Dear Irene (13 page)

If you’re ever able to,
I thought. And I wouldn’t blame him if that day never came. I got him started on his part of the task, then went to the other end of the room. I moved the calendar off the desk and set it aside. I figured the desk was the worst place in the office, and I wanted to spare Steven as much as possible.

Blood-soaked papers were stuck to the desktop. Once I had gingerly peeled them off, the surface of the desk was not so bad. A neatly clipped stack of phone message slips caught my attention. At first I thought they might be recent calls, but then I saw that some of them were quite faded. The slips were in alphabetical order, and dates on them ranged over several years.

“It was her informal system,” Steven said, seeing me reading them. “They aren’t personal friends or people she contacted often — those names and numbers are in her Rolodex.” He glanced over the desktop, then turned away from it. “I guess the police took that,” he said, not very steadily. “The message slips are resource people. Librarians and researchers, archivists and curators that helped her with specialized research.”

“Such as her research on war workers?” I asked, concentrating now on the notes Edna Blaylock had written on the bottom half of each slip.

“Maybe,” he said. He was sitting on the couch again, looking pale.

“Mind if I keep any that look interesting?”

He shook his head.

“Are you all right?”

He managed an unconvincing smile. “I will be in a minute, I think.”

One of the slips was for a man named Hobson Devoe. The name itself drew my attention, but after I read the words
Knew Mom
at the bottom, I pocketed it.

I looked over at Steven. He had gone back to work at his end of the room, the worst apparently having passed.

I stuffed all of the contents of the desktop into one box, then closed and labeled it with a black marking pen I found in a pencil jar. For a moment, I registered surprise that there was no picture of Steven on the desk or on any of the nearby shelves, but then I remembered that theirs was a very private relationship.

That thought led to the decision to let him be the one to go through the desk drawers; despite a niggling curiosity, somehow, I didn’t want to invade Edna Blaylock’s privacy in that way. I figured Frank’s crew had probably already been over it with a fine-tooth comb anyway. I started grabbing books from the shelves that had the worst staining.

As much to keep my mind off this grisly task as anything, I asked Steven about his family, his childhood, his interests in history. We were almost finished by the time I had learned his life story. Talking seemed to relax him a little. He even started working on the desk drawers. He asked me about how I got started in journalism, and my work. He shyly ventured to ask if I was seeing anyone, and I told him about Frank. He remembered meeting Frank.

“I liked him. He was very considerate,” he said. But that had brought us back to homicide. He opened a desk drawer and was very quiet all of a sudden. I looked over to see him holding a red candlestick — or rather, the inch or so that remained of a candlestick — in his right palm. Tears were streaming down his face.

“From a special evening?” I asked.

He nodded. “Our first. I asked her to save it. I didn’t think she had.” He drew in a breath, then covered his eyes with his left hand. I put a hand on his shoulder and he broke down completely. I’ve seen men cry before, but it wasn’t the sight of him crying that was so hard to take. It was a soft sound he tried hard to hide, the kind of sobbing sound a person sometimes makes when he realizes that no matter how long he waits, the one he loved will never again share a knowing smile or call his name from another room or weigh the bed down beside him.

He got up after a while and tucked the candle carefully into his pocket, then went off to wash his face. I finished packing up the last of the books and stuff from the desk drawers while he was gone.

“What kind of car do you have?” I asked when he returned.

“A pickup truck.”

“Thank God,” I said, looking around at the stacks of boxes. We had managed to fill all of them.

“I feel bad about making you do all of this,” he said. “You—”

“I know, I know, I didn’t even know her. I know you. Now I even know the name of your elementary school. You’ll just have to accept my help. You’re saving me from having to buy indulgences.”

“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.

“D
ON’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?

B
Y 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.

M
ORNING 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.”