Goodnight, Irene ik-1

by Jan Burke

  “You went that far on a first date?” I said with mock horror.

  “First and last, I’m afraid,” she said, shoving the morning edition toward me. “You see the paper yet? People are going to get jealous.”

  Good old John Walters had given me another page one. The story of Jennifer Owens was as public as it was going to be.

  There were a pile of messages and O’Connor’s mail waiting for me at work. The mail made me think of the second envelope from Wednesday, which I had completely forgotten. I opened my purse and found it.

  It contained a note from MacPherson dated last week, saying he had found someone to do the computer drawings of the woman’s face, and he would call when they were ready. I felt a great sense of relief. I hadn’t been walking around for two days with some big clue stashed in my purse.

  I sat down and began to go through the mail and messages. Yesterday, a note from Barbara, asking me to give her a call at the hospital when I got back. A call from MacPherson with “Says it’s not urgent” written at the bottom of the message slip. Some calls from people I recognized as political organizers, probably about various people and issues in our upcoming election.

  The mail was much the same, with the exception of one envelope. A scrawling, shaky hand was addressed to me, care of the Express, but marked “Personal & Confidential” in one corner. The return address was unfamiliar. Inside was a sheet of paper with a handwritten message:

  Miss Kelly,

  I understand you are now back at the newspaper. I tried calling you at Malloy & Marlowe to tell you I am deeply sorry about Mr. O’Connor. I have a few things to say, and no one left to say them to. I thought of you because I know you were his friend and co-worker, and I imagine you are now pursuing matters he left unfinished. This much I know of you.

  As for Mr. O’Connor, it is important to me that you know that I always respected him. Had I known things would go so far, I would have told the truth long ago. But now I am tangled in a web I helped to weave. I cannot bear to live to see my forty-three years of service to this community overshadowed by what will undoubtedly follow. I ask you to forgive me for the unforgivable.

  Emmet Woolsey

  I re-read Emmet Woolsey’s letter a half a dozen times. I felt uneasy holding this letter from a man who could not live with himself, who had been dead for three days. I knew it was evidence of a sort and should be turned over to the police; I also knew I should show it to John; but both actions seemed a violation of some kind of trust Woolsey had placed in me. I thought about how unwelcome an apology may sometimes be. I wasn’t in a forgiving kind of mood.

  I called Frank. It was early, but Sorenson answered on the second ring and told me they were both up and about. He handed the phone over to Frank.

  “Good morning!”

  His voice said he was in a cheerful frame of mind, and I immediately felt bad about calling. Maybe I wouldn’t tell him about the letter after all.

  “Good morning, Frank,” I said, trying to lighten my tone.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I wondered if I was ever going to be able to fool anybody about anything.

  “Emmet Woolsey mailed a letter to me; I guess it’s sort of a suicide note.” I read it to him.

  “Hmm.”

  I waited.

  “They’re going to want to take it as evidence,” he said. “Do you have any problems with that?”

  “None that I can’t live with, but I should show the note to John. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll call in and ask someone to come by your offices.” He paused, then asked, “Are you upset that Woolsey picked you to tell it to?”

  “A little. I feel awkward. I can’t forgive him. Not without knowing more than he’s told me here. I feel sorry for him, but that’s different.”

  “Somebody apparently had something on him. Guess we better try to find out why he was keeping things hidden about this case. I’ll have somebody look into his background. Could you try back issues of the Express from around June and July 1955?”

  “Sure, I’ll go downstairs to the morgue and see what I can find out.”

  We said good-bye, and I got up and took the letter over to John Walters. He read it, grunted, walked over to a copier and ran off a couple of copies. “Here,” he said, shoving the original and one copy toward me. “I don’t even want to touch it. Goddamn coward worried about his fucking reputation. Makes me want to puke. You gonna find out who had his nuts in a vise?”

  “Ooohwee. And I thought I was being stingy with him. Yeah, I want to know what he was afraid of. Must have been pretty bad if he stuck by his story through over thirty years of pestering by O’Connor.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going soft on me, Irene. Are you forgetting what’s happened because this bastard didn’t have the balls to speak up?”

  “No, I’m not likely to forget it.”

  “Hummph. Well, he’s not getting a dime’s worth of sympathy from me. You just think about Jennifer Owens’s mother not knowing what happened to her daughter for thirty-five years. Go on, get back to work.”

  I went back to my desk and called MacPherson to bring him up to date and thank him for his help. Next I tried to call Barbara, but ended up just leaving a message for her at the nurses’ station; apparently she had stepped out of Kenny’s room for a moment. They wouldn’t tell me anything about Kenny over the phone, except that he was still in intensive care.

  I gathered the mail into a neat stack, and threw away the out-and-out junk. As I cleared off O’Connor’s desk, I thought to myself that it was unnatural for it to be so clean. He never would have left it so orderly. I still felt like Goldilocks sitting in Papa Bear’s chair, but I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I had been a few days before.

  I grabbed a notebook and headed down to the place where all the back issues of the Express were on file, as back issues were at any newspaper, in that place where dead news remains unburied — the morgue. And now, I thought, we’ll see if Lazarus will rise.

