Bones

At ten-thirty, I realized my shift was nearly over, and I hadn’t even started sorting my mail. Lydia offered to help while Stuart and Mark covered the phones. I was able to give Lydia a few items that would need immediate dayshift follow-up. Some of it, I’d ask John to let me work on at home. Most of it could wait, or could be answered with a letter. I decided to save answering my e-mail for my first graveyard shift. One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that it’s open 24/7.

Among the envelopes was a strange lumpy package with no return address. Lydia eyed it doubtfully and said, “Now what are your strange fans sending you?”

I used a letter opener to slit it open and dumped the contents out with a flourish.

I watched a pair of panties fall onto the desk.

“My underwear,” I said blankly.

For an awful moment, all I could see and hear was Nick Parrish in the mountains, taunting me, telling me he had my scent.

Then I heard Stuart laughing uproariously.

For a brief moment, I felt humiliated.

Then he said, “Jesus, Kelly, I’ve heard of having your laundry sent out, but this is ridiculous.”

The humor of the situation struck me — Stuart was right, it was just a pair of underwear, after all. I started laughing, too.

Mark and Lydia seemed uncertain, but when Mark asked, “Shouldn’t you call the police?” Stuart and I laughed so hard, they lost it, too.

When we had all calmed down a little, I said, “Hell, I guess I should call the police. But I think I’ll call Frank first. I don’t even like to think of what he’s going to be hearing from the other folks at work.”

Frank, as it turned out, didn’t think there was anything funny about what had happened. Far from being worried about what kind of teasing he’d get at work, he insisted on being with me the rest of the day.

“But I’m going to see Gillian this afternoon.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be nearby.”

I looked at the envelope while we waited for the police. Postmarked just before I took my leave of absence from the paper. “At least I made the little bastard wait,” I said.

“I suppose I should cover this,” Mark said, which started Stuart howling again.

Then I felt my temper kick in — not at Stuart, but at Parrish. “God damn it,” I told Lydia, “Parrish sent that to me here hoping to humiliate me in an office full of coworkers. He thought I’d be terrified, while all of you would be wondering what my problem was. Well, I’m sick of it. Enough of playing defense. Time for the offense to take the field.”

Stuart, overhearing this, said, “She’s back, ladies and gentlemen!”

Lydia and Mark, on the other hand, cautioned me. “Don’t do anything foolish,” Mark said.

I turned to my computer and logged on. “I’ll cover my own underwear, by God!”

“Put that slogan on the masthead!” Stuart said.

I started writing:

What sort of loser thinks he can terrify a woman with a pair of her own underwear?

Perhaps smarting from his previous failures, Nick Parrish has brought out his ultimate secret weapon. The man (I use the term loosely) has attempted to frighten me with an unlaundered pair of my own unmentionables.

Nicky obviously has no idea what sort of horrors await the average woman on wash day.

Here at the Express, picturing him hatching this grand scheme as he carried my dirty drawers around with him for three months has given rise to all sorts of hilarity.

Nicky, who’d have thought you were a panty rustler?

Yes, I know you’d prefer to go down in history as Mr. Evil Incarnate, and you’ve certainly done your best to make that moniker stick. But the world of the media is everchanging, Nicky, and I’m afraid that here in the newsroom, that Evil Incarnate business has already been forgotten — you’re doomed to be referred to as the Bloomer Bandit.

Lydia, reading it over my shoulder, shook her head and walked off.

But I was enjoying myself too much to care. It felt great to imagine what Parrish’s face would look like when he read it. Here he was, trying to terrify me, and if things went my way, I’d make a laughingstock out of him.

I was on the verge of forwarding it to John, when for some odd reason, I suddenly I thought of Parzival. Parzival, whose good intentions did not prevent bad things from happening as a result of his actions.

Suppose Parrish decided to prove that he should be taken seriously? What if, instead of being utterly cast down and immobilized by my needle-sharp prose, the man grew so enraged he killed another dozen women to make us fear him again? Would I be able to live with myself then? Did I think for a moment that he would burst into tears and turn himself in, saying “I’ll confess, just tell Irene Kelly to stop being mean to me?”

Then again, should I censor myself because in my heart of hearts I was afraid of Nick Parrish?

I printed out a copy of the story and gave it to Lydia, but told her I wasn’t ready to file it yet, that I wanted a little time to think it over. I saved the story on a floppy disk, and then deleted it from the main system. If I changed my mind, I could hand over the floppy.

I called John at home to tell him what had happened with the package. “You’re probably going to have some guys from the crime lab in here,” I said.

“Oh, hell, Kelly, not even a full day back, and you’ve got the cops walking around in the newsroom.”

As it turned out, the police weren’t at the paper for long. Once they had taken the package and its contents, asked me a few questions (“When did you last have the garment in your possession?”) and determined that the package had been mailed and not hand-delivered, they were on their way. They even mentioned that I’d probably be getting the van back soon.

I went to lunch with Frank, who seemed more quiet than usual.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Lydia told me about the commentary you wrote.”

I tried to read his expression, and couldn’t. “I’m sorry she did. I was going to tell you, but I don’t suppose you’ll believe that now.”

“I believe you.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that you’re infuriating a serial killer. Or in this ‘everchanging media world,’ had you truly forgotten that?”

“What do you suppose the answer to that question is?”

“Then what the hell were you thinking of?”

“I’m tired of playing it his way all the time, Frank.”

“There are experts in forensic psychology who are working on these cases, Irene. People who study this type of guy for a living are on the task force. You ever think it might be a good idea to contact one of them before mouthing off to Parrish?”

