by Jan Burke
“He’s damned sure of himself,” Frank said, putting the fish under the broiler. “No question about that.”
“Yeah, and not just because he left her ID,” Pete said. “You ever been around peacocks? They’re noisy suckers. He had to know that someone was going to hear all that racket.”
“Zoo keepers might be used to it,” I said.
“The birds were raising Cain. They’re beautiful, but not pleasant, if you know what I mean. In fact, they—” Pete halted when he caught Frank shaking his head. “Sorry. We shouldn’t be talking about this before dinner.”
If it was something that bad, I wasn’t going to challenge him.
“You said the chair of the history department let you into Dr. Blaylock’s office,” I said. “Was it locked?”
Pete nodded. “Yeah. But the killer probably just locked the door after he left. Hiding the mess for a while.”
“He didn’t need a key to lock it?”
“No, the history offices are in one of the older buildings. Some of the buildings on campus, especially the ones where they keep a lot of equipment — art studios, science buildings, the gym — those buildings have electronic locks that open with key cards. They lock automatically when the door shuts. But the college couldn’t afford to put them everywhere, so lots of the classrooms and faculty offices are standard-type locks. Use a key to get in, but once you’re in, you have to push a button lock on the other side to lock yourself in.”
“And you don’t think she locked herself in?”
“No, probably not. She taught a class on Wednesday nights, and had a habit of working late in her office after the class. She usually had the door open or unlocked, from what the other faculty and her students say.”
“So we’ve got one of two possibilities,” I said. “Either she invited the killer in or he entered without her knowing he was there.”
“You ask me, she didn’t know he was there. Probably never knew what hit her — BAM! — and she’s out. He keeps going at her, but not ’cause she’s fighting him.”
Throughout dinner, I picked up other details.
No one at the college or the zoo reported seeing anything suspicious before the body was found, but it would not have been difficult to move around unnoticed at either place during the hours in question, sometime between midnight and four in the morning.
The professor was fifty-four years old. Her colleagues described her as a vivacious woman who wore her years well. She lived alone. She seemed quite devoted to her students; she often held meetings of her graduate seminars in her home, and willingly gave of her time to students who needed extra help. She taught a seminar in twentieth-century U.S. history on Wednesday nights, and was doing some research on the Truman administration. It was not uncommon for her to work late in her office on her research and writing. When she was killed, she had been working on an article she hoped to submit to the Journal of American History.
After Pete left, Frank and I sat together in the living room. I asked him about his meeting with John. At first he claimed that they were just talking about cooperation between the newspaper and the police on the Blaylock case.
“No sale,” I said. “You wouldn’t need to exclude me from that conversation.”
“Okay, so maybe we talked about you. What of it?”
“What of it? I’ll tell you what of it. Shall I go into Captain Bredloe’s office and have a nice long talk with him about you?”
“Be my guest.”
“You wouldn’t like it.”
He was quiet for a moment then said, “No, I guess not. Look, John’s just concerned about you.”
“Concerned how?”
“Well, in a fatherly kind of way, I guess.”
“Fatherly? You mean as in Father Knows Best? As in ‘Well, son, we men folk need to protect our little gals’?”
“I don’t mean that at all…”
“I got scared today,” I went on, ignoring his protest. “Anybody would have been scared, I think. But because of this damned splint and cast, my being scared looks different to him. John doesn’t think I’m ready to come back to work.”
There was a long pause before he said, “Well, yes. That came up in the conversation.”
I stood up. “You know what I want?”
“Irene…”
“Faith. Faith in my ability to function. Less help. Less control by well-meaning but—”
“No one is trying to control you—”
“Bullshit. Oh, it’s all in the name of taking care of me, mind you. Friends. People who just want to make sure I’m all right. I’m all right!”
He was silent.
“He had no business talking to you about my ability to do my job!”
“You’re right.”
“Absolutely none.”
“None whatsoever.”
“You’re not even a relative.”
A pause. “No.”
“You’re just… you’re just…” I was losing steam. I sat down next to him. “Why am I yelling at you? It’s not your fault.”
“No, it’s not.” He said it without looking at me.
“Sorry.”
He didn’t say anything. It was then I realized it wasn’t anger that was keeping him quiet.
“You’re better than a relative,” I tried. “Much better.”
Still nothing. For a few seconds, I felt like I might start crying or something.
Don’t do it, I told myself.
He finally looked over at me. When he did, his expression changed. “Irene? Hey…”
My turn not to answer.
“It’s okay,” he said, putting an arm around me and pulling me closer. “Go ahead and cry.”
“No way,” I said stubbornly.
He started laughing. “You are one of a kind.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“John said that to me today. ‘Kelly’s one of a kind.’”
I had to smile at his imitation of John’s gruff voice.
“That’s what I meant by ‘fatherly,’” he went on. “I think with your dad and O’Connor gone, John felt like it was his duty to check me out. He was trying to figure out if I was going to be a suitable husband. He mentioned the divorce rate for cops more than once.”
“Of all the damned nerve!”
