by Jan Burke
Max moved a little closer to me, not quite touching me. That inch or so of distance might as well have been the edge of the cliff — tempting and dizzying, but a wise woman would watch her step. I was trying to decide if I would be wise when a deep voice behind us said, “Who have we here?”
He startled the hell out of both of us, and we turned to see a big man who looked enough like the man I had seen at the coroner’s office to allow me to guess who he was. Eric Yeager had no white streak in his hair, and wider shoulders than his younger brother.
“Kyle — no, Max,” he said, stepping closer to Max, even as I stepped away from both of them. “Oh no, wait — we can’t call you that, because Max Ducane is dead.” He grabbed Max’s shirtfront and said, “I know, I’ll just call you cocksucker, since that’s what you are.” He leaned forward, so that Max was bent backward over the rail. I saw Max’s feet leave the ground.
“Let go of me, Eric.”
“ ‘Let go of me, Eric,’” he mimicked. “If I do that, cocksucker, you’ll fall and die. Not a bad idea.”
“That would be a stupid fucking thing to do in front of a newspaper reporter,” I said.
He turned to look at me and narrowed his brows, as if he had just noticed that I was there.
“You’ve got a filthy mouth, bitch,” he said.
“Like you’re Emily Post come to teach me manners.”
“Irene—” Max said. “Don’t.”
Eric continued to stare at me. Almost absently, he pulled Max back onto his feet. He let go of him and took a step toward me. “Maybe I will teach you some manners.”
I took a step back without thinking, then stood my ground. I let the shoulder bag slip off, but kept hold of the straps in my hand. I moved it a little, trying to get a feel for the best use of its weight.
He saw the step back and laughed. “Talk big, but you’re scared, aren’t you?”
“Of your breath,” I said. “You have a different kind of filthy mouth.”
He lunged. I swung the bag up toward his balls as hard as I could.
The bag hit Eric full in the face instead of his family jewels, making a satisfying cracking sound on his nose. I didn’t miss the more vulnerable target because I had aimed badly, but because Eric had already been on his way down to the asphalt. He hit it much harder than I had hit him.
I never saw exactly what it was Max had done to him, but he had moved like lightning.
Eric, in contrast, didn’t move at all.
“I’m almost sorry we aren’t on a date,” I said shakily. “Dragon slayers are so damned rare these days.”
“Come on,” Max said, putting an arm around my shoulders and hurrying me away. “We’d better get out of here.”
“Where did you learn to do that karate or whatever it was?”
“Military boarding schools, remember?”
I glanced back at Eric and saw that he was getting to his feet. I started running toward the car. Max ran, too.
We backed out just as Eric came at us from between parked cars. His face was bleeding down the front of his shirt. For a moment, I thought he was going to step in front of the Beemer, but Max hit the accelerator and Eric had at least enough sense left in him to stay back. We burned rubber out of the parking lot and drove lickety-split down a series of side streets, squealing around turns, braking hard, and narrowly missing objects mobile and immobile.
I don’t know if seconds or minutes passed that way. I do remember thinking that my father might outlive me after all, and worrying about who would take care of him. The things you think of when you are full of adrenaline.
Almost as suddenly as our wild ride began, it ended. Max pulled over to the curb of a suburban street and parked in the shade of a big oak tree. We sat there, listening to the little clicks and small noises of a cooling engine. He rolled the windows down. Birds chirped up in the tree, a soft breeze blew, and I could hear the stutter of a pulsating lawn sprinkler two houses away.
We were both shaking.
“I’ve probably made you late to work,” he said, “so I’ll take the book back to the library for you.”
Don’t ask me why, but this struck me as one of the funniest things anyone had said in the twentieth century. I started laughing, and so did he.
When we paused for breath, he added, “You’ll have to tell me how to get out of here. I’m lost.”
That set off another round of laughter.
I looked at him, and what I wanted to do, in all honesty, was kiss the hell out of him. I would swear that he was looking at me in exactly the same way. But neither of us leaned closer, and the moment passed, and we both looked out the front windshield as if the scenery before us would change somehow, must have changed with whatever else had just changed.
“If you go straight ahead to that intersection,” I said, “I can read the street sign and probably guide us from there.”
“Okay,” he said, and started the car.
I figured out where we were and gave him directions until we reached streets he knew. He talked about how someday his GPS devices would be in cars and guide people to their destinations, even if they were in totally unfamiliar places.
It sounded a little far-fetched to me, but that wasn’t what really bothered me about it. “Getting lost isn’t always so bad, is it?” I asked. “I mean, if you only go where you intend to go, and travel only on the recommended roads, you only see what everybody else sees all the time. You miss the out-of-the-way places.”
He smiled and said, “Those who want to be adventurous can simply turn the GPS off.”
“Or disobey it.”
He laughed and said, “You don’t need a dragon slayer, you’ll take care of them on your own.” He glanced over at me, then back at the road. “Hurry and finish that story, Irene Kelly.”
