Remember Me, Irene

by Jan Burke

As I opened the door and fumbled for a light switch, the air was suddenly pierced with an obnoxious whooping noise, quickly followed by horns and bells.

  “You set off the alarm,” she said dully, and pushed past me to enter a code on a keypad. Blessed silence returned.

  She turned on the kitchen lights and went to a wall phone, pushed an auto-dial button, and said, “This is Mrs. Watterson, that was a false alarm.” She gave them a code word, then hung up.

  “Do you need to use the phone?” she asked, as if she hadn’t just missed a perfect opportunity to contact the police.

  “Yes,” I said, and dialed Robbery-Homicide.

  “FRANK’S NOT HERE,” Detective Jake Matsuda said when I identified myself. “He got called out on a case.”

  “This is about something else, Jake.” Aware that Claire was listening to every word I said, I tried to give him as much information as I could without being cruel to her. He told me he would send someone right out.

  “You want me to page Frank?” he asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Could you let him know that it may be a while before I’m home?”

  As I hung up, I noticed that Claire had started shaking. Her face was colorless.

  “Sit down,” I said, afraid that she might faint. She took a seat at the kitchen table, and Finn immediately sprawled out at her feet, head between his paws. “Can I get you something?” I asked her.

  She looked out toward the backyard. “It might not be Ben,” she said.

  “How about a glass of water?” I went to get it without waiting for an answer.

  I’ll confess that I thought about calling the paper—a reporter’s impulse when the town’s leading banker kills himself. Already, I was wondering what had led Ben to pull the trigger. But looking at Claire as she took the glass of water, I couldn’t bring myself to make the call.

  “Why?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I heard what you told the police. Why would Ben want to kill himself?”

  “I don’t know, Claire. I was just wondering about that myself.”

  “Everyone will wonder, won’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  Once again, she stared toward the backyard. She reached for the glass of water but knocked it over, breaking the glass. “Now look what I’ve done,” she said, and started crying.

  I FELT A LITTLE UNEASY with the detectives who had drawn this case. I didn’t have any problem with David Cardenas. But Frank had once knocked Cardenas’s partner, Bob Thompson, flat on his rump. Why? For making a remark about me. Not the kind of thing that will make a guy sign your dance card at the Policemen’s Ball.

  Things seemed to be going okay at first. Cardenas took my statement while Thompson talked to Claire in the living room. I told Cardenas about the dog, and he had me show him the car window, and from there, to retrace most of my steps as I told him what had happened. He didn’t force me to go inside the cabana again; a photographer and other technicians were at work in there. When they first arrived, Claire had been forced to calm Finn, who grew upset as other strangers came near the cabana. A uniformed officer was petting and cooing to him now, as a technician took a sample of hair from the dog’s paw.

  “The dog stayed outside, with Mrs. Watterson, when you went in to look?” Cardenas asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “About where was she standing then?”

  I showed him. “About here.”

  “Was there a reason you asked her to wait?”

  I shrugged.

  He waited.

  “I’m not sure I thought about it at the time. There was blood, the lights were out everywhere else, and Ben hadn’t come to the hotel to pick her up, as planned. He hadn’t answered the phone when she called. Given all of that, by the time we were standing here, I had a bad feeling about what might be in the cabana.”

  “Did you open the door to the cabana, Mrs. Harriman?”

  “No, it was already open.”

  “There are two doors. Were they both open?”

  “No, just one. The one on the right.”

  “As we face the cabana, the one on our right?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the way open?”

  “No, but nearly wide open.”

  “Did you reach out as you approached it?”

  “No.”

  “Touch the doorknob?”

  “No …”

  The questions went on. Cardenas was good at his job. He helped me to concentrate on remembering a sequence of events and details that my mind was already trying to lock away from me. As we finished at the cabana, he paused to ask the technicians to check out the blood on the car window, then continued to go over the details of our entry into the house.

  He thanked me for my help, asked me to wait in the kitchen, went into the living room for a few minutes. When he came back he said, “I think Mrs. Watterson would like to talk to you for a moment.”

  I nodded and went into the living room.

  Somewhere along the line, Claire must have gathered her wits; she told me that she had called her sister, Alana, and told Thompson that she’d wait until Alana arrived before she’d answer any other questions. Then she explained that Alana was an attorney. Thompson apparently took that in stride.

  Claire asked me to wait with her until her sister arrived. I sat next to her on the couch. It seemed to me that she was more herself; perhaps not completely cool and self-possessed, but getting there. Her face was swollen from crying, her eyes red and puffy, but there was defiance there. It occurred to me that somehow, Thompson had made her angry.

  He was sitting in a chair, swinging his foot back and forth, watching her.

  “Why couldn’t they send your husband?” she asked me.

  “He isn’t allowed to work any case that his friends or relatives are involved in,” I said. “But even if I hadn’t been here, Detectives Thompson and Cardenas would have been the next ones called. Frank was already on another case.”

  “Mrs. Watterson,” Thompson said, “you do understand that this woman is a newspaper reporter?”

  Claire lifted a brow. “Why, Detective Thompson! I had forgotten all about that.”

