Dear Irene,

by Jan Burke

  “That’s fine as far as it goes, but you probably need more than a research project to settle your nerves. And no, I’m not talking about indiscriminate sex as a remedy for insomnia. But why not make an effort to get to know some people? People you could respect.”

  Whatever reply Steven might have made was forestalled when Johnny walked up and gave us the check. I paid it and left him a handsome tip, hoping it would help to keep me in his good graces. We said good-bye to him and started the walk back to the newspaper.

  Although I had expected a lot of questions about E.J. and Rosie once we were outside, Steven was quiet as we walked. When we reached the Wrigley Building, he stopped and said, “I guess I’d better be going. I promised Dr. Ferguson—he’s the department chair—that I would have all of E.J.’s things out of her office today.”

  “What?”

  “Well, the police have taken what they need. The dean asked the campus police to keep it sealed, but I guess they finally convinced him that it . . . it wouldn’t serve any purpose. The department wants to use her office.”

  “But why you?”

  “She doesn’t have any relatives. And even though Dr. Ferguson was upset by the articles in the Express, he’s quite sympathetic. He knew about my relationship with E.J. I guess he doesn’t know who else to ask to take care of it.”

  “Steven, do me a favor. Let me go with you when you go over to Dr. Blaylock’s office—”

  “It isn’t necessary—”

  “Give me the benefit of a doubt, okay? Give me time to write up my story. Just hang loose for a couple of hours and I’ll help you. It won’t hurt to have someone with you—I don’t know if you’ve thought much about it, but it isn’t going to be easy on you.”

  “I know that gathering her things together will be painful but—”

  “Have you been in her office since she died?”

  “No.”

  “Have you seen it at all since then?”

  “No.”

  I sighed. “Well, let’s just say the cops don’t get into janitorial work.”

  He caught my meaning. “Oh.”

  “So you’ll wait for me to go with you?”

  He nodded. “I’ll wait at home until I hear from you.”

  He left and I ran upstairs. I had a lot of writing to do. I also needed to call Frank and pick up the photo of Rosie Thayer. And to start rebuilding a bridge I had damaged that morning.

  10

  I WAS ABLE TO WRITE up the piece on Rosie Thayer fairly quickly. My adrenaline was flowing and it felt good to move at the fast pace that afternoon demanded. I found I wasn’t feeling as moody as I had that morning. Maybe thinking about Thayer being starved to death somewhere changed my outlook on my own troubles.

  I discussed my progress with John Walters, then called the Las Piernas Police Department and asked for Robbery-Homicide. Frank was on another line, so I left a message that I was on my way over.

  When I got there, he was talking to Pete about something. Pete saw me and gave me a pleading look, but then excused himself. Frank didn’t look overjoyed to see me. I couldn’t blame him.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. You would think I had walked into a shoe store.

  “Unless you’d rather wait and read about it in tomorrow’s Express, I have some information that might interest you.”

  He motioned for me to sit down, then sat up straighter in his own chair. His desk was neat and clutter-free. Next to it, Pete’s desk was covered with an Everest of paper, coffee cups, and file folders. Frank pulled out his notebook and looked over at me. “Go ahead.”

  He ruffled my feathers a little with his show of detachment, but I figured he was still smarting from this morning. I shrugged and started to tell him about my conversations with Steven Kincaid. He listened attentively and made notes, and gradually his interest in what I was telling him started to lower the tension level.

  “You were over at Rosie’s Bar and Grill this morning, right?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Well, there are lots of photos from Mercury Aircraft. Turns out both Rosie Thayer and Edna Blaylock were daughters of ‘Rosie the Riveters.’ Their mothers both worked for Mercury. I’m not sure that’s the only connection, since a hell of a lot of women worked there in the 1940s. But it’s hard to come up with much of anything else. Have you had any luck trying to find out what might have become of Thayer?”

  “No, but we haven’t been at it for very long, just a few hours.”

  “Missing Persons didn’t have anything on her?”

  “No, but they have a heavy case load. They’ve asked a few people a few questions, but there wasn’t any sign of a struggle at her apartment, nor were there any other indications that she had been abducted.” He paused a moment then added, “Your story will probably help. Maybe someone saw her taken somewhere.”

  “I hope so. Johnny Smith said you had a photo of her?”

  “You’ve saved me having to drop this by the paper,” he said, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a file folder. He removed a 4 x 5 print from a small stack of photos, and handed it over to me. I was relieved to see that whoever had taken the picture had known how to focus a camera; sometimes the paper is asked to run a photo that is so blurred, studying it for hours will allow you to conclude only that the missing person is basically shaped like a human being.

  In this photo, Rosie Thayer was smiling. The years hadn’t been as kind to her as they were to Edna Blaylock, but there was a sparkle in Rosie Thayer’s eyes that gave her image a warmth that hadn’t come through in any photos I had seen of the professor.

  Pete walked back in the room and came over to his desk. He searched through the chaos on it for a moment, then turned to Frank.

  “Call me.”

  Frank smiled. “You’ve lost it again, haven’t you?”