34
I WAS SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT O’CONNOR HADN’T COME BACK IN YET, and wondered what he might be up to. I had plenty to work on, though. I started writing the story of how Max Ducane was reacting to the news that he could not possibly be the lost heir, and telling, for the first time anywhere, why he had accepted Warren Ducane’s offer. O’Connor hadn’t been able to get that story out of Max.
With some reluctance, I called Lillian Linworth. I wanted to reach her before Max came home. She was understandably still upset about yesterday’s discoveries, but said that she was not about to ask Max to stop using her grandson’s name. “Max is a good man, and his support and presence here have been a great comfort. You saw him today, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I interviewed him at lunch.”
“Oh.” She sounded a little disappointed.
“He tells me that you want him to live in your daughter’s house.”
“If he wants to, yes.”
“Any chance I could look through it before the change in ownership?”
There was a long silence, then she said, “If Max goes with you, I don’t see a problem.”
“Do you know about the reward?”
“Reward?”
“He’s offering a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers of … well, Max Ducane. And Kathleen and Todd.”
“Is he?” she said, clearly surprised. “What a wonderful idea. Please print that I will match that amount.”
I called Lefebvre to get his reaction. “Isn’t that great?” I asked him. “That’s more money than most people make in a year.”
“It may help,” he said.
“You sound tired.”
“Didn’t get much sleep. You know, the first twenty-four years in a homicide investigation are the ones that matter most.”
“Years? I thought it was hours.”
“I have never,” he said sadly, “been good at making jokes.”
“No, I’m just not up to your speed.”
I guess I had made a joke, because that made him laugh.
“So, Phil, will it help?”
“It might. It might also keep
us busy chasing false leads. But on a case this old, it will probably be a good thing.”
“Any hope of getting fingerprints from the car?”
“Certainly. You and that construction crew put your paws all over it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Tough call. I think we’ll have better luck with hair and fibers.”
“Bloodstains?”
“Yes.”
“You are intentionally being irritating.”
“Picked up on that, did you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Irene, I am irritated by this case. But perhaps offering this big reward will bring us an honest eyewitness, and not just a lot of greedy so-and-sos. What do you think my chances are?”
“Get some sleep. I’ll let you know if I find anything at the Ducane mansion.”
“What?”
I hung up.
My phone rang less than ten seconds later.
“That was rude,” he said.
“Are you apologizing?”
“I meant,” he said, laughing, “that you were rude.”
I owned up to it. “I thought we were going to have a spirit of openness here, that’s all.”
“I can’t tell you everything. You know that.”
“Likewise. But I will tell you that it’s apparently sort of a Miss Haversham scene over at the former Ducane household.”
“What a relief.”
“That Lillian preserved it the way it was on the fatal night?”
“No, that Great Expectations is still being taught in school.”
“I didn’t like it much, to be honest.”
“No surprise. So, is there a cobwebbed wedding cake up in a dark and dusty chamber here in Las Piernas?”
“I’ll let you know when I get back. If Max will let me tour it with him.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind a third person to make it a crowd?”
“Because you’ve been doing me so many favors lately?”
“Are you waiting for me to say ‘please’?”
“No, I wouldn’t want you to die from the strain. Besides, you’ll get a search warrant and probably tape it off and prevent me from seeing it at all. This way, you don’t have to bother a judge or waste your yellow tape, and I get a homicide detective’s comments. So I’ll call you when I hear from Max. And you’ll call me—?”
“If I can. I promise.”
“Lefebvre?”
“Yes?”
“Were they in the car when they were killed?”
There was a long silence, then he said, “Perhaps.”
“Let me put it this way. Did anyone other than the Ducanes die in that car?”
“I couldn’t say.”
I sighed. “Do you think the Ducanes were made to ride in the front seat or the backseat?”
“If I tell you, will you feel the urge to write about it for tomorrow’s paper?”
“I can hold on to it, if you’re willing to let me know the minute you’re about to make it public.”
“All right. We have seen signs that they were in the backseat.”
“Thanks, Phil. I won’t break my promise.”
“If I thought you would, I wouldn’t have told you a thing.”
I wrote quickly. I decided I’d get it all down for now and make it pretty later. I kept my promise to Lefebvre.
When O’Connor showed up, he had changed shoes. “What happened to the ones you were wearing earlier?” I asked.
He looked down, as if surprised to see what he was wearing on his feet. “I got something on them at lunch.”
“That’s too bad.” I also realized that his hair was a little damp, and he smelled like soap. He had taken a shower after lunch? The obvious meaning of this struck me — O’Connor had a girlfriend and had grabbed a quickie while I was at the Cliffside. And he had the nerve to tease me about Max? I tried not to smirk.
“No big deal,” he was saying. “What’s going on?”
I figured if I told him about Eric Yeager threatening us, I’d start to hear something about why this was no job for a woman. So I told him about my lunch with Max — leaving out the dragon-slaying — and about my plans to tour the Ducane mansion.
“I can’t believe Lillian moved that kid under her roof,” he said.
