by Jan Burke
“Yes. And I don’t know for certain about the shooting, or even if that was the cause of death, but they do have wounds on their heads that look like bullet entry and exit wounds.”
He sighed. “Are we bargaining here, Ms. Kelly?”
“Irene. And let’s not make it any more sordid than it already is — Phil.”
That won a laugh from him. I saw Matt Arden look over at us in surprise.
“Look,” I said. “I’ll make double prints and give you a copy if you promise not to pass them around to other members of the media. But please don’t make me stand a thousand miles away from whatever is said and done here.”
“All right,” he said, “but you won’t be in the middle of things, either. You don’t try to eavesdrop when I talk to my partner, and you don’t touch anything — have you been touching the car?”
“No. The only ones who have touched it are a few of the guys on the crew, and most of them were wearing work gloves. I can point out the ones who did make contact with the car, if you’d like.”
“Thanks.”
He spent time talking to the people I indicated, leaving me to watch — with a uniformed officer at my side — from nearby, but not close enough to overhear his questions or the crew’s answers.
A crime lab technician arrived, and a few minutes later, the coroner’s wagon pulled up. The police had some photos of their own taken. I began to wonder if mine would be of any value to Lefebvre after all.
After the technician was finished with his initial work on the trunk, there was the tricky job of removing the bodies. I heard Lefebvre speak sharply to one of the coroner’s assistants. I caught one word of what he said: “Three.”
Three bodies? I was fairly sure I had only seen two, but I hadn’t really been able to study the contents of the trunk in the way the police investigators did.
The assistant brought out a small body bag. A child’s bones?
Other media started arriving just as the car itself was placed on a flatbed tow truck. Eventually, a lieutenant from the Las Piernas Police Department arrived, and after conferring with Arden and Lefebvre, made a brief statement to the press — remains thought to be human had been found, an investigation into the matter was now under way, but no further comments would be made until the coroner’s office had been given a chance to study the remains. Lots of questions were shouted at him, but he didn’t answer any of them.
I glanced at my watch. I had a deadline to make and lots of questions to ask, too, but now that the lieutenant was on the scene, Lefebvre might not be able to answer any of them. I wondered if any ID had been found on the bodies. If not, I wanted to get back to the morgue at the newspaper — where articles and photographs and past issues of the paper were kept on file — to see if I could find out who disappeared during the years when that Buick was new.
I found myself thinking about O’Connor. Every year, he wrote about missing persons. He had been writing these stories since 1956. A Jane Doe had been found beneath the Las Piernas fishing pier the year before — and never identified. Someone had nicknamed that woman “Hannah.” O’Connor covered the story of the discovery of her body in 1955, then on the anniversary of the day they found her, wrote the first of his “Who is Hannah?” articles. They were some of the most powerful stories I had ever read.
They weren’t just about her, but about all the John and Jane Does — and about the other side of the equation, missing persons cases. Now, more than twenty years later, Hannah’s case was still unsolved, but O’Connor had helped police to close a number of other cases through that column. If anyone in Las Piernas knew who was still missing, it was O’Connor.
Wrigley would probably give this story to him.
I told myself it could go to worse hands than O’Connor’s. If he got it instead of Wildman or Pierce, at least it would be given the care it deserved.
I still didn’t like the idea of losing it to anyone, though.
Maybe if I showed O’Connor a little respect, we could start over. I had nothing to gain from being at odds with him, and a lot to lose. For one thing, the paper wouldn’t keep me on if I continued to make life miserable for one of its stars.
I looked at my watch again and sighed. A badly thrown bowl of strawberries had probably screwed up my chances of seeing this story through.
27
O’CONNOR GLANCED AT HIS WATCH. SHE HAD ALREADY BEEN AT THE scene on her own for several hours now. Would he be able to convince Wrigley before deadline brought her back here?