  30

  THE PAPERS from the fifties were on microfilm, and so I used one of the aging machines down in that darkened area of the morgue to check the reels for the first two months of summer in 1955. The same thing happened this time that happens to me every time I go down to the morgue. I got hung up reading old articles and advertisements that caught my eye. The first one I came across was for a 1955 Packard — “The Patrician.”

  “One phone call delivers a new Packard to your door,” the ad said.

  Then I started wondering if porterhouse and T-bone steaks really were eighty-five cents a pound, like the “women’s-pages” ads said. If they were, I supposed I could believe that a quart of ice cream was forty-five cents, too. There was a dress offered by a department store for $10.95, and it looked pretty snazzy. The models all wore gloves, hats, and pearl chokers. But what I really wanted was the “Davy Crockett Study Lamp” with six action scenes from his adventures.

  I started paying more attention to news items. Neither the paper nor the town were as big in the 1950s as they were now, but there was still enough print to make me feel dizzy as the pages flashed across the screen.

  Some of the headlines in mid-June 1955 looked sort of familiar, such as “Middle East Peace Talks Proposed,” “County Budget Proposal Is Largest Ever,” and “Soviet Minister Visits U.S.,” while others caught my attention because I knew how they turned out: “Peron Claims Argentine Rebellion Finished,” “Salk and Sabin Testify on Polio Vaccine,” and a much smaller article, “South Vietnam Reds Tell U.S. ‘Go Home.’” The local news included items such as “Downey Women’s Club Honors HUAC Members” and “Committee Studies Fire-Department Integration.”

  Marilyn Monroe could be seen in The Seven Year Itch if you were willing to drive into L.A. to watch it at Grauman’s Chinese. Locally, it was easier to catch Jungle Jim and the Moon Men or The Creature with the Atom Brain.

  I don’t know why I should have been startled by the large-type headline that proclaimed “Wom
an’s Mutilated Body Found Under Pier” on the front page of the June 18, 1955, issue. It was big local news, and there wasn’t a chance that it would have received less sensational coverage. But now, knowing the future of this case — and having met the mother of the victim — I couldn’t help but feel disturbed. O’Connor might have felt compassion for this anonymous victim and her family, but he had not been the only writer on the story; the other coverage was unflinching in its detail.

  In issues over the next few days, the story had died down. With no clue to her identity surfacing, and little other progress being made, there was not much to feed to the public. Las Piernas City Councilman Richard Longren rallied his fellow council members to invest in better lighting by the pier and an expansion of the police force to increase beach patrols. I sat back thinking that our current mayor never missed a political trick, even then.

  I rewound the microfilm to the date of Hannah’s murder and went more slowly through each issue for that week. Page after page of reports that ranged from Congressional hearings to meetings of the Fuchsia Society. Then, in the local news section for Tuesday, June 21, 1955, I found my Lazarus:

  Eyewitness to Fatal Accident Found

  Coroner’s Wife Will Not Be Charged

  Police announced today that no charges will be filed against Mrs. Blanche Woolsey, wife of Las Piernas Coroner Dr. Emmet Woolsey, in an accident that killed two last Sunday. A witness, whose identity was not revealed by police, saw the car of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Decker cross over a double yellow line and hit Mrs. Woolsey’s vehicle at a curve on Hampstead Road before going over a cliff.

  While other witnesses had earlier identified Mrs. Woolsey’s car as the one seen weaving down the same road in a reckless fashion, this witness is apparently the only person to see the accident itself. Police refused to comment on why the witness might have delayed stepping forward until now.

  Mrs. Woolsey remains hospitalized for injuries received in the accident.

  So Woolsey’s wife was saved from charges in what looked to be a felony drunk-driving case. But who had provided the witness? Could Frank find the witness’s name in police records?

  I kept looking through the issues for that week to see if anything more had been written on the accident, when I came across the society pages for Sunday, June 26. Over two different pages, large photographs, and lavish detail were given to what must have been the major wedding of the last half century in Las Piernas: the marriage of Elinor Sheffield to a young man who had been recently appointed to the staff of the district attorney’s office — a young Harvard Law School graduate by the name of Andrew Hollingsworth — on the previous day.

  Thinking of the Hollingsworths reminded me of Guy St. Germain and our plans for that evening. I was starting to wonder if it had been a mistake to accept his invitation. I kept asking myself why I had this urge to confess to Frank that I was going out with another man. Then I asked myself why I thought of it as confessing. It wasn’t as if we were involved with one another in some exclusive arrangement. We really hadn’t dated or anything. All we had done was have a picnic together. And been shot at and nearly killed in a car chase.

  I rewound the microfilm and put it back in its box. I turned off the machine and sat there in the dark for a minute.

  I didn’t want to tell Frank, and I wasn’t sure why. But I knew for damn sure that I didn’t want him to hear about it from Pete Baird. Hell, considering Pete’s basic buttinsky nature, I might already be too late to be the one to tell Frank about it. If I decided to tell him.

  Nuts.

