Goodnight, Irene (6 page)

“Frank and I knew each other when I worked in Bakersfield,” I said.

“Oh,” said Barbara, “I didn’t know you were such old friends.”

“We haven’t been in touch in a long time.”

Barbara looked between us. “Oh.”

“I know you’ve really had a shock today, Mrs. O’Connor,” Frank said gently.

She nodded. Tears welled up in her eyes and she looked back over toward the glass doors, but she stayed put.

“Did Mr. O’Connor call you today?”

She turned back to Frank. “You mean Kenny? Yes, he called. He said he needed me to give him a ride to a new hiding place. Someone was trying to kill him.”

Frank waited.

“He said he couldn’t tell me more over the phone because the cops — I mean, the police — might have the phone tapped.”

“Why was he afraid of the police?”

“I don’t know. I think he was afraid of everybody. He was just so scared. Anyway, he asked me to come and give him a ride, since he didn’t have his car—” She looked at me and reddened. She turned back to Frank. “I guess you already know that.”

“Did he mention the names of anyone who might be causing him trouble?”

She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about that. He said he couldn’t tell me what his problems were or who was after him, just that they were very powerful people who could get away with anything. But when we dropped the Corvette off at your house, Irene, he said something like, ‘All because of Hannah.’ I thought that might have been the young girl he was trying to impress when he bought the Corvette. Do you think she could be behind this?”

Frank and I looked at one another.

“Well, maybe that’s crazy,” she added quickly. “I don’t know. But who is Hannah?”

“‘Who Is Hannah?’…” I repeated slowly. “O’Connor’s column.”

“Oh, for pity’s sakes, Irene, that Hannah died almost forty years ago. And there’s more than one Hannah in the world. She probably wasn’t even a Hannah. Who knows what her name really was.”

“That’s what I want to know, Barbara. Who is it that might know her real name?”

Frank shot me a look that clearly said he wished I would shut my big mouth. Barbara saw it and went into a pout. “No one tells me anything!”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said. “I just think your sister is doing a lot of speculating on slim evidence and I don’t want her to worry you.”

“Worry me! After today?” She turned to me. “Do you know what happened to me today?”

The shrill edge in her tone made me realize Barbara was a powder keg and I was playing with matches. I shook my head “no” and looked at Frank, who was now looking down at his hands. He was rubbing his right thumb over the knuckles of his left hand.

“That’s right,” she went on, “you don’t. When Kenny called he said he’d be ready to go in an hour. Just one hour. I was ready to go get him then, but he wanted me to come down in an hour. He was down at the beach house. The front door was open. Just wide open.”

“Barbara…”

She was white as a sheet. Her voice scared me — it had become mechanical, as if she were describing a scene in a movie. “There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. I walked in and I called out, ‘Kenny!’ But I already knew he wouldn’t answer. There was so much blood. It was sprayed on the walls. And there was a trail of it on the carpet leading to the back door. I got some of it on my shoes.”

She stopped and looked down at her shoes, and then back up at me. She started to cry.

“Barbara—” I reached out and she recoiled from me. I looked to Frank for help.

He said, very quietly, “Let her tell it.”

She started to speak again, tears rolling down her face.

“When I looked out into the backyard, I saw this red baseball bat stuck in the sand. I wondered why it was sticking up there in the sand, right where this trail of blood stopped. And then there was Kenny’s hand, just barely showing. He was moving his fingers. He was trying to dig himself out. They had buried him alive.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Barbara…”

“That’s when I started screaming. I just screamed and I screamed. I was screaming the whole time I was digging him out. At first I couldn’t find his nose. I wanted to make it so he could breathe, you see. I guess I got his mouth free, because he made these gulping and wheezing and then coughing noises. Then there was Detective Baird. I don’t know when he got there, but he helped me dig Kenny out. He pulled me away from Kenny and made me sit in the sand. He called some help somehow, and he tried to help Kenny breathe, but it was hard because… well, they had smashed his face. His teeth were all broken on one side and I could see… bone. And his nose was broken. His eyes were swollen shut and he had sand in all his cuts. The blood made everything stick. Detective Baird got some of the bleeding to stop. And then there were lots of people and Detective Baird drove me here, right behind the ambulance. Detective Baird had Kenny’s blood all over him.”

