Dear Irene

We said good-bye, and I settled in to watch a Kings hockey game. Frank still wasn’t home when it ended in a tie. I was able to get undressed by myself, although my shoulder protested now and again. I was too happy about being so self-sufficient to care.

I crawled under the covers and fell asleep listening to Cody purr. I half-woke when Frank came into bed, just enough to give him a kiss and curl up next to him. His skin was chilled, but I fell back to sleep as he warmed beneath me.

I was having a dream about a giant with one hundred eyes when the phone rang.

3

FRANK REACHED OVER and answered “Harriman” while I tried to focus on the alarm clock. Five in the morning.

“The zoo?” he said, then paused to listen, taking notes. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

“The zoo? What’s going on at the zoo?” I asked sleepily.

“Someone found a body there. Woman had her skull bashed in. Somebody tossed her into the peacock enclosure.”

“Peacocks?” I was suddenly fully awake.

His back was to me as he started to get dressed. “Yes, peacocks. God knows why.”

“Argus.”

“What?”

“I think someone tried to tell me this was going to happen.”

He turned around, stared at me.

“I’m not certain about it, Frank. But let me show you that letter before you go.”

I got up and fished it out of my purse. He read it and then listened as I gave him a quick rundown on the mythology references.

He ran a hand through his hair. “So you think whoever sent this was telling you that someone was going to die in front of the peacocks at the Las Piernas Zoo today?”

“Like I said, I don’t know what to think. But this is too much of a coincidence to just dismiss it.”

“I agree. Thanks, I’ll take this with me. I don’t suppose you saved the envelope?”

“Sorry. It was a light blue one, with a computer label and no return address. I didn’t pay attention to the postmark. I might be able to dig it out of the recycling bin at work.”

“I’ve got to get going, but I’ll probably need to talk to you more about this later. Okay if you get into work late?”

“I’ll see if Lydia can give me a ride if you’re held up. But I’ll either be here or at the paper.”

He kissed me good-bye and headed out the door.

I was wide awake by then and couldn’t get back to sleep. I waited until 6:30, then gave Lydia a call. She agreed to come by and pick me up. I figured that even if Frank got back sometime that morning, he’d want to get some sleep – although the first hours are the most important ones on a homicide case, so I doubted he would be back home until much later.

At work, things were humming. Mark Baker was out on the story at the zoo. John Walters saw me limp in and waved me over to his office.

“You hear about the body at the zoo?” he asked.

“A little. Frank was called out on it early this morning. I didn’t learn much from him before he left, but he said something about the peacock enclosure. He said he might need to talk to me more about the letter.”

John looked disgruntled, and I figured I knew what was eating at him. I used to cover crime stories, but getting together with Frank put me beyond the pale as far as the Express was concerned. Reporters are discouraged from dating cops; the potential for a conflict of interest led Wrigley to forbid me to work on any story involving the police. Frank and I each took some flak over our relationship at our respective work places. Mark Baker had taken over most of the stories I used to handle.

As I watched John brooding at his desk, I wondered how they were going to keep me out of this one. Then I told myself not to jump to conclusions. The letter might not have anything to do with what happened at the zoo.

“Let me tell you what we know,” he said after a moment. “The victim is Dr. Edna Blaylock, a professor of history at Las Piernas College. Current theory is that she was killed elsewhere, then the killer or killers took her body to the zoo. Death was apparently from a number of crushing blows to her skull.”

“Clio, the history Muse,” I said softly, unable to deny the co

John picked up his copy of the letter and read it over. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. He calls you Cassandra, who is the woman who foretold things accurately, but whom no one would believe. He tells you that you will always be the first one to know, and calls you his beloved.”

I felt a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. John went on.

“He calls himself Thanatos, or Death. He says the first murder will take place on a Thursday. The weapon is a hammer. He writes that the eyes of Argus, which are in a peacock’s tail, ‘will be upon her.’ He tells us Clio, the Muse of history, will be the first to die.” John looked up from the letter. “In other words, if he didn’t kill Professor Blaylock and put her body in the peacock exhibit at the zoo, he sure as hell knows who did, and knew about it long before it happened.”

Somehow having it all laid out this way made me stop thinking of it as a story and start thinking of it as personal contact with a killer.

“You look like you just swallowed a dose of castor oil,” he said.

“I guess some part of me kept hoping it was just another harmless nut. I’m not ready for this now.” I shook my head, trying to clear it of the kinds of thoughts I was still prey to; the fear that had been haunting me since I had been hurt.

“Sit down before you pass out, Kelly.”

I obeyed. I took a few deep breaths and felt better.

“Maybe you’ve come back too soon.”

“No!” John’s a big man and it’s hard to make him jump, but I apparently startled him with my vehemence. “Not on your life, John. I’m tired of giving up.” He started to interrupt, but I held up my splinted right hand in protest.

“I’ve moved out of my house. I’ve given up my sleep. I’ve had nightmares on a regular basis for weeks. And there are other problems. I’m often afraid to be alone. I’m scared every time I venture outside of Frank’s house. If a stranger walks up to me, I find myself bracing for a blow. Well, hell if I’m going to just give in to all of that. I’m sure as shit not going to abandon my career. Coming back – even part-time and as useless as I am – is important to me, John. I have to try to get back to some kind of normal life.”

He sighed. “I just don’t like the looks of this. Oh sure, it’s great for the Express. Wrigley will be beside himself with joy. We’ll sell a lot of papers. But you, I worry about. Those days you were gone were tough on a lot of people, Kelly, not just your boyfriend.”

Coming from John, that was the sentimental equivalent of an orphan’s choir. I tried to lighten things up. “You know I hate the word ‘boyfriend.’”

“Oh, excuse me, your fiancé. Pardon me, Miss Priss. Look, the point I’m trying to make is that – oh hell. Forget it.”

He started stabbing his blotter with his ballpoint pen.

“What’s wrong?”

“In that list of things you’ve given up? You haven’t given up being bullheaded. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I ought to see it coming. I know when I’m wasting my breath. Go on, get out. Get back to work.”

“I’m sorry you’re worried about me, John.”

“Out.”

There was no use trying to mollify him.

I WENT OVER to the large recycling bin that sits in the newsroom and slowly started emptying it, looking for the blue envelope. The bin is about three feet tall, and an amazing amount of paper had accrued in it during the last twenty-four hours. I was bending deep into it when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Stuart Angert sent me over. He’s concerned about your loss of dignity.”

I turned to see Lydia regarding me with amusement. Stuart is a friend and veteran columnist on the paper. He writes a regular feature on the lighter side of life in Las Piernas. I glanced over at him. Judging from his grin as he waved from his desk, being on the phone was the only thing that had kept him from getting a staff photographer to capture the rather unflattering view I had presented to the newsroom. I could just imagine what a nice contribution that would have made to the office Christmas party.