“Take it easy. It didn’t really bother me. He’s right. From the outside, it probably looks dicey. Look at it from his perspective. A cop and a reporter. Who would think it could work?”
“The people on the inside. The only people who count.”
He smiled. “I move that the people who count call it a night.”
Motion carried unanimously.
LIFE LEVELED OUT again during those first weeks in December. There were no more letters from Thanatos. True to John’s prediction, the story about the murder and Thanatos’ contact with me had sold a lot of papers. In spite of earlier prohibitions, I had been allowed to cowrite the first few stories on the case with Mark Baker.
I did a lot of reading on the subject of Greek mythology. Jack loaned me books by Edith Hamilton and Robert Graves, along with translations of Ovid, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer. He was kind enough to spend several evenings talking with me about what I read. I also spent hours searching the newspaper’s computer files from every different angle I could think of, looking for something that would have connected my writing to someone who wanted to kill a history professor and leave her body at the zoo. I started reading stories by other reporters, thinking I might find the connection to the paper, if not to me personally. I reviewed anything in the Express files about the college, as well as stories about any of its professors. Nothing, except Frank growing tired of me saying things like, “This is a Sisyphean task.”
He had his own problems. As the investigation of the Blaylock murder went on, it focused primarily on the professor herself. It became clear that Edna Blaylock had enjoyed the extra-curricular company of several of her male graduate students. Six of them event
ually admitted to sexual liaisons with her. The professor had been a little more devoted to her students than others had imagined.
But the six lover boys were all able to account for their whereabouts on that Wednesday night, which was during the last week before finals, and Thanatos remained undiscovered.
I GOT A few phone calls from men pretending to be Thanatos, but they were not the synthesized voice. At the request of the police, we had left that detail out of news reports. Two other factors helped to identify them as crank calls. They contained more references to sex acts than to Greek mythology. And they all came through the switchboard.
But three times, just as I returned from lunch, someone called me through the direct dial then hung up without speaking. Those three silent calls bothered me more than the obscene ones.
They occurred on what I started to refer to as my “paranoid days.” These paranoid days had a pattern of their own. Lydia and I would leave the building to walk to lunch; as I hobbled down the street, I would become convinced that someone was watching us. I started looking over my shoulder. During a downtown lunch hour, there are plenty of people walking around, so inevitably I would see some man walking behind us. Never the same man. Never anyone who showed more than passing interest in us.
You look odd, I told myself. People are going to watch someone who is limping along in a cast and wearing a splint. Stop acting crazy.
Sometimes I could talk myself out of it.
FRANK PUT IN long hours on the Blaylock case, as did everyone else assigned to it. He made sure someone — usually Jack or Pete — was with me if he couldn’t be. I had mixed feelings about the protection, but didn’t protest.
As the days went on and Thanatos’ trail grew colder, I gradually felt more relaxed. I put any anxious energy I felt into my physical therapy. I was bound and determined to put the days of injury behind me as quickly as the healing process would allow. I could tell that my shoulder was greatly improved, but my right hand seemed hopelessly weak. I was told again and again not be discouraged. By people with two good hands.
But as it turned out, the cast and the splint came off early, a little more than a week before Christmas. I felt like someone had freed me from chains. I still had to spend a lot of time squeezing a rubber ball with my right hand, but that exercise was a small price to pay.
Frank and I celebrated that Friday night by going out to an evening at Banyon’s, a local watering hole shared by the police and the press. There were lots of familiar faces on hand. The band was on a break, so it was relatively quiet, which meant you could still hear yourself think over the rumbling mixture of boisterous conversations and a distant jukebox speaker.
“Well, look who’s here!” a voice called out over the din. I looked across the room to see a sandy-haired man with boyish good looks grinning at us. Kevin Malloy, an old friend, waved us toward him. Not long after I was injured, he had stopped by the house to cheer me up, and now he seemed happy to see me out and about. Kevin was the Malloy in Malloy & Marlowe, a public relations firm, and had been my employer for a time. He had also shared a friendship with my late mentor, O’Connor. I hadn’t been to Banyon’s since the night before O’Connor was killed, but I pushed that thought from my mind as we made our way toward Kevin.
“Well, lass,” Kevin said, hoisting a pint of Guinness, “we haven’t seen you in here for an age. And look at you! No sling, no cast… Liam!” he called to the bartender. “A round for the house. We’ll celebrate our lost lamb’s return to the fold.”
That brought a cheer, but for a free drink, most of them would have cheered anything short of the words “last call.” One of the reporters bent close to Kevin and whispered something to him. Kevin turned to us in surprise. “What’s this? Engaged?”
“It’s true,” I said.
“And how many times did you have to beg him on bended knee before he said ‘yes’?”
I laughed and answered, “Believe it or not, he asked me.”
“Well, now, listen up!” he called in his carrying voice, then stepped up on a chair, so that he towered above the crowded bar. As the buyer of the aforesaid round, he had their grateful attention. The bar was so quiet, you could actually hear what was playing on the jukebox. Kevin glanced at Liam, who promptly unplugged it.
