Goodnight, Irene (13 page)

“Do you know who was in the Lincoln?” I asked.

“No, not yet. I don’t know if anyone told you — they’re both dead.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Do you think this was the car that fired the shots into your house?”

“Yes, pretty sure. But I’m not positive.”

“That’s okay. If it is, ballistics will probably be able to match the gun to the bullets from your wall. These guys followed you from San Pedro?”

I told him about the drive back, and the chase. It seemed as if it had all happened to someone else, except that I was holding a skull in my lap. It was funny in a way. I didn’t want to have it near me earlier. Now it was my link to believing we still had an edge over whoever wanted Hannah’s identity to remain a secret.

“Here,” I said, reluctantly handing the box to Pete. “It’s her skull. And here are the computer drawings. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take one set in to the paper. And this is a list of places she was most likely to have lived before coming here, or at least, where she lived as a child.”

“Thanks, we’ll get the pictures out to all these places and make some phone contacts with the local PDs. If somebody hadn’t made all this noise, I probably couldn’t get anyone to take a look at it, you know? But now we’ve got a homicide, two attempteds, and a long list of other charges to excite people about.”

We pulled up to the ER entrance of St. Anne’s. It was getting to be familiar territory. I got out of the car and rushed into the waiting room. The nurse at the counter told me that Frank was still in the ER; they would let me know when I could see him.

I sat down on one of the plastic chairs. Pete checked in with the desk as well, showing his ID and telling the nurse he would be waiting with me.

“Hey, how’s your sister’s husband?” he asked as he sat down next to me.

“Still critical. Thanks for helping him and taking care of Barbara.”

“Your sister’s okay. It was rough for her, you know? But all things considered, she did okay.”

“Yes, she did.”

“You hanging in there? Most people would want to go home and crawl under the covers after what happened to you today.”

I shrugged, and felt the stiffness that was starting to set in on my back and neck. I stood up and stretched.

“Starting to get sore?”

“Yeah, a little.”

T
HE NURSE CAME OVER
to Pete and me, told us Frank was being taken to a room, and that the doctor would talk to us now. We went through the door to the hallway outside the waiting room and were met by a young man in scrubs. He introduced himself as Dr. Baldwin.

When I told him my name, he said, “Detective Harriman has been asking about you.” Then, talking mainly to Pete, but giving me polite eye contact now and again, he told us that Frank had suffered a concussion and a broken nose, two cracked ribs, and various minor facial injuries. Luckily, the ribs hadn’t punctured his lungs. Frank was conscious now but we should keep our visit brief.

Frank was lying in the bed, his head and shoulders slightly elevated. His face was chalk-white. His eyes, nose, and upper lip were puffy; he lay very still. Even knowing that he was probably going to be okay, it scared me to see him like this. As we approached the bed, he opened his eyes and tried to focus on our faces. “Hi,” he managed to say.

“Hello. Good to see you’re awake,” I said.

“You’re hurt,” he said, seeing the bandage.

“Look who’s talking.”

He swallowed, and made a motion for the water glass. I held the straw up to his lips and he took a long drink.

“Thanks.” He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he said, “Hi, Pete.”

“Hey, Frank. Doctor tells us you’re gonna be fine, but that it will hurt like hell for a while.”

“It already does,” he said. I wondered if we should leave, but it was hard to make myself do it.

He managed an odd, lopsided grin. “Glad you’re okay. I was worried.”

I took his hand, held it between mine. “You worried me, too. Get some sleep. I’ll be back to see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said, and squeezed my hand as I let go. As I turned to leave, he said, “Irene?”

I turned back. “Yes?”

“Miss your deadline?”

“There will be another one tomorrow, and another one the day after that. Don’t worry about it. Get better.”

I moved to the foot of the bed, and Pete moved up toward him. “She’s right, Frank, just get better. And don’t you worry about Irene. I’ll watch out for her.”

“Thanks, Pete,” he whispered.

He closed his eyes again, falling asleep this time; Pete and I, like tiptoeing children, stepped quietly away from his bed.