  Pete looked exasperated. “Just call me, damn it.”

  Frank picked up his phone and punched a few buttons. We heard a muffled ringing sound. Pete went toward it, and suddenly it stopped. He turned to give Frank a dark scowl, causing Frank to start laughing.

  Frank moved his thumb off the cradle and punched in the numbers once again. The odd ringing returned. Papers were flying everywhere as Pete tried to track it down. Suddenly he yanked the bottom desk drawer open, then threw some file folders onto the floor. He reached in and held up the phone in triumph.

  “I forgot I put it in there for safekeeping,” he said.

  Much to Pete’s dismay, I lost my struggle not to laugh. I looked over and saw that Frank was grinning. It was one of those moments when I felt so attracted to him I stopped breathing for a while. I exhaled and decided that I wasn’t going to wait to make amends. “Could we go somewhere to talk for a minute?”

  He lost the grin, but said, “Sure.”

  I followed him into a small interview room. “There aren’t any hidden mirrors or cameras in here, are there?” I asked.

  “Not in this one,” he said.

  “No recording devices?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  What the hell? I thought. I pushed him up against the door and then reached up and pulled his head down toward me for a kiss. He was surprised for about one-tenth of a second, then reached around me and kept it going. You’d think one of us had been overseas for six months.

  “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” he asked, keeping his arms around me. “Or do we need to make up now that we’ve kissed?”

  “Sorry about this morning. I just felt hemmed in. I thought you were being a little overprotective.”

  “I guess I’m not quite over being afraid for you. I don’t ever want to have to go through another night of not knowing where you are or worrying about what someone may have done to you.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I’ll never walk around believing ‘it will never happen to me’—those days are over. But I can’t just crawl into a cocoon with you, Frank, and you know it. You would grow tired of it. Y
ou’d resent my helplessness.”

  I felt him shaking beneath me. He was laughing. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Irene, if there is one word I’ll never use to describe you, it’s ‘helpless.’ ”

  Well, that made me feel better. “Thanks. But do you understand why I was upset this morning?”

  “I think so.” He sighed. “I guess this means you’re getting back to being your old self.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed.”

  That started him laughing again, which somehow led to kissing again.

  “Damn,” I said. “If we don’t stop now, I’m going to risk being the first person to be arrested for lewd conduct while visiting the Las Piernas Police Department.”

  “Plead entrapment.”

  “So you won’t be home until late, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Believe me, I’ll be there as soon as I can. By the way—Saturday night there’s an office Christmas party. Want to be my date?”

  “Sure. Are you still off this weekend?” I asked.

  “Depends on what comes up, but it looks like it. Why?”

  “Well, I have to work a day shift Saturday, and we’ll be with our friends on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I just wondered if I’d get you all to myself on Sunday. It’s Christmas Adam.”

  “Christmas Adam?”

  “The day before Christmas Eve.”

  “Of course. You are one weird broad.” There was tenderness in that, so I didn’t challenge him.

  * * *

  I WAS WHISTLING as I drove off, at least, I was until I remembered what was up next on the agenda. I pulled over and called Steven from a pay phone. We agreed to meet at the college. I dropped by the paper to turn in the photo of Rosie Thayer, then found Lydia and quickly gave her the rundown on Steven Kincaid.

  “You’re concerned about him being alone for the holidays,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Invite him to join us, of course. What did I just tell you this morning?”

  * * *

  WHEN I REACHED the building that housed the history faculty offices, Steven was waiting outside the doors. He seemed agitated.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He nodded. “It’s just—I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

  “I guess that wasn’t very kind of me.”

  “No, I’m grateful. At least I’m a little better prepared.”

  “Has the college done anything at all in the way of cleanup?”

  “No.” His face was set in a tense frown. “Dr. Ferguson told me that after all the rumors about her, he wanted me to have a chance to remove her belongings, especially personal things, before the cleaning crew worked on the room. I assumed he was being respectful of her memory.”

  To change the subject for a few minutes, and because I didn’t know what kind of shape he’d be in later, I asked him about coming over to Lydia’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas. He brightened and thanked me, and agreed to join us.

  His spirits dampened again as we made our way up the stairs to the office. The place was deserted: a few days before Christmas and grades already turned in. There was a spooky silence in the building. When we reached the third floor, he stopped and turned through a door leading out into a hallway. I saw that he had already stacked about three dozen cardboard boxes near one of the office doors. He must have spent most of the time he waited for my call by hauling boxes.

  “Think you’ve got enough of these?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I hope so.”

  His hand shook as he put the key in the door and unlocked it. He pushed the door open and took one step in. He froze for a moment, then swayed and whirled around. He pushed past me, a horrified look on his face. He rushed down the hall to the men’s room. Standing in the doorway, I could see why he had felt sick. It was all I could do not to follow suit.

  Edna Blaylock’s office was small and narrow. There was a couch against one wall, a desk facing out toward some windows. There was a small bookcase between the couch and the desk. The other wall was covered by a large set of bookcases that were absolutely full. But there was no sense of the tranquil academic life that might have normally gone on in that office.

