Bloodlines

17

I T TOOK TWENTY MINUTES OF SEARCHING, BUT FINALLY O’CONNOR SAW A public phone sign on a restaurant on the edge of town and pulled into its lot. He fished a handful of coins from his glove compartment, found the phone booth, went into it, sat down, and shut the glass door. He found his hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and deposited a dime, listening to the small bell chime twice as the dime rolled through the mechanism.

The operator would have put him through to the police department without charge, but he had decided to call Norton directly. Dan said it would take him about forty-five minutes to make some calls and get out there, but O’Connor should go back and wait for him at the scene.

O’Connor called Wrigley next.

“I thought I told you to sleep,” Wrigley said, but when O’Connor told him why he had called, there was a long silence. Then he said, “You mean to tell me Jack killed the man who fought him?”

“No. The man was shot. Jack doesn’t carry a gun. And he didn’t fight Jack, he beat him. There’s a difference.”

“Agreed. You sure he’s the guy?”

“No, but how many blond, crewcut giants might have died not far from where Jack was found?”

“Right. Listen, I’m not sure I’ve got anyone I can spare at the moment. What a damnable few days this has been. To make matters worse, Harvey quit.”

Harvey was one of their best. He had been a top war correspondent who, when he was wounded overseas, recuperated in Las Piernas and decided he wanted to stay. Wrigley had always considered his hiring a coup.

“Harvey? Why?”

“Some newsroom joker pulled the old cap gun prank today.”

O’Connor knew the trick. There were a couple of typewriters with the usual sandwich layers of paper and carbon paper already loaded in, ready to go for a man on a hot story. You didn’t sit at that typewriter unless you were under pressure to begin with. If someone also placed a layer of caps from a cap gun just behind that first sheet of paper, the hapless reporter who rushed to write his lead had the caps explode with a bang as he typed.

“Harvey thought he was back on Guam?”

“Exactly. Wouldn’t admit that, of course. Really shook him up and then he was embarrassed. Think you can talk him into coming back? He’s a friend of Jack’s, I know, but you get along with him, too, right?”

“Sure, but don’t count on me to persuade him to do anything. I’ll call him but he’s his own man.”

Harvey was reluctant to talk at first, but thawed a little as O’Connor told him how Jack was doing and moved on to tell him about finding the floating giant.

Then O’Connor said, “Here’s the problem, Harv. You know how it works. I can’t be the guy who found the body and the guy who writes the story. Wrigley’s lost his best man for the job, because you quit-you had every right to, of course. But what that means is that this story gets lost. And if someone in town knows this man in the marsh, we might learn why this giant was paid to beat the living hell out of Jack.”

“And why the giant was shot,” Harvey said slowly.

Hooked, and O’Connor knew it. “And who paid for any and all of that.”

There was a silence, then Harvey said, “Wrigley put you up to this?”

“I told him you’d make up your own mind.”

After another long silence, he said, “Tell me how to find this place in the marsh.”

It was dark by the time O’Connor got back to the marsh, and for a few moments, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find the body again. He did, though, and waited in the cold darkness for Norton and the others to arrive.

Once he had shown them the body, he was asked to wait in his car. He didn’t mind getting out of the cold and away from the stink. And he didn’t especially want to watch the poor bastards who’d have to fish the giant out of the muck and mire going about their business. So he went back to the Nash.

Harvey had to tap on the car window to wake him up when he arrived. O’Connor talked to him a while, then Harvey talked to Norton. Eventually he got enough for a story and left quickly, hoping to get something in before deadline. Before he went he told O’Connor that the dead man was presumed to be one Bo Jergenson. “Ever hear of him?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Or something close to it. The Linworths’ slightly deaf butler told Lillian that a tall gent who showed up at her daughter’s birthday party was named Bob Gherkin. Close enough, wouldn’t you say? He’s the one who attacked Corrigan.”

O’Connor hoped Harvey would check the typewriter before he sat down to write the story.

