by Jan Burke
“Merry Christmas, Eve,” he whispered back. I could hear the smile in it.
MORNING CAME WAY too early for anyone’s liking, but we managed to crawl out of bed. We made arrangements to meet at home before the Christmas party, and trundled off to work.
I was talking to Lydia about my visit from Thanatos when the phone rang.
“Good morning, Cassandra. Did you sleep well?”
“No thanks to you,” I said, trying to hide my nervousness. This time I was able to get Lydia’s attention, and she picked up the extension. We both took notes.
“Did you enjoy my Christmas gift?”
“I’ve already put the little devils to work sorting seeds.”
He laughed. Synthesized and changed into an electronic replica of laughter, it was a chilling sound. I fought an urge to hang up on him. I wanted to know where Rosie Thayer was, so I waited. As it turned out, he wasn’t going to disappoint me.
“Since I so enjoyed watching you sleep, I’ve decided to give you another present. If you want to find the other Myrmidons, think of the story of Aeacus, and where he saw his future army.”
The line went dead.
“The other what?” I asked Lydia, reaching for a mythology book.
“Mur-mi-dons?”
I thumbed back to the index. “Here it is, Myrmidons — men created from ants by Zeus. Oh, now I remember — they became part of Achilles’ army in the Trojan War.”
“So we’re back to ants.”
I nodded as I skimmed through the section on the Myrmidons.
“He said something about the story of a cuss?” Lydia asked.
“Aeacus,” I said absently, still reading. “He was a mortal, a son of Zeus. He ruled the island of Aegina. Hera caused the island’s streams and rivers to be poisoned. Almost all of the island’s inhabitants died. Aeacus prayed near an oak, which was sacred to Zeus. He saw a long line of ants carrying grain up the tree, and begged Zeus to give him as many subjects as there were ants. That night, he dreamed of ants becoming men, and when he awoke, his son Telamon was calling him outside, to see the throng of men approaching their home. Aeacus recognized their faces from his dream.”
“So does Thanatos think you’re going to dream the answer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s talking about the oak tree. I can’t decipher it yet, but we’ve got to let John know about the call.”
We hurried into his office. After hearing our story, John put in a call to Frank, who wasn’t at his desk. “What’s the name of that city department that maintains the trees?” he asked me, while waiting for Frank to answer a page.
“The Tree Department,” I answered.
“Wise ass,” he grumbled.
I shrugged. Would he have felt better if I made up a more obscure name?
“Do you think they know where all the oaks in town are?” he asked impatiently.
“Probably know where to find the ones the city has planted. Private property would be another story.”
“At least it’s an oak we’re looking for, not something scrawny.”
Frank came on the line and John put him on the speakerphone. We filled him in; there was a brief pause, then he said, “I know what we’ll want to do, John. But if you’re asking to involve the paper, I’m going to have to bring my lieutenant in on this.”
“We are involved,” John answered. “We called you, remember?”
“Hold on, then,” Frank replied, seeming unruffled by John’s curt tone.
John picked up the receiver, so that the speakerphone was off. Lieutenant Carlson came on the line, and apparently a lot of angry haggling and talk about press rights and police prerogatives ensued. We could only hear John’s side of it, but he was unbending. He argued that the call had come into the paper, not into the police, and that his reporters had the right to be on the streets, which were public places, looking at all the public acorn-bearing trees they could find. Eventually Carlson saw that it was useless to protest. The whole conversation probably took about three minutes, but it seemed like forever to me. I wanted to get going.
John stuck his head out his door and started shouting reporters’ names. He filled them in, then had two or three of them calling tree surgeons, another pair going down to the Tree Department. “Ask about the biggest oak trees. Something tells me this guy picked out something on a grand scale. After all, it has to be fit for the gods.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“You stay here — who knows what he’s up to. Maybe he’s just trying to draw you out of the building.” At my mutinous look, he added, “Besides, if he calls back, you’d better be here.”
“If he stays true to form, he won’t call again today. Let me go out on it. I’m the only one reading about the mythology. Maybe I’ll see something the others would miss.”
“Forget it,” he said, and shooed us out of his office.
I drew some quick sympathetic looks from the others as they hurried off. Cassandra.
I went back to my desk and reread the story of Aeacus, more carefully this time. A plague of serpents caused the island of Aegina’s water to be poisoned. Additionally, the locals had suffered drought, famine, and a pestilent wind from the south. Aeacus awoke from his ants-to-men dream to discover it was raining, the serpents were gone, and a new populace of hard-working subjects was at his command. Talk about sweet dreams.
I thought of Thanatos’ letters, and of what he had said on the phone. Aeacus had seen his future army on an oak. But perhaps, as with many of his other references, Thanatos didn’t literally mean that I could find Rosie Thayer near an oak tree. What about the other places in Las Piernas which might be connected to oaks, or to the word “oak”?
