by Jan Burke
I hesitated. “I suppose she told you that the man who killed your daughter is dead?”
“Yes, and knowing that the man who murdered my only child is dead is some relief. But why was she killed? Why did he make her suffer so much?”
Her voice caught for a moment on this last question. What could be worse than losing a child in such a way? Somehow, knowing how hard she was trying to be calm while talking to me made hearing this little catch all the more painful.
“Mrs. Owens, I know you’re aware that there is some possibility of a connection between your daughter’s death—”
“Her murder. Dying is natural. This was not.”
“—between your daughter’s murder and the murder of her cousin thirty-five years ago.”
“Jennifer. Yes. We’ve had many shocks in this week. I’ve tried to send word to her mother of our… our sympathy and regret. She hasn’t a phone, so it has been difficult, but we managed to reach her yesterday. She will be coming here for Elaine’s funeral on Monday.”
There was a brief silence while I thought over something she had just said.
“Mrs. Owens, how did Elaine ask Jennifer up from Gila Bend for a visit? I mean, was there a phone in Jennifer’s household then?”
“Oh, no, there’s never been telephone service out to the trailer. No, they were correspondents. They wrote to one another constantly. Mostly girlish fiddle-faddle.”
“Would any of those letters still be in existence?”
“I doubt it. I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for them in any case.”
“Mrs. Owens, this is very important. Would you please look for anything resembling a letter? I believe Elaine was killed because she knew something or had something that incriminated someone here in the murder of her cousin.”
“Well, if you think it’s so important, certainly I will look for them.”
“Did Elaine attend college?”
“Yes, for a time she attended Arizona State University, here in Phoenix.”
I could feel my pulse quickening.
“Did you know any of the young men who came to the parties Elaine held while she was in college?”
“Certainly. I don’t recall all of their names, of course. They were mainly young gentlemen from the university.”
“Do the names Richard Longren or Andrew Hollingsworth mean anything to you?”
She thought for a moment. I pulled at my lower lip, then realized Lydia was watching me and stopped.
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t say they do. Do you suspect them in some way?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, willing any disappointment out of my voice. “How about the Theta Delta Chi fraternity?”
“Elaine’s husband was a member of Theta Delta Chi. He would often bring his fraternity brothers to her parties.”
“Could you find out from him if Richard Longren or Andrew Hollingsworth ever came along to any of the parties?”
“Yes, we will be seeing him this evening. He is quite devastated by all of this. I’m sure he’ll want to be of help.”
“You have my number here if anything turns up. If I’m not here, you can speak to Lydia Ames, my roommate.”
“If I find the letters, shouldn’t I contact the police?”
“By all means. Please give them to Rachel Giocopazzi and ask her to let me know.”
“That would be fine. Mind you, Elaine wasn’t much for saving mementos. I doubt she kept letters from her youth.”
“Well, thanks for trying, anyway.”
We said good-bye and hung up.
Lydia was full of questions.
“Look,” I said, waving them off, “this could be completely innocent. And it may be that they knew Elaine but never met her cousin.”
“You don’t believe in that much coincidence, do you? Same school, same frat, same circle of friends, moving from Phoenix to Las Piernas?”
“Not even the slightest shred of evidence. Phoenix and Las Piernas are not small towns. There could be any number of people here who came to Las Piernas from Phoenix. I’m just exploring possibilities.”
I excused myself to take a shower. I knew I hadn’t been entirely honest with Lydia. Her questions about Frank had made me close off; when she asked about Hollingsworth and Longren I had denied my real suspicions. I decided to talk to her more about it later. Throughout the day, I had become more and more convinced that the mayor and Hollingsworth at least knew something about Jennifer Owens, and one of them may have killed her. I was certain that finding evidence was only a matter of time and effort.
40
I DRESSED QUICKLY and headed out for Frank’s house. The phone call from Alberta Owens had delayed me a little, so I decided I’d put off my talk with Lydia. Maybe we could get together this evening. When I got to Frank’s house, there was already a car in the driveway — I recognized it as Pete’s. Since it was another sunny beach weekend day, I had to park four blocks away, which made me even later.
I knocked on the door and Frank opened it, seeming relieved to see me. “Just starting to get worried about you.”
“Well, I was running a little late anyway, but then I had to park in Timbuktu.”
“Sorry, Irene!” Pete called out from the living room.
As we walked down the hallway, Frank said, “I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t thinking. Pete’s been good enough to loan me his car while he’s in Phoenix. He’s flying down there tonight.”
“That’s okay, Frank, I needed the exercise. And I know about the trip to Phoenix.” I looked over at Pete, who sat on the couch with a suitbag next to him on the floor. “Hello, there, Pete. I talked to Rachel this morning. She told me you were going to be visiting there.”
“Oh, yeah? So how come you were talking to Rachel? You had to call her at home — it’s her day off.”
