by Jan Burke
“And how did she feel about you? I mean, there seem to have been other men.”
“No one else for the past year. None of the men mentioned in the paper were involved with her recently. You can check that out pretty easily. No one since we got together.”
“You’re a handsome man. Were there other women in your life?”
“No. No one else. You look like you find that hard to believe, but it’s true.”
“I don’t find it hard to believe that you were devoted to her. I find it hard to believe that no one else expressed an interest in you.”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “So what? Most of them are a nuisance, if you ask me. At the risk of sounding like I’ve got a gargantuan ego, I’ll be straightforward with you, Miss Kelly. Many women find me attractive. They hit on me. They seek my attention. Why? Because of my face. I suppose a lot of men would say I have nothing to complain about, that they would love to have that problem. But they don’t know what it’s like. These women don’t give a damn about what I think or who I am — not really. It’s as if I’d be some kind of trophy. If all I wanted was a string of one-night stands, I’d be happy. I happen to want more.”
“And Dr. Blaylock was different.”
“Yes, she was. She took time to get to know me. She was very good to me. We wanted a future together… but now… God, now I’m just lost.”
He was starting to lose control again. I didn’t want to gratify the base curiosity of the people around us by having him break down in the restaurant, so I told him about the second letter from Thanatos. He knew all of the mythology, so at least I didn’t have to cover that again. It was a good distraction. For a few moments he thought about the letter more than about the loss of E.J. Blaylock.
His brows furrowed. “It sounds like he’s starving someone to death.”
“My theory exactly,” I said, noticing the carrot cake was no longer appealing.
“But you have no clues as to who Thalia represents?”
“None. But maybe if you tell me about Dr. Blaylock, I can begin to get an idea or two.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you know of her past?”
“Starting when?”
“As early as possible. Whatever you know.”
“Well, let’s see. She was born in Los Angeles in about 1936. She never really knew her dad; he was a sailor who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was at the end of 1941, so she would have been about five years old when he died.
“Her mother got a job in an aircraft factory — Mercury Aircraft. She was sort of a Rosie the Riveter, I guess. She got transferred down here near the end of the war. Mercury had two factories in Southern California then. Now it just has the original plant, the one in Las Piernas.”
I made notes, not sure any of what he told me would help. I found myself circling the word “Mercury.” After receiving the letters from Thanatos, names and words associated with mythology often caught my attention. They were everywhere. Among other things, Mercury had lent his name to a planet, an element, an automaker, and a dime. I reminded myself that at this rate, if E.J. Blaylock had ever eaten a Mars bar, laughed at Mickey Mouse’s dog, suffered insomnia, or used a mnemonic device, it was all going to be Greek (or Roman) to me.
“That’s how E.J. first came to Las Piernas,” Steven was saying. “I don’t know too much more about her childhood, just that she was always good in school. She loved history. She got straight A’s in every history class she took, even through college and grad school. She got into Las Piernas College on a scholarship. She went on to UCLA for her doctorate. She met a man there and married him.”
“Hold on a minute — she was married?”
“Briefly. It lasted less than a year. James, I think his name was. She went back to her maiden name, and has — had — used it ever since.”
“She ever tell you why the marriage broke up?”
“Not really, just said it had been a case of two people doing what was expected of them and then learning it was a mistake. No details. To be honest, she never talked much about the men in her past, which was fine with me.”
“She didn’t stay in Los Angeles?”
“No. After she graduated, she had several offers to teach, but she took a job here in Las Piernas so that she could take care of her mother. Her mother was ill by that time. Some kind of lung disease. She had been a heavy smoker and worked around some toxic chemicals, but there was no way to know which gave her the problem, which was… let’s see…” He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Emphysema, maybe? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten. Anyway, they lived together for about fifteen years. E.J. took care of her the whole time. Her mother died about ten years ago.”
“So, in about 1980?”
“Somewhere around there. I guess E.J. sort of came alive then. I don’t mean to say she had never dated or was some kind of shrinking violet under her mother’s thumb. She loved teaching and enjoyed being with students; she was a very popular instructor. She really went out of her way to try to get students excited about history.”
“So how did she ‘come alive’?”
“E.J. just had less of a load to carry. She told me that for several years before her mother died, she had felt helpless to ease her mother’s pain. She had watched her suffer and waste away. She hadn’t realized what a toll it was taking on her until after her mother died. But she was lonely without her mom around.”
“So she put time into her teaching and writing.”
“Exactly. And yes, she went through a time of involving herself sexually with some of her graduate students. The Express has made quite a big deal out of that,” he said bitterly.
I held up my hands. “Wait a minute. I’ve told you. I’m not here to dig up dirt on her. Quite frankly, I don’t blame the other reporter for mentioning it, but it’s old news at this point. I just thought you’d like to help me discover who had something against her, or what she might share in common with whoever this Thalia may turn out to be. I’m just trying to find the link between Thanatos, Thalia, and Dr. Blaylock.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Baker, the other reporter, wasn’t rude to me or anything. It’s just that afterward, I felt angry. I guess I was just upset about some of the coverage.”
