Goodnight, Irene

“So, you’ve got your job back already?” Frank asked casually.

“Yes. I’ve got to let my boss at the PR firm know what’s up, though. I’m probably going to take a leave-this doesn’t seem like a good time to make decisions about my career-I’m too emotional.”

“All things considered, you’re doing great.”

We went into the kitchen, where we would be least likely to keep Lydia awake with the noise of our conversation. We sat on stools at the counter. He was carrying a bulky clasp envelope, from which he pulled out a five-inch-thick sheaf of photocopied pages from one of O’Co

“Your pal O’Co

“He was something of a pack rat, I’ll admit,” I said.

“Well, these copies are from the notebooks. I’ve had someone trying to put them in order all day today. These seem to be the most recent; at least, they are if these dates aren’t in some kind of code, too.”

“No, no secret date system.” I thumbed through the notes, pleased at how quickly O’Co

“Anyway, unlike some of the older staff, he didn’t have any trouble using the computer terminals, but he didn’t trust them entirely-didn’t believe they were very secure. He suspected some newsroom hacker might call up his work somehow, even though there are passwords and all of that. So he used a system of abbreviations, nicknames, and good old-fashioned shorthand notation.”

As I glanced through them, I saw that most of the notes were pretty routine. Over the last fifteen years, O’Co

“What’s this?” Frank asked, leaning over my shoulder to point to a page where O’Co

“Rubber-chicken circuit,” I explained. “Political fund-raising banquets. Refers to the delicious fare at those gatherings.” I looked at the notes below this one, on the same page. O’Co

“See this?” I asked, pointing to them. “It’s a rat’s nose and whiskers. O’Co

Frank laughed, and his laugh made me feel good. The O’Co

“You miss him, don’t you?” asked Frank, watching me.

“Oh, yeah, sure I do,” I said. “I keep asking myself, ‘How would O’Co

“He must have been quite a character. I’ve known some cops who were the same way-just doggedly pursued something until it gave out. I think I’m just now getting to be old enough to really appreciate that kind of patience and persistence.”

We sat quietly, going back over the notes more slowly. I stopped when I came to a page I had missed the first time through. The heading was “JD55,” O’Co

“Here! Look at this, it’s about Ha

“Great, when can I make an arrest?”

I looked up at him. “Remember what O’Co

“Why not? Everything else does.”

Frank stood up and stretched, and walked into the living room, which was off the kitchen, and started pacing around. Out of what I took to be some kind of i

I tried to make out another section on the page about Ha

“Hey, Frank-do you know someone in the coroner’s office by the name of Hernandez?”

“Yeah,” he said, walking back over, “Dr. Carlos Hernandez. He’s the new coroner. He took over about a year ago, when old Woolsey retired. Why?”

“He’s in the notes. Something about Ha

“No, but he hasn’t been around the last few days. He had to fly back to Colorado to testify in a murder trial. That’s his previous jurisdiction.” He leaned over my shoulder again. “What do the notes say about Hernandez?”

“It says, ‘Old Sheep Dip wrong about teeth’-Sheep Dip is Woolsey. O’Co

“Woolsey felt like O’Co

“Woolsey could be a real pain in the ass. I’ve never thought much of him. Always preferred to deal with just about anybody else in that office. Hernandez, on the other hand, is sharp. He came on board just before that double homicide down at the beach last year-his work on that really helped me out.”

“Any way to reach him?”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. I can at least get word to him, ask him to get in touch.”

Frank pulled out his notebook and wrote a memo to make the call. He folded it up and put it back in his pocket. He had a grin on his face. “Old Sheep Dip, huh? Are all these nicknames so colorful?” He sat back down next to me. “I wonder if Hernandez will know what ‘Mac teeth’ means. Are you sure that’s what it says?”

“I think so,” I said, and tried to puzzle it out again. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it says ‘Mac teeth.’ Look, I’ll get into his computer files tomorrow. You have copies of those?”

“Yes, but other than stories he was actually in the process of writing or ones he had already filed, it’s this same gobbledygook. Without the help of arrows or whiskers.” He sat leaning on the counter with his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes. He suddenly looked tired again. I watched him for a moment.

“You’d better get some sleep,” I said, standing up.

I straightened out the papers and put them back in the envelope, trying to keep my idle hands from temptation. “Can I keep these?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “If you can manage to keep going over them, I think we’re bound to get a better handle on this.”

“When I get into his computer files tomorrow I’ll have more to work with.”

“I guess you were right about working at the paper,” he said, looking down. “Sorry if I got a little hot under the collar this afternoon, I just…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he shrugged and said, “Well, be careful anyway, okay, Irene? For my sake?” Quickly he added, “I’d hate for you to get killed before I learned what the hell ‘Mac teeth’ means.”