Dear Irene,

by Jan Burke

  “I can’t picture you being much of a sinner.”

  I thought of the string of blasphemies I had uttered down in the basement of the Express that very morning and laughed. “Don’t make me confess,” I said.

  I was relieved to learn there was an elevator in the building, and we used it to haul the boxes down to his truck. When the last one was loaded in, he turned to me and said, “I won’t ever be able to repay you for this. But I won’t ever forget it, either. Thank you, Irene.” He gave me a quick hug and drove off before I could tell him he didn’t owe me a thing.

  It wasn’t until I got home and had sat around for an hour or two that I realized I had really overdone it. My hand was especially loud in protesting, my shoulder not far behind. I put on some soft music and tried to relax. I changed into one of Frank’s pajama tops, which came to just above my knees, and crawled onto the couch to wait for him. I tried not to think about what hurt.

  When he hadn’t made it by midnight, I put ice on the hand. Still it throbbed. I finally broke down and took a painkiller. It had been a few weeks since I had taken one and I had forgotten how powerful they were. I conked out on the couch.

  I don’t know how long I had slept when I felt a draft of cold air. It was dark in the living room, and I was still very drowsy. A little later, I felt a pair of strong arms lifting me carefully from the couch and murmured, “You’re home.” He carried me into the bedroom and tucked me under the covers. I heard him walking back out of the room and fell asleep waiting for him to get into bed.

  Later, I finally heard him undressing. “Frank?”

  “Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.”

  “Thanks for tucking me in.”

  “What?”

  Something fell into place then. Some gnawing feeling that something wasn’t right. I reached over and turned on the light.

  There was a jar of ants sitting on the nightstand.

  11

  DON’T TOUCH IT,” Frank said.

  Not a problem. I found myself scrambling off the bed and as far away from it as I could, into Frank’s arms. I’m not afraid of insects. I do have difficulty with calling cards left by killers.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I told him about being carried into bed. “I thought it was you. He was here. He got inside the house. He touched me—”

  Frank held on to me, trying to calm me down. I don’t know if I was more angry or afraid. When my composure returned, Frank called the department and asked for a forensics team. I stayed close to him as he walked into the living room. He went over to the patio door, and without touching it, pointed out that the sliding-glass door was off its tracks.

  “I felt a draft,” I said.

  “He jimmied it up. We didn’t set the bolt,” he said with exasperation. The door was equipped with a bolt lock that would have made it much more difficult for Thanatos to enter the house that way. But we only fastened that lock when we were leaving the house, since it would be awkward to unlatch in case of fire. We had talked once or twice about replacing the weak handle lock—the one Thanatos had overcome so easily—with one that would be both strong and easy to open from the inside, but never got around to it.

  I could tell that Frank was silently berating himself, and knew it would be useless to protest that it was a case of mutual procrastination. We searched the house together, but as far as we could tell, nothing was missing or disturbed. Unless you count me in the latter category.

  Pete came over, and other officers not long after. They tried to ask questions that might elicit some description of Thanatos from me. All I was able to say was that he had been strong enough to lift me; I thought he probably had a build that was similar to Frank’s, but I couldn’t be sure.

  It was frustrating for all concerned. No fingerprints other than Frank’s and mine were on the glass door. They didn’t find any prints on the jar of ants, but they took it with them. I knew Thanatos’ hands weren’t gloved when he carried me to the bed, but it came back to me that neither his clothes nor his hands were cold.

  How long had he watched me sleep?

  * * *

  BY THE TIME everybody left, we were both worn down. We crawled into bed and held on to each other. I thought I would fall asleep quickly, but I didn’t. I could tell that Frank was still awake as well.

  “You’re worrying,” I said at last.

  “And I’m pissed.”

  “At me?”

  “No, no—why would I be angry with you?”

  “Because I missed a chance to see who he is. You could have had a description of him if I had just opened my eyes. And your home has been broken into because of me.”

  He pulled away to look down at me. “Our home. Right at the moment, I don’t really give a shit about the house. I’m angry because I left you here alone at night, and he could have harmed you.”

  “Stop it, Frank. You know how I hate it when you try to take over for God.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Hmmph.”

  I decided it was time for a change in tactics. I moved up against him in a positively nasty way, running my fingernails over his chest. He groaned and gave me a kiss. One thing led to several others, and eventually we worked off all possible tension. Just before we fell asleep, I scraped his earlobe lightly with my teeth and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Adam.”

  “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 hardworking 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.
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  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.