Jan Burke - Dear Irene

“I’m no more certain than you are, Mrs. Havens. But if it is, then the police will need to be informed.”

“I suppose I’m only delaying the inevitable.” There was a little catch in her voice, but after a moment she said, “Bring them, of course.”

WE PULLED UP in the sweeping drive of the Havens’ mansion, a great monument of a place. The door was answered by an honest-to-God butler, and I caught myself developing a bad attitude as we stood in the entryway. I find I have to fight a prejudice I have about the wealthy when I encounter them. However, while I’ve certainly met my share of the obnoxious well-to-do, I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t found the same types among the other economic strata.

But if Rita Havens was a nouveau riche snob, then she fooled me. In any other setting, I think she still would have been as genuine and as warm. She was a petite salt-and-pepper brunette with dark brown eyes. There was something about her manner that made me feel instantly comfortable with her. Although it was easy to see that she had been crying, she greeted us as if we were there to visit as friends, rather than to discuss the possibility of her husband’s death. She invited us to join her for a cup of coffee in a cozy sitting room, and asked us to call her by her first name.

We chatted about the weather, about the newspaper, about a new building that was going up where the Buffum’s department store used to be. Frank didn’t rush her, and neither did I. She took a sip of coffee, looked outside for a moment, and then, as if realizing that small talk would not change what had happened, started talking about her husband.

Alexander Havens was a prosperous manufacturer of special fasteners used on airplanes – airplanes made by none other than Mercury Aircraft. Alex, as she called him, had gone to work at Mercury while his mother was still working there. He had seen an opportunity in Mercury’s need for reliable fasteners, left on good terms, and started his own business. It had been a highly successful venture for all concerned. He had branched out into supplying other aerospace companies with a variety of parts, but Mercury had always been his mainstay.

I asked her about his business, his hobbies, his interests. As she worked her way toward the question at hand, her devotion to him was apparent.

“Alex loves to sail. He’s very good at it. I get sea-sick just looking at the boat, so usually he finds someone else to go with him. This close to Christmas, and with the weather so chilly, he couldn’t find anyone who wanted to brave the choppy seas between here and the island. I tried to get him to forget about it…” She couldn’t finish. She didn’t start crying again, just bit her lower lip and looked away from us.

“Forgive me,” she murmured.

I’m not sure she meant it for us.

“So he went sailing alone?” Frank asked.

She nodded.

Pete, usually an animated chatterbox, was quiet and still. I remembered that he once told me that contacting victims’ families was always hard on him, no matter how often he had done it. I wondered if he usually left this part of the job to Frank.

Frank continued asking questions, his tone gentle. “Your husband left yesterday – the twenty-second?”

“Yes.”

“From the Las Piernas Marina?”

“Yes.”

“Could you describe the boat?”

“It’s a small sailboat, at least, Alex says it’s small. A thirty-foot Catalina – I think that’s right. It’s white – I guess most of them are.”

“And the name of the boat?”

She waited a moment before whispering, “Lovely Rita.”

Frank gave her some time to recover, then asked a few more questions. She thought there were at least six or seven other people who knew he was sailing; she named them. He had left early yesterday morning.

She looked over to me. “He was going to sail back today. He was supposed to call before he left. I became worried, and then I read your article. I had this – well, call it a feeling, a very strong feeling – that Alex was Ceyx.

“Alex and I had talked about this serial killer whenever there was a story in the newspaper. One of your stories mentioned that Dr. Blaylock and Miss Thayer were daughters of women who worked at Mercury Aircraft. Alex was upset when he read that. He thought he might have known the two women who were killed – when they were children. Thought they might have gone to school together. But he said he couldn’t be sure, because it had been so long ago.”

“Any recent contact with them?”

“Oh no. As I said, he wasn’t even sure he had known them in school. But since they were all the same age and their mothers all worked for Mercury, maybe he did know them.”

“Did he mention any ideas or theories he may have had about the murders?”

“No, I can’t say that he did. At least, none that he discussed with me. Just that the killer sounded like a very sick individual.”

Frank asked her a series of questions that brought her around to describing what Alex Havens was wearing when he left the house to go sailing, as well any other articles of clothing he might have taken with him. She watched Frank’s face as she described them. If he gave something away, she was the only one who saw it.

“You need for me to come with you, don’t you?” she said suddenly. “You’ve found him, haven’t you?”

“We may have. Is there someone you would like to call to be with you?”

“No, no, I – we have friends, but – no, I’d rather not call anyone else.”

“Why don’t you ride with us?” Pete said, speaking for the first time since they were introduced. “I’ll make sure someone takes you home again.”

She nodded, unable to stop the tears as she rose from her chair. I stood beside her and she reached for my arm, suddenly seeming very unsteady on her feet. I put my hand over hers, and Frank asked the butler to please get her purse and coat. Frank helped her put the coat on, and we slowly walked out with her between us. I sat in the backseat with her as we drove down to the morgue.

I hadn’t intended to go in with them, figuring this to be a private moment, but she never let go of my hand. I didn’t have time to do any mental bracing. This time, the view of Alex Havens’ body was more disturbing. This time, I knew who he was. This time, someone who cared about him was holding my hand as if it was the only thing keeping her from collapsing.

No tricks would work against that.

LATER, BACK AT the paper, I encountered a rare moment of writer’s block. I found myself staring at the flashing cursor on the computer terminal, willing it to help me get going. Every opening line sounded corny or trite when considered next to what I had actually seen and heard. I had given up on the screen and was staring blankly at my fingers – lifting them up one at a time from the a-s-d-f-j-k-l and ; keys – when the phone rang, startling me into pressing them all down at once. The terminal beeped in annoyance as I answered the phone. It was Steven Kincaid.

“Irene? I thought you might be working today. I saw the article. Are you all right?”

“I am, but it’s been a hard day. They found Ceyx. A man named Alexander Havens.”

“Oh God.”

“E.J. ever mention him to you?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ll look back through her papers for his name, though. I just can’t believe Thanatos is getting away with this. Every