Dear Irene

“So how did she ‘come alive’?”

“E.J. just had less of a load to carry. She told me that for several years before her mother died, she had felt helpless to ease her mother’s pain. She had watched her suffer and waste away. She hadn’t realized what a toll it was taking on her until after her mother died. But she was lonely without her mom around.”

“So she put time into her teaching and writing.”

“Exactly. And yes, she went through a time of involving herself sexually with some of her graduate students. The Express has made quite a big deal out of that,” he said bitterly.

I held up my hands. “Wait a minute. I’ve told you. I’m not here to dig up dirt on her. Quite frankly, I don’t blame the other reporter for mentioning it, but it’s old news at this point. I just thought you’d like to help me discover who had something against her, or what she might share in common with whoever this Thalia may turn out to be. I’m just trying to find the link between Thanatos, Thalia, and Dr. Blaylock.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Baker, the other reporter, wasn’t rude to me or anything. It’s just that afterward, I felt angry. I guess I was just upset about some of the coverage.”

“I can understand that,” I said gently. “It’s an upsetting time for you anyway.”

It was either the wrong thing to say or the wrong tone to use. He was better off a little angry. To keep him from getting all choked up on that teaspoon of sympathy, I said, “When I was in college, it seemed to me that professors who were very popular with students were distinctly unpopular with most other faculty members.”

He spread his fingers on the table top and pressed down on them. “Yes, there was some of that. But there has been for years.”

“Anyone in particular?”

He shook his head. “You should talk to other faculty members. It would be hard to find a faculty group in any academic institution that didn’t suffer some in-fighting. But I don’t know of anyone who was especially upset with E.J. She didn’t have any sworn enemies, if that’s what you mean.”

“Is anyone else on the history faculty very popular with students? Someone who is very cheerful all the time, perhaps?”

His brows knitted. “You think someone has a grudge against the history department?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

He relaxed his hands. “Well, let’s see. To be honest, I can’t think of anyone who would fit that description. They’re not a somber lot, but no one is a really happy-go-lucky type.”

“I’m trying to come up with someone who might fit Thalia. How about someone in another department on campus? Drama? Communications? Theater? Anyone else who’s very popular?”

He thought for a moment, then said, “I hate to admit this, but I’m not a very good person to ask about this. I’m a graduate student – all my classes are in history now. And the reason I’m a graduate student in history is because all my favorite classes as an undergraduate were in that department. I’m sorry.”

“What about this ex-husband? Was there a lot of bitterness? Or something that might have become important between them?”

He shook his head. “Highly doubtful. Like I said, I don’t even remember his last name. There was never any rancor in her voice when she spoke of him, which wasn’t often.”

I was stewing over this when a young woman strolled up to our table. The hem of her black leather skirt just made it past her ski

“Steven,” she said on a sigh that made it a much longer name. She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at it like it was a leech, and she removed it.

“Hello, Lindsey,” he said then. She eyed me but he didn’t introduce us. She looked back at him.

“Are you okay, Steven? Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’m doing fine, Lindsey. Thank you.”

She swayed her weight from high heel to high heel, then said, “Well, I’ve got to go. But I just wanted you to know I’m here for you.”

“Thanks.”

Seeing that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him than that, she turned and walked away.

“See what I mean?” he said with exasperation. I nodded. He didn’t have to say anything more.

“Look, I’ve got a deadline to make, so I’d better scoot. I appreciate your meeting with me.” I gave him a business card. I added my home phone number, hoping he didn’t think that meant I was hitting on him, too. I paid up and we left.

Out on the sidewalk, he seemed to relax a little more.

“This is the first time I’ve felt like someone really wanted to know about her. The other – well, maybe it was just that I was so upset. I still can’t believe it happened. She didn’t deserve this. No matter what she may have done, she didn’t deserve this. No one does.”

“I agree. By the way – are you familiar with her research and writing?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s talk more about that sometime soon – if you don’t mind?”

“No, no, not at all. Her research was very important to her.”

He seemed distant for a few moments, obviously remembering E.J. Blaylock. I wished there was something I could say to comfort him. I watched him struggling to learn that trick of functioning with grief – that trick of remembering and forgetting all at once, of letting the ghost walk at your side, but not block your way. I was learning it myself. A close friend of mine had died a little more than six months earlier, and Kincaid’s grief was almost too clear a reminder of that loss.

But before I could think of anything to say, he came back from whatever world he had mentally wandered into, and we shook hands and said good-bye.

I thought of Lindsey and how repulsed he had seemed to be by her attentions. I wondered, as I climbed into the Karma

I sighed and started the car. The windshield wipers came on.

8

“MAYBE WE SHOULD GET A DOG. You like dogs, don’t you?”

We were sitting in front of a fire that evening, one of our rare evenings at home together, drinking hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps, when Frank came up with this idea. We had been talking about our plans for Christmas, which somehow led to talking about my feeling safe when I was home alone in the evenings. Perhaps, after calling him from the Garden Cafe earlier in the day, I seemed more fearful. Whoever had turned on the windshield wipers hadn’t left any prints. Frank had been a little angry with me for not mentioning the parking-light incident, but I couldn’t tell if he thought someone was trying to frighten me, or if he was just convinced I was going over the edge. Now he was suggesting things like new locks, self-defense classes, and dogs.

“I love dogs,” I said. “And you like them, right?”

“Yeah, although I haven’t had one since I was a kid. I used to have this great mutt who was some kind of lab/retriever mix. Trouble.”

“The dog caused problems?”

“No. Trouble was her name. My dad named all of our pets. When he watched this pup follow me home, he said, ‘Here comes trouble.’ The name stuck. We also used to have a rabbit named Stu.”

“So that’s where you get your sense of humor.”

“Trouble was great. I swear that dog could understand English. I could say, ‘Go to my closet and bring back my blue te

“Blue te

Frank shrugged. “She would have known which ones I meant.”

It sounded like classic dog-owner bragging to me, but I didn’t want to further impugn the memory of Trouble.

“I used to have a dog,” I said. “She was mostly a beagle – named Blanche.”