Jan Burke - Dear Irene

“E.J.?”

“Professor Blaylock. Her name was Edna Juliana Blaylock. She was E.J. to her friends.”

“If you’re uncomfortable here, we can go somewhere else.”

He shook his head. “Might as well face up to it. I have nothing to be ashamed of. People think E.J. and I were trying to be clandestine. We were only trying to be discreet. There is a difference.”

A waiter came over and brought menus. I wasn’t hungry, so I used the opportunity to study the man across the table. I guessed him to be in his mid-to-late twenties. He had easy-to-look-at masculine features: a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and cobalt blue eyes with dark lashes. His hair was almost jet black. His skin had the kind of tan a person has in December only if they regularly enjoy some kind of outdoor activity. He wore blue jeans and a light blue shirt, and filled both of them out just fine. He had a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, athletic build. Probably could win an election for “defines handsome” without going into a runoff.

But there were dark circles under his eyes, and a kind of tiredness in his face that showed he had been under a strain lately. I noticed then that those eyes were avoiding my own, that he was pretending to be fascinated with a menu he had probably memorized. I realized that I might be making him nervous. People often are jittery around reporters, but I had been so dumbstruck by his appearance that I hadn’t made any small talk or other efforts to get him to relax a little.

“What were you expecting?” I asked.

“What?” He was startled into looking at me.

“You said I wasn’t what you were expecting.”

He looked down at the menu again. “Oh. I guess I was expecting someone – I don’t know – hard-boiled? Tougher?”

I laughed. “Don’t let my appearance deceive you.”

He looked chagrined.

“I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of putting you at ease, Mr. Kincaid. As I said, my main interest is in trying to learn enough about Dr. Blaylock to be able to make more sense out of this man who calls himself Thanatos. I’d like to try to figure out who his next victim might be – before it’s too late.”

The waiter reappeared. Kincaid ordered a piece of carrot cake, and it sounded so good I ordered one, too. I was going to have to get back to my running routine soon, or eating like this would become a real liability.

“You said he sent another letter?” Kincaid asked.

“Yes. It arrived at the paper today.” I hesitated.

“I’ve got to ask if you would mind my sharing any of the information you give me with the police. I wouldn’t have to disclose your identity; you could be anonymous as far as they’re concerned. And if you don’t want me to tell them anything at all, then I won’t.”

He sighed. His eyes suddenly reddened and he looked away for a moment. He took a deep breath and said quietly, “I don’t care who you tell. Like I said, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I want her killer to be caught, but I’d rather not have any more encounters with the police myself. You can tell them whatever I’m telling you. The police – well, some of them were quite considerate, others weren’t at all. Nothing has been easy.”

I waited while he worked to pull himself together. Our coffee and carrot cake arrived, and we spent a few moments fiddling around with cream and sugar as a distraction.

“Let’s get something clear from the start,” he said, surprising me with the sudden fierceness of his expression. “I was not in a relationship with E.J. while I was her student. I want it made clear that there was no ‘A for a lay’ or any of the other kinds of sordid, unethical behaviors that some people have been hinting at. It just isn’t true.”

“Listen, Mr. Kincaid, if someone from the paper-”

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Yes, I took a graduate seminar from her. But nothing happened then. I found myself very attracted to E.J., and I restructured my whole master’s thesis committee and the classes on my program just so that I could be with her without there ever being a cloud over our relationship.”

“You don’t have to defend anything to me.”

“I know, I know. But let’s face it. Most people just don’t understand why a man my age would get involved with a woman her age. They figure I must have received some kind of special consideration as a student or that I was after something – her money or her house, I suppose. Well, she didn’t make all that much, and she had willed everything to the American Lung Association years ago – and I knew that. I didn’t need anything like that from her, anyway.”

“Why were you attracted to her?”

He drew a deep breath and lowered his gaze. I found myself silently urging him to confide in me. When he looked back up, he gave me a fleeting smile. “You know, I think you’re the first person who has asked me that recently who might actually believe the answer. I was with E.J. because she was wise and full of life and witty and strong and intelligent. She made me laugh. I could talk to her. And I found her beautiful. There was something very sensual about her. At first, I suppose it was a sort of animal magnetism. But it became much more. Much, much more.”

“And how did she feel about you? I mean, there seem to have been other men.”

“No one else for the past year. None of the men mentioned in the paper were involved with her recently. You can check that out pretty easily. No one since we got together.”

“You’re a handsome man. Were there other women in your life?”

“No. No one else. You look like you find that hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“I don’t find it hard to believe that you were devoted to her. I find it hard to believe that no one else expressed an interest in you.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “So what? Most of them are a nuisance, if you ask me. At the risk of sounding like I’ve got a gargantuan ego, I’ll be straightforward with you, Miss Kelly. Many women find me attractive. They hit on me. They seek my attention. Why? Because of my face. I suppose a lot of men would say I have nothing to complain about, that they would love to have that problem. But they don’t know what it’s like. These women don’t give a damn about what I think or who I am – not really. It’s as if I’d be some kind of trophy. If all I wanted was a string of one-night stands, I’d be happy. I happen to want more.”

“And Dr. Blaylock was different.”

“Yes, she was. She took time to get to know me. She was very good to me. We wanted a future together… but now… God, now I’m just lost.”

He was starting to lose control again. I didn’t want to gratify the base curiosity of the people around us by having him break down in the restaurant, so I told him about the second letter from Thanatos. He knew all of the mythology, so at least I didn’t have to cover that again. It was a good distraction. For a few moments he thought about the letter more than about the loss of E.J. Blaylock.

His brows furrowed. “It sounds like he’s starving someone to death.”

“My theory exactly,” I said, noticing the carrot cake was no longer appealing.

“But you have no clues as to who Thalia represents?”

“None. But maybe if you tell me about Dr. Blaylock, I can begin to get an idea or two.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you know of her past?”

“Starting when?”

“As early as possible. Whatever you know.”

“Well, let’s see. She was born in Los Angeles in about 1936. She never really knew her dad; he was a sailor who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was at the end of 1941, so she would have been about five years old when he died.