She looked at Frank, and took his hands. “You sent Detective Baird to look after me, didn’t you?”

“You might put it that way,” he said.

“I want to thank you for that.” She started sobbing again, but she wouldn’t let go of Frank’s hands. He didn’t try to take them away.

I thought of how often I misjudged her, thought of all she had been through just this morning. I stood up and took the bag of Thai food over to the trash can. A shame to waste it, but I didn’t expect to be hungry again for about five years.

As I turned to go back to the table, I noticed Sister Theresa walking toward us. I prayed a prayer I never thought I’d pray — I prayed to God that Kenny was still alive.

S
ISTER
T
HERESA AND
I reached the bench at the same time.

“Mrs. O’Connor?” she said to Barbara. “Come along now, the doctor is ready to talk to you about your husband.”

“Is he…?”

“Yes, he’s alive. Now, more than that, you’ll have to learn from the doctor.”

I murmured a prayer of thanks to a God who would listen to hypocrites.

Barbara and Sister Theresa started back. I was about to follow when Barbara turned and asked me if I’d wait outside with Frank. I felt hurt, but I stayed where I was. Frank looked over at me.

“Hey, don’t take it so hard. Later on she’s probably not even going to remember being upset with you.”

“I’ve never been — what did you call it the other day? — ‘sympathetic’ enough with her. I’m always wanting her to be a little tougher, less vulnerable.”

Frank was good enough just to let me kick myself in silence for a while.

“I don’t suppose there are any leads on this?” I asked.

“Nothing solid. We’ve got a forensics team combing every inch of that beach house.”

“I wonder if Kenny was the intended target all along.”

“It’s possible. But then there’s this Hannah business and a couple of other things that bother me. For example, why shoot out
your
window? If they thought he was at your place, and were planning to kill him, why not wait for a clear shot? For that matter, why not just shoot him today? If they wanted to kill him, why not just do it outright?”

“O’Connor must have figured out who Hannah was,” I said, “or at least worried someone into thinking he was getting too close to figuring it out. But why be so vicious with Kenny?”

“I don’t know. We’re talking to people with whom Kenny has been in recent contact, trying to find out if anyone knows anything that might help us figure out how he comes into it.”

“I talked to Lydia. I think things look pretty good for my getting my job back at the paper.”

To my surprise, he didn’t seem very happy about this. “Irene, what happened to Kenny changes everything. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay in Las Piernas. At least not until we figure out what’s going on.”

“And what if you never figure it out?”

“We will.”

“Who are you trying to kid? Maybe some people expect you guys to be supermen, but I don’t. I’ll bet even the Canadian Mounties don’t always get their man anymore. I’ve worked the crime beat, remember?”

“Look — doesn’t my experience count for anything with you?”

“Doesn’t mine count for anything with you?”

“Goddamn it, Irene, this guy’s a freak. Burying Kenny in the sand — that’s not the work of some hood on an errand.”

“I appreciate your concern. But think about it, Frank. I’m in danger until we figure out who’s behind all of this. That will be easier to discover if I pick up the threads of O’Connor’s investigations. I know how O’Connor’s mind worked, the way he attacked a problem. You’ve probably already gone into the newsroom and gathered whatever Wrigley could hand over, and I know enough about O’Connor’s note-taking to know you probably haven’t been able to make heads or tails of it. I’m not trying to be a hero here, Frank. I just don’t see any quicker or better way to get my own life back in order.”

I waited. He was rubbing his knuckles again.

“I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

“In a word, no.”

“Well, hell.”

“This isn’t something I take lightly. I’m about to compromise the hell out of my journalistic ethics. I don’t like Wrigley, but that doesn’t make me feel any less like a double agent, working with you on this. The only way I’m going to be able to face myself in the mirror is by telling myself that this is beyond reporters versus cops. That, and I trust you.”

“Thanks, but I also happen to know you see yourself as O’Connor’s Avenging Angel.”

“I’ve never been any kind of angel, Frank.”

