Dear Irene

“He’s a strange one. And he’s nervous about something – I noticed that even before he gave us the bum’s rush.”

“I have the same feeling. And I don’t think it’s the threat of Thanatos coming after him. I just can’t figure out what it is.”

We saw Edgerton’s front door open again. The Marx Brothers ran across the porch to the fence and started barking wildly at us. The audience across the street was long gone, but the detectives were laughing like they had been treated to a double feature of the original Marx Brothers.

“Shit,” Mark said, and drove off.

23

FRANK AND CODY WERE WAITING up for me when I came in at midnight that night. I had called and left a message on our machine saying I would be late, but the look of relief Frank gave me served as a reminder that he was still easily worried about me.

“I was just getting ready to call the paper,” he said.

“I’m safe and sound. Any messages?”

“You got a call from a woman named Louisa Parker. She said you talked to her son today – Howard Parker?”

“Yes. It seems he’s the only one whose mother is still living and mentally competent.”

“She said she wanted to talk to you, asked me to have you call her tomorrow. Mind if I go along with you?”

“I’ll have to clear it with John, but I don’t mind.”

“I talked to Carlos Hernandez today. He’s fairly certain Rosie Thayer died of a coronary, and that the coronary was induced by a lethal injection of some type. Toxicology reports will take a while yet.”

“He found an injection mark on her?”

“Yes. That took some time because of the ant bites, but they found it.”

“So then everything else was just staged? The death by starvation or dehydration never happened?”

“No, she died quickly.”

“Strange, isn’t it? As if he felt he had to kill her, but that he couldn’t bring himself to go through with the cruelty of starving her.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I suspect that’s wishful thinking on your part. From his point of view, it’s much more practical to kill the victim quickly. He’s careful, and a careful man wouldn’t want to risk a victim’s escape. If she’s dead, she doesn’t make noise. Less risk of interference or discovery by others.”

Given Thanatos’ desire for control, I decided Frank’s interpretation of the lethal injection was probably right.

I went out to pet the dogs, who looked up at me quizzically when I told them they would not be named after film comedians.

AS IT TURNED OUT, I almost changed my mind about having Frank go with me to talk to Louisa Parker. We started the morning off with an argument, another round in our ongoing fight about what he calls my carelessness and I call his overprotectiveness. I had awakened before he did, and gone for a run on the beach with the dogs. He was furious with me for going out alone.

“I had the dogs with me,” I protested.

This did not appease him in the least. We argued while he drove me to work. We argued in the parking lot. The argument wasn’t really settled before I got out of his car. Throughout the morning, I wondered if it would ever be settled.

JOHN WAS PLEASED with the stories Mark and I had turned in the night before, though as usual, we didn’t learn that directly from him. He works very hard at keeping his staff from thinking too highly of themselves.

Mark got a break on another story he had been working on, and wasn’t free to see Mrs. Parker. John asked me if I wanted to take Frank with me. He could see that I was surprised at the suggestion. “Just consider this a little belated Christmas gift from me to you, Kelly.”

“A gift from you?”

“Look, no use having you take any chances.” He smiled at my scowl and added, “If Thanatos kills you, Wrigley will probably freeze your position, and I’ll be out a reporter.”

“Now, that’s more like the old Ebenezer Walters we’ve all come to know and love.”

I figured this was a sign from on high and called Frank.

“Harriman,” he answered. He sounded unhappy. I hadn’t thought our argument affected him that much.

“Hi, Harriman. Still want to talk to Louisa Parker?”

“Irene? Yeah, I do. More than ever.”

“What do you mean, ‘more than ever’?”

“I guess Hobson Devoe hasn’t called you yet.”

“No, why?”

“Hope we don’t need to look up anything else in those perso

“Mercury had a change of heart?”

“I wish it was something that simple. The records have been wiped out.”

“Wiped out? How?”

“Apparently it’s the work of a hacker. Wiped out all kinds of records, not just the war years.”

“A hacker? At an aircraft company? Don’t they have security systems on their computers?”

“I asked the same thing. They have very sophisticated protection on the computers that store accounting design, production, and other records. A small percentage of employee records, mainly those of people with very high-level government security clearances or people co

“When did this happen?”

“About three o’clock this morning, but they’re not exactly sure that’s significant. Could have been a destructive program someone planted before then. It may not be co

“Do you believe that’s who did this? Workers’ compensation complainants?”

There was a long pause before he answered, “I don’t know. To be honest, I’m just too close to this. Carlson has someone else checking that out, which is fine with me.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute.

“Irene? You want to have lunch with me?”

“Sure. How about meeting me at the Galley?”

“Great. I could go for a pastrami sandwich. And I may have something for you on Pauline Grant by then.”

He told me his afternoon plans were all things that could be shuffled around or handled by Pete, so I was free to set up the appointment with Louisa Parker for whatever time worked out best.

When I called her, she was quite excited about talking to me, and had no objections to having Detective Harriman join us. She was taking an art class and wouldn’t be free until the late afternoon. We made an appointment for three o’clock.

FRANK WAS A little late for lunch, but he made up for it by handing over some startling news.

“I tried to look up Pauline Grant’s probation records,” he said. “I figured she would have been paroled a long time ago, but that maybe I could track her down.”

“And?”

“And she’s dead.”

“Well, I guess that’s not too much of a shock. She probably would have been about seventy-something by now, right?”

He shook his head. “No, I mean, she never made it out of prison.”

“What? I thought she was only up for manslaughter.”

“She was. And to be honest, I’m surprised they made that stick.”

“So what happened to her?”

“She was killed in prison. Not long after she was sentenced, in fact. I don’t have all the details yet, but from what I could learn, she was stabbed to death by a group of inmates.”

“Good Lord.” I thought about the interviews Mark and I had conducted the night before, how Justin Davis and Howard Parker had talked of Jimmy Grant. Bad enough to have been separated from his mother for a few years; worse yet, he had been orphaned. “Any idea what became of her son?”