  The room had been closed up and smelled sickeningly of old blood. And plenty of it. It was sprayed all over the walls, windows and bookcase, and large pools of it had dried in black cakes on the desk and floor. Papers on the desk were matted with it. Only the couch and the part of the bookcase nearest the door were free from the dark stains. Throughout the room, there were small signs here and there of the work of the forensics team. The room was silent, but not at all peaceful.

  Steven Kincaid was wrong. Nothing I had said to him could have prepared him for this.

  I felt a surge of anger. Ferguson should have at least had someone in to do some preliminary cleanup. I held my breath and went over to the windows and opened them as wide as I could. Cold air came flooding in, but it was fresh air. I looked around, then pulled a large calendar with Ansel Adams photos on it off the wall. I used it to cover up the blood stain on the desk, apologizing mentally to Mr. Adams and to the stately El Capitan of Yosemite—the photo for November. That was all I had time to do before Steven returned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. His eyes were red. He still looked shaken.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, Steven. This is worse than I thought it would be. Why don’t you sit down for a minute? I’ll bring in some boxes and you can work on the far end of the bookcase until you feel better.”

  “It’s not fair to you,” he said, but sank down onto the couch, his eyes averted from the desk. “You didn’t even know her.”

  “That’s exactly why it will be easier for me to deal with the worst of it. I won’t throw anything away, I’ll just box it up. Then you can deal with it a little at a time, as you’re able to.”

  If you’re ever able to, I thought. And I wouldn’t blame him if that day never came. I got him started on his part of the task, then went to the other end of the room. I moved the calendar off the desk and set it aside. I figured the desk was the worst place in the office, and I wanted to spare Steven as much as possible.

  Blood-soaked papers were stuck to the desktop. Once I had gingerly peeled them off, the surface of the desk was not so bad. A neatly clipped stack of phone message slips caught my attention. At first I thought they might be recent calls, but then I saw that some of them were quite faded. The slips were in alphabetical order, and dates on them ranged over several years.

  “It was her informal system,” Steven said, seeing me reading them. “They aren’t personal friends or people she contacted often—those names and numbers are in her Rolodex.” He glanced over the desktop, then turned away from it. “I guess the police took that,” he said, not very steadily. “The message slips are resource people. Librarians and researchers, archivists and curators that helped her with specialized research.”

  “Such as her research on war workers?” I asked, concentrating now on the notes Edna Blaylock had written on the bottom half of each slip.

  “Maybe,” he said. He was sitting on the couch again, looking pale.

  “Mind if I keep any that look interesting?”

  He shook his head.

  “Are you all right?”

  He managed an unconvincing smile. “I will be in a minute, I think.”

  One of the slips was for a man named Hobson Devoe. The name itself drew my attention, but after I read the words Knew Mom at the bottom, I pocketed it.

  I looked over at Steven. He had gone back to work at his end of the room, the worst apparently having passed.

  I stuffed all of the contents of the desktop into one box, then closed and labeled it with a black marking pen I found in a pencil jar. For a moment, I registered surprise that there was no picture of Steven on the desk or on any of the nearby shelves, but then I remembered that theirs was a very private relationship.

  That thought led to the decision to let hi
m be the one to go through the desk drawers; despite a niggling curiosity, somehow, I didn’t want to invade Edna Blaylock’s privacy in that way. I figured Frank’s crew had probably already been over it with a fine-tooth comb anyway. I started grabbing books from the shelves that had the worst staining.

  As much to keep my mind off this grisly task as anything, I asked Steven about his family, his childhood, his interests in history. We were almost finished by the time I had learned his life story. Talking seemed to relax him a little. He even started working on the desk drawers. He asked me about how I got started in journalism, and my work. He shyly ventured to ask if I was seeing anyone, and I told him about Frank. He remembered meeting Frank.

  “I liked him. He was very considerate,” he said. But that had brought us back to homicide. He opened a desk drawer and was very quiet all of a sudden. I looked over to see him holding a red candlestick—or rather, the inch or so that remained of a candlestick—in his right palm. Tears were streaming down his face.

  “From a special evening?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Our first. I asked her to save it. I didn’t think she had.” He drew in a breath, then covered his eyes with his left hand. I put a hand on his shoulder and he broke down completely. I’ve seen men cry before, but it wasn’t the sight of him crying that was so hard to take. It was a soft sound he tried hard to hide, the kind of sobbing sound a person sometimes makes when he realizes that no matter how long he waits, the one he loved will never again share a knowing smile or call his name from another room or weigh the bed down beside him.

  He got up after a while and tucked the candle carefully into his pocket, then went off to wash his face. I finished packing up the last of the books and stuff from the desk drawers while he was gone.

  “What kind of car do you have?” I asked when he returned.

  “A pickup truck.”

  “Thank God,” I said, looking around at the stacks of boxes. We had managed to fill all of them.

  “I feel bad about making you do all of this,” he said. “You—”

  “I know, I know, I didn’t even know her. I know you. Now I even know the name of your elementary school. You’ll just have to accept my help. You’re saving me from having to buy indulgences.”