W HEN SHE FIRST SAW THE PHOTOGRAPHS ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THIS morning’s Express, the woman who had once been known as Betty Bradford became so alarmed, she threw the paper in the kitchen trash. Her husband came downstairs as she did and teased her as he retrieved it, telling her she was becoming absent- minded. “Just because it’s Saturday doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep up with the world,” he said.
She laughed it off, told him she didn’t know what she had been thinking. She was a convincing actress. All the world had been her stage for fifteen years.
She had become the woman in the part she played. A respectable woman.
How she loved that word, respectable.
She hadn’t been able to eat breakfast at all. From the moment he took the newspaper in hand until the moment he left to take the boys to Little League, she worried that he would see her photograph and ask questions. Twenty years, a few pounds, and a change in hair color-was that enough to keep a man from recognizing a photo of his wife?
Now, several hours later, while he took the boys to their swimming lessons, she stood stock still at the kitchen sink, staring out through her greenhouse window, her hands in yellow rubber dishwashing gloves. The warmth of the sudsy water came through the gloves, and she enjoyed the plain, everyday feel of that.
She looked out at the front lawn, looked out at her neighborhood. A good neighborhood. One where they thought the problem kid was the long-haired boy who played in a band. He wasn’t a problem. He smoked a little dope with his friends once in a while and played his guitar too loud, but he was a sweet kid at heart. He wasn’t going to do anyone any real harm. They should all keep an eye on the quiet, sullen boy who lived three doors down.
She knew how to spot a troublemaker.
She had been one.
She didn’t like to think of it, but there it was, right in the paper. She glanced over at the place where it lay on the counter, stained by coffee grounds that had been in the trash, and quickly looked away from it, looked back to the sunny day just beyond the window. She thought about a little box that held something she had stolen from a powerful man, something she had nearly thrown away a half a dozen times. Maybe, she thought, she should throw it away now.
She told herself that even if he learned the truth, her husband would love her, would stand by her.
She didn’t really believe it, though.
She had known only one man who had stood by her, accepted her as she was. A tough man who was, all the same, gentle with women, gentle with her. Who had helped her to find her way from being a wild and restless thing into being a woman. Not some silly mimicry of womanhood, but something real. Just by respecting her.
But that man had died in Mexico. His name was Luis-she had stopped calling him Lew, the anglicized version of his name, not long after they had become lovers.
“Luis,” she whispered now, “what am I going to do?”
41
O N SATURDAY, THE CORONER MADE A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. HE WAS placed in the embarrassing position of admitting that further examination of the bones had shown them to be those of a small dog believed to be Katy Ducane’s pet. Lefebvre later told me that he had talked his partner, Matt Arden, into being the bearer of bad news. I had a feeling Arden was often the ambassador for Lefebvre.
Woolsey blamed an assistant for the error. The Express and the rest of the fourth estate did not go easy on Woolsey, but it would have been worse if he had tried a cover-up.
Max stayed in touch over the weekend, calling me a couple of times each day, usually just to ask if I had learned anything new. I gave him my home number, and he called me there a few times, too, always careful not to call too late. More than once, I got the feeling that it was more difficult for him to be “possibly-the-kidnapped- one” than “not-the-kidnapped-one.”
The reward was published. Lots of calls came in, both to the paper and to the police. I didn’t see a lot of promise in those made to the Express.
One call, from a woman, might have been an exception. Within a moment after she asked if I was Irene Kelly, something made me believe she knew something. Exactly why I was so sure she wasn’t another crank, I can’t say. Maybe it was her nervousness, when other callers had been cocky, more eager to know about the conditions attached to the reward than to tell me anything. She said she didn’t want the reward money. She just wanted to talk to me. Just me, not the police. She sounded upset. I found myself praying I could keep her on the line long enough to get her to tell me her phone number. But she hung up before I could respond with more than, “I’d love to hear whatever it is you have to say…”
I stayed off my phone for two hours, hoping she’d call back. I pissed off everyone near me because I used their phones instead. That was all I got out of that.
On Monday, I learned that the Baer house was sold-apparently over the weekend-but the real estate agent would not reveal the name of the buyer to me. Telling her I would eventually see it on county property records did not make the least impression on her.
I talked O’Connor into going over more of his notes from 1958 with me. We talked about the property records for the area near the cabin where Gus Ronden’s body had been found. He mentioned that Katy Ducane, Lillian and Harold Linworth, and Thelma and Barrett Ducane owned cabins not far from Baer’s. Katy’s was then bequeathed to Jack Corrigan. Helen owned it now.
I gave her a call and asked her if she remembered a guy named Griffin Baer living near her mountain cabin. She said no. I asked about the enclave of folks from Las Piernas; she said the Vanderveers had owned two or three cabins and a lodge up there for as long as anyone could remember, and the Ducanes were merely trying to keep up with them. A few members of Lillian’s social circle had bought cabins after visiting hers. “And naturally, there were friends of friends, too.”
“Why did Katy give her cabin to Jack?”
There was a long pause before she answered. “To be honest, I was surprised about that. Jack and Katy were very close. She called him ‘Uncle Jack,’ but the truth is, Jack was more of a father to her than Harold. Harold Linworth wasn’t home more than two days out of seven, and he never paid much attention to Katy. Jack spent a lot of time with her. She probably realized that he’d never have enough money of his own to afford a second home. She was a generous girl. Jack loved to go up there, although at first, I think it was hard on him-he missed her.”
“O’Connor said she made the will just a day or two before she died. Do you know why?”
She seemed to weigh her words carefully. “No one knows what was on her mind with any certainty, of course. I believe Mitch Yeager said something to upset her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She tried to talk to Jack about it at the party. Gave him a note. Didn’t O’Connor tell you about it?”
“No,” I said, looking over to his desk, where he was typing a story.
“I’m sure it just slipped his mind.”
“Helen, I can handle it if he lies to me, but not if you do, too.”
There was a brief silence. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“So tell me about this note.”
“Katy worried that Mitch might be her father.”
“What?”
“Irene, it was a lie. I will never forgive Mitch for upsetting her. She should have had a happier birthday. She should have…” She broke off.
She was crying. I felt terrible. “I don’t mean to upset you, Helen-”
“I know, I know. I’ll be all right. I thought I had accepted the fact of her death years ago. I guess I didn’t.”
“It hasn’t been so long since you lost Jack,” I said. “That can’t make this any easier.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said. I heard her take a steadying breath. “You were asking about Mitch and Katy.”