After the coroner’s wagon left, Norton motioned O’Connor to come over to where he was talking to a crime lab worker. A second worker was trying to make a cast of one of the drier sections of tread marks.

“You said Jack’s keys were missing?”

“Yes. Did you find them?”

“Describe them. Key chain, too.”

O’Connor thought for a moment, then said, “Three keys on a plain metal key ring. Nickel-colored. A key to his front door-Yale lock, I think. A key to my place, and a key to the back entrance to the Wrigley Building.” He pulled out his own keys and showed them what those last two keys looked like. “Hardly ever use the one for the paper, because the door is rarely locked. He also had a little saint’s medal on the ring, brass or maybe even gold-yellow metal anyway. Gift from a priest he helped out once. It’s a little worse for wear, has a little nick in it, but Jack won’t be without it.”

“Which saint?”

“Patron saint of reporters-St. Francis of Sales.”

Norton nodded to the crime scene investigator and the man held up a cellophane envelope. “Don’t touch it,” Norton warned O’Connor. “Take a look and tell me if that looks like it.”

There was a gold-colored medal in the envelope, bent near the top, where it had apparently been pulled by force off the key ring. O’Connor saw a small nick near the bottom.

“That’s Jack’s-not a doubt in my mind. He caught it in a metal desk drawer at work a few weeks ago and jammed the drawer. I can see the nick that was left on it when he finally worked it free. You found it on Jergenson?”

“In his trousers pocket.”

“No keys with it?”

“No, and if they aren’t in the marsh, then maybe someone is using them to try to get into Jack’s place. I’ve got an undercover car keeping an eye on it, just in case our friends stop by, but I won’t be able to do that for long. You think you can swing by there just to make sure the place hasn’t been turned upside down?”

“Sure. But-listen, Dan, there are some things I want to talk to you about- about Katy.”

“Tell you what. There’s a steak place not far from Jack’s. Let’s go by his house, take a quick look, grab his teddy bear or whatever the hell else he may need at the hospital-other than a bottle of rye-and leave. Then you can tell me all your troubles over dinner. And I can get the hell away from the stench of this place.”

Jack’s house was locked up and showed no sign of disturbance. O’Connor called the hospital from the home of one of Jack’s neighbors and learned that Jack was awake-and that Helen had told him what had happened to Katy and the baby. O’Connor asked to talk to him, and asked him where the spare key was hidden, and if he minded if Dan Norton entered the house with him.

Jack sounded listless, but he told O’Connor that the latest hiding place was in part of a window air conditioner at the back of the house, and that he didn’t care what Dan Norton did. But at the end of this dull recital, he said, “Come by later, if you get a minute, Conn.”

“I’ll definitely be there,” O’Connor assured him.

“For a drunk,” Norton said, looking around the tiny living room, “Corrigan leads an orderly existence.”

O’Connor didn’t reply to him. Norton watched as he walked through the small home. In the bedroom, James Joyce’s The Dubliners was on the night-stand. O’Connor took it with him. As nearly as he could tell, nothing in the house had been disturbed.

“Going to bring him a bottle?” Norton asked.

“No. I don’t want to kill him.”

“Kind of surprised you had to call him to find out where the spare key was. Surprised you don’t have a key to this place yourself. After all, he’s got one to your place, right?”

“He looks after my place when I travel. Helen looks after Jack’s place when he goes somewhere. She lives nearer than I do, and I guess they got into the habit years ago. I didn’t know where the spare was because Jack never leaves it in one place all the time, but I’ve never known him to forget where he’s hidden it, drunk or sober.”

“You finished here?”

“Yes.”

Over dinner, O’Connor told Norton his theories about the Sea Dreamer.

“I don’t believe all hell just accidentally broke loose among four sets of people who were as connected to each other as were Katy and Todd, Katy’s in-laws, Katy’s child and his nurse, and Katy’s good friend Jack Corrigan. And for starters, I don’t think the Ducanes were ever on that yacht.” He went over all the points Lorenzo had made to him. “He’s not a homicide investigator, but he knows boats.”

