Sweet Dreams, Irene

“I know. I just know.”

He sighed. “She disappeared the night of the murder, right?”

“Well, maybe. She talked to Sarah on Halloween night, but I’m not sure when. At the most, I think she might know who the killer is. I think she’s in danger.”

“I don’t suppose it ever crossed your mind to share these thoughts with the police?” The tone was sarcastic in the extreme.

“I am sharing these thoughts with the police.”

“You know I’m not on that case.”

“Well, then, goddamn it, Frank, tell someone who is. What am I supposed to do? Call up Robbery-Homicide and say, ‘Jeez, guys, I’m worried about a kid who took off from a runaway shelter. She’s never mentioned the murder itself, but I just have a gut feeling that the two might be connected’? Do you think they’ll listen?”

“I’m listening, aren’t I?”

I grasped my head in my hands. “Tell whoever you want to.”

“Irene.”

“What?”

“Don’t be angry with me. You know you can’t give me this kind of information and not have me act on it.”

“I’m not angry, Frank. I’m just frustrated. Tired. I don’t know, something. But not angry with you.”

“Even if they look for her because they think she’s killed Mrs. Fremont, at least they’ll find out where she is.”

“I hope so.” But even as I said it, those hopes were sinking.

“Mind if I go with you tonight?”

I was surprised. “Do you have any idea how boring this last-minute grandstanding gets to be?”

He ignored that. “Which race are you covering tonight?”

“District Attorney. John put other people on the mayor’s race and city council.”

“Well, I have a real interest in who becomes District Attorney,” he said with a grin.

“You’re going to have to work with both of them anyway, and you know it.”

“I just don’t want to sit around by myself.”

“Thank God you told me the real reason, Frank. I thought you had lost your mind. I’d love to have your company.”

WE WENT to the Montgomery gathering, which was noticeably subdued. Stacee had covered Henderson that night, and we met up with her later at the Express offices. Stacee took an immediate interest in Frank, who — damn his gray-green eyes — was not as immune as Jacob Henderson to her powers. It was all I could do to get her attention away from him long enough to talk about the business at hand. I wanted to strangle her.

I pounded on the keys as I wrote my story and noticed that whenever I looked up, Frank was watching her sashay hither and thither. He would feel my eyes on him somehow, and look down at me and smile. It would be a double homicide, I decided.

I stood up and cleared my desk, and left without so much as a “toodleloo” to Stacee. Frank got up and followed in my wake, puzzled.

When we got to the car, he said, “What’s eating you?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You are jealous!” The bastard was laughing.

I started up the car. “I am not jealous! I’m embarrassed that a man who is close to forty sat there and mooned over a twenty-year-old twit.”

At this, he only laughed harder. I fumed silently.

Eventually he was subdued enough to find his voice. “Irene, she can’t hold a candle to you.”

My jaw was clenched too tightly to respond.

WE PULLED UP in front of the house, and I looked over to see he was still very much amused, but was wisely maintaining silence. Outside the car, the air was chilly and clouds rolling past the moon threatened rain.

I stomped up the walk, but came to a halt about five feet from my front porch. There was blood on the steps. And there was some object on the porch itself, a lump. I felt fear clawing at me, taking me down into some welcomed oblivion.

As if from far away, I heard Frank moving up quickly behind me, felt him grab my shoulders, heard him say, “Oh, for Christsakes…”

The lump was a human heart.

16

MY STOMACH CHURNED and I ran to the side of the house, where I vomited. I heard Frank come up alongside me and ask if I was okay, but I couldn’t answer. I leaned against the house, shaking. I reached down and turned on the garden hose, and rinsed out my mouth. I splashed some cool water on my face. I felt a little better. Frank held me. “I have to get out of here,” I said, feeling as if I were in a small box instead of outdoors.

He walked me over to my next-door neighbor’s house, carefully steering me away from any view of the porch.