“I can understand that,” I said gently. “It’s an upsetting time for you anyway.”
It was either the wrong thing to say or the wrong tone to use. He was better off a little angry. To keep him from getting all choked up on that teaspoon of sympathy, I said, “When I was in college, it seemed to me that professors who were very popular with students were distinctly unpopular with most other faculty members.”
He spread his fingers on the table top and pressed down on them. “Yes, there was some of that. But there has been for years.”
“Anyone in particular?”
He shook his head. “You should talk to other faculty members. It would be hard to find a faculty group in any academic institution that didn’t suffer some in-fighting. But I don’t know of anyone who was especially upset with E.J. She didn’t have any sworn enemies, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is anyone else on the history faculty very popular with students? Someone who is very cheerful all the time, perhaps?”
His brows knitted. “You think someone has a grudge against the history department?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
He relaxed his hands. “Well, let’s see. To be honest, I can’t think of anyone who would fit that description. They’re not a somber lot, but no one is a really happy-go-lucky type.”
“I’m trying to come up with someone who might fit Thalia. How about someone in another department on campus? Drama? Communications? Theater? Anyone else who’s very popular?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “I hate to admit this, but I’m not a very good person to ask about this. I’m a graduate student — all my classes are in history now. And the reason I’m a graduate student i
n history is because all my favorite classes as an undergraduate were in that department. I’m sorry.”
“What about this ex-husband? Was there a lot of bitterness? Or something that might have become important between them?”
He shook his head. “Highly doubtful. Like I said, I don’t even remember his last name. There was never any rancor in her voice when she spoke of him, which wasn’t often.”
I was stewing over this when a young woman strolled up to our table. The hem of her black leather skirt just made it past her skinny behind. She had long, straight blond hair and saucer-like brown eyes. Her cherry red lips formed a moue, and she cocked her head to one side in an affected way. On Sunset Boulevard, it could have earned her an hour’s work.
“Steven,” she said on a sigh that made it a much longer name. She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at it like it was a leech, and she removed it.
“Hello, Lindsey,” he said then. She eyed me but he didn’t introduce us. She looked back at him.
“Are you okay, Steven? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I’m doing fine, Lindsey. Thank you.”
She swayed her weight from high heel to high heel, then said, “Well, I’ve got to go. But I just wanted you to know I’m here for you.”
“Thanks.”
Seeing that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him than that, she turned and walked away.
“See what I mean?” he said with exasperation. I nodded. He didn’t have to say anything more.
“Look, I’ve got a deadline to make, so I’d better scoot. I appreciate your meeting with me.” I gave him a business card. I added my home phone number, hoping he didn’t think that meant I was hitting on him, too. I paid up and we left.
Out on the sidewalk, he seemed to relax a little more.
“This is the first time I’ve felt like someone really wanted to know about her. The other — well, maybe it was just that I was so upset. I still can’t believe it happened. She didn’t deserve this. No matter what she may have done, she didn’t deserve this. No one does.”
“I agree. By the way — are you familiar with her research and writing?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s talk more about that sometime soon — if you don’t mind?”
“No, no, not at all. Her research was very important to her.”
He seemed distant for a few moments, obviously remembering E.J. Blaylock. I wished there was something I could say to comfort him. I watched him struggling to learn that trick of functioning with grief — that trick of remembering and forgetting all at once, of letting the ghost walk at your side, but not block your way. I was learning it myself. A close friend of mine had died a little more than six months earlier, and Kincaid’s grief was almost too clear a reminder of that loss.
But before I could think of anything to say, he came back from whatever world he had mentally wandered into, and we shook hands and said good-bye.
I thought of Lindsey and how repulsed he had seemed to be by her attentions. I wondered, as I climbed into the Karmann Ghia, if Steven Kincaid’s good looks would make him into a bitter and lonely man.
I sighed and started the car. The windshield wipers came on.
8
“MAYBE WE SHOULD GET A DOG. You like dogs, don’t you?”
We were sitting in front of a fire that evening, one of our rare evenings at home together, drinking hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps, when Frank came up with this idea. We had been talking about our plans for Christmas, which somehow led to talking about my feeling safe when I was home alone in the evenings. Perhaps, after calling him from the Garden Cafe earlier in the day, I seemed more fearful. Whoever had turned on the windshield wipers hadn’t left any prints. Frank had been a little angry with me for not mentioning the parking-light incident, but I couldn’t tell if he thought someone was trying to frighten me, or if he was just convinced I was going over the edge. Now he was suggesting things like new locks, self-defense classes, and dogs.
“I love dogs,” I said. “And you like them, right?”
“Yeah, although I haven’t had one since I was a kid. I used to have this great mutt who was some kind of lab/retriever mix. Trouble.”
“The dog caused problems?”
