Remember Me, Irene

friends helped me find him. They respected him. He protected some of the weak ones from the bullies.”

“That was his way,” she said. “Even as a kid.”

She pulled herself together, then began carefully replacing the contents of the grocery bag. She looked over at me, and I realized that I still had the Bible on my lap. I started to close it, saw the note again.

“Can you read this?” I asked, handing it to her.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” she began.

“Er, no, I meant the scrap of paper.”

“Oh.” She frowned over it, then said, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I couldn’t make it out either,” I sighed.

“Oh, I think I can make it out. It just doesn’t make any sense. It says, ‘She rubs.’”

She passed it back to me. I studied it again, now that I had a hint of how to proceed. “How did he get such good grades with such lousy handwriting?” I asked.

“Teachers are as good as pharmacists at reading bad handwriting. His teachers knew he was bright-and you wouldn’t believe how hard some of them worked with him on it. He printed lots of things-his printing wasn’t as bad as his handwriting. But mostly it was just that they knew he was trying. Might have had some kind of learning disability, I don’t know. In those days, they didn’t test for things the way they do now.”

“This is ans?” I asked, looking at the first mark on the paper.

She looked at it again. “I think so. Or maybe ac.”

“Ac? Then it would make sense. Cherubs.”

She smiled a little. “Well, that’s a more sensible note to leave in a Bible.”

I drove her over to the rental car place, wondering if she was right. Maybe the Good Book wasn’t the inspiration for the note. After all, Lucas Monroe had died surrounded by angels.

GEOFF’S GREETING DIDN’Tdo anything to soothe my nerves as I entered the Wrigley Building. The old security guard shook his head slowly and said in funereal tones, “Mr. Walters is very happy.”

“Any idea what’s caused this monumental change in affect?”

“You mean, why is he so happy?”

I nodded.

“You.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure it can’t be as bad as all that,” I said, heading for the stairs.

“And I thoughtI was an optimist,” I heard him mumble behind me.

I ignored the stares of coworkers, the drop-off in both conversation and keyboard clatter as I made my way across the newsroom. I had thought to stop by Lydia’s desk, but decided not to prolong my misery. I glanced over to see her catching the tip of her nose between two fingers, scissors-style-as if snipping it off. It was an old signal between us from our school days, one I hadn’t seen since the last time I got sent to the principal’s office.Better no nose than a brown nose, it meant, invented long ago as a response to Alicia Penderson’s shameless kissing up to the nuns. Alicia had been in serious danger of putting a new crease in the backside of Sister Vincent’s habit.

I smiled, returned the gesture, and knocked on the frame of John’s open office door. “Hello, John. You wanted to see me?”

My smile must have taken him aback, because he scowled briefly before saying, “Come in, Irene. And close the door.” Once the door was shut, he smiled again and said, “Have a seat.”

He then went back to looking at a computer monitor, where he was scrolling the wire-browsing through the long directory, looking over the lead paragraphs of stories filed on the wire service. I took a quick peek over his beefy shoulder to see what he was reading and noticed there was nothing urgent or local on the monitor. The faker.

Unfortunately for John, I recognized the trick as one that Sister Vincent herself had often used: stall and make them squirm. My immunity to this tactic built by experts, I leaned back in my chair and studied my fingernails as if they had the winning lotto numbers painted on them.

“How’s the story on Moffett coming?” he asked, not looking at me.

“Oh, just swimmingly.”

He turned to look at me, his scrutiny real this time.

“So tell me about it.

“I’ve met with Corbin Tyler and it looks like I’ll finally be able to interview Roland Hill. So I’m meeting with some people who worked very closely with him. I expect to have more by the end of the week…”

“Dammit, Kelly, you work for anewspaper, not a goddamned history journal! The man resigned on Thursday. Monday, I practically had to chain you to your chair. It’s now Tuesday and you’re strolling in here late. Maybe I should put someone else on to this. Someone who has time to be a reporter. Maybe Dorothy Bliss should be handling this one.”

That brought me to my feet. “You want a load of half-assed, meaningless bullshit on your front page, go right ahead. You’ll have a column full of conjecture and nothing to back it up. She puts more filler in her stories than a flat-chested girl could stuff into a bra on prom night!”

“At least this newspaper would appear to be looking into the matter of Moffett’s sudden resignation!”

“That’sall it would be, John. Appearance! Quotes from ten people who don’t know diddly, filled in with could-it-be crap. ‘Could it be that Mr. Moffett really needed more time to care for his ailing poodle?’ ‘Could it be that younger higher-ups were demanding more than the old commissioner could deliver?’”

“Kelly…”

“Maybe she’ll make it dramatic.” I put my hand over my heart and went into a Betty Boop voice, the closest I can come to imitating Dorothy. “‘There’s an empty office in city hall. Very, very empty. Outside, on the door of the office, an equally empty slot, a place where a narrow brass plaque bearing a very important name should be. Everyone here knows the missing name on the missing plaque. Could it be that these uneasy, silent coworkers know why it’s missing?’”

He started stabbing his blotter with a ballpoint pen. I went for broke.

“‘As this reporter looked at the sun-faded carpet, the little bitty indentations where the big oak desk used to sit, the really, really big oak desk that once had a really, really big leather chair behind it…’”

“That’s enough!”

“Oh, sure it is,” I said, dropping the act. “Give the story to Dorothy and you’ll get ten inches on the office decor alone, no sweat. Smoke and mirrors. But what the hell? You’re in a hurry. Go ahead and give it to her. Call me if you start to be curious about what really happened.” I started for the door.

“Sit down!”

I hesitated, decided to turn and face him. One look at his mottled red face convinced me I should sit down.

His eyes narrowed. “You are the most insolent, insubordinate-”

“This is so much better than what I expected.”

That stopped him for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were in a good mood this morning. Scared the hell out of everyone in the building.”

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Haven’t seen enough of you around here lately, Kelly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was irritated with you, that’s all. A suggestion was made, and I thought it might solve some of our current difficulties.”

“What suggestion?”

He shook his head. “I’ve changed my mind.”

We sat there in silence for a moment. John started tapping the pen again.

“Can we start over?” I asked.

He looked up at me.

“I mean, about the Moffett story,” I went on. “I need you to forget two things.”

“Namely?”

“First, forget that I ever knew Lucas Monroe.”