“Pete — let her at least have a minute to get settled,” Frank said. “Have a seat, Irene. You want something cold to drink?”
“Thanks — water would be great.”
He walked off to the kitchen. Once again his powers of recovery amazed me. He was moving around much more easily, his facial bruises were fading and the swelling from the broken nose was way down.
Pete tapped his fingers impatiently while Frank was away.
“Excited about your trip?”
“Hey — I thought we declared a truce about this subject.”
“My, aren’t we touchy? That wasn’t a question about Rachel.”
“The answer is yes, and the reason is obviously Rachel and you know it. So don’t try to weasel your way around me, lady. You broke the truce, so fair is fair — what’s up with you and Frank?”
Just then Frank came back into the room and handed me a glass of ice water.
I smiled. “Thanks, Frank. Now what was that you were asking?”
Pete colored. “I asked how come you were calling Rachel on a Sunday at home?”
“Oh, is that what you wanted to know?” I took the longest sip of water I could without drowning.
“Must have been thirsty,” Pete muttered.
“I was.”
Frank looked between us, suspecting something but not able to figure out what was going on.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I called Rachel to ask if she could convince Elaine Tannehill’s mother to get in touch with me.”
They both looked up with interest. Pete leaned forward. “And?”
“And she did.” I turned to Frank. “That’s partly why I was late.”
“Never mind that,” Pete said impatiently. “Why did you want to talk to her mother?”
“Because I had a little idea I wanted to follow up on. I wanted to know if she remembered any of the people who used to come to Elaine’s parties when Jennifer was around. As I talked to her, I also remembered that there wasn’t a phone out at Jennifer’s mom’s trailer. So I asked Alberta Owens — that’s Elaine’s mom — how the girls kept in touch. Turns out they were great letter writers.”
“Why didn’t I
think of that!” Pete exclaimed. He looked over at Frank, who was grinning with satisfaction.
“What’d I tell you, Pete?”
“I never said she was dumb, Frank — just maybe too smart for her own good.”
“I understand English, so you don’t have to talk like I just left the room. Besides, it was a pretty useless idea, as it turns out. Alberta Owens said she doesn’t think Elaine kept any of the letters.”
Pete sat back. “I’m telling you, it’s going to be hell trying to figure out who’s behind this. I think we should stick with the more recent stuff. Someone is very good at tying up loose ends, and you can be damned sure they were just as neat and tidy thirty-five years ago.”
“You ever find anything out about the accident Emmet Woolsey’s wife was in? Who was the witness?”
Pete and Frank exchanged glances.
“What?” I asked.
“The file is missing,” Pete said.
It really wasn’t a surprise. As Pete said, the killer was good at cleaning up messes. How difficult would it be for someone on the DA’s staff to remove a case file?
“I wonder if your brother-in-law has remembered anything.”
“Ex–brother-in-law. You’d be surprised what he can forget,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
Frank and Pete both looked at me in mild surprise.
“I think I’ll pay him a call when I get back from Phoenix,” Pete said. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s out of intensive care,” I said, managing this time to keep my tone more even.
“Hey, that’s great.” Pete said, grinning. “I’ll bet your sister’s happy.”
The doorbell rang, saving me from making a response. It was Pete’s taxi. He picked up his bag and said good-bye.
Frank and I walked back to the living room and sat next to one another on the couch.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked.
“What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
“You’re a little touchy, it seems.”
If I hadn’t been noticing the same thing all day, I would have denied it. But it was true.
“I thought you needed to get out for a while,” I said.
“It can wait.”
“It’s been one of those days. I’ve only had about four hours of sleep. I woke up feeling sad about O’Connor, and all day I’ve either felt basically at peace with it or completely out of sorts. I keep thinking about standing there on O’Connor’s front lawn. Then Kenny and I had a really awful conversation at the hospital. He basically dumped on O’Connor and said he wasn’t sorry his father was dead. It was a bit much for me. I’m sorry, Frank. I’m just sort of frazzled right now.”
“That’s understandable. Do you need company, or would you rather get together some other time?”
I had mixed feelings. I wanted to spend time with him, but right at that moment I really wanted to be alone.
“You won’t feel insulted?”
“Not at all. And that answers the question. I’ll walk you back to your car.”
He put his arm around me as we walked.
“Irene, you won’t try to solve O’Connor’s murder on your own, will you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, regretting my testiness as soon as I had spoken. But he acted as if I had been as pleasant as a spring morning.
“It means,” he said, “that you’re still not safe. I probably don’t have to tell you that, but I just don’t want your desire to find out who killed him to lead to your getting hurt — or worse.”
“I can’t just roll over and play dead, either, Frank.”
“Well,” he said, a little exasperation edging into his voice. “I guess you’re going to do whatever you want to do anyway.”
“Right.”
He was quiet the rest of walk. I kept thinking of things to get a conversation going, but the problem was that I knew I was being difficult. And I didn’t like to admit it. But as we reached the car, I turned to him.