Norton didn’t say anything for a long while, then shrugged. “A possibility. Until I know what happened to the bodies, couldn’t say one way or another. I know the chief isn’t going to stand for anything other than the simplest explanation. He won’t want to hear about boats that didn’t really have anybody on them. But if the bodies are on land, we’ll find them easier than if they’re in the ocean.”

“I’ve been thinking about the car, the one Jack saw the farmer bury.”

“Maybe saw. Maybe didn’t. He’d had a skinful-as usual-and so many blows to his head, it’s a wonder it’s still attached to his neck.”

“I believe him.” O’Connor told him about the leaf.

“So the part about the eucalyptus grove could be real,” Norton acknowledged. “If you said to me, ‘Jack claims he was in a eucalyptus grove,’ that would be one thing. So many of those trees around, it wouldn’t be hard to believe. But seeing a farmer bury a car in the middle of the night? Makes no sense.”

O’Connor brooded in silence.

“Look, Conn, he’s my friend, too-but I have a job to do here, so I can’t let that count with me when I take a look at his story. What I can count is the number of times I’ve been around him lately when he was absolutely sober. I can do that without having to call Einstein to help me do the math.”

“He remembers things, even when he’s been drinking. Like the key.”

“This is bigger than a key, and in less familiar territory.”

“I think he saw it,” O’Connor said, “if for no other reason than this: it’s too strange a thing for him to talk about, unless he did see it. You ever hear him talk about hallucinations before now?”

“No,” Norton admitted. “But I’ve heard him talk when I knew he was confused by the booze. Add the whacks he took on his skull… he could easily be mixing up separate memories, combining them into one.” He held his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. “It would be hard for me to call this a lead.”

O’Connor decided he might as well let it drop.

Norton must have seen this in his face. He said, “All right, all right. Tell you what-if the bodies don’t wash ashore within the next week or so, I’ll get someone to canvass the farms near the marsh, ask if anyone has seen anything odd going on around there.”

“Anything else going on in the investigation?”

“We’re checking again for fingerprints at the Ducane house and in the boat and in the car that was left behind at the marina. We’ve got that new ninhydrin method now-we can sometimes find prints on paper.”

O’Connor tried to appear as if he was encouraged by this news, but he knew that until a suspect was in custody, the likelihood of matching the prints to a criminal was not good. He had seen the rows and rows of metal cabinets that housed the department’s thousands of fingerprint cards. Although a fingerprint expert would be able to narrow the search somewhat, it was still a long and tedious task that would only bear fruit if the Las Piernas Police Department had at some point taken the criminal into custody.

For the next two days, O’Connor was kept so busy between his work at the paper and keeping Jack’s spirits up, he had little time to look for answers to the many questions he had about the night Jack was injured. Jack’s fever subsided, but his memories of the attack did not grow clearer. Since he had learned about Katy and the others, and about the kidnapping, Jack hadn’t seemed to care about much of anything. O’Connor thought the news about Katy had damaged Jack more than the man who had used his fists on him.

One of the worst moments came when Jack asked him to look in his coat pockets, to see if his keys were there. “I might have left them in my coat at Lillian’s.”

“You probably had them taken from you. Remember? We found the saint’s medal on the giant. Besides, you told me the keys were still in your pocket when you woke up in the grove.”

“I might have been mistaken.”

“You have a cut and key-shaped bruise on your thigh.”

“Maybe the giant cut me with his own.”

O’Connor decided to humor him and searched his pockets. “Nothing, just this note.”

“What note? Read it.”

O’Connor opened it. “It says…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s nonsense, that’s all.”

“Give it to me, Conn.”

Reluctantly, O’Connor did as he was bid, but the injuries to Jack’s hands left his fingers too clumsy to open it. “It’s Katy’s handwriting. Must have slipped it to me at the party. Open it and tell me what it says,” he demanded impatiently.

O’Connor took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “It says, ‘Is it true that Mitch Yeager is my father? You’re the only one who will tell me the truth. Call me.’”

