by Jan Burke
“Well, Rachel and I got this idea to do up a real Italian Christmas dinner,” Lydia went on. “It’s a two day affair. You get everybody together on Christmas Eve and eat nothing but meatless dishes — fish is okay, but no meat. Like Fridays used to be. Then on Christmas you go for broke. I’m doing Christmas Eve, Rachel’s doing Christmas, and my mom will do all the breads and desserts — oro corona pane, dodoni, rum tortes, things like that. We’ll eat both meals at my place. We’ve invited Jack Fremont to join us.”
Thank God our food came. Lydia is a fantastic cook, and I was working up an appetite listening to her. So our friends would be together. I became aware of Frank watching me. Lydia kept describing her culinary plans until she suddenly noticed his silent study as well. She looked between us. “I wanted to invite you two, but Pete said you already had plans, Frank. Irene tells me you’re going to the mountains.”
I concentrated on eating my lunch.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s been the plan. But I’m not sure we’ll do it. We may stay down here.”
“What?” I said, putting my cheeseburger back on the plate.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought, Irene. I know you agreed to go, but are you really pleased with the idea of going to the mountains, or are you just trying to make me happy?”
“I used to love the mountains.”
“That’s what I mean. Used to. Maybe we should stay home.”
“I don’t want to wimp out, Frank. I’ve got to keep facing the things I’ve become afraid of, get back into life.”
“There’s such a thing as pushing yourself too hard.”
Lydia has been a friend of mine since grade school, and she has seen me at high and low tide, but nevertheless there are some conversations I’d rather not have in front of her. I noticed her interest in this debate. I guess Frank saw me glancing over at her, because he said, “Let’s talk about it later tonight, okay?”
I nodded. I was a little quieter at lunch that day than usual, I suppose, but I had a lot of things to think through. As I swirled the same cold french fry in the same puddle of catsup half a dozen times, I wished that I could just think them through one at a time.
7
I SAW THANATOS’ LATEST MISSIVE as a declaration of war, so I spent the first part of that afternoon studying my enemy. I went over all the stories about the first murder, and I read the copies of the two letters again and again. I was pretty sure I knew what he was going to do and when. I just didn’t know who he was going to do it to, or why.
Lydia stopped by my desk and interrupted my musings. “You’re pulling on your lower lip,” she said. “What’s up?”
I put my hand down quickly. Beyond being chums for years, Lydia and I were roommates in college, so she knows most of my little idiosyncrasies. I don’t see this as a big plus.
“I was thinking about how it would feel to be very hungry and within sight of a bountiful feast, and yet unable to eat any of it.”
“Are you writing a Christmas piece on the homeless?”
I didn’t register what she meant for a moment. “No, no. I’m talking about Thanatos. I think he plans to kill someone by starving them to death within the sight of food.”
She gave me a look that was one part skepticism and two parts revulsion.
“I do, Lydia. What else could the reference to Tantalus mean? Nothing else in the letters lends itself to a method of murder.”
She shuddered. “It would be such a slow way to die. Not very practical as a means of murder, is it?”
“How practical is it to take someone’s body from a college campus and toss it into a pen full of peacocks? Besides, he’s hinted that it’s going to be a slow death. He says it’s already started and will come to an end in January.”
“Good Lord.”
“I wish to hell I could figure out who Thalia represents. Grace of Good Cheer. Who could that be? I’ve been pouring over the stuff on Edna Blaylock, trying to learn something from it. It’s maddening.”
“You think there’s a reason for these killings?”
“Yeah. You and I might not think his way of choosing his victims is rational, but I’ll bet he believes it’s perfectly logical.”
“But a history professor? Why? Do you think she had a secret past or something?”
“Hard to imagine. She fooled around with some students, so she wasn’t an angel. But other than that, she’s as solid as bedrock.” I read from my notes. “She was born in L.A., lived here in Las Piernas since she was about eight or nine years old. Her mother raised her; her father died in World War II. She went to Las Piernas College, then went on for a doctorate at UCLA. She wasn’t the most spectacular contributor to American historical scholarship, but she had been published in a few minor history journals. The article she was working on for the Journal of American History would have been an important feather in her cap.”
Lydia looked toward the City Desk, where Morry, the City Editor, was beckoning. “I’ve got to get back over there,” she said. She took a couple of hurried steps toward the City Desk, then stopped and turned back to me. “Do you think he might be a student or some other man she turned down?”
“Maybe.”
I watched her walk off. I thought about the first letter and the fact that whoever had killed Edna Blaylock not only knew her schedule, but knew how to sneak a body off campus. Maybe it was a former student or a faculty member. After all, the first letter had been mailed from the campus.
On the other hand, we had checked out the second envelope and figured out that it had been mailed from the downtown post office, not far from the Express.
Had Thanatos been down this way to find his next victim? Or had he been near the newspaper, watching me again?
I PICKED UP the phone and tried calling the one person left on my list of Dr. Blaylock’s former lovers: Steven Kincaid. As far as I knew, Kincaid had been Dr. Blaylock’s last lover; he was the only one who admitted still being involved with her at the time of her death.
