But instead she’s murdered. You never see her again. She’s murdered serving a prison sentence for protecting you from a bully.”
“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 Danny Coburn for a while. He pulled out a new assortment of pictures of his grandchildren. “Suzanne’s going to have to buy a bigger wallet for you, Danny,” I told him. He grinned. Talking to him was a pleasant distraction from all that had happened in the last few days.
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,
Mrs. Madison’s voice and manner provided a stark contrast. “Yeah, Madison,” she answered. “Who is this?”
“Irene Kelly with the
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Look lady, Mrs. Davis is a vacant lot, if you know what I mean. These old birds in here can’t hold a conversation, unless you count being asked the same question ninety times an hour a conversation. Old Mrs. Davis doesn’t even know who she is. She doesn’t recognize her own son. And she doesn’t hear so good, either. So no way is she going to talk to some newspaper reporter.”
There was a click. “Thank you so very much,” I said to the dial tone.
“STORM DAMAGE” WAS likely to bump the Thanatos stories out of the lead position on A-1 by the time I was signing off the computer for the day. We had been getting calls on accidents, a roof collapsing, and road closures. Flood control channels, Southern California’s deep and wide concrete-lined river beds, were filling up. The nearly stagnant trickles one usually found in them changed into shallow but dangerous rapids within a matter of minutes whenever it rained hard. Every year, it seems we write at least one story about someone who decides to go rafting in a channel and drowns. Amateurs misjudge the speed of the water and the amount of debris that comes rocketing along with it.
As evening fell, I decided I’d better hurry up and get over to the hospital to see Steven. I wanted to get home to Bea, also. I felt a twinge of guilt about leaving her alone.
I was packing up when Mark Baker hurried over. “Guess what! They’ve taken Don Edgerton in for questioning.”
“Why?”
“They asked around at the sporting goods stores. Figured the clerks might remember someone older buying a slingshot. Turns out one clerk remembered him.”
“A clerk knew him by name?”
“No. He just remembered that he sold a slingshot to a customer of his who also bought a lot of archery equipment. The detectives remembered that Edgerton taught archery at the college. They brought out a set of photos and the clerk pointed to Edgerton in nothing flat. They got search warrants for his house and office. Guess what they found in his desk drawer at the school?”
“The hammer that killed Edna Blaylock?”
“No. One of those synthesizers for disguising a voice over the phone.”
“Good Lord.” I sat down again, trembling. But as I thought about what he had said, something puzzled me. “Why would Edgerton keep those things in an office? Why not at home, where he has two Dobermans to stand watch?”
“I don’t know. Could be he doesn’t think the house is all that secure, even with the dogs. But his office at the
