I knew Frank was really shaken, because he didn’t talk much while all of this was going on; he just took my hand between his and held onto it for a long time. Finally, someone said I could go home. We were both ready for that.
We crawled into bed together and he rubbed my sore muscles while we told each other stories about our evenings. He had been walking away from Steven Kincaid’s room when a nun came running up to him and told him I was in danger. Good old Sister Theresa. She hadn’t missed a thing. Jimmy Grant just didn’t know what he was up against. The holy card hadn’t just been a stalling tactic, she told me later. St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes.
EVEN THOUGH WE were both worn out, Frank and I talked for a long time that night. We fell asleep spooning, and all things considered, I’ll take spooning with Frank over a helicopter ride any old day.
THE NEXT DAY, the
While Edgerton was the buyer of a hunter’s slingshot, the police suspected that during the time Jimmy Grant was stalking his intended victims, he learned of the purchase. He obtained a similar one.
Edgerton, it turned out, was trying to write a baseball book on the rise and fall of the Pacific Coast League, a strong minor league that had boasted the likes of Joe DiMaggio in the days before the Dodgers or the Giants moved west. Edgerton, self-conscious about his writing, had become nervous when he saw me getting near his manuscript. He later hired Mark Baker to help him write the book.
THREE DAYS AFTER my helicopter ride, Steven Kincaid came home from the hospital, worried about a scar that only made his handsome looks more dashing. Bea Harriman was looking in on him for me.
I told Bea about a young woman named Helen, from a sporting goods store, who had agreed to help out with Steven during his recovery. Bea promised to make sure they at least laid eyes on each other.
Jack was taking care of the dogs, and Barbara, who seemed to be worried about a decline in Jack’s attentions, was stopping by to feed Cody. She had insisted.
AS FOR ME, I was driving the Volvo home from Las Vegas. The desert air was warm, the windows down, and from the tape deck, Duke Ellington provided a delicious rendition of “All the Things You Are.” Mr. and Mrs. Pete Baird were cuddled up in the backseat together, snoring in unison. On the seat next to me, my husband slept with a smile on his face.
Acknowledgments
I am especially grateful to Dan Coburn for his help with airplanes; Ed and Kelly Dohring for once again providing help with medical questions (even during walks on Sanibel Island); Detective Dennis Payne of the LAPD Robbery- Homicide Division, for putting up with all kinds of pestering; Andy Rose and Debbie Arrington of the
No small part of the information about child care and women in the workforce during World War II was gathered from my participation as a research assistant on the “Rosie the Riveter Revisited” oral history project at California State University, Long Beach, a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am indebted to Sherna Gluck, who designed and directed the project, for allowing me the remarkable privilege of interviewing women who worked in Southern California’s aircraft factories during World War II. I am also indebted to the women themselves, whose recollections and thoughts about their lives changed my own life in ways I cannot measure.
Thanks to a great many librarians for your assistance in research and beyond, especially to those of you who work for the Long Beach Public Library, the Angelo Iacoboni Branch of the Los Angeles County Library, and the University Library of California State University, Long Beach.
As always, readers are asked to understand that while all of these individuals were of help in the research for this book, I will not allow them to take any credit for my errors.
Nancy Yost deserves thanks for so much, including insightful comments on early drafts.
My family and friends have kept me going during those times when I thought I was a goner. Tom and Marty Burke have been especially wonderful, putting up with their daughter-in-law’s oddball, PST nightowl work schedule during her visits to the East Coast. Tim remained a steadfast companion and cheerleader during days when my DNA might not have tested out to be human. Robert Hahn, Heather Harkins, and members of the Flynn family who waited for me in Cincinnati deserve my special thanks for their patience.
The people who make up a company called Simon and Schuster have given me support at every level, more than I can detail here. And Laurie Bernstein will never know how much I appreciate her guidance and encouragement, because this book would cost each reader an additional ten bucks if I were allowed the time to sit here and write about it. Will “THANKS!!” do for now?
Books by Jan Burke