“There’s a nasty kind of rumor going around,” Kevin began, then paused, turning to Frank.
“Tell us!” A cooperative crowd. They’d heard him before. Frank looked a little uneasy.
Kevin looked back to the crowd. “It’s said that the men in the Las Piernas Police Department have lost their courage!”
“No!” This chorus from the cop contingent, all of them grinning as they looked at Frank.
“‘Courage among our policemen?’ they say, ‘Why, it’s easier to find a politician who wants to make a good Act of Contrition.’”
“No!” the chorus supplied.
“Yes, that’s what’s being said. I’m told the police so lack courage, they’ve become as useless as a snake’s glovemaker!”
“No!” Again the chorus, but through laughter.
“Nearly as useless as reporters,” Kevin said, causing an outbreak of shouts and laughter.
“Impossible,” more than one voice called.
“I’m here to tell you that the rumor is false — absolutely false — and I can prove it,” Kevin said. He pointed to Frank. “This man, Frank Harriman — Detective Frank Harriman — is employed by our very own Las Piernas Police Department. And I’m telling you, he has more courage than any man among you. He’s the bravest, most stouthearted, brass-balled sonofabitch I know! Do you know what he’s done?”
Eager silence.
“He’s asked Irene Kelly to marry him!”
There was a great deal of shouting and cheering at that point.
“Fools rush in!” remarked one of my coworkers.
A series of more picturesque comments followed.
Kevin motioned the crowd to silence by simply lifting his pint of stout.
“Here’s to Frank Harriman, who’s had the courage to take our treasure from us! May he and Irene Kelly share a long and happy life together!”
Finally able to drink, the crowd was especially lively in joining this part of the toast.
After accepting the congratulations of a number of the patrons, we settled down into a couple of chairs at Kevin’s table. It felt so comfortable, this pub and all its memories. It was where O’Connor had most often held court. On Friday and Saturday nights, when they had live music, he would sit and watch the dancers. I thought of nights when Kevin, O’Connor, and I would argue and laugh and generally carry on until closing. Somehow all those memories brought back an old sense of myself. An Irene who was less afraid. I was free of more than a fiberglass cast.
I ordered a Tom and Jerry to warm my bones. As the waiter brought it, I looked up to see Frank quietly regarding me. We smiled and lifted our glasses to one another.
“So when will this wedding take place?” Kevin asked, watching us.
“She refuses to set a date,” Frank told him.
“What? Irene! The man has proposed. What more do you need?”
I just shook my head.
“What makes you hesitate?” he persisted.
“I just need time to heal, Kevin.”
Frank reached over and took my hand. “She can take as long as she likes, Kevin. She said ‘yes’ and she knows she’s not getting out of it.”
Kevin gentled his tone, needing no further explanation of my meaning. “Well, Irene, here’s to healing quickly. Don’t begrudge your company to those of us who would salve your wounds.”
“I don’t. Being here, I feel better already.”
We talked for a long time, reminiscing about Kevin’s days with the paper, where he worked before starting his PR firm. Taking an off chance, I asked, “Kevin, can you remember any work I did for you that might tie into the college or the zoo or Greek mythology?”
“You’re speaking of the case
of the history professor?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t you remember writing a publicity campaign for the college or the zoo?” Frank asked.
“I know I didn’t do anything on the zoo or the college directly. But Kevin knows the clients better than I do.”
“If the connection is through us, it’s very subtle,”
Kevin said. “You don’t have any particular client in mind?”
I shrugged. “No. I don’t even remember half of them, to tell the truth.”
“Let’s see. Greek mythology is a complete dead end, I’m afraid. The only person I’ve known who could quote the Greeks was O’Connor. You know how he was. He also quoted the works of Shakespeare, Eleanor Roosevelt, Yeats, Marx — Groucho, that is — the Bible, the Tao, and anyone and anything else that happened to interest him. No, it must be something else. Perhaps one of the people you dealt with is a big donor to the Alumni Foundation or to the Zoological Society… Hmmm.” He thought for a while longer then said, “I’ll go through the computer files on your work for us. If I see any names that look like they might have some connection, I’ll let you know.”
FRANK AND I ended up taking a cab home. Inside the house we were greeted by Cody, the old reprobate, who bit my newly uncovered ankle. I yelped as he ran off in a gray streak.
“Cody’s waited more than six weeks to have a chance to do that,” Frank said, grinning in a way that made me forgot all about my ankle.
I reached around him. “God, it feels good to hold you with both arms.”
He kissed me, slow and easy; a kiss that had more hello than good night in it. He took me to bed, where I got a chance to try out some of the things I had been waiting more than six weeks to do.
5
I HAD MY HEAD INSIDE the Liberty Bell and someone was striking it repeatedly with a large mallet. I groaned and woke up to hear Frank’s simultaneous groan. The phone was ringing. I fumbled for that instrument of torture and looked at the clock and scowled. Seven o’clock. Who the hell was calling us at this ungodly hour?