Wrigley tapped a pencil against his desk as he looked at the cardboard box O’Connor had set on it. Written in felt pen, in a hand few others could decipher, was a single word, a name: Jack.
Wrigley had thought it said “jerk.”
O’Connor was watching the pencil, not the box. He had learned, over the years, that he could anticipate the outcome of any meeting with the publisher of the Express by gauging the speed of this tapping. Slow tapping, he was inclined to favor your proposal. Rapid tapping, you were doomed.
This was somewhere in between. Outcome uncertain.
“Tell me, Conn — do you happen to remember shouting — shouting, mind you — at me a few weeks ago?”
“Well—”
“Loud enough for the entire newsroom to hear you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, is it? I believe I was Win not five minutes ago.”
O’Connor said nothing.
“What were you shouting at me about?”
“You wanted to give Ms. Kelly a skirt on that school chemicals story.”
“A generous mention, noting her contribution, at the end of a story you had reworked and greatly expanded. That seemed wrong to you.”
“She deserved a byline. Her enterprise brought the paper’s attention to the matter. That’s all I was saying.”
“Oh no, that wasn’t all. I remember it almost word for word, Conn, because I may catch an earful from Wildman once in a while, but you don’t tend to be a shouter. That impressed me. Made me see the error of my ways. You told me it was clear that H.G. and John and I were ‘wasting her talents’ — wasn’t that it?”
With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, O’Connor nodded.
“Yes. And you said she could handle tougher assignments than the ones we were giving her, and let me see, now… what was it?” He faked concentration, then opened his eyes wide. “Oh yes! How could I have forgotten?”
“How indeed,” O’Connor murmured.
“Yes, this was one of my favorites — you said that ‘the next time Kelly stumbles onto something big’ — that was a little insulting to her, wasn’t it, Conn? Stumbled? But you said that if she stumbled onto something big, we ought to let her run with it. Well, Conn, she has stumbled onto something huge.”
O’Connor leaned over and picked up the box.
“Put it down,” Wrigley said. When O’Connor hesitated, he said in a gentler tone, “If you don’t mind listening to me for a few more moments, put it down, please.”
O’Connor set it back on Wrigley’s desk.
“Despite all that lecturing, you want me to give you the story she’s working on now. Is that it, Conn?”
“You know how hard I’ve tried to find out what happened that night. How hard, all those years ago, I looked for some sign of that car. Prayed I’d find it. Two decades, Win.”
“Yes, I do. And if I doubted there was a God, this alone would restore my faith, Conn. Because not only has it been found but the green reporter I’ve kept hoping you’d take under your wing was right there when it was discovered.”
“Proof of the devil, more like.” He frowned. “I think I’ve just heard an echo, though. Have you been talking to Helen Swan?”
“So what if I have? She’s an old and dear friend of mine.”
“Look, it’s my own fault, I admit it, but — Kelly won’t have a thing to do with me.”
“I wonder if that’s true.”
“It’s true. She can’t stand me, and lately…
”
“You can’t stand yourself.”
O’Connor looked away.
“I’ll give you a choice,” Wrigley said after a moment. “You go out to the site and ask for her permission to involve you in this one — or wait until she comes back and let me ask for you.”
“Win—”
“Take it or leave it, Conn.”
O’Connor stood. “I’ll be on my way to talk to her, then.”
Wrigley smiled. “Don’t forget your box.”
“I haven’t, Win. Not for a long time.”
She was talking to Lefebvre.
That alone was nearly enough to send him back to the car. It had taken him months to establish rapport with Lefebvre, who was an ace detective, but known as a loner in the department and not overly fond of the media. And Lefebvre was smiling at her. Jesus. She didn’t need his help.
Here he was, overly warm in his suit, his shoes and trousers covered with dirt from hiking in the long way, holding a cardboard box under one arm — looking like a peddler, and for what? To tell her that Jack had seen the car buried? Might as well leave her a note.
He was about to turn back when she saw him. Lefebvre saw him, too. Lefebvre’s smile quickly went to a frown.
