“Why should I believe that?” I said, nasty in spite of myself.
“I guess you don’t really have any reason to. I wanted to tell you that I learned a lesson — I really don’t think I want anything more to do with — well, I’ll just say Mr. Wrigley has made a first-class fool of me and I deserve it. If you’ll give me another chance, I won’t disappoint you.”
I was too tired and frazzled to argue with her, and God knows I didn’t want her to sit there and confess all the lurid details of her liaison with Wrigley. “I’ll see what I can come up with for you. Are you here to do more research?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Good. Come by my desk later and we’ll talk it over.”
She smiled a little and said, “Thank you, Miss Kelly.”
I logged off the computer and headed back to my desk. Compared to the pain the Gillespies were living with, I guessed I could cope with my little aches. I remembered O’Connor quoting something to me once. “Irene,” he said, “if everyone in the world could put all of their troubles in a basket, we’d each still want to pick our own problems back out of it.”
I’d take mine over the Gillespies’ any day.
8
AS I WALKED BACK into the newsroom, I could feel some tension, but no one came anywhere near me. I sat down at my desk and tried to shake off the cloud of depression that threatened to settle on me. There were three phone message slips waiting for me. The first was from a Julie Montgomery. No message, no number — would call back later. Monty Montgomery’s wife was named Nina. He had three daughters and a son. I pulled up a file on him on the computer. Yes, one of the daughters was named Julie.
The second was from Jacob Henderson. Will call back later.
The third was from Sammy Garden. Same routine.
Damn. While I was in the morgue listening to Stacee, half of Las Piernas High School was trying to get in touch with me.
I wondered if Sammy had tried to reach me at home. I’d been too distracted that morning to check my messages. I called my home number and entered the code to get the machine to play back to me.
“Miss Kelly? Are you there?” The voice on the tape sounded frightened. “This is Sammy. Look, I’ve got to talk to you. I’m leaving the shelter. Something awful has happened. I’ve got to go. I’ll try calling you at work tomorrow.”
I had a feeling in my bones that the “something awful” was the murder of Mrs. Fremont. If Sammy wasn’t in danger before, she probably was now. Where on the streets could she hide out? What place that other runaways wouldn’t know about?
I paced around my desk. I couldn’t leave — I couldn’t afford to miss a call from any of these kids. I started thinking about Julie Montgomery. She was about seventeen or eighteen. I remembered Jacob’s blush when I had asked him about his source inside the Montgomery campaign. Could Jacob and Julie be friends? More than friends? Considering the bitter rivalry between the two candidates, it didn’t seem likely. But it wasn’t impossible.
My thoughts were interrupted by Lydia, who was walking toward me with a piece of paper in her outstretched hand. “Have you seen this?” she asked. “It’s being hand-delivered to the homes of most registered voters today.”
“Stop Satanism in Las Piernas,” I read aloud, sinking into my chair. There was a dim photo of Jacob Henderson, dressed in black, his face lit by firelight, talking to a woman in a dark robe — she looked like Sammy, from what I could see. They were in a circle of other robed figures. The spiel below the photo was pretty much as Jacob had predicted. It didn’t look good.
“The phones have started ringing off the hooks,” Lydia was saying. “Looks like Henderson has had it. I think it’s going to get worse; the Fremont murder story has been on the radio, and Wrigley wants to tag it ‘The Satanist Murder.’”
I could see Mark Baker, who covered crime stories, starting to make his way over to me. The phone on my desk rang. I picked it up.
“Irene?” It was Pete Baird, Frank’s partner.
“Yeah, Pete.”
“I’m worried about Frank. You have a fight?”
“Not really. He’s upset — look, let me call you later, okay? I’m in a crowd here.”
“Okay, but let me call you instead. We’re on our way out.”
I hung up, noting the expression of extreme curiosity on Baker’s face.
“Was that Frank?”
“No,” I said, glad to be able to tell the truth. “What’s up?”
“It looks like there may be some tie-in between the D.A.’s campaign and the murder of the Fremont woman. You got anything that might help me?”
I was spared answering by John Walter’s booming “Kelly!”
“If I’m alive when I leave his office, I’ll find you, Mark.”
He nodded in sympathy, and I walked toward John’s office. Even though I could see John turning red, I stopped by Lydia’s desk on the way.
“Lydia, there are three people trying to reach me.” I handed her the message slips. “If any of them call, please get me out of John’s office.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Please, Lydia.”