“He’s not so bad.”
He narrowed his gaze at me. “You’re smitten, I suppose?”
“For God’s sake, all I did was have lunch with him — unlike what some people might be doing on their lunch hours. And I paid for my own lunch. So there.”
“You gave him your number at Lillian’s that night, but he didn’t call you until the story broke, did he?”
If there had been another bowl of strawberries at hand, he would have needed another shower. My fists clenched, but I kept my mouth shut. I turned and went back to my desk, back to writing the story about Max.
A minute later, O’Connor leaned over my typewriter. “Wrigley said no to adding your friend to the news staff,” he said.
It smarted, coming as it did on the heels of his previous insult, but I tried to keep that reaction out of my voice as I said, “His loss.”
“I told him it would make it easier for you if there was another woman working news side.”
“Well, no wonder he said no — that would be a lame-ass reason for him to bring her over here. Besides, it isn’t true. I’m fine. But thanks for fucking things up for Lydia.”
“Why do you talk like that? Like a sailor?”
“Why should men have sole ownership of swear words? Why should you be the only ones who get to express your anger?”
“It’s un—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘unladylike.’”
“All right. It’s unbecoming. And unprofessional.”
I stood up and stepped onto the seat of my wooden chair and shouted, “Any man in this room who has never said the word ‘fuck,’ please raise your hand.”
Dead silence, broken only by the sound of the Teletypes. No hands went up. I saw Wrigley move to his office door. He was looking at O’Connor and grinning.
“Thank you,” I said. “O’Connor believes you are all unprofessional. Take it the fuck up with him.”
There was laughter and applause, a lot of hooting and hollering at O’Connor, who left the room as I got down off my chair.
I went back to writing, and the newsroom settled down — as much as it ever did.
Max called. I arranged to meet him at the Ducane place that evening. He didn’t have a problem with Lefebvre joining us. “Bring O’Connor, too, if you’d like.”
“I’ll see,” I evaded. “He’s out at the moment.” I asked if the power was still on at the house, and when he said yes, I arranged to meet him there at eight o’clock. “I’ve got a story to get in, and I won’t be able to stay long — I’ve got to get home to my dad.”
“To your dad?”
“Yes. He’s ill. I’ll explain it all later.” Which in a way was a lie, because I couldn’t fully explain it to myself.
I called Lefebvre, who thanked me and told me he’d try to return the favor. The weird thing was, even though I acted cheerful when I called him, I had the distinct feeling that he had read my true mood, anyway. Over the phone. Scary.
I used Lydia’s notes to figure out who was the most talkative of the heirs of Griffin Baer. I called him and got the names of a few of Baer’s friends. I even learned the name of a bar Baer used to hang out in.
Who else do old men talk to? I wondered.
I asked if he golfed, but the answer was no. I asked if he used to get his hair cut by a barber. This time, the answer was yes — in fact, the barber had come to his funeral. With a little searching through the Yellow Pages while I waited, the grandson was able to come up with the name of the barbershop. I thanked him and ended the call.
It occurred to me that it would help to have some of the photos from O’Connor’s collection with me. I was wondering if I should try to find him, or just leave him alon
e and ask about it tomorrow, when I got a call from Aunt Mary.
“How’s your friend?” she asked.
“My friend?” Did everyone in Las Piernas know I had gone to lunch with Max Ducane?
“The one you sent by to check on Patrick at lunchtime today.”
I felt a cold sense of dread roll through me from my shoulders to my knees. First question. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s sleeping. Doing fine. He enjoyed the visit. In fact, he answered the door.”
“Dad did?”
“Yes. Patrick was up for a little while, you know — walking around the house a bit like he’s supposed to — and he answered the door.”
“Oh.”
“When he told me that you had arranged it just to give me a little break, I have to admit I was surprised, since you never mentioned a word to me. Well, I don’t mean to criticize. That was very thoughtful of you, Irene, but not necessary. It did allow me to get a little grocery shopping done—”
“You’re sure Dad’s okay?”
“Why, yes.”
“Uh… a couple of people have offered to help out. What did this friend look like?”
“A big man, dark hair with gray in it.”
“A streak of gray?”
“No, more salt-and-pepper.”
“He was from the newspaper, then?”
“No, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Dressed more casually than that. But that was probably because of the lawn.”
“The lawn?” I said, totally baffled now.
“Yes. He mowed and edged the front and back lawns. Made me realize how much I’ve neglected Patrick’s garden.”
Maybe it was O’Malley, I thought. Dad would have let him in. But why tell Mary he was a friend of mine, and not just call him an old high school buddy?
“You haven’t neglected Patrick,” I said. “That’s the main thing.” And I spent some time telling her how much I loved and appreciated her, which is the kind of thing you start doing when someone close to you has rung death’s doorbell and run away.
“You sound worried,” she said, cutting past all that. “Patrick is fine, and I am, too. Honestly, Irene. Patrick enjoyed the visit. You should be telling your friend how much you appreciate him.”