“Listen, before we end up in a fight over this—”

“I don’t blame you for getting angry. He’s trying to control you and manipulate you, trying to make you feel afraid. He wants to be in charge. Do I think you should whimper in a corner? No. But standing up for yourself is one thing, and issuing an out-and-out challenge to the guy is another.”

“I didn’t file the story.”

He sat back. “What?”

“Lydia gave you a copy of it, didn’t she?”

He admitted it.

“Well, I didn’t file the story. I have it on a floppy disk. I haven’t made up my mind about it, but I guess I’m leaning toward not filing it.” I held a hand up as he started to speak. “Don’t — please don’t say it’s the smart thing to do, because probably it’s also the cowardly thing to do.”

Wisely, he didn’t say more on the subject.

Gillian lived over a garage, in a small wooden one-bedroom apartment built during the housing shortage of the late 1940s. The garage was at the end of a long driveway and was detached from the large Craftsman house that occupied the front of the lot; the house had been converted into a duplex.

From the foot of the stairs we could hear her stereo; the Boomtown Rats singing “I Don’t Like Mondays.” An oldie. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. The stereo went off. Gillian greeted us wearing jeans and a bright yellow top; her hair was currently very short and black, her nails purple, but also much shorter than the last time I had seen her. Frank had briefly met Gillian once before, when she had inquired about a Jane Doe case he had been working on. She remembered him, though, and the specific case as well, although she must have asked about several dozen such cases over the past four years.

As they talked briefly about that investigation, I glanced around the interior of the apartment. It was oddly blank and austere for someone who dressed so colorfully; the walls were white and bare, the chairs and sofa were plain, and other than her stereo speakers and a potted palm, there were no other objects in the room. The stereo itself must have been in the bedroom. Nothing in this room to distract a guest from the host.

She politely asked us to have a seat, politely offered us something to drink, politely thanked me again for talking to her so soon after I had returned from the mountains. She said she was glad I hadn’t been too scared by the bones in the van and asked if I was back at work yet.

Beneath these good manners was a not-so-concealed level of disinterest in us that made me wonder how she prevented herself from yawning in our faces.

I asked how she had been doing. She had been doing fine.

I expressed surprise at learning of her father’s remarriage. She said she really didn’t know Susan, but her father could do whatever he pleased with his life.

“Jason doesn’t seem very happy.”

“You talked to Jason?” she asked, showing the first sign of real attention to anything I had said.

“Yes,” I said, “earlier in the week.”

She spread her hands before her, palms out, and studied her nails. She looked up from them and said, “I don’t have much to do with my dad or my brother now. I like it that way. They have their problems, I have mine.”

I excused myself to use her bathroom, which was as plain and unadorned as the rest of the place. When I came back out, I was surprised to hear her laughing. I realized that it was the first time I had ever heard the sound of her laughter. It was an uninhibited, childish giggle. She was holding a folded piece of paper in her hand, extending it back to Frank with a smile.

Frank glanced back at me with a look that had guilt written all over it. He took the paper back from her and handed it to me.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I let her read your article about Parrish.”

“Not at all,” I said, but Gillian’s smile had already faded.

We left not long after that. In the car, Frank said, “I’m sorry, I should have asked you first.”

“Are you kidding? You’re brilliant! I’ve never heard that kid laugh. I’m really glad you let her see what I wrote — maybe it helped relieve some of that burden she carries around — at least for a few minutes, anyway. She’s usually so serious and remote.”

“And here I thought the low-affect routine was just for me.”

“It wasn’t you,” I said. “She’s always like that around me, too. That’s why hearing her laugh was so great — usually, nothing seems to get through to her. Jason says she’s cold. I think it’s her way of coping with everything that’s happened. She just withdraws. And she’s had plenty to deal with lately — after all this time, her mother has been found, but it’s not exactly a happy ending.”

“I don’t underestimate what she’s been through, but” — he gave a mock shiver — “I’m with Jason.”

“I don’t think you can go much by this act she puts on.”

“I guess not. But you have to admit she’s a little weird.”

The whole family is strange, I thought. “You know, I’ve been thinking about Giles. I wonder if he was having an affair with his secretary before Julia was abducted. When Gillian first came to me, I focused all my attention on whether or not Julia was having an affair.”

“Most likely, Bob Thompson took a look at him. A wife disappears, we usually look to see if the husband wanted her gone.”

“Would it be hard to find out?”

“I think Reed Collins picked up the Sayre case — one they gave him after Bob died. He closed it out when the ID came in on her body. He probably has the file. They’re using it for the task force on Parrish, and it still has to be prosecuted, of course. Reed will let me take a look at it.”

“Giles seemed so upset when I first met him. Now, he’s totally caught up in himself. The more I think about what his kids have said, the more I wonder if that initial grief was all an act.”

“But connecting him to a guy like Parrish—”

“Parrish was his neighbor for a while.”

“That doesn’t mean he knew what Parrish was up to. Parrish isn’t a hit man; he kills for his own pleasure.”

“Maybe he’s done both. I’m going to talk to Phil Newly,” I said. “Maybe he’ll know if Parrish was in touch with anyone else, thought of anyone as a friend.”

“Phil may have helped me to find you,” he said, “but good luck getting him to take attorney-client privilege that lightly.”

I called Phil Newly’s number several times on Sunday afternoon and evening. No answer. I figured he might be away for the weekend.

That was one of my worries over the next few days — Phil Newly’s phone ringing unanswered. I should have been more worried than I was.