  She reached over to the end table nearest her side of the couch and picked up the phone, then handed the receiver to me. “You probably need to call the paper about what has happened here,” she said. “What’s the number of the newsroom at the Express?”

  For a moment, I was too stunned to give it to her.

  “Go ahead,” she said, then added quietly, “It’s not as if this is something I can hide from the world.”

  I gave her the number, and she repeated it as she punched each digit. She gave Thompson a look that said What are you going to do about it?

  He just kept swinging his foot, but his neck turned red.

  ALANA ARRIVED JUST BEFORE the police showed Claire the note. Alana was slightly taller than Claire, but it was clear that they were sisters.

  The note had been found on a desk in the study, beneath a small desk lamp. Apparently, when we arrived, that was the only lamp that was on inside the house. We hadn’t seen the light from outside—the drapes in the study were closed.

  Cardenas showed the note to Claire. She had to read it through a plastic cover. It said:

  Claire—

  Forgive me for not telling you. There is no cure. This has nothing to do with you, my love. I simply choose to avoid days of pain.

  Ben

  Claire broke down when she read it. “I thought he might be ill,” she said, “but not so ill that he… why didn’t he tell me?” Her sister embraced her and asked the detectives if they could have a moment alone.

  I reached for my purse, thinking that I should probably leave, too. It was at about that time that I looked up to see Frank walking into the room. It was an awkward moment to give an introduction, but he managed without me. He nodded to Thompson and Cardenas, then walked toward us. He’s tall, but he lowered his big frame so that he was eye level with
us. He took my hand, gave it a quick squeeze, then said to Claire, “Mrs. Watterson? I’m Frank Harriman. I’m Irene’s husband. I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

  The words themselves weren’t extraordinary, but something in his manner or his tone must have soothed her. She stopped sobbing. Tears still ran down her face, but she quieted.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Irene has been very good to me tonight, but I think she should probably go home now. It’s been—it’s been a long night. Alana will stay with me.” She looked at me and said, “I won’t ever forget all you’ve done for me, Irene.”

  I wished her good night, and we left.

  “You okay to drive home?” Frank asked when we reached the driveway.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll see you there, then.” He gave me a hug. He looked tired.

  I had a bad moment when I first got into my car and saw the blood on my car window. I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the headlights of Frank’s car, and calmed myself. I don’t always appreciate his protectiveness, but there are times when it feels good to have him watching over me. This was one of those times.

  When we were on the road near the golf course, I saw Mark Baker, a friend and fellow reporter, drive past me going the other way. He gave me a puzzled look and honked, but I kept on going. I spent most of the trip home praying that Claire would be all right, and that she would forget every smart-alecky remark I had made about Frank’s job.

  5

  JOHN WALTERS, my news editor, called a meeting at the Express the next morning. The paper had already gone to bed when I had discovered Ben Watterson’s body the night before, but it was looking like tomorrow’s paper was in danger of becoming the Ben Watterson Memorial Edition.

  John had gathered any of us who had interviewed or covered Ben Watterson in the past. Nobody had anything scandalous to say about him; he was credited with being a major force in Las Piernas’s growth and development. He had known some opposition from antigrowth groups, but even among his opponents he was highly respected. To others, he was all but a god. The Bank of Las Piernas had financed many local businesses.

  Lydia Ames, who works on the city desk, was at the meeting. She had been dating Guy St. Germain, one of the bank’s vice presidents, for eight or nine months. Because she socialized with people in the bank’s higher echelons, she had been able to talk to a number of people that might have remained closemouthed otherwise. John asked her to give us an update.

  “Several of the executives say that during the past week Watterson seemed agitated. Some of them are pretty upset. They feel they should have seen this coming.”

  “Why?” John asked. “Did Watterson drop hints, talk to any of them about killing himself?”

  “No, but his activities in recent days fit those of someone who was suicidal. Watterson was settling unfinished business, tying up loose ends in his personal estate, destroying sensitive office files, talking to board members about naming his successor.”

  “He tell anyone he was sick?” John asked.

  “No. He told several board members that he had decided to retire,” Lydia said. “But now, in hindsight, they see some of the things he said and did as warning signs they didn’t heed. He gave away personal items. He gave one man some archival photographs, saying BLP might want to use some of them in a history one day. The guy now feels as if Watterson was saying good-bye.”

  John turned to me. “You were with the widow—right, Kelly?”

  “Yes.”

  “At some kind of party?”

  “A fund-raiser for the battered women’s shelter.”

  He paused for a moment. “So the widow is out on the town while her husband is committing suicide?”

  “You’re off base, John. I was there. She took it very hard. Last night, on the ride home, she was worried about him, wondered why he suddenly wanted to retire, said she had noticed that he seemed unhappy. But she didn’t even hint at being concerned that he might be suicidal.”

  John was thoughtful for a moment, then started barking out orders. “Got lots of angles to cover. Business section will be looking at the financial picture, including real estate.” He listed reporters’ names, assigning an aspect of the story to each. “Baker,” he concluded, calling on our crime reporter, “try to get more out of the grieving widow.”