The phone rang about five times before he picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Kincaid?”
“Yes.”
“This is Irene Kelly with the Las Piernas News Express.”
He hung up in my ear.
I took it in stride. Certainly wasn’t the first time it had ever happened to me. Angry sources come with the territory. Before I could decide on my next move, the phone rang. It was Kincaid.
“I called to apologize, Miss Kelly. That was very rude of me. I don’t usually hang up on people. This has been a very difficult time for me. I’m not sure why I…” His voice faltered.
“It’s okay, Mr. Kincaid. I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do. The newspapers — I wasn’t very happy with what they said.”
“Let me assure you right off the bat that I’m not interested in adding anything more to what Mr. Baker has written about your relationship with Dr. Blaylock. I just thought you might be interested in trying to help out. I received another letter from Thanatos today.”
There was about a full minute’s silence. I knew he hadn’t hung up on me again, because I could hear him breathing. It was the kind of breathing you hear when someone is trying to bring themselves back under emotional control.
“I don’t know how I could possibly be of help,” he said, “but go ahead.”
I had already decided to try to meet him face-to-face. It’s much harder to walk away from a person than to hang up on a voice. “Look, why don’t we meet for a cup of coffee? I’ll buy.”
There was another pause before he asked, “Where?”
“You live near campus?”
“Yes.”
“You have classes today?”
“No, winter break is just starting. Finals just ended.”
“Hmm. What about the Garden Cafe — is it still around?”
“Yes. That sounds fine.”
I described what I was wearing and arranged to meet him at this old college haun
t in half an hour. I hung up and wondered at the differences between this man and Henry Taylor. Taylor had seemed no more personally affected by Edna Blaylock’s death than a man reading about a flood in a distant country. Kincaid, on the other hand, sounded as if he was just keeping his head above water.
Just before I left, I stopped in to see John, and told him of my plan to meet with Kincaid.
“Watch out, Kelly. For all we know, he could be the one who killed her.”
“He had an alibi, John.”
“You’ve covered trials. I don’t need to tell you that sometimes an alibi can be pretty easy to come by.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so. But then again, maybe this kid is innocent and will end up telling me things he wouldn’t tell the cops.”
“And if he gives you any information? Is this going straight to Frank’s ears?”
“That’s why I came in to talk to you. I won’t talk to Frank if you tell me not to. I just need to know where the paper stands on all of this.”
“You’ve got an obligation to Kincaid. He can’t act as a source and not be made aware of what you plan to do with the information. If he asks for confidentiality, he should get it.
“On the other hand, I’m not overlooking our obligation to the community. Had a long talk with Frank about this, and later with his lieutenant — what’s his name?”
“Carlson.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all on thin ice here. And if Wrigley gets word of this, we could both end up sending out our résumés. For now, I’d prefer you talk things over with me before you say a word to anyone connected to the police — anyone. The only exception would be if you were fairly sure that someone might be physically harmed if you didn’t contact the police immediately. Can you live with that?”
“Sure. I’m going to be pestering you a lot, but I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”
“Well, let’s just play it this way for now. Now scram. You’re going to miss Kincaid and deadline both if you don’t get a move on.”
THE GARDEN CAFE hadn’t changed much since the 1970s, other than the clothing and hairstyles of the clientele, and even some of those were the same. It was a college hangout when Lydia and I were students, as it had been twenty years before we started school. The walls were covered with photos of Las Piernas from about 1910 up to the present day. There was no particular theme, except that after the cafe’s founding in the 1950s, photos of alumni who had made good decorated portions of the wall behind the old-fashioned cash register. I wasn’t up there.
The “garden” was a small enclosure behind glass that featured a couple of ficus trees, a few ferns, and a small fountain. They used to have finches in there, but every once in a while they’d bang up against the glass and kill themselves, which didn’t do much for the appetites of the customers who saw it happen. So the birds had been gone for some time.
I stood by the door, catching snippets of conversations that ranged from the Lakers’ chances to go all the way this year to whether or not the Stanford-Binet tests were a valid measure of intelligence. There were one or two people who looked like they might be faculty members, but I was definitely an oldster in this crowd.
A few people turned my way when I walked in, but nobody seemed to take special notice. I was a few minutes early, but wondered if Kincaid was already there. I looked to see if anyone might be trying to attract my attention. I saw a self-conscious young man peering up at me over the rim of his glasses. He studied me for a while, and I figured him to be Kincaid. He was skinny and had that archival pallor that scholars develop. I decided that he looked to be the type that would take his fifty-four-year-old professor to bed with him.
“Miss Kelly?”
I jumped and turned to look behind me, where the voice had come from. I was almost nose-to-nose with one of the most gorgeous men I have ever laid eyes on. And he knew my name.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He extended a hand. “I’m Steven Kincaid.”
I decided to close my gaping mouth before I gave him enough time to examine my dental work, and reached out with my right hand. He glanced down and noticed the swelling, and gave me a gentle but warm handshake. I was still speechless.
