“If you want to drop it, I won’t be angry with you.”
“No. Tell me you won’t give up on this, Claire.”
“Oh, I can’t, Irene. And now, I suspect, neither can you.”
WE TALKED A LITTLE LONGER, moving to safer subjects as she asked me about our dogs and Cody. Just before we said good-bye, she said, “Oh, I just thought of something. Ben kept calendars. Should I look for the ones from those years?”
“Calendars-you mean, something like appointment books?”
“Yes, only more detailed.”
“Well, yes,” I said, trying not to let my hopes soar. “I think they would be very helpful.”
As I hung up, I turned to see that Frank had dragged all of our pillows and blankets out of the bedroom-and apparently from the linen closet as well-and arranged them in front of the fireplace. He had changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater, and was mixing drinks.
“Are you building a fort?” I asked, studying the pile of bedding.
“Yes,” he said, “and here’s the ammo.” He handed me a Myers’s with a spot of orange juice in it, took up a scotch and water, then led me to the pillows and blankets. The dogs and Cody gathered around as I downed the drink. It was a stiff one, and I felt it burn its way from my throat to my chest.
Frank watched me, took the empty glass, and set it aside.
He pulled the blankets and pillows around us, dogs and cat protesting but resettling. He held my head on his shoulder and stroked my hair. I didn’t start crying until he said, “Whatever you do, don’t cry on my fort.”
IAWOKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, vaguely aware of troubling dreams. It was a relief to hear Frank’s soft snoring. My thoughts soon turned to Lucas, and the fact that his family might not even know he was dead. Where was his family? I thought of the envelopes Claire had shown me.
Frank murmured something unintelligible as I got out of bed, but he fell right back to sleep. Cody followed me into the living room. I picked up the phone and dialed long-distance information for area code 909.
“City and listing?” a voice said.
“Riverside. Last name Monroe.”
“First name or initial?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, there are a large number of listings under the last name Monroe. I’ll have to have a first name.”
“Try Lucas.”
I heard the clacking of computer keys, then, “Sorry, no listing.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Frank escaped the house only after I badgered him into promising me that he’d find out if the family had been contacted. He called me at work to say that it would take a little time, since Lucas hadn’t given the shelter any information on his relatives.
That’s why, throughout the rest of the morning, whenever John wasn’t cruising by my desk in the newsroom, I was pulling a Riverside phone directory out of my desk drawer and hiding it on my lap.
After Frank’s call, I had skulked over and snatched the directory from the bookcase near Stuart Angert’s desk. It wasn’t Stuart’s bookcase; the items in it were for the use of the entire newsroom. But given John’s warnings and a lack of brotherly love among some of my coworkers, I didn’t especially want anyone keeping track of what I was doing. Bad enough that Stuart had returned to his desk, seen the gap in the directories, and glanced around the newsroom. His glance settled on me, picking me out the way Sister Mary Joseph used to be able to pick me out of a crowd of identically dressed Catholic girls whenever someone had pulled a prank on a nun. I smiled, he smiled back, and I knew that if he had indeed guessed what I was up to, he was one of the few people who wouldn’t rat on me.
On my twenty-third call to a Riverside Monroe, a woman answered the phone, and there was just enough of a pause before she said, “Nobody here by that name,” to make me call back after she hung up in my ear. I got an answering machine this time.
“This is Irene Kelly of the
I hung up, then stared at the phone for a few moments, willing it to ring. Nothing.
In between absolutely fruitless calls to my city hall contacts about the resignation of Allan Moffett, I also made twenty-six additional calls to other Monroes in Riverside. Either they weren’t home or they didn’t know a Lucas. I chatted with a couple of the more lonely Monroes, left messages for others.
Still, the only one I made a note of was number twenty-three: J. Monroe, no address.
The day had turned the corner past noon, the hours were galloping toward deadline, and I didn’t have a thing written up. I could have blamed all the Monroes in Riverside or the people in city hall for my frustration, but I knew what was really irritating me. I wasn’t working on the story I wanted to work on-at least, not from the right angle.
I reached into one of my desk drawers and pulled out a pile of loose scraps of paper bound with a couple of rubber bands. It was a treasure I inherited when the contents of the desk were returned to the
“Keene? It’s Irene.”
“Oh, for Chrissakes-”
“Hold on, Keene. Just slow down and think for a minute. You have a chance to distance yourself from all of this, so you might as well take it. The pressure is on. You think all of your dinner companions are going to keep their mouths shut forever?”
“Assuming there
I stayed silent.
“You don’t know what you’re after, do you?” Keene said at last.
“You’re forgetting that Lucas Monroe and I go way back.”
“You give Lucas Monroe the same advice I’m giving you: just forget it. Go on with your lives. No good is served by this.”
So Keene didn’t know Lucas was dead. Or was pretending he didn’t know. I postponed what had started to be a sense of relief.
“Have you seen Lucas lately?” I asked.
“No, apparently Mr. Monroe doesn’t know how to get in touch with me. So I guess he can’t threaten me the way he did some of the others.”
“How did he threaten them?”
“Shit. I should have known you were on a fishing expedition. You don’t know squat, do you?”
“Fishing expedition? Like the kind you used to take on Ben’s boat?”
Silence.
“You received a photocopy, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Shit,” he said again. There was a long pause before he said, “Leave me in peace, Irene.”
“Are you at peace, Keene?”
There was a sigh. “I’m an old man.”
“O’Connor used to say there was no accomplishment in being young.”
He laughed. “Seems I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
“Entirely likely. He never claimed to have made up all of that stuff.”
“Look,” he said. “I don’t think your friend Lucas Monroe knows how to get in touch with me and I don’t want him to learn. Don’t give him this number.”