“Damn it!” Jack said, covering his eyes with his hand. “Damn it!”

O’Connor waited, and when Jack said nothing more, he put the note back into the coat and carefully hung it up again.

Jack kept his eyes covered, his bruised and swollen fingers over the bandaged one, the palm of his hand covering the less injured one.

“Oh God. She died thinking that son of a bitch might be her father,” he said. “Who the hell would put a sick idea like that into her head?”

“The husband who was about to be divorced?”

Jack let his hand fall and looked at O’Connor. “Probably.” He considered this grimly for a moment, then said, “That bastard wouldn’t let her talk alone with me for five minutes, and that’s probably why. God damn it! What a cruel damned thing to tell her.”

Worried that getting this upset would harm him, O’Connor said, “Jack, it doesn’t matter now.”

“I think of her being out there… lost in the sea, in darkness. Of her being cold. And alone. And afraid.”

“No, Jack. Katy wasn’t ever afraid of anything.”

Jack smiled a little. “No, she wasn’t.”

They sat in silence for a time. Jack said, “Don’t tell anyone about that note, Conn.”

“If you’re going to insult me, Jack Corrigan, I’ll leave.”

Jack laughed softly and said, “I was wondering what it would take to get you to leave me the hell alone.”

“Just for that, I’ll stay.” And then he thought to tell Jack the story of Harv and the caps, and Jack laughed and immediately guessed who had done the trick, and the two of them considered various ways in which Harvey could be avenged.

On Wednesday evening, as he made his way across the hospital parking lot, O’Connor felt the sensation of being watched. He turned and looked behind him, but saw no one. He scanned the lot, but saw only one familiar car- Norton’s T-Bird. Norton wasn’t in it. Shrugging, he went into the building.

As he stepped out of the elevator, he saw Norton leaving Jack’s room.

“Hiya, Conn,” Dan said wearily.

“Hello, Dan. You look beat. Have you slept since Sunday?”

“Not much. Thought I’d stop by to see how Jack was doing, though.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen worse, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see a friend in that kind of shape.”

“I keep thinking that if a guy delivering some eggs hadn’t come along and helped him, you and I might be at Jack’s funeral right now. If he doesn’t cheer up, we may be yet.”

Dan looked uneasy. “Listen-I didn’t realize how down he was feeling. If I had known, I wouldn’t have said anything to him about it at all.”

“About what?”

“They found the Ducanes.”

Although he had known it might come to this, O’Connor now realized that in some corner of his mind he had harbored hope that they would be found alive. He felt the grief well up in him, and close on its heels, a fear for Jack’s recovery.

“Not all of them,” Dan quickly amended.

“Who, then?”

“This is off the record-and not really official yet, anyway. Thelma and Barrett. Not exactly together. Her body washed up south of here. Clothing and jewelry told them who it was, because…well, you know how it is with floaters.”

O’Connor nodded.

“Barrett was in worse shape. Ruined the romantic stroll taken by the couple who discovered him.”

“But no sign of Todd or Katy?”

“No. Conn, we’re lucky to get two of them, and you know it.”

“You’ve told Warren?”

“Yes. He asked about Todd and Katy, too.”

“So you’re sure they drowned?”

“Nothing’s certain until the coroner does the autopsy-not even the identifications. But we really don’t have any reason to doubt that they drowned at this point.”

“Any word on the child?”

“Not a peep. Not a good sign.”

O’Connor looked down the hallway.

“Go on,” Dan said, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

O’Connor entered the room quietly. Jack was staring out the window. When Jack turned to him, he was surprised to see not grief, but a look of calm resolution on his face.

“Get out your notebook,” Jack ordered. “I’m going to give you a list of lowlifes. You’ve met most of them. I’ll tell you where you’re most likely to find the others. You’ve got to go looking for them tonight. By daylight, most of them will be back under their rocks.”

“Why?” O’Connor asked. “You think they might know who did this to you?”

“Who gives a rat’s ass about that? I want to narrow down the list of thugs who know how to sail.”