“I’ll be over after the show.”
“Great. I got a question for you. Didn’t you guys do a retrospective on John William Grime last year?”
“John Donovan did it. Ten-year anniversary of the arrest. I think we brought a lot of the families together.”
“If you can, bring that tape over and anything else you can dig up.”
“Grime?”
I could hear a music cue in the background and her director’s voice.
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
I hung up and clicked on the TV. After the commercial break they went to a studio shot, and then there was Diane, up close, telling Chicagoland about Beluga whales at the Shedd Aquarium. There was no smile on her face and not even a hint of lasciviousness about the lips. In fact, she looked a bit distracted. I clicked off the set and returned to the serial killer.
A Time magazine piece from 1996 had photos from the crime scene itself, including the excavation. Best I could tell, Grime had stacked the bodies two deep in three long trenches. He accessed the graves through the floor of his bedroom closet. Fashioned a pulley system, tied the feet of his victim to the pulley, and lowered away headfirst. Not a lot of room, but the bodies were there, so I read on.
Grime hunted on the city’s strolls. Usually at night. He drowned or strangled most of his victims and raped all but three. Fifteen-year-old Eileen Hayes was found at the bottom of one of the graves. Her fingers were dug into the back of the corpse beside her. The medical examiner speculated Hayes was still alive when Grime buried her. According to the ME, Eileen Hayes could not have lasted more than a few minutes after regaining consciousness.
I stretched, walked to the window, and wondered how long would be short enough to be awake in your own grave. Across the street a CTA bus disgorged its passengers into a sudden, soft rain. A space cleared, and Diane stepped through it. She popped open an umbrella and cast her eyes toward my window. A minute after that there was a knock at the door.
“Hey, babe.”
She moved easily into my body. A couple of good moments later, we parted.
“How you doing?” she said.
“I’m doing fine.”
“Good. You hungry?”
“Not really,” I said. “But we should eat.”
I pulled a variety of take-out menus from a kitchen drawer.
“What do you feel like?” I said.
“Whatever.”
Diane had her back to me and drifted her fingers across an old bookcase I kept by the front door. Inside it were the collected works of Plato. I pulled a menu off the pile and dialed.
“What are you getting?” she said.
“Chinese.”
“I hate Chinese.”
Diane had one of the volumes open now and was reading. I hung up the phone and picked up another menu.
“Is this Greek?” she said.
“Ancient Greek. Fourth century B.C.”
“Looks hard.”
“Not if you lived in Greece.”
Diane turned with a smirk.
“You mean in the fourth century B.C.”
“Exactly,” I said. “You like pizza?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“This is East Coast pizza. Thin crust and round.”
“Sounds great. You got beer?”
I pointed in the general direction of the refrigerator and ordered. Diane got us a couple of beers, green glass and cold. She sat down in the same chair Annie had sat in, tipped the bottle back, and then wiped her upper lip.
“How and why?”
“What?”
She had put down Plato and held up a copy of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.
“How and why?”
I moved back into my mind and shrugged.
“Something I got into early in life. Studied in high school, college.”
“I was a history major in college,” Diane said. “I don’t have my apartment stuffed with American history books.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Interesting,” she said.
“You think so?”
I grabbed the volume of Aeschylus and opened it.
“What do you know about this guy?” I said.
“Aeschylus?”
“Aeschylus.”
She shrugged.
“What everyone else knows. Didn’t he kill himself? Drink some hemlock?”
“That was Socrates.”
I copied out a line for Diane to read.
“This is ancient Greek,” I said.
“Cool.”
“It’s from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, part of a trilogy of plays called The Oresteia. This line translates ‘There is the sea, now who will drain it dry?’ Clytemnestra says it to Agamemnon just before she sets him up to be killed.”
“Messing around, was Agamemnon?”
“Not really. But the point is, when you say this line in the original Greek, it comes out like a hiss. A lot of soft sss’s. Aeschylus wanted Clytemnestra to actually sound like the snake she was. Here, try this line.”
I copied out another line of Greek text.
“This was on the wall of the oracle at Delphi,” I said. “It means ‘Know thyself.’ According to Plato, this was the key to true wisdom, true happiness.”
“Know thyself,” Diane said. “Sounds great.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Until you learn too much.”
“Speaking from experience?” I said.
“Common sense. Ask enough questions of yourself, you might find out some things you don’t like.”
I didn’t tell Diane how close she had struck to Sophocles’ Oedipus. Figured I’d save that chestnut for another day.
“Anyway,” I said, “that’s what I get out of it. A way to look at life, a way to live life. Something that stays with you. So I like it. Now let’s talk about Grime.”
Diane returned Agamemnon to the bookshelf and turned on my VCR.
“Bulldog is our expert on Grime,” she said. “You realize he covered the actual trial.”
“Of course.”
John “Bulldog” Donovan was a throwback, not to mention a legend. A guy who wore a soft hat, carried a notebook, and licked his pencil before he wrote.
“Bulldog’s the best reporter in the city,” I continued. “Gets it right the first time.”