He watched her face, could swear that for just a moment she looked dismayed — maybe even hurt? No, that couldn’t be. And then she was smiling and beckoning to him.
A brave sort of smile. Lefebvre, far from a fool, was looking between them now.
O’Connor thought about the box, about Jack, and put on one of his own brave smiles as he trudged forward in the soft dusty earth to where they stood.
“Phil,” Irene said, “you must already know the best reporter on the Express. O’Connor will be taking over from here. Thanks for everything.”
“Wait!” O’Connor and Lefebvre protested in unison. (Had she, some part of O’Connor’s mind wondered, really called Lefebvre Phil?)
“I’m not taking over a thing,” O’Connor said. “It’s your story. I’m just here to ask if I might be of help.”
Lefebvre was looking at the box. “Why are you carrying a box with the word ‘jerk’ written on it?”
“It doesn’t say ‘jerk,’” Irene said. “It says ‘Jack,’ right?”
“Yes, but I think you’re the first person to read it correctly.”
“All right,” Lefebvre said, “why are you carrying a box with the name ‘Jack’ written on it?”
“Because, Detective Lefebvre, on behalf of a fellow named Jack, I’ve been looking for that buried car for twenty years.”
28
BRIAN O’MALLEY LET US BORROW HIS OFFICE. THE CONSTRUCTION TRAILER was roomy, but the tension between O’Connor and Lefebvre seemed to shrink it.
O’Connor set his dusty cardboard box down next to me, but instead of sitting, he leaned against the dark paneling on one of the office walls. I was itching to open up the box and have a look through its contents.
Lefebvre relaxed a little when we agreed that anything he told us about the scene — anything I hadn’t seen myself — would, for the time being, be off the record.
“What did you see?” O’Connor asked me.
I described the remains. O’Connor’s face lost all color about halfway through my account. When I said the couple appeared to be in evening clothes of some sort, his attention suddenly sharpened. When I added that I thought I had seen a few diamonds on the floor of the trunk, he suddenly sat down on the other side of the box and buried his face in his hands.
I stopped talking and looked at Phil Lefebvre.
Lefebvre looked at me, then back to O’Connor.
“You know who they are,” Lefebvre said.
O’Connor nodded. Without raising his head, he said in a strained voice, “Lillian Vanderveer Linworth’s daughter, Katy. Katy Ducane and her husband, Todd. My God…”
“They drowned twenty years ago,” I said, baffled. “That’s what Kyle said, anyway.”
“Kyle?” Lefebvre asked.
“Kyle Yeager. He’s called Max Ducane now,” I said quickly, seeing O’Connor look up and afraid that we were going to end up arguing about Kyle.
“Ah, yes,” Lefebvre said. “The new multimillionaire. I’ve read the stories in the Express about the… missing heir. As I recall, the bodies of the Ducanes — the younger Ducanes — were never found, right?”
“Not until now,” O’Connor said, his voice still unsteady.
“You’re so sure?”
So O’Connor told us the story of the night Corrigan saw the car buried, of going through the murder scene at the Ducanes’ mansion with Detective Norton, and learning that Lillian had given Katy the Vanderveer diamonds that night. Of finding a body in a swamp, and another in the mountains. “Eventually Dan Norton admitted that even if the Ducanes drowned by accident — which I never believed — Jack’s beating was connected to the disappearance of the child and the murder of the maid.”
“You were bothered by something other than the timing?” Lefebvre asked.
“Yes, because we were able to connect Bo Jergenson, the giant, with Gus Ronden, whose body we found in the mountains. And when Norton and his men looked through Ronden’s house here in Las Piernas, they found blood on clothes in his laundry hamper that matched the blood type of Rose Hannon, the murdered maid. And he found the knife Ronden presumably used.”
“But since Ronden also ended up murdered,” Lefebvre said, “Norton wasn’t able to track down others who might have been involved?”
