! Call for an ambulance!”

  He ran back in and Rachel went full speed back to the car. I followed Pete to a room nearer the front of the house, but I followed slowly, afraid of what I would find there. As I came through the doorway of the room, I saw a woman tied to a chair. An ornate dining-room chair. Her shoes were off and her head was bent forward. On the top of her head a dark-red patch matted her platinum-blond hair. Pete grabbed a beautiful lace napkin from a formal table setting and pressed it to her head. “Mrs. Tannehill!” he shouted. “Elaine!” again and again.

  I stared, suddenly realizing that this woman in her fifties was Elaine Owens Tannehill. Unlike her cousin, she had aged.

  Pete stopped shouting. Elaine Tannehill was no longer breathing. We both heard her make a gurgling noise. He looked at her with alarm. She coughed once, and as I watched in horror, blood gushed out of her mouth and down the front of her elegant suit.

  Pete frantically looked at the back of the chair. “Goddamn-son-of-a-whore! He shot her in the back! Her lungs have been filling up with blood the whole time I shouted at her like a dumb son-of-a-bitch!” He held his face in his hands for a few moments, calming himself. “Stay here,” he said. “And don’t touch anything.”

  He ran out of the room. I tried to look anywhere but at the dead woman. That was how I noticed something odd. An iron was plugged into the wall. In the dining room. Near Elaine Owens Tannehill’s feet.

  From a distance I heard Pete say, “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ.” It was not a prayer.

  27

  RACHEL CAME IN carrying a blanket, and stopped cold when she saw the lifeless figure in the chair. She walked over and stooped down to look at the face. “Is it Elaine Tannehill?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “She’s dead,” I said, realizing as I said it that Rachel knew that already.

  Just then, Pete came back. “Bastard tortured her with the iron, then shot her in the back. I didn’t even see the wound till after she coughed.”