“Hmph.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Look, I’d better get going. All hell will be breaking loose at headquarters. I’ll call you at Lydia’s tonight.”

I watched as he walked off, then went back to the ER waiting room. I walked over to the counter, where Sister Theresa was concentrating on something on her desk. I looked down and noticed she was doodling — a fairly good caricature of one of the nurses I had seen going in and out of the ER. She had captured the nurse’s semimilitary bearing and grim facial features rather well.

“Remarkable resemblance,” I said.

She gave a start and then two bright red spots appeared on her cheeks.

“Not very Christian of me, I suppose,” she said.

“I won’t tell.”

She smiled. “You want to find your sister.”

“No, I don’t think she really wants to see me, at least not now. I just want to know if she’s okay and where she’ll be later on — I know she’ll want to stay with her husband as much as possible.”

“Yes, I’m afraid your sister is the kind of person who will exhaust herself with dedication. And you’re wise to let her have some time to, well, to get used to things. It’s very hard to adjust to extensive, critical injuries to those we love. She may not be herself for a while.”

“I understand.”

She looked at me with those gentle eyes. I grew up thinking nuns had X-ray vision where your guilty conscience was concerned, so I never really enjoyed getting the old eyeball from them; but I didn’t feel uncomfortable with Sister Theresa.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “you’re a good sister to her.”

Damn. X-ray vision after all.

B
EFORE
I
LEFT
, I learned from Sister Theresa that Kenny was in a coma, had multiple fractures and facial injuries. Both collarbones and several ribs had received bone-breaking whacks from the bat. Brain damage might or might not be permanent. She explained that most of the beating had been on his face, which gave him a better chance of recovery than he would have had if the blows had landed on other parts of his head. Most of the blood probably had come from his face — especially the mouth and nose. He was also lucky that the broken ribs hadn’t punctured his lungs. His condition was listed as critical.

It was late afternoon when I got back to Lydia’s place. Cody was starved for attention and gave me a grand welcome, prancing and yowling and purring loudly. The phone rang.

I let the machine get it, but listened in, then picked up the receiver when I recognized Lydia’s voice.

“What’s up, Lydia?”

“I’ve been worried sick about you! Do you know what’s happened to O’Connor’s son?”

It dawned on me that as assistant city editor, she would have heard the police and paramedics’ calls on the scanner and sent some general assignment person out to check out the beach-house story.

“Yeah, I know. That’s where I’ve been, down at St. Anne’s.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“Don’t know. He’s a mess, but he’s hanging in there so far. Can’t get nuns to quote odds. How are things going with Wrigley?”

“He wants to take us both out to dinner tonight.”

“Are you game?”

“For an evening with Wrigley? Now we’re talking sacrifice. But I wouldn’t send my worst enemy out alone with that wolf.”

“I take it he’s not in the newsroom.”

“You’ll make a fine newspaperwoman someday.”

“Gee, thanks. So he took the bait?”

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

“So where’s dinner?” I asked.

“Café La Fleur, eight o’clock.”

“How trendy.”

“That’s our Wrigley.”

“Are you coming back home first?”

“Of course; I need to change.”

This struck a note of panic in me. “Lydia, I haven’t got anything fancy with me.”

“Fancy? My dear, the look at La Fleur is studied dishabille. Got anything left over from the hippie days with you?”

“No, gone to Goodwill. But I get the picture.”

“Anyway, I’ve got stuff you can borrow.”

L
YDIA GOT HOME
about half an hour later and invited me to go for a run. Paranoia about being out in the open almost made me beg off, but I decided I could use the stress relief. It was the perfect time of day to go running — still light and yet cooling off. We took a couple of turns and ended up in a nearby park. There were lots of other joggers and skaters and bike riders, and somehow we avoided being bumped into by all this fitness traffic. Lydia and I took off over the grass to avoid some of the crowd on the pathways.

We reached that point where all you hear is your own breathing, the air going past your ears, and the rhythm of your feet on the ground. I started feeling all the tension leave me; I was bathed in sweat and happy as a clam. We made a wide turn in the park and headed home. We slowed to a walk without anyone saying a word, just smiling and breathing hard.