Dear Irene

25

I AWOKE WITH A START in the middle of the night, scared. I had been having a nightmare, one in which I went to the hospital, only to be told that Steven had died unexpectedly during the night. I must have made a noise or something, because Frank woke up and pulled me closer, so that my head was on his chest. “You okay?” he asked in a drowsy voice.

“Yes,” I lied, wanting nothing more than to pick up the phone, to call the hospital to confirm that I wasn’t having some psychic experience, a prescient dream. Eventually, the sounds of rain falling outside and Frank’s breathing lulled me back to sleep.

Frank had already gone to work when I awoke the next morning. Bea was up and had hot coffee waiting for me. It was a gray day outside, and I had a gray mood to match it, but Bea was full of energy. I tried not to dampen her spirits. She had let the dogs in the house, and seeming to understand their luck, they were on their best behavior. Cody had started training them not to mess with him – each of them had felt the claws of Wild Bill.

Frank had filled his mother in on the news about Steven, and she asked me a few questions about what had happened out on the beach. “I’m so sorry all of this happened,” she said. “I was hoping we could have a belated Christmas together.”

“If you don’t mind hanging around in Las Piernas for another day, we can celebrate it tonight.”

“If you two don’t mind my being here-”

“Not at all. It was a nice surprise. You helped me cope with last night – I appreciate it.”

She was pleased by this, and I left her in a good mood.

I MADE MY way through Las Piernas’s rain-washed streets at an irritating snail’s pace. Traffic was at a crawl. I listened to the noisy staccato of rain pummeling the cloth top of my Karma

As soon as I got to work, I called St. A

“Mr. Kincaid, is it? Well, he’s doing much better.”

“You already know who he is?”

She laughed. “There’s a constant stream of nurses in and out of that poor boy’s room. He’s quite handsome, you know. I only hope it doesn’t cause him to be denied his rest. Detective Harriman had a guard placed at his door, and I’m begi

“Don’t go forgetting your vows, Sister. He likes older women.”

She found this highly amusing. She encouraged me to say hello to her if I stopped by to see him.

I worked on a follow-up story based on what Louisa Parker had told us. I called Pete Baird and found out that they were still waiting for a court order to look for adoption records.

“Sorry to hear about that kid getting hurt last night,” he said. “I like him.”

“Me too.”

“You know about the slingshot?”

“Slingshot?”

“Yeah, they found a hunter’s slingshot on the pier last night – the lab guys say it might have been used to launch that rock. They make these super-slingshots now – kids carry them around; they’re a real pain in the ass as far as we’re concerned. Lots of property damage. More accurate than the old-forked-twig-and-rubber-band routine we used when I was a kid. The lucky thing is, only a few places in town sell them, so if he bought it locally, we may be able to track down the buyer.”

“He left it on the pier?”

“He may not have left it. Probably dropped it when he ran off. There’s a partial print on it, but we can’t tie it to anyone with a sheet.”

“Somehow I get the feeling that this is Thanatos’ first and only crime spree.”

“For an amateur, he’s doing a bang-up job of it.”

“Yeah, well, he’s had almost fifty years to plan it.”

“So you’re convinced it’s this Grant kid?”

“Think about it,” I said. “Some bully picks on you every day. One day while he’s punching on you, your mom comes along and sends him flying into a wall. But what should be the most glorious day of your life becomes the begi

“Yeah, I guess that isn’t so hard to buy. But why wait until now? Why not try this when you’re a younger man?”

“I don’t know, Pete. I don’t know.” I switched to a lighter subject. “What’s Rachel up to these days?”

“She’s getting ready to move here. Can you believe it? She’s actually going to be here all the time. I’m a lucky bastard.”

I agreed with him. We said good-bye and I went back to work. I wrote up what I could, filling out some of the details and providing follow-up to previous stories. I spent a lot of time staring at the computer screen. I stopped by Mark Baker’s desk for a couple of minutes and filled him in on the slingshot development. He had heard of them, having already done a story on some kids being injured by them.

The rain was still coming down at noon, so I was reluctant to go out anywhere to eat. I didn’t want to endure the long lines in the cafeteria, so I bought a crummy lunch from a vending machine down in the basement. At least I got a chance to watch them run the presses and to shoot the breeze with Da

That afternoon, scratching a mental itch I had about things that had been said to me over the last few days, I started doing some double-checking. I verified that Don Edgerton was an instructor at Las Piernas College, gathered the dates of his employment there, and asked about his teaching schedule. I called the Dodgers and verified what he had told us about being with the team.

I called Las Piernas School District, and was told that Howard Parker did indeed retire after teaching for more than thirty years. “He taught math,” the woman on the other end of the phone said. “He won awards for teaching. We were very disappointed when he left, but he said that after his wife died, his heart wasn’t in it. She taught for us, also – computer science. Lovely woman.”

Justin Davis, I learned, had designed security systems of one type or another for almost every government entity and major business in Las Piernas, including Mercury Aircraft itself. His company was highly regarded, and he had a reputation for personally following up on any job they took on, making certain his customers remained satisfied.

I called Fielding’s Nursing Home, where Peggy Davis was indeed a patient. The lady who answered the phone had a honeyed voice that made me want to ask if she had ever considered a career in radio. She gave me polite attention, which is more than you can say for a lot of people who answer business phones.

“Let’s see, Peggy Davis – here she is. Mrs. Margaret Davis. She’s fairly new here. That would be in Mrs. Madison’s group. Would you mind holding for a moment?”

My God, asked if I would hold the line – and she waited for my answer! “Not at all,” I said, finding myself lowering the pitch of my own voice to match hers.

Mrs. Madison’s voice and ma