Dear Irene

“You said he sent another letter?” Kincaid asked.

“Yes. It arrived at the paper today.” I hesitated.

“I’ve got to ask if you would mind my sharing any of the information you give me with the police. I wouldn’t have to disclose your identity; you could be anonymous as far as they’re concerned. And if you don’t want me to tell them anything at all, then I won’t.”

He sighed. His eyes suddenly reddened and he looked away for a moment. He took a deep breath and said quietly, “I don’t care who you tell. Like I said, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I want her killer to be caught, but I’d rather not have any more encounters with the police myself. You can tell them whatever I’m telling you. The police – well, some of them were quite considerate, others weren’t at all. Nothing has been easy.”

I waited while he worked to pull himself together. Our coffee and carrot cake arrived, and we spent a few moments fiddling around with cream and sugar as a distraction.

“Let’s get something clear from the start,” he said, surprising me with the sudden fierceness of his expression. “I was not in a relationship with E.J. while I was her student. I want it made clear that there was no ‘A for a lay’ or any of the other kinds of sordid, unethical behaviors that some people have been hinting at. It just isn’t true.”

“Listen, Mr. Kincaid, if someone from the paper-”

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Yes, I took a graduate seminar from her. But nothing happened then. I found myself very attracted to E.J., and I restructured my whole master’s thesis committee and the classes on my program just so that I could be with her without there ever being a cloud over our relationship.”

“You don’t have to defend anything to me.”

“I know, I know. But let’s face it. Most people just don’t understand why a man my age would get involved with a woman her age. They figure I must have received some kind of special consideration as a student or that I was after something – her money or her house, I suppose. Well, she didn’t make all that much, and she had willed everything to the American Lung Association years ago – and I knew that. I didn’t need anything like that from her, anyway.”

“Why were you attracted to her?”

He drew a deep breath and lowered his gaze. I found myself silently urging him to confide in me. When he looked back up, he gave me a fleeting smile. “You know, I think you’re the first person who has asked me that recently who might actually believe the answer. I was with E.J. because she was wise and full of life and witty and strong and intelligent. She made me laugh. I could talk to her. And I found her beautiful. There was something very sensual about her. At first, I suppose it was a sort of animal magnetism. But it became much more. Much, much more.”

“And how did she feel about you? I mean, there seem to have been other men.”

“No one else for the past year. None of the men mentioned in the paper were involved with her recently. You can check that out pretty easily. No one since we got together.”

“You’re a handsome man. Were there other women in your life?”

“No. No one else. You look like you find that hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“I don’t find it hard to believe that you were devoted to her. I find it hard to believe that no one else expressed an interest in you.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “So what? Most of them are a nuisance, if you ask me. At the risk of sounding like I’ve got a gargantuan ego, I’ll be straightforward with you, Miss Kelly. Many women find me attractive. They hit on me. They seek my attention. Why? Because of my face. I suppose a lot of men would say I have nothing to complain about, that they would love to have that problem. But they don’t know what it’s like. These women don’t give a damn about what I think or who I am – not really. It’s as if I’d be some kind of trophy. If all I wanted was a string of one-night stands, I’d be happy. I happen to want more.”

“And Dr. Blaylock was different.”

“Yes, she was. She took time to get to know me. She was very good to me. We wanted a future together… but now… God, now I’m just lost.”

He was starting to lose control again. I didn’t want to gratify the base curiosity of the people around us by having him break down in the restaurant, so I told him about the second letter from Thanatos. He knew all of the mythology, so at least I didn’t have to cover that again. It was a good distraction. For a few moments he thought about the letter more than about the loss of E.J. Blaylock.

His brows furrowed. “It sounds like he’s starving someone to death.”

“My theory exactly,” I said, noticing the carrot cake was no longer appealing.

“But you have no clues as to who Thalia represents?”

“None. But maybe if you tell me about Dr. Blaylock, I can begin to get an idea or two.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you know of her past?”

“Starting when?”

“As early as possible. Whatever you know.”

“Well, let’s see. She was born in Los Angeles in about 1936. She never really knew her dad; he was a sailor who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was at the end of 1941, so she would have been about five years old when he died.

“Her mother got a job in an aircraft factory – Mercury Aircraft. She was sort of a Rosie the Riveter, I guess. She got transferred down here near the end of the war. Mercury had two factories in Southern California then. Now it just has the original plant, the one in Las Piernas.”

I made notes, not sure any of what he told me would help. I found myself circling the word “Mercury.” After receiving the letters from Thanatos, names and words associated with mythology often caught my attention. They were everywhere. Among other things, Mercury had lent his name to a planet, an element, an automaker, and a dime. I reminded myself that at this rate, if E.J. Blaylock had ever eaten a Mars bar, laughed at Mickey Mouse’s dog, suffered insomnia, or used a mnemonic device, it was all going to be Greek (or Roman) to me.

“That’s how E.J. first came to Las Piernas,” Steven was saying. “I don’t know too much more about her childhood, just that she was always good in school. She loved history. She got straight A’s in every history class she took, even through college and grad school. She got into Las Piernas College on a scholarship. She went on to UCLA for her doctorate. She met a man there and married him.”

“Hold on a minute – she was married?”

“Briefly. It lasted less than a year. James, I think his name was. She went back to her maiden name, and has – had – used it ever since.”

“She ever tell you why the marriage broke up?”

“Not really, just said it had been a case of two people doing what was expected of them and then learning it was a mistake. No details. To be honest, she never talked much about the men in her past, which was fine with me.”

“She didn’t stay in Los Angeles?”

“No. After she graduated, she had several offers to teach, but she took a job here in Las Piernas so that she could take care of her mother. Her mother was ill by that time. Some kind of lung disease. She had been a heavy smoker and worked around some toxic chemicals, but there was no way to know which gave her the problem, which was… let’s see…” He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Emphysema, maybe? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten. Anyway, they lived together for about fifteen years. E.J. took care of her the whole time. Her mother died about ten years ago.”

“So, in about 1980?”

“Somewhere around there. I guess E.J. sort of came alive then. I don’t mean to say she had never dated or was some kind of shrinking violet under her mother’s thumb. She loved teaching and enjoyed being with students; she was a very popular instructor. She really went out of her way to try to get students excited about history.”