On our way down the hallway, we met Captain Bredloe, Frank’s boss in Homicide. He was a tall, strapping man with a deep voice. I stood to one side while Pete told him Frank was asleep and not able to talk much right now, but that he should be okay. The captain hesitated, looked down the hallway toward the room, then turned and walked out with us.

Pete went over the list of Frank’s injuries. The captain asked a few questions, then looked over at me as Pete gave a brief summary of what I had told him about the day’s activities.

“You’re a reporter?” Bredloe asked.

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“You worked with O’Connor, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” That seemed like something as long lost as childhood right now.

“I liked O’Connor,” he said. “You be careful.” He paused, then said, “Can we give you a ride somewhere?”

“My car’s just over at the paper. Frank met me there before we went to San Pedro.” I thought of the picnic on the cliffs.

“So your car has been there all day?”

“Pretty much. Since about nine this morning.”

“Hmm. Pete, have it checked out before she gets in it.”

A simple phrase, but it made me feel queasy.

He noticed. “I’ll tell you what, you look like you could use some rest. Why don’t I take you home and let Pete deal with your car?”

It sounded like a good idea. I told them I could get a ride in with Lydia tomorrow. I gave Pete my car keys and left with the captain.

On the way to Lydia’s, he talked to me about O’Connor, told stories of his own first days on the force, when O’Connor was already a journeyman reporter. Apparently they had lifted a few glasses together at Banyon’s back when Bredloe was a single man. “O’Connor always gave us a fair shake,” he said. “He wasn’t as sympathetic as some would have liked him to be, but he was always fair.” We pulled up in front of Lydia’s house. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Kelly. I’ll just watch you to the door.”

I thanked him and said goodnight, feeling the stiffness again as I got out of the car. I waved to the captain as I let myself in.

Lydia exclaimed over me, mothered me, fussed over me once again. My weary, lifeless retelling of the day’s events brought further sympathy and care. “Take another hot bath tonight or you’ll be super sore tomorrow,” she advised. I agreed, and went down the hall to run the bath. She came in with a coffee-colored drink.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A B-52 — Kahlúa, Grand Marnier, and Irish Cream.”

“Jesus, Lydia, what are you trying to do, embalm me?”

“Trust me.”

My resistance was low. I climbed into the bath and sipped the sweet drink that went down my throat like liquid fire. The bathroom door opened, and in strolled Cody. He climbed up on the edge of the tub and started meowing at me. I scratched his ears and chin with my dry hand, and he rubbed against it and almost fell in. He settled down on the bath mat and watched me. I could hear him purring. It’s nice to be loved.

When the water got cold and my face felt numb from the drink, I crawled out and dried off. Cody pranced ahead of me and jumped up onto the bed. I definitely had a buzz on. I fell asleep quickly, saying a little prayer of gratitude. I don’t know if it was the prayer, exhaustion, the booze, or Cody’s purring, but that night I didn’t have any nightmares.

I
WOKE UP
at about six the next morning, acutely aware of every muscle in my back and neck. I forced myself out of bed and hobbled into the bathroom. I took a hot shower to help get limbered up a little. I stood there, aiming the water on my neck and then between my shoulder blades, wondering how Frank was feeling, thinking of him lying there in the hospital. I wondered how Barbara and Kenny were doing. Thought about the fact that O’Connor had been killed three days ago. By the time I got out of the shower, I was depressed.

As the steam cleared off the bathroom mirror, I was a little startled to notice my forehead had started to bruise. I looked pretty weird with that and the cuts. For some reason it struck me as comical. I could hardly brush my teeth, I wanted to laugh at my odd appearance so much. “Well, Miss Mood Swing,” I said to myself in the mirror, “get a grip.”

I rode to work with Lydia. She was nice enough to walk at my pace as we made our way into the building. Geoff gave me a look of great concern. I felt self-conscious now that I was exposing the public to this purple band above my eyebrows. “Not as bad as it looks,” I said to him.

“Glad is isn’t. Miss Kelly, the night man left me a message to give you. It says the police checked your car and it’s okay. Here are your keys.”

I thanked him and we took the elevator up the one flight. I knew if I kept moving I would feel better, but stairs were not yet on the program.

