Jan Burke - Dear Irene

“Yes.”

“Let’s talk more about that sometime soon – if you don’t mind?”

“No, no, not at all. Her research was very important to her.”

He seemed distant for a few moments, obviously remembering E.J. Blaylock. I wished there was something I could say to comfort him. I watched him struggling to learn that trick of functioning with grief – that trick of remembering and forgetting all at once, of letting the ghost walk at your side, but not block your way. I was learning it myself. A close friend of mine had died a little more than six months earlier, and Kincaid’s grief was almost too clear a reminder of that loss.

But before I could think of anything to say, he came back from whatever world he had mentally wandered into, and we shook hands and said good-bye.

I thought of Lindsey and how repulsed he had seemed to be by her attentions. I wondered, as I climbed into the Karmann Ghia, if Steven Kincaid’s good looks would make him into a bitter and lonely man.

I sighed and started the car. The windshield wipers came on.

“MAYBE WE SHOULD GET A DOG. You like dogs, don’t you?”

We were sitting in front of a fire that evening, one of our rare evenings at home together, drinking hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps, when Frank came up with this idea. We had been talking about our plans for Christmas, which somehow led to talking about my feeling safe when I was home alone in the evenings. Perhaps, after calling him from the Garden Cafe earlier in the day, I seemed more fearful. Whoever had turned on the windshield wipers hadn’t left any prints. Frank had been a little angry with me for not mentioning the parking-light incident, but I couldn’t tell if he thought someone was trying to frighten me, or if he was just convinced I was going over the edge. Now he was suggesting things like new locks, self-defense classes, and dogs.

“I love dogs,” I said. “And you like them, right?”

“Yeah, although I haven’t had one since I was a kid. I used to have this great mutt who was some kind of lab/retriever mix. Trouble.”

“The dog caused problems?”

“No. Trouble was her name. My dad named all of our pets. When he watched this pup follow me home, he said, ‘Here comes trouble.’ The name stuck. We also used to have a rabbit named Stu.”

“So that’s where you get your sense of humor.”

“Trouble was great. I swear that dog could understand English. I could say, ‘Go to my closet and bring back my blue tennis shoes.’ She’d do it.”

“ Blue tennis shoes? I thought dogs were colorblind.”

Frank shrugged. “She would have known which ones I meant.”

It sounded like classic dog-owner bragging to me, but I didn’t want to further impugn the memory of Trouble.

“I used to have a dog,” I said. “She was mostly a beagle – named Blanche.”

“Blanche?”

“Blanche Du Bois.”

He smiled. “Blanche Du Bois? A Streetcar Named Desire ?”

“You are a detective. My dad named our pets, too. Blanche was a stray, and Dad said she had survived because she had ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers.’”

“Were your other pets named Stanley and Stella?”

“No, Blanche was the only one that took her name from Tennessee Williams. Dad was being a little dramatic himself. It was a protest of sorts. He wanted us to get rid of her.”

“Your dad didn’t like dogs?”

“He was just exercising his authority. You know how this goes. He grumbled that he didn’t want a dog, told us to take Blanche to the pound, but then he ended up being the one who fed the dog from the table – he’d even let Blanche sneak up onto the couch when my mother was in the other room. Blanche was crazy about him. She was only my dog until my dad came home from work, then she shadowed him.”

“Trouble used to follow me everywhere I’d go,” Frank said.

I laughed. “Sorry. It still sounds funny.”

“I had the same problem talking about her as a kid.”

“I used to take Blanche hunting for hot dogs.”

“Had a lot of wild hot dogs burrowing around in Las Piernas back then?”

“Given the opportunity, I will explain. I’d steal a hot dog out of the refrigerator, drag it around on the ground, and hide it somewhere in the yard. Then I’d put her on a leash, and she would follow the trail and track it down. She’d find it every time.”

“Poor mutt. Reduced to stalking Oscar Meyer.”

“At least she got to eat the hot dog. I never asked her to fetch my stinky old tennis shoes.”

He laughed. We sat there for a moment, remembering our dearly departed canines, listening to a blues program on KLON. The wood popped and crackled in the fireplace. We began softly touching each other. The caresses weren’t so much sexual as tender; small gifts of affection. I traced the ridge of his eyebrows, ran the back of my nails beneath his chin; he stroked the back of my arm above my elbow, found that place along my left shoulder blade that loves to be lightly scratched.

“About the mountains,” he said. “Let’s wait. We can go up for the weekend sometime in January or February.”

“Frank, really, I don’t need to be babied about this.”

“Neither do I. Could you stand to pass up all that food Lydia was talking about?”

“First you practically hypnotize me with whatever that wonderful thing is that you’re doing to my ear. Then you bring up Lydia’s cooking. Do you use these same methods at work?”

“You get all kinds of special privileges.”

“Keep it that way, Harriman.”

We watched Cody trot in through his new cat door and head straight for the fire. He gave us a look that said we should have called him to let him know there was a fire in here for a cat to enjoy.

“Think Cody would run away if we had a dog?” Frank asked.

“No, he knows who owns the can opener. Oh, I shouldn’t insult him. Cody’s a handful, but he’s loyal. He’d probably sulk for a few days, then he’d adjust. We’d just have to give him extra attention.”

I got up and refilled our hot chocolates. Cody noticed the mint smell, of which he is enamored, and made a pest out of himself trying to get a taste of it.

Frank gently pulled me back over to him, encircling me with his arms. “You haven’t had so many nightmares lately.”

“No. At least, not the really intense ones. I might wake up, but I’m not screaming bloody murder.”

“So you are still having them.” I could hear the worry in his voice.

“Not as often as before. I’m almost used to it now.”

“These letters and pranks getting to you?”

No use lying. “A little.”

I felt him tense. “I guess they worry me, too. Especially because I know you won’t be able to resist trying to track him down.”

“It’s in my nature, Frank. A strong sense of curiosity is one of the things we have in common. You know I can’t ignore these letters. I don’t know why you find that hard to understand.”

“It isn’t hard to understand. There’s just a difference between what I understand and what I feel happy about.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Lots of silence. Finally, he sighed and relaxed a little.

“You worry too much, Frank. Besides, I’m not his target.”

“Not yet,” he said, and the tension returned.

I reached up and started massaging his neck. He murmured something about it feeling good.

“You know what, Frank? I’m really enjoying having two hands.”

“Wrong. I’m the one who’s enjoying it.”

THE NEXT MORNING, I was sitting at my desk, daydreaming about my old friend O’Connor. The desk used to be his, and it took a while for me to learn to say “my desk” when referring to it. It would always be his, of course, and I often felt especially near to him when I sat there. O’Connor was fond of quoting things he had read here and there; he was a walking book of proverbs, old saws, and words of wisdom. He had one for any occasion, but you were especially likely to hear them from him when he had a skinful.