  John’s bad moods are so perpetual that we usually find ourselves afraid of him when he’s cheerful. We’ve all suffered his temper, so his moods allow the often competitive reporters of the newsroom to band together in defense. But today no one complained about him. The suicide of Ben Watterson was one of those stories that made everyone want to do a little more digging. We all knew there was more to the story.

  No one had any real reason to believe that, but no one had any doubt about it, either.

  WHEN I GOT BACK TO MY DESK, a light was blinking on my new phone. The Express had just invested in a voice-mail system, and the light meant that I had a message. I entered the required codes and eventually got to my section of this glorified answering machine. “You have one new message,” the overly pleasant voice of the system said. “Sent today at 9:37 A.M.” What followed was a series of telephone tones, as if someone were dialing in my ear. I didn’t mind—they played “Goodnight, Irene,” a signal from one of my city hall contacts.

  I called Nina Howell, a secretary who works in the Zoning Department. She calls me whenever she has one of those days when she feels like she’s working for a crook. This means she calls me on a fairly regular basis.

  “Zoning Department,” she answered. “This is Ms. Howell. May I help you?”

  “I sure hope so. You called?”

  “Yes. Moffett is leaving. He resigned this morning.”

  “Allan Moffett, the city manager?” There weren’t any other Allan Moffetts running around city hall, but the idea that the most powerful employee in the city government was resigning wasn’t easy to grasp.

  “Yes. Word is, he’s running scared.” There was noise in the background, and she hesitated for a few moments before saying, “Yes, that’s right. This is the Zoning Department, and I’m afraid there’s no one here by that name.”

  “I take it this means your boss is back in the room?”

  “Yes, well,” she went on, “if you spell the name for me, perhaps I can look it up in your directory.”

  “Okay. I’ve just spelled the name of someone who might be able to help me out. You’re stalling?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Can we meet for lunch?” I asked.

  “I don’t seem to be finding that one here, but perhaps you should try our main switchboard. Would you like for me to transfer you to the operator?”

  “Whatever you need to do.”

  “Please hold the line,” she said.

  No choice but to wait and see what happened. There was a click, and then a new voice came on the line.

  “Charlotte Brady,” a strained voice answered.

  Allan Moffett’s secretary. Trying not to sound too surprised, I said, “Hello, Charlotte. It’s Irene Kelly.”

  “Irene Kelly?”

  I waited for her to snub me or to harangue me about calling her on what she probably thought of as one of the saddest days in Las Piernas history. Charlotte Brady was fiercely protective of her boss. Nineteen years as Moffett’s secretary had ingrained certain ideas about me into Charlotte’s loyal mind, most of which identified me under one heading: The Enemy.

  “Irene Kelly… ,” she said slowly, as if weighing my name on a scale.

  “Uh, Charlotte, are you all right?”

  “Am I all right?” she shouted. “Hell, no. What would make you think I would be all right?”

  I was stunned into silence. Charlotte is usually so calm and controlled, you could say “Charlotte, your clothing is on fire,” and even as she did a drop and roll, she’d smile and reply that she couldn’t confirm or deny anything without Mr. Moffett’s say-so.

  “Do you know w
hat that son of a bitch said to me this morning?”

  “No,” I said, not even sure she meant Moffett.

  “He said, ‘Charlotte, you’ve been wonderful. Thanks for all you’ve done. I talked to Glen, and you can keep that desk set if you like.’”

  “Mr. Moffett asked the mayor if you could keep the desk set?”

  “Yes! I sat here for about thirty minutes, just… just in shock I suppose. But I got over that stage about an hour ago. Guess which stage I’m at now?”

  “Well—”

  “Anger. That’s where I’m at now. I’m the angriest I’ve ever been in my life. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I imagine I would.”

  “Nineteen years of loyalty. Not one day out sick. Nineteen years of organizing that man’s life, putting up with his moods, serving him his morning coffee in a white china cup, addressing his Christmas cards for Godsakes! A desk set! Nineteen years, and his big damned favor to me is a desk set!” She drew in a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh, then laughed. “Well, Irene Kelly, after practically hanging up in your ear several times a month for the last ten years, let me ask—very sincerely—what can I do for you, my dear?”

  “Perhaps you could tell me why he left?”

  “Oh, he claims it’s because of his health.”

  Those words made me think of Ben Watterson, and I felt a chill. “His health?”

  “Oh, it’s not true. Not unless ‘skeletons in the closet’ can be called a bone disease.”

  “What skeletons?”

  “I’ll be honest. If I knew all the details, I’d be down there dictating them to you. All I know is that all hell broke loose after that man came in to see him.”

  “Wait—what man?”

  “I don’t know, but someone ought to give the guy a medal. I should have seen this coming when I saw how Allan treated his ex-wife.”

  “Allan’s ex-wife has something to do with the man who came in to see him?”

  “No, no, sorry. I meant, I should have seen how rotten Allan could be to women. But no, this man came in here yesterday, and I almost called security. He wouldn’t give his name, and he acted nervous.”

  “Can you describe him to me?”