“Don’t pay attention to me today. In fact, if you could erase the last ten minutes from your memory tapes, I’d appreciate it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I drove back to Lydia’s. On the way, I remembered another one of those sayings O’Connor was always pulling out of his hat. “It never does any good to tell another person ‘Don’t worry,’” he said.
He was right. Frank’s parting words aside, I was worried about the effect my emotional state might have on — on what? Hell, I didn’t even know what — our friendship? Our relationship?
My mood did not improve.
41
LYDIA WAS SURPRISED to see me walk back into the house, but didn’t say anything about the brevity of my visit with Frank. She may have been scared off by the dark scowl I found myself wearing as I came in. I realized I needed to smooth things over with her.
“Look, Lydia, about the Hollingsworth-Longren thing. I’m sorry I was so short with you this afternoon.”
“You’re just having a bad day, Irene. Besides, I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. I wondered how Jennifer could be pregnant by one of them, when Richard Longren had already been here for years and Andrew Hollingsworth was in his final year at Harvard.”
I felt the rug being pulled out from under my feet. I had been so concerned with proving it was Hollingsworth that I hadn’t asked myself the obvious questions about why it might not be him after all. Such as the fact that he was probably miles away from Jennifer when she got pregnant. “Lydia, you know how most people get wiser with age? I think I’m getting dumber.”
“Oh, you hadn’t thought of that?”
“No. Obvious as it is, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, wait a minute, Irene, maybe there is some way it could have happened. Let’s see. How far along was she?”
“Somewhere around two months.”
She counted back on her fingers. “June to May, one month, May to April, two months. April. Maybe she traveled to Boston or Las Piernas in the spring of 1955.”
“Not likely. She was poor. She didn’t even have enough money to buy her bus fare all the way to Las Piernas in June.”
“Hmm. Let’s consider it the other way around then. Maybe one of them went to Arizona.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, why not at least look into what was going on in April of 1955? Maybe something will ring a bell.”
“Maybe, but I can hardly go up to the two of them and ask, ‘Where were you in April of 1955?’ Besides, it could have been late March as well. They only estimated that she was two months along. And the father and the killer might be different people altogether.”
“What would make a young woman leave home like that unless she thought someone was going to take care of her when she arrived at her destination?”
“Yeah. And all they did was feed her a taco and kill her. I don’t know. Maybe when she arrived here in June, she never even got together with the guy who got her pregnant. Maybe some homicidal maniac got to her before she even met up with the guy again.”
“Oh sure, a homicidal maniac. After all that’s happened, you can’t possibly believe that. There’s got to be a connection — Elaine Tannehill’s murder would be proof enough.”
“You’re right. There is a connection. I just can’t figure out who’s holding the other end.”
“Well, let’s think about it. She got pregnant in March or April.”
We sat and thought.
“Spring break,” I said at last. “Andrew Hollingsworth could have spent his spring break in Phoenix.”
“Right! And Longren could have come up with some reason to be in Phoenix for a few days, too. He was already on the council then, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. I’ll check the microfilm for March and April of 1955. Maybe it will mention some trip.” I was excited again. If I could place either one of them in Phoenix during the time Jennifer would have become pregnant, I wou
ld have gone a long way toward building a case for at least linking them to all that had been going on.
“Have you talked to Frank about any of this?” Lydia asked.
“Sore subject.”
“You two fight?”
“No, I was just real bitchy to him. You know what I need, Lydia? A nap. I think I’m going to try to get some sleep.”
“Probably a good idea. But think about catching him up on all of this. I still worry that someone is after you, and I’d like the police to get to the killer before he gets to you.”
I yawned and nodded. “Okay, I’ll talk to Frank.” I went back into the bedroom and peeled off my clothes. I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I WOKE UP in darkness. I was completely disoriented for a few minutes. Cody walked up to my face and nuzzled me, and I felt a little calmer. I looked over at the clock radio. Nine o’clock. I had slept over six hours. I wondered how much that was going to screw up my sleep patterns.
I sat up and stretched. I went out into the living room. Lydia was gone, but there was a note saying she was going to meet Kevin Malloy and some reporters from the Express down at Calhoun’s and to join them if I felt like it. I considered it, but decided that I wasn’t ready to go out to a place I associated so strongly with O’Connor. God knows when I’d ever go to Banyon’s again.
I fidgeted around for a while and finally picked up the phone and called Frank. We did our now routine exchange of last names.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“An apology. Sorry about this afternoon. I’ve had some sleep now, so I can probably talk to you without biting your head off.”
“You had a rough morning.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t excuse my bad manners. Anyway, I apologize.”
“Well, I’ve had some sleep myself. I knocked off not long after you left.”
“Think you’ll be up for a while?” I asked.
“All night, I’m afraid. And I’ve got to report in tomorrow.”
“I’m in the same boat. If we don’t make too late an evening of it, want to go out for a drink somewhere?”