“We had some theories, we both followed every lead we could — to nothing but a dead end.”
“Norton is retired now,” Lefebvre said, “but I’ll get in touch with him about this.” He hesitated, then added, “I truly appreciate the help you’ve given us today. The remains may or may not be those of the Ducanes, but at least we will have a starting place to try a comparison of dental records and so on. That alone may save us a great many hours.”
I wondered if O’Connor was going to pressure him for a return favor, but O’Connor waited in silence, and I followed his lead.
Lefebvre smiled, almost in appreciation, I thought. Then he said, “I can tell you something more, but I must stress that it is not yet for publication — I would caution you against mentioning it to anyone, especially Mrs. Linworth.”
He waited until we both nodded our agreement.
“There were small bone fragments wrapped in a blanket, crushed, it seemed, beneath the weight of the remains of the adults.”
“The baby?” O’Connor said. If I had expected him to feel some triumph because he had doubted that Kyle was Max Ducane, I was wrong. He seemed more upset than before.
Lefebvre held up his hands, palms out, in a halting motion. “Do not, I beg of you, jump to conclusions. The coroner’s office will be able to tell us more. I’m giving you this information as a favor — only so that you can, let’s say, be ready for any announcement that may come from Dr. Woolsey.”
“Will he be able to tell who the baby’s bones belong to?” I asked. “I mean, there won’t be any dental records, right?”
“No, but if the adults are the Ducanes, it is unlikely that any other infant would have been with them.”
O’Connor never opened the cardboard box while we spoke with Lefebvre, and I began to feel as curious about it as Pandora once felt about another. Before I could mention it, O’Connor said something about deadlines, and we thanked Lefebvre, then O’Malley and his crew, and left.
We walked to my car, so that I could drive O’Connor over to the distant place where he had parked his. He explained to me that he had been avoiding the television vans.
The Karmann Ghia’s passenger seat barely provided room for a man his size, and he further crowded himself by holding the box on his lap. He was holding on to it in a way that made me decide not to offer to put it in the trunk.
“I didn’t know Jack lost his eye because of a beating,” I said with a shiver.
“No?”
&nb
sp; “No. I never asked him about it myself, because I noticed that when other people did, he came up with some outlandish tale about it. Never the same tale twice.”
O’Connor smiled and smoothed his fingers over the box.
I started the car. I had forgotten that I had left the radio on — “Miss You” blasted at us for a moment. I turned it off and apologized.
“I like music,” he said. “Including the Stones.”
Right, I thought, trying to imagine anyone over forty listening to the Rolling Stones. I left the radio off.
He asked me if I would be willing to stop by the coroner’s office to try to learn when they’d be scheduling the autopsies.
“You want me to take you there now?” I asked.
“No — what I meant was, would you go there alone? Before you head back to the paper? I’d go myself, but I think you’ll have a better chance of getting information out of Woolsey.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“Because he dislikes me.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, then said, “Maybe it’s the Hannah articles. I’m told he thinks they make his office look bad.”
“Because he fails to come up with an identification once in a while?”
“More than once in a while. He’s especially bothered that I bring up the case of Hannah herself — sees me as the one who brings up an old failure year after year.”
“I love those articles. They’re important — and, I don’t know, something in the way you write them really makes the reader feel for the families.”
He seemed a little uncomfortable with the praise, but he said, “Thanks.”
I handed him the roll of film I had shot. “The first few are of the ceremony, and then there are some of the crew. I know the paper won’t publish the most graphic ones of the car, but I’d like to see prints anyway. They might help me… or someone else… with writing the story.”
“I’ll ask them to get to work on these first thing. With luck, they’ll be printed by the time you get back to the paper, or not long after.”
I began to wonder if he was sending me on an errand to the coroner’s office as a way of helping me save face, so that I wouldn’t have to sit in the newsroom while he wrote the story. I had never written about a murder case, old or new.