Goodnight, Irene

Jan Burke

Goodnight, Irene

The first book in the Irene Kelly series

To

Antonia Adamo Fischer

Velda Kuntz Fischer

Eileen Stillman

Martha Burke and

Martha Otis

in gratitude for their faith

Author’s Note

Naturally occurring high levels of fluoride can be found in the ground water of a number of areas of the United States, including some places in Arizona. However, the Arizona town used as one of the settings for this story was chosen because of its proximity to both the California border and Phoenix, not because of its water. I never came across the “five old crabs” when I visited there.

Acknowledgments

Deep appreciation is given to the many people who helped me with the research for this book, especially Debbie Arrington, of the Long Beach Press Telegram; Bob Fly

I am especially grateful to my father, John Fischer, who told me a story that led to writing this one, and to my husband, Timothy Burke, who encouraged me to write, shared the computer, read the drafts again and again and was supportive in a number of other ways.

While I acknowledge the help I’ve received from these and many other people, the errors are my own.

1

HE LOVED TO WATCH fat women dance. I guess O’Co

We had gone out that Saturday night for a drink at Banyon’s, and somehow an honest-to-God bevy of bulging beauties had ended up in the same place. O’Co

O’Co

My guess was that O’Co

THE DANCING LADIES called it a night, and we decided to do the same. As I drove him home, he started telling Irish jokes, a sure sign he’d had a few too many. The jokes were old, but O’Co

Ke

“O’Co

I should have known better; he was going to sing it anyway, and my plea only made him relish doing so all the more. He laughed as he turned and took his bearings on the front door, heaved his big shoulders back as he took a deep breath and began to belt out “Goodnight, Irene” at the top of his lungs as he shambled up to the darkened house. This was old hat to me and his neighbors, but next door Mrs. Keene felt honor-bound to turn on her porch light to register a

THE MORNING AFTER our night at Banyon’s, somebody left a package on O’Co

Nobody knows exactly what happened after that, except that the explosion knocked Mrs. Keene on her keister and sent little pieces of O’Co

I WAS AT HOME, having a lazy morning, hanging around in an old pair of pj’s and reading the paper with the supervision of my big gray tomcat, Wild Bill Cody, when the phone rang. It was Lydia Ames, an old pal of mine over at the newspaper where I used to work, the Las Piernas News Express.

“Irene! Does O’Co

“Who wants to know?” I asked, wary of her tone.

“Shit, Irene!”

Now Lydia has only cussed one other time in her life that I know of, and that was when Alicia Penderson showed up at our high school prom in a gown identical to Lydia’s-a strapless affair, only on Alicia it seemed to be working harder to defy gravity.

So all of a sudden here’s Lydia on a Sunday morning, talking blue and sounding like she was about to cry. I told her O’Co

“ Lydia, what the hell is going on?”

“Shit, Irene…” Now she was crying. “Irene, I think you better get over to O’Co

The whole time I was getting dressed and driving over to O’Co