“How?”
“He starts by kissing up. But he does research-finds out things about people.” She paused, then said, “It’s so weird. He can do good work, really good work. But he’s lazy. And I think he has problems with…”
I waited. When she didn’t say more, I said, “Problems with what?”
“He likes to party, that’s all. I don’t know if it’s that,” she added quickly, “so I shouldn’t be saying that about him. Besides, I don’t think it’s the biggest reason he acts like he does. I mean, he has all this talent, right?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “When he focuses on something, that’s apparent.”
“But the problem is, he spends more time covering his butt and playing games than he does working.”
“Maybe if you told Lydia-”
“Forget it. I told you. He kisses ass. He’s already done it here. Mr. Wrigley thinks he has a new hotshot.”
“So why would you cave in to him, the way you did today?”
“Just trying to stay on his good side, I guess. You don’t want Ethan to think of you as anything but a friend.”
I sat thinking for a moment, then said, “Have you filed your story for today?”
“Yes. Not that it’s going to set the world on fire or anything.”
I smiled, remembering saying something like that about the first stories I covered.
“What’s so funny?”
“I won’t bore you with tales of my life on the frontier.”
She looked at me curiously. “Is it true that you were the first woman reporter here?”
“No. No, there were others before me. You want to meet one of the first women reporters?”
“Sure,” she said.
I laughed. “I was going to suggest that you interview Helen Swan, but not if you’re just being polite.”
“No, I wasn’t just being polite.”
“You’d better be telling the truth,” I said, “because Helen’s one tough old lady. If you are just being polite, she’ll make you cry for your mommy before the dust settles.”
She swallowed hard.
“Go down to the morgue-I mean, the library-and ask for microfilm of the Las Piernas News from around 1936 -”
“Microfilm! It’s not on the computer?”
“Don’t try my patience. Now, get this straight-you want the film for the News and not the Express. We were two papers back then, and Helen worked for the morning paper. Read a few issues before you talk to her. I have a feeling this assignment will help you. Helen has a way of inspiring people.”
She left a few minutes later. I stayed in my ghost town, thinking up ways to trap a troublemaker.
53
“M OVING INTO THE GUEST ROOM?” FRANK ASKED. HE WAS SURROUNDED by two adoring dogs, who pressed up against his legs while our cat, Cody, yowled a greeting.
“No,” I said, standing up and stretching over the menagerie to give him a hug. “Just going over some papers from O’Connor’s childhood.”
“His childhood?” He hugged back. Still had his gun on. His face had been chilled by the night air-and felt wonderful.
“Yes. Believe it or not, he was keeping a diary when he was eight. He started writing little stories for Corrigan around that same time. You should read a few of them-they’re hilarious. He was such a bright kid. And Corrigan obviously had a gift for teaching-O’Connor was learning how to identify reporters’ work by their style. He made a game out of it.”
“That’s wild. I hate to think what I would have been writing at that same age.” He gave me a kiss.
“I saved some chicken for you,” I said. He had phoned at five to say he had caught a new homicide case, and might be delayed. I glanced at the clock on the desk. “Only eight-you got out of there faster than I thought you would.”
He grinned. “Case went to L.A. County Sheriff’s. Turns out it all started in their jurisdiction.”
He changed into jeans and a sweater and put the gun away. It isn’t easy for me to watch that man get undressed and dressed again without making him keep his clothes off for a while in between, but he was hungry, so I didn’t interrupt the process. Still, I noticed a certain knowing light in his eyes, one that told me he was completely aware of the direction my thoughts had taken.
We went into the kitchen and talked about the day while he had dinner.
We’ve had to work out rules with each other, given our occupations-he doesn’t talk about my work at his workplace, I don’t talk about his at mine. He won’t tell the police what’s going on at the newspaper, I won’t tell the newspaper what’s going on in his department. I don’t ask him for information that would compromise an investigation, he doesn’t ask me for information that would cause me to reveal sources.
This has driven our employers crazy at times, and every now and then the pressures we’ve each been under at work have put a strain on our marriage. But over the long run, it has helped us to stay together. In our workplaces, others may suspect us of being less than loyal to our employers, of something akin to consorting with the enemy, but at home, our trust in each other remains.
And every once in a while, we manage to help each other.
“I left a voice mail message for Mark Baker about something you might be interested in,” he said, putting his dishes in the sink. “There’s an old prisoner up in Folsom who claims he’s got religion and wants to confess to a couple of murders he committed here in the 1940s.”
“In the 1940s? Wow. How old is this guy?”
“They told me he’s seventy-seven.”
“You know which cases?”
“Yes. He named them-a couple of young girls who were buried in an orange grove. Carlson’s handed the cases to me.”
“You’ve been getting a lot of these lately.”
“We can do more with these cases than we could before-even five years ago, the DNA testing wasn’t where it is now. It’s not just the DNA, either-we can do much more with fingerprints and other lab work than we could back when the murders took place.”
“Who were the victims?”
“Young women. I don’t have the information with me-haven’t even had a chance to go into storage and pull what we have on them. But ask Mark to give me a call tomorrow morning and I’ll fill him in on it.”
“Great. Hoping for some local help?”
“You never know. Sometimes people come forward. But I don’t expect it. Bennie Lee Harmon isn’t going anywhere, even if they don’t.”
“Harmon-that name is familiar…”
“He was paroled in the late 1970s-model prisoner and all that. About two years after he was released, he attacked and killed a woman in Riverside. But at that point he had a sheet, we had better labs and computers, and he was caught.”
“Wait, now I remember him. He had been serving on death row up in San Quentin. He got out when the court overturned all those death penalty convictions in the 1970s.”
“Right.”
“O’Connor wrote about him. He was upset that he was going free.”
“Well, O’Connor was right. Harmon’s confessing to seven murders, two of them here in Las Piernas.”
The phone rang. I answered it.
“Irene? It’s Max.”
“Max! Are you in town for a while?” I saw Frank frown. It always takes him a moment to remind himself that Max is a friend and not a former boyfriend.
“Yes, I’m here for a few weeks. In fact-well, I called to let you know I’m engaged.”