One of Wrigley’s assistants stopped me on my way back to O’Connor’s desk. Staring at my forehead, she said, “Mr. Wrigley asked me to give you all of Mr. O’Connor’s mail. I put a couple of letters that arrived yesterday afternoon on his old desk for you.”

“Thanks.”

“John Walters wants to talk to you.”

She was right. I had just picked up the two envelopes that constituted O’Connor’s mail and was about to sit down, when John yelled across the room, “Kelly, get over here.” “Here” was Lydia’s desk; he had apparently cornered her the moment she walked in.

I stuffed the envelopes in my purse and made my way slowly over to Lydia and John. He was leaning his ample behind on Lydia’s desk, watching me. As I got closer, he glanced at my forehead, and said, “You’ll be better off if you don’t sit down for a while. Try to keep moving around a little.” Lydia looked at him in surprise — Walters as caretaker was a rare sighting.

I asked what I could do for him.

“We did a short piece on the car chase yesterday, but I could use more information than I’m getting from the cops.”

So someone at the paper had picked up the calls going out to the accident, I just hadn’t seen any reporter before we left for the hospital. That story was pretty late-breaking, and must have just made the final edition.

“You want me to write it?” I asked.

“Sure, why not? But first tell me about it, so Lydia can get some people on any other angles we might need to cover.”

“It’s a complex story. I’ve got something here that ties in.” I handed him the computer drawings of Hannah.

“Who is it?”

“That’s Hannah.”

“Hannah who?”

“Handless Hannah, the woman O’Connor wrote about every year; the Jane Doe they found under the pier in 1955.”

“What does this have to do with an attempt on the lives of a cop and a reporter?”

“I think it has something to do with the murder of O’Connor as well.”

I told him about Hernandez, the skull, and MacPherson. As I spoke, I could tell I had started to pique John’s interest, but he didn’t have that look that said I had sold something for page one. Nothing to do but finish telling him the story. “I’ve been thinking about it, John. For some reason Woolsey didn’t follow up. Why not? He may have intentionally misled O’Connor for years. I think someone should talk to Woolsey.”

It was the first time I had mentioned Woolsey’s role, and John and Lydia exchanged a wide-eyed look.

“What’s wrong?”

Lydia reached across her desk and pulled a large sheet over — copy for today’s run. She handed it to me.

“Dr. Emmet Woolsey,” I read aloud, “former Coroner for the City of Las Piernas, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds early Tuesday evening…”

I stood there, re-reading it, trying to let the words sink in. John was telling Lydia that we needed to have someone go back over the Woolsey story. He looked at me.

“Go on with your story, Irene.”

I told him about MacPherson getting the computer images made, about taking the skull and being followed, and the chase.

“Any ID on the guys in the Lincoln?”

“Not that I know of, but I’ll put a call in to Pete Baird — he’s one of the cops working on this with Frank Harriman.”

“What about this Harriman? Is he gonna make it?”

I then told him about Frank’s injuries, trying to sound clinical and shoving away the memories of the wait for the ambulance.

“Hmm. So you want me to run the pictures on A-one in hopes that someone comes forward and says, ‘Oh yeah, this girl stopped in and bought a taco from me in 1955. I remember it well.’”

“You have a lovely way of putting things, John. No, I want you to run the pictures on A-one because it’s tied into everything that happened to us yesterday, and probably everything that’s happened for the last few days to several other people, including Woolsey. I think it will make someone nervous, and nervous people tend to make mistakes.”

“Nervous people can also be dangerous — and if you haven’t figured that out by now, you’ve got a thicker skull than old Hannah there.”

“It’s a break in a case that everyone who ever read O’Connor’s column knows about.”

He made a motion as if waving off a pesky fly. “I’ll think about it. Go back to work.”

I
TURNED ON
the computer at O’Connor’s desk, thinking that it might still hold clues about Hannah. I also owed Wrigley some work on that mayor’s story. I signed on and was getting ready to do the write-up on the chase, when the phone rang.

“Kelly.”

“Hi, Irene. Pete Baird. Just wanted to let you know I saw Frank this morning and he’s doing a lot better.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”