“Don’t give Irene a hard time,” Lisa said. “My father’s conquests are legion-and most of the women were in their twenties when he met them.”
“I’m not sure I’ve been defended,” I said. “To go back to Rachel’s question-I think age differences didn’t matter so much as the fact that he grew up in a different household.”
“You’re right. Jerry’s my half-brother, Rachel. For the most part, he lived with his mother, and I lived with mine. But he sometimes spent months at my father’s house, and he lived with Andre all summer, every summer. When I was young, I was very jealous of him, of course. Eaten up with envy. I would have loved to have had one- thousandth of the attention he received from Andre. For a while, when I was in school, we grew further apart. But in the last few years, we’ve started to get to know one another again.”
We shifted to less volatile subjects, eventually leaving the table to make ourselves more comfortable near the fireplace.
“I should be getting home,” Lisa said at about eleven o’clock. “Oh, by the way, Roland Hill said that he would talk to you if you called tomorrow.”
“How did you ever get him to agree to do that?” I asked.
She smiled. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t get a little cooperation from people like Roland Hill.”
The phone rang as I was about to thank her. The machine picked it up before I could get to it.
“This the Irene Kelly that called here earlier?” a voice asked over the speaker.
I quickly picked up the phone and said, “Yes, it is,” to the twenty-third Monroe.
19
THIS ISJUNEMONROE.Are you the reporter who’s going to help my son?”
Her son. Oh hell, I thought, my mouth suddenly dry. I glanced over my shoulder to see Rachel and Lisa watching me intently. I hunched closer to the phone, took a deep breath. “I need to talk to you, Mrs. Monroe, but I’d rather speak to you in person.”
“Hmm. This sounds like trouble to me. Have Lucas call me, then maybe I’ll talk to you. But I need to talk to him first.”
“I’m afraid-I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why not?” She paused, then added, “Don’t tell me he’s fallen off the-” She caught herself, but I knew what she had started to ask.
“No,” I said. “He hasn’t been drinking.”
“Oh? Then what’s making you sound so nervous?”
“Could you hold on, please? I need to switch phones.”
I excused myself from my guests for a moment; Cody followed me back into the bedroom, where I picked up the extension. I waited while Rachel hung up the kitchen extension.
“Mrs. Monroe?”
“I’m still here.”
“I need to talk to you about Lucas, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. It’s late now, but-”
“Late to you, maybe. I work nights. This is the middle of the day.”
Cody jumped up onto my lap. I stroked his fur, trying to steady my nerves, while my mind frantically sought a way to gently handle this situation. “You’ll be up for a while, Mrs. Monroe?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’d like to drive out to see you.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t make my voice work.
“I asked you,
“Please, Mrs. Monroe-”
“Don’t you ‘please Mrs. Monroe’ me. You’ve got me worried past all reason now. I don’t like it. You drive out here, it will take you at least an hour to get to my place. What am I going to do all that time except worry?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Cody batted at the phone cord.
“Just tell me,” she said, but her voice was softer now.
“I’m a stranger to you, Mrs. Monroe. I knew Lucas many years ago-”
“He’s told me all about you. You were one of his students. You don’t know me, but he’s been telling me a lot about you. Lucas trusts you. He leads a lonesome life now; he doesn’t trust many people. But he trusts you. That’s good enough for me.”
“I don’t deserve it,” I whispered, and never meant anything so sincerely in all my life.
“God will be the judge of that, as He will be of all of us. My son may have a few problems, but he’s smart. I’ve never seen a child so smart as he was. He’s straightening out now, getting himself on the right path. Just like I knew he would,” she said. “I have always known it. Charles-his older brother-thinks I’m crazy, but he just doesn’t know Lucas like I do.”
“I didn’t even know he had a brother,” I said. Oh, yes, I thought. Let’s talk about his brother, his uncles, his cousins-about anything but what has happened to your hopes.
“Well, now, never mind that. Let’s just talk about Lucas,” she said, taking up the reins as if she had heard my thoughts and feared I would bolt.
“I wanted to find Lucas,” I began, voice unsteady. “I don’t think he was ready to talk to me yet, but I needed to ask him about a photograph.”
I paused, but she didn’t offer any comment on the photo, so I went on.
“I was also worried about him. He hadn’t been to the shelter for a few days. I called a friend of mine who- well, let’s just say she works with the homeless every now and then. We asked around; talked to a lot of people who knew him, men who live on the streets. No one had seen him since Thursday.”
Silence. Cody’s purring not enough of a comfort.
“Eventually someone gave us some information that led us to an abandoned hotel. We found Lucas there.”
“Was he hurt?” she asked, and I knew she wanted that to be the problem, knew that she had already somehow heard the truth before I spoke it.
“No. He was-he was in one of the rooms. Up high, one of the highest floors. He was lying there, very peacefully.”
She made a short, high-pitched keening sound.
“His heart,” I managed to choke out.
“No…not Lucas. Not Lucas!” she said, again and again and again.
When I thought June Monroe might hear me, I said, “You shouldn’t be alone. Is there anyone who can be with you tonight?”
“You’re going to be with me. I’m coming down there right now, you understand?”
I did. Perfectly. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, anyway.
“I’ll call Charles. He’ll take me down there. You’re going to take us to see my boy. I’ll call you right back.”
She hung up. I sat there numbly until the phone rang in my hand.
As I held up the receiver, an angry voice came from it. “What the hell is wrong with you, calling my mother up and telling her something like that on the phone?”
“Your mother called me. And I didn’t want to tell her-”
“All I got to say to you is, this damn well better be my brother. If it’s anyone else, you’re gonna find yourself in so much mess, you’re gonna wish you were in a refrigerated drawer right next to Mr. John Doe.”
“Listen, I’m sorry about your brother-”
“Save your ‘sorry,’ bitch.”
