Bookman's wake

The muse played it back to me.

Call me, she said. Don’t disappear, I have some things to tell you.

Having said that, she herself had dropped off the earth.

So the nightwork was there. Chase the letter, track down Aandahl.

I called her home, wherever that was, but the telephone still played to an empty house. I tried her desk at the paper, without much hope. At the end of three rings there was a half-ring, indicating a shift to another line.

A recording came on, a woman’s voice.

“Hi, this’s Judy Maples, I’ll be running interference for Trish Aandahl for a few days. If it’s vital, you can reach me through the main switchboard, four six four, two one one one.”

I called it. The operator wouldn’t give me a number for Maples, but did offer to patch me through to her at home. The phone rang in some other place.

“Hello.”

“Judy, please.”

“This is she.”

“I’m a friend of Irish.”

“Aha. What friend would you be?”

“One who’s a little worried about her.”

“She’s fine. Something came up suddenly and she had to go out of town.”

“When will she be back?”

“Not sure, couple of days maybe.” There was a kind of groping pause. “Trish left a package for a friend, if you happen to be the one.”

“What’s in it?”

“Can’t tell, it’s sealed up in a little Jiffy bag. Do you think it’s for you?”

“Is there a name on it?”

“Initials.”

I took a long breath. “How about C.J.?”

“You got it. Trish didn’t know if you’d get this far or not. For the record, I have no idea what this is about. I’m just the messenger gal. She told me to say that. It’s true. I left your package with the guard at the paper. If you want to go pick it up, I’ll call him and tell him to release it to you.”

I said okay, though nothing about it felt okay.

I walked out past my old room. The cops were gone and the place was closed tight. I rode the elevator down, drew my raincoat tight, pulled my hat down to my eyebrows. The day was going fast as I went out into the timeless, endless rain. Everything in the world was gray, black, or dark green.

I fetched my car, went to the Times , and got my package.

It was a cassette tape, wrapped in a single piece of copy paper. A cryptic four-line note was handwritten on the paper.

If you’d like to stay at my house, consider it yours. I have no reason to believe you’d be unsafe there. The key’s in the flowerpot. Don’t mind the dogs, they’re both big babies.

Trish

A postscript told her address, on Ninetieth Avenue Southeast, Mercer Island.

I put it back in the bag and slipped it under my seat, then moved on to the main business of the evening.

I wanted to be well out of the downtown area when I made this call. I drove south, got off the freeway near Boeing, and looked for a telephone. Phones are like cops: there’s never one when you need it.

At last I stood at a little lean-in booth and made the call. It was a hard quarter to drop.

I heard it ring three times in North Bend.

“Hello.”