“No. Trouble was her name. My dad named all of our pets. When he watched this pup follow me home, he said, ‘Here comes trouble.’ The name stuck. We also used to have a rabbit named Stu.”
“So that’s where you get your sense of humor.”
“Trouble was great. I swear that dog could understand English. I could say, ‘Go to my closet and bring back my blue tennis shoes.’ She’d do it.”
“Blue tennis shoes? I thought dogs were colorblind.”
Frank shrugged. “She would have known which ones I meant.”
It sounded like classic dog-owner bragging to me, but I didn’t want to further impugn the memory of Trouble.
“I used to have a dog,” I said. “She was mostly a beagle — named Blanche.”
“Blanche?”
“Blanche Du Bois.”
He smiled. “Blanche Du Bois? A Streetcar Named Desire?”
“You are a detective. My dad named our pets, too. Blanche was a stray, and Dad said she had survived because she had ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers.’”
“Were your other pets named Stanley and Stella?”
“No, Blanche was the only one that took her name from Tennessee Williams. Dad was being a little dramatic himself. It was a protest of sorts. He wanted us to get rid of her.”
“Your dad didn’t like dogs?”
“He was just exercising his authority. You know how this goes. He grumbled that he didn’t want a dog, told us to take Blanche to the pound, but then he ended up being the one who fed the dog from the table — he’d even let Blanche sneak up onto the couch when my mother was in the other room. Blanche was crazy about him. She was only my dog until my dad came home from work, then she shadowed him.”
“Trouble used to follow me everywhere I’d go,” Frank said.
I laughed. “Sorry. It still sounds funny.”
“I had the same problem talking about her as a kid.”
“I used to take Blanche hunting for hot dogs.”
“Had a lot of wild hot dogs burrowing around in Las Piernas back then?”
“Given the opportunity, I will explain. I’d steal a hot dog out of the refrigerator, drag it around on the ground, and hide it somewhere in the yard. Then I’d put her on a leash, and she would follow the trail and track it down. She’d find it every time.”
“Poor mutt. Reduced to stalking Oscar Meyer.”
“At least she got to eat the hot dog. I never asked her to fetch my stinky old tennis shoes.”
He laughed. We sat there for a moment, remembering our dearly departed canines, listening to a blues program on KLON. The wood popped and crackled in the fireplace. We began softly touching each other. The caresses weren’t so much sexual as tender; small gifts of affection. I traced the ridge of his eyebrows, ran the back of my nails beneath his chin; he stroked the back of my arm above my elbow, found that place along my left shoulder blade that loves to be lightly scratched.
“About the mountains,” he said. “Let’s wait. We can go up for the weekend sometime in January or February.”
“Frank, really, I don’t need to be babied about this.”
“Neither do I. Could you stand to pass up all that food Lydia was talking about?”
“First you practically hypnotize me with whatever that wonderful thing is that you’re doing to my ear. Then you bring up Lydia’s cooking. Do you use these same methods at work?”
“You get all kinds of special privileges.”
“Keep it that way, Harriman.”
We watched Cody trot in through his new cat door and head straight for the fire. He gave us a look that said we should have called him to let him know there was a fire in here for a cat to enjoy.
> “Think Cody would run away if we had a dog?” Frank asked.
“No, he knows who owns the can opener. Oh, I shouldn’t insult him. Cody’s a handful, but he’s loyal. He’d probably sulk for a few days, then he’d adjust. We’d just have to give him extra attention.”
I got up and refilled our hot chocolates. Cody noticed the mint smell, of which he is enamored, and made a pest out of himself trying to get a taste of it.
Frank gently pulled me back over to him, encircling me with his arms. “You haven’t had so many nightmares lately.”
“No. At least, not the really intense ones. I might wake up, but I’m not screaming bloody murder.”
“So you are still having them.” I could hear the worry in his voice.
“Not as often as before. I’m almost used to it now.”
“These letters and pranks getting to you?”
No use lying. “A little.”
I felt him tense. “I guess they worry me, too. Especially because I know you won’t be able to resist trying to track him down.”
“It’s in my nature, Frank. A strong sense of curiosity is one of the things we have in common. You know I can’t ignore these letters. I don’t know why you find that hard to understand.”
“It isn’t hard to understand. There’s just a difference between what I understand and what I feel happy about.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Lots of silence. Finally, he sighed and relaxed a little.
“You worry too much, Frank. Besides, I’m not his target.”
“Not yet,” he said, and the tension returned.
I reached up and started massaging his neck. He murmured something about it feeling good.
“You know what, Frank? I’m really enjoying having two hands.”
“Wrong. I’m the one who’s enjoying it.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I was sitting at my desk, daydreaming about my old friend O’Connor. The desk used to be his, and it took a while for me to learn to say “my desk” when referring to it. It would always be his, of course, and I often felt especially near to him when I sat there. O’Connor was fond of quoting things he had read here and there; he was a walking book of proverbs, old saws, and words of wisdom. He had one for any occasion, but you were especially likely to hear them from him when he had a skinful.