He grinned. Goddamn. No wonder old Edna hadn’t been able to keep her mitts off him. I tried to imagine having this stone fox stare at my podium for an hour or two a day. I would have been sorely tried.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said, and led the way toward the back of the cafe. With his back to me, I was able to shake myself out of the daze I was in and follow him. I thought of Frank and felt a wave of guilt, then smiled to myself. I could enjoy looking at Frank for a hundred years, go blind, and still want to be next to him for another hundred. More than just another bonny lad, Frank Harriman.
Feeling my equilibrium return, I sat down across from Steven Kincaid in the last booth outside the kitchen. It was only then that I realized that conversations had been dropping off in volume or halting all together, and that some people were openly staring at us. Kincaid saw me looking around and said, “I’m afraid I’ve become notorious, at least around campus.” He swallowed hard. “Some of them probably think I killed E.J.”
“E.J.?”
“Professor Blaylock. Her name was Edna Juliana Blaylock. She was E.J. to her friends.”
“If you’re uncomfortable here, we can go somewhere else.”
He shook his head. “Might as well face up to it. I have nothing to be ashamed of. People think E.J. and I were trying to be clandestine. We were only trying to be discreet. There is a difference.”
A waiter came over and brought menus. I wasn’t hungry, so I used the opportunity to study the man across the table. I guessed him to be in his mid-to-late twenties. He had easy-to-look-at masculine features: a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and cobalt blue eyes with dark lashes. His hair was almost jet black. His skin had the kind of tan a person has in December only if they regularly enjoy some kind of outdoor activity. He wore blue jeans and a light blue shirt, and filled both of them out just fine. He had a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, athletic build. Probably could win an election for “defines handsome” without going into a runoff.
But there were dark circles under his eyes, and a kind of tiredness in his face that showed he had been under a strain lately. I noticed then that those eyes were avoiding my own, that he was pretending to be fascinated with a menu he had probably memorized. I realized that I might be making him nervous. People often are jittery around reporters, but I had been so dumbstruck by his appearance that I hadn’t made any small talk or other efforts to get him to relax a little.
“What were you expecting?” I asked.
“What?” He was startled into looking at me.
“You said I wasn’t what you were expecting.”
He looked down at the menu again. “Oh. I guess I was expecting someone — I don’t know — hard-boiled? Tougher?”
I laughed. “Don’t let my appearance deceive you.”
He looked chagrined.
“I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of putting you at ease, Mr. Kincaid. As I said, my main interest is in trying to learn enough about Dr. Blaylock to be able to make more sense out of this man who calls himself Thanatos. I’d like to try to figure out who his next victim might be — before it’s too late.”
The waiter reappeared. Kincaid ordered a piece of carrot cake, and it sounded so good I ordered one, too. I was going to have to get back to my running routine soon, or eating like this would become a real liability.
“You said he sent another letter?” Kincaid asked.
“Yes. It arrived at the paper today.” I hesitated.
“I’ve got to ask if you would mind my sharing any of the information you give me with the police. I wouldn’t have to disclose your identity; you could be anonymous as far as they’re concerned. And if you don’t want me to tell them anything at all, then I won’t.”
He sighed. His eyes suddenly reddened and he looked away for
a moment. He took a deep breath and said quietly, “I don’t care who you tell. Like I said, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I want her killer to be caught, but I’d rather not have any more encounters with the police myself. You can tell them whatever I’m telling you. The police — well, some of them were quite considerate, others weren’t at all. Nothing has been easy.”
I waited while he worked to pull himself together. Our coffee and carrot cake arrived, and we spent a few moments fiddling around with cream and sugar as a distraction.
“Let’s get something clear from the start,” he said, surprising me with the sudden fierceness of his expression. “I was not in a relationship with E.J. while I was her student. I want it made clear that there was no ‘A for a lay’ or any of the other kinds of sordid, unethical behaviors that some people have been hinting at. It just isn’t true.”
“Listen, Mr. Kincaid, if someone from the paper—”
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Yes, I took a graduate seminar from her. But nothing happened then. I found myself very attracted to E.J., and I restructured my whole master’s thesis committee and the classes on my program just so that I could be with her without there ever being a cloud over our relationship.”
“You don’t have to defend anything to me.”
“I know, I know. But let’s face it. Most people just don’t understand why a man my age would get involved with a woman her age. They figure I must have received some kind of special consideration as a student or that I was after something — her money or her house, I suppose. Well, she didn’t make all that much, and she had willed everything to the American Lung Association years ago — and I knew that. I didn’t need anything like that from her, anyway.”
“Why were you attracted to her?”
He drew a deep breath and lowered his gaze. I found myself silently urging him to confide in me. When he looked back up, he gave me a fleeting smile. “You know, I think you’re the first person who has asked me that recently who might actually believe the answer. I was with E.J. because she was wise and full of life and witty and strong and intelligent. She made me laugh. I could talk to her. And I found her beautiful. There was something very sensual about her. At first, I suppose it was a sort of animal magnetism. But it became much more. Much, much more.”