I logged on to my computer terminal and asked for a program that serves as a guide to the city; it lists streets, public buildings, developments, parks, schools, and other points of interest in Las Piernas. Given any address, it will also display an area map. I searched under the word “oak.” A few seconds later, a list appeared on the screen. A restaurant called The Oak Room. A development called Oakridge Estates. Oak View Apartments. The Oakmont Hotel. Oakwood Elementary School. Oak Knoll Shopping Center. About twenty streets: Oak Park, Old Oak, Oak Point, Oak Meadow, Twin Oaks, Oak Grove, Sleeping Oak.
Sleeping Oak Road. That one caught my attention. Aeacus had seen the army of ants twice: on an oak, and while he was asleep.
I brought the map display up on the screen. Sleeping Oak was a long, residential street that wound its way through the hills. I debated with myself for a while, tried thinking of other ways to look at Thanatos’ messages. But the street name was the only possibility that really nagged at me.
I saw that John’s door was closed, and gathered up my coat, purse, and keys. I pulled out a copy of the photo of Rosie Thayer and tucked it into a pocket. I had almost made it to the newsroom door when a hand caught my shoulder. I turned to see Lydia.
“Where are you going?” she asked in a low voice.
“Just out to my car for a minute.”
“Then where?”
No use trying to fool her. “Listen, Lydia, I can’t sit here all day. I’ve got an idea I want to follow up on.”
“If Thanatos doesn’t kill you, John will.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Come over to the desk for a minute.” When she saw that I would protest, she said, “Come with me or I’ll walk right into John’s office before you can make it out of the building.”
At the City Desk, she unlocked a cabinet and handed me a cellular phone.
“You know the lecture on how much a call on one of these costs the paper,” she said, “so I won’t make you listen to it again. But take this with you and use it if you need help. That way, when I’m at your funeral, I’ll feel like I did what I could to save an old friend.”
“Aren’t you the chipper one. Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Will you tell me where you’re going?”
“Sleeping Oak Road. Thanks for the phone — and the concern.”
LAS PIERNAS SITS on a curve of the California coastline; most of its beaches face the south. As some custom-home builders have noticed over the past five years, the views from the south side of hillside streets like Sleeping Oak Road were some of the best in the inland part of the city. You could see almost all of Las Piernas below, and the ocean beyond it. The view from the north side of the street was not so picturesque, but some homeowners had overcome this handicap by trying to build taller houses than their neighbors across the street.
Many of the homes were old by Las Piernas standards, modest dwellings built in the 1920s. About every fourth or fifth house had been razed and replaced with a larger, more modern structure. I didn’t see an oak tree anywhere.
I started on the south side, and walked from house to house, knocking on doors, asking the few people who were home if they had seen the woman in the photo, or noticed any unusual activities on the street. I asked if any of their neighbors had moved in fairly recently. If they hadn’t closed the door in my face by then, I got around to asking about their neighbors’ habits. I came across people who had grudges against others on their block, and got the lowdown on who never cut their lawn, whose kids were holy terrors, whose dog barked endlessly, and which couple got drunk and played loud music in the middle of the night.
I listened to it all, knowing that neighborly snoopiness is nothing to ignore. In among all that apparently useless information, someone may have a little gem of observation that will prove to be invaluable. But I didn’t come across anyone who had seen Rosie Thayer, or who knew of a neighbor who got home late on the night she disappeared, or who had heard or seen anything that might help me find her.
As I hiked closer to the crest of the hill, I noticed that there were more empty lots near the top, staked signs promising more new construction where the view was best. As I passed each lot, I stopped to look for trampled grass or newly turned earth. Although I was looking for Rosie Thayer and believed she was probably dead, I was quite pleased not to discover anything that looked like a shallow grave.
I had almost run out of houses on that side of the street and still had the north side to check out on the way down. I was discouraged, feeling certain that my street-name hunch was a total waste of time. By now, the police had probably found Rosie Thayer, perhaps under an oak tree in a city park, or on an embankment near a big tree. I considered using the cellular phone to check in with Lydia, but remembered the cost of calls and decided to wait.
The thought of walking back down to my car made me wish I could whistle and get it to come up the hill for me. I had no sooner formed the image than I heard a sharp whistle from somewhere behind me, and turned to see a huge woman whose gray hair was wrapped in pink spongy curlers. She was calling to a white toy poodle as it bounced its way across a pair of empty lots.
“Brutus!” the woman screeched. “Brutus, you get your fluffy white butt right back here!”
Brutus paused, looked at her, then noticed me. That brought on a canine change of program. He made a yapping charge toward me, full of purpose. The purpose looked to be a bite out of my own fluffy white butt. His plans were foiled when the woman moved with amazing speed to scoop him up. She smiled and said, “I hope he didn’t scare you. He’s not as mean as he looks.”
The dog kept yapping, and I realized that he was the one which had been described to me as the neighborhood nominee for most annoying pooch.
“No,” I said, “I’m fine.” I introduced myself, and showed the photo to her.
She stared at it for what seemed like half an hour, dog barking the whole time, then handed it back and shook her head. “Sorry, I thought I remembered her, then it just came to me that this photo is in this morning’s paper.”
“I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the neighborhood.”