  31

  I WENT BACK UPSTAIRS and called Frank and told him what I had learned about Woolsey. He said he’d ask if Pete could spare some time to go through old files to find more information on the Decker accident and the shy witness. Hearing that he was going to be talking to Pete, I arranged to have lunch with Frank, thinking maybe I’d get a chance to talk to him about my plans for the evening. Since I had only been there once, I asked for directions to his place and told him I’d bring some sandwiches from his favorite deli, the Galley.

  That settled, I spent the next few hours looking over some of the political stuff O’Connor had been covering, writing up a couple of brief pieces about events scheduled for the upcoming week. I went back through some of the computer notes, but I still couldn’t make much out of the references to the mayor’s race.

  I did start to notice that almost every reference to the mayor’s race had some connection to the one for the DA’s office. I skimmed back over them a few more times. The notes on Hollingsworth were at least as plentiful as those on Mayor Longren. Most really weren’t very revealing; they either seemed to chronicle fund-raisers held for the two races or contain general political background on the two men.

  Both had held power in Las Piernas for decades, so there was little that was new in the background information. They were basically conservative, “law-and-order” types. Hollingsworth had a high conviction rate and Longren was an astute year-round grandstander. Running for city-wide office in Las Piernas was an expensive proposition, so incumbents never had too many problems getting reelected.

  It was easier for Hollingsworth to pay his campaign bills; he had married into the Sheffield fortunes. Longren struggled harder, but always seemed to manage reelection. There was some decline in his campaign war chest after the California campaign funding reporting laws went into effect in the mid-1970s, especially as the laws were made stronger over a series of later initiatives.

  Those laws require candidates to file public reports which state the full name, address, occupation, and employer of anyone who contributes over ninety-nine dollars to a campaign in any one-year period. The idea is to give voters a chance to see who is backing whom and how much a candidate is dependent on a given supporter or company or political action committee. Longren’s funding problems probably meant that before the laws were passed, his big money had come from people who didn’t care to be identified.

  While I was in the midst of all these political and legal musings, the phone rang. It was Barbara, calling me back. I asked how Kenny was feeling.

  “Oh, he’s doing a lot better. He’s conscious and able to talk a little. He doesn’t remember anything about being beaten, but the doctor says that isn’t uncommon with head injuries.”

  “Maybe it will come back to him later.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You sound kind of down,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Just tired, I guess. He still seems happy that I’m here with him. I was kind of worried that things would go back to — well, go back to the way they were before.”

  “You’ve been great for him, Barbara, sitting there all those hours. Any chance of getting away for a while tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. For how long?”

  “Oh, how about lunch? Maybe we could go sit on the beach for a while. Whatever you want. I could use a change of pace myself.”

  “What the heck. Okay, let’s go out together tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been reading about all the things that have been happening. Are you sure it’s safe for you to be out in the open?”

  “No, and if you’re afraid to be with me, I don’t blame you.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind that part of it. I just keep wondering if you wouldn’t be happier working for Kevin Malloy again.”

  “Probably safer, definitely not happier — no reflection on Kevin.”

  We said good-bye and hung up. I closed out the computer files and turned in what I had written. I called in the deli order, then took off for Frank’s house.

  In June, almost every day’s weather forecast is the same: “Late-night and early-morning low clouds, burning off to hazy sunshine in the afternoon.” The hazy-sunshine part was in progress when I drove out of the parking lot. When I reached the corner of Shoreline and Hermosa, I stopped off at the Galley and picked up the sandwiches I had ordered — a couple of pastramis with hot mustard.

  I rode the long str
etch past the marina and the mansions on the bluff, finally turning down one of the small avenues that led to the beach. I made a few more turns and looked for a parking place.

  School wasn’t out for the summer yet, so street parking was not too bad, but I took advantage of the fact that Frank had the ultimate beach-house luxury: a driveway and garage. I got out of the car and stood there for a moment, feeling the contrast of sun and ocean breeze on my face. Seeing the house by daylight for the first time, I noticed it was neatly painted and the small front yard was well cared for. Frank was no slouch.

  I entered the fenced yard from a side gate and made my way to the front door. I was surprised when Frank answered the door himself.

  “Where’s your baby-sitter?” I asked.

  “The department can’t keep somebody on a duty like that forever. I don’t think I was the target anyway. You’re the one we need to keep an eye on. Come on in.”

  He was moving a little slowly as he led me toward the back of the house, but his steps weren’t those of someone feeling weak or pain-ridden.

  “You’re really making progress,” I said.

  “Getting damned impatient with it all.”

  “Hey, a few days ago you scared the hell out of me. You could use a little boredom.”

  “Life has been anything but dull around you, Irene.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  He took me out the back door onto a wooden deck. The yard was very private, another rarity in houses near the beach. Latticework over the deck was covered with honeysuckle vines. Beyond the deck was a winding brick pathway cheerfully bordered by poppies and other colorful flowers. In one corner, another deck began, shielded from view between the garage and back fence, where a willow grew. Tall plants of various kinds grew along the side fences. It was a green and peaceful place. Somehow I had not pictured Frank having this kind of yard.