Remember Me, Irene

of signal to them, but he didn’t know what was going on. Not really. They wrapped a chain around her and threw her overboard. I don’t know much more. Allan bought the chain. Roland was angry with him, because he paid by credit card. That’s how I know. I heard my dad laughing about it when Roland told him.”

“Andre, Allan, and Roland knew for a certainty that she was killed.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll tell the police?”

“Yes, I promise,” she said, then added quickly, “That probably doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“You might be surprised,” I said.

A FEW MINUTES LATER, I saw the security guard cruiser coming up the far side of the street.

I didn’t have a chance to get his attention before another car sped from the other direction. Keene Dage’s Mercedes. He wasn’t at the curb before Frank got out of the passenger side, frantic. He was looking up at the building. I flashed the flashlight. He spotted it, pointed. The security guard was fumbling with the gate. I could hear sirens. I had to let Frank know that we were okay.

“Can I have this?” Two Toes was saying behind me.

“Have what?” I asked, trying to get the window open.

“This thing that beeps.”

“It’s all yours,” I said, using the butt end of the flashlight to strike the pane.

I was going to owe Keene for another window. If I got my wallet back, I’d pay him for it.

38

TWOTOES KEPT MY PAGER.The policy at the paper changed by the next afternoon, so I didn’t order a new one. It had gone off because Frank had tried to get in touch with me again and again, finally contacting one of Keene Dage’s kids. Keene had just left, heading back to Fallbrook after a family dinner, but his son had reached him on the car phone. When Keene heard that I hadn’t come home yet, he doubled back and picked up Frank. They called in reinforcements on the way.

Lisa left with the police. I used Keene’s cell phone to call Marcy and told her that Lisa had just been arrested, and that she might want to be at the police station when they brought her in. I told her that I thought it best that someone else give her the details. She wasn’t happy with me about it, but I told her I had to go, I needed to take someone to the hospital.

Two Toes was afraid of the ambulance, so Keene took him to St. Anne’s in the Mercedes. Frank and I rode with them. On the way, I got all of my belongings back, with the exception of the pager and the picture of the dogs. Once there, I introduced him to a favorite nun of mine, and she convinced him that St. Anne’s would never mistreat a guardian angel. When we left, he was trying to trade my pager for her rosary.

ROBERTA CAME OUTof her coma. She was having trouble speaking and couldn’t walk. But no one was giving up yet, least of all Roberta. Time would tell. I was only one of many friends who were determined to help her out in any way we could.

Some of those women, Marcy included, would probably never speak to me again. They blamed me for Lisa’s being in jail, and there wasn’t any point in trying to get them to see it any other way. Alicia Penderson-Duggin, of all people, was my biggest defender.

Lucas had a big funeral. A dead hero of the common man has a lot of political appeal, I found. There was lots of media coverage, and politicians and college administrators were anxious to be associated with his memory. TheExpress had taken my story and turned it into something that I probably should have been happy with, but wasn’t-a big front-page tribute to him. Maybe it bothered me because they couldn’t spare two lines for him a week before, and now he was selling their papers.

During the funeral, I stayed off in a corner of the cemetery, sitting on a fence with Blue, Rooster, Decker, and Beans. I don’t know what was said at his graveside, and I don’t really care. Like just about everybody else at that funeral-except Lucas’s mother and his brother-the preacher didn’t know him. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to say good-bye to him. I’m not sure, even now.

Charles Monroe stayed at the grave long after everyone else had gone. He saw me sitting on the fence and nodded. I nodded back. I left after that.

I didn’t see his mother until the next day. She was in Joshua Burrows’ room at Las Piernas General. They must have been talking about Lucas, because she was smiling. When she saw me, the smile got bigger.

“Hello, June,” I said.

“Good to see you,” she said. “Corky-I’m sorry, I should call you by your right name.”

“Corky’s fine,” he said. He looked very different from the last time I had seen him. He was clean, the bruises were fading, and although he wasn’t the picture of health, the antibiotics were obviously doing some good.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Just taking it a day at a time,” he said.

“Good for you,” June said. “That’s the way to recover fromanything.”

He smiled. “She’s subtle, isn’t she?”

“Oh, I didn’t come in here to lecture you, and you know it,” she said. She looked over to me. “I’ve about worn him out talking about Lucas.”

“I wish I could have been at the funeral,” Joshua said.

“Your father was there for you,” June said. “Lucas would understand. Besides, it doesn’t matter so much what you do for a person after they’re dead. You were his friend when he was alive.”

It hit me like a slap, although I knew she wasn’t aiming the remark at me. “She’s right,” I said. “Excuse me. I’ll be back later.”

I hurried out of the room.

Shewas right, of course. I walked around the corner, found an elevator, and took it to the top floor. There’s a little solarium there, and I needed someplace to sit, someplace where there was light.

I realized that whatever little good I had done by telling Lucas’s story, his name would be forgotten. Once those of us who knew him were gone, who would remember him? The poor who had been forced to move because of Andre’s crooked study wouldn’t have their homes back. Redevelopment, with all its mixed results, would continue apace. New studies had been demanded, and Ray Aiken would undoubtedly allow better oversight of future projects.

The elevator opened and I stepped out into the sunlight.

I tried to look at things differently. Nadine’s brother was sad but relieved. I learned he had filed a missing person’s report on her, but in the six months that had passed since her death, Hill made certain loose ends had been tidied up, and she was thought to have left the area. The coordinates Jeff McCutchen guessed at from his quarter’s worth of viewing turned out to be in the water near an oil island. Lots of diving and some underwater metal detectors finally turned up the chain. It was still around the canvas bag. The bag, which had been firmly anchored by the chain and sheltered to some degree by the island, was carefully raised and opened. A largely intact adult female skeleton was found within. The teeth, a bracelet, and an old fracture on the crooked left little finger were enough to identify the remains as those of Nadine Preston. No one had expected to find so much of her, the coroner had confided.

Stop it, I told myself.

Keene Dage, who probably would have been able to completely avoid the risk of criminal prosecution, instead had come forward. He was being offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony in several investigations, as was Corbin Tyler. The last time I had seen him, he was tired but happy. “My kids are behind me one hundred percent,” he said. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“You’ll have to recarve the faces of the angels on the Angelus,” I told him, and he laughed.

Roland Hill and Allan Moffett were probably going to prison. Booter Hodges was looking for another job. And although I didn’t know it that day when I stood in the solarium, Andre Selman would cheat the hangman. He never