“Sure. My name’s Molly Kittridge, by the by. Be glad to talk with you,” she said, “but let’s go inside so I can get Brutus settled down. He’s busier than a bagful of bumblebees.”
I followed her into her house, one of the smaller homes on the block. She nodded toward a chair at the kitchen table; I took it gratefully, happy to be off my feet for a while. What I could see of the house was neat and clean. The kitchen was warm and filled with the aroma of baking bread. She put Brutus behind one of those indoor gates people use to keep small children out of a room. He stopped yapping, but when I looked toward him, he gave me a growl for good measure.
Molly came back into the kitchen, suddenly touching her hair. “Lordy, I must look a sight,” she said, reaching up and pulling the curlers out.
“Don’t worry about it. You weren’t expecting company.”
“Well, that’s a fact,” she said, and proved it by talking nearly nonstop for over an hour. In that time, she told me the name of every neighbor within a dozen or so houses of her own, their children’s names and approximate ages, where they worked, and at least one of their habits, interests or problems. She told me which ones had left to visit relatives for Christmas, what state the relatives lived in, and even gave a weather forecast, saying, “White Christmas” or “No White Christmas there” depending on the family destination. She paused only twice, to take the bread out of the oven and when the phone rang. It took both of us a minute to realize the ringing was coming from the cellular phone. I answered around a mouthful of warm bread.
Lydia was calling, certain I was in mortal danger. I swallowed the bread, reassured her, learned that no one had found Rosie Thayer yet, and went back to Molly Kittridge.
“How is it you know all your neighbors so well?” I asked.
She smiled. “Well, two reasons. First off, I’ve lived here since God was a baby. My grandaddy on my mother’s side built this house as a sort of a retirement place, I guess you’d say. Southern California was a paradise then. My folks ruined his retirement by packing up the family and following him out here from Oklahoma during the dustbowl days. Lots of Midwesterners settled in Las Piernas. That’s why you can find more basements here than most places in Southern California. They’re great for tornados, but lousy for earthquakes.”
“So your family moved here before any of the others?”
“The only ones that had been here longer was the Nelsons, up at the end of the street. They died and their kids sold it to that young couple that got transferred to North Dakota.”
“This is the vacant house, the one three doors up the street?” I asked, remembering her discussion of the couple who had lived there for less than a year, were “asking way too much for that old place in this market,” but were too stubborn to lower the price before they were forced to move. After several months without any offers, the couple let their listing expire and were looking for a new real estate agent. I had heard enough about them to write and ask them how they were doing. (No kids; he, a distributor for a shoe company and she, an engineer; both crazy about bass fishing.)
She chuckled. “Not three doors, exactly. There’s no doors, windows, or anything else on half of these places up here on the crest. The old Nelson place is at 1647. There’s two vacant lots between us now.”
“You said there are two reasons you know your neighbors. What’s the second?”
“Brutus.”
He started yapping in response.
“Hush!” she commanded. He gave one more bark and settled down again. “He’s a wild little fellow. Wilder than a fox raised by wolves. I have to chase him all over the neighborhood. Now all of a sudden he’s crazy about the old Nelson place. I think he knows I don’t like hauling my old buns up to the top of the hill. And all the grass in these lots gets my hay fever a-going. But most times Brutus will come back when I whistle.”
“He does seem to be well known around here.”
She cackled at that. “I’ll just bet everyone you talked to griped about him. He’s a barker, I admit it. He’s very protective of me. He’s usually good about being quiet a
t night, but for the past week or so he’s been a little bothersome.”
“The past week?” I asked, suddenly feeling a chill in that warm kitchen.
“Oh, about that long, I guess. Something just got into him. Middle of the night, two, three in the morning, he starts barking. ’Bout to drive me crazy.”
The hair on the back of my neck was rising. “Do you remember which night he first started barking?”
She thought for a moment. “Wednesday, maybe?”
Wednesday night. The night Rosie Thayer had disappeared.
“No idea what he’s barking at?”
“The top of the hill, for all I can tell. I get up, I turn the lights on, ask him what’s the matter, let him out in the backyard, show him there’s not a living soul to be found. He stops barking, follows me back into the house, hops back up on the bed, and looks at me like I’m crazy to be up at that time of night. And he’s probably right.”
She was disappointed when I said I’d have to be going. I gave her one of my cards and thanked her for her help. I started to leave, and felt myself losing my nerve.
“Molly, I have an unusual favor to ask.”
She looked up from studying my card. “Sure, honey, what is it?”
“I need to look around the Nelson place. Would you watch me from your window for a few minutes? I mean, just in case anyone else happens to be there…”
Her eyes widened. “Holy smokes, I just got it! You think she might be in there. You’re the one he’s been writing to…”
“Yes. The house is probably empty, he’s probably miles away, but just in case—”
“I’ll get Brutus on the leash and come with you.”
She refused to hear my objections.
I had expected Brutus to be nipping at my heels, but the leash seemed to change his personality. As we neared the house at the crest of the hill, he pulled like a huskie in his traces. Molly sneezed once, twice, three times. “What’d I tell you?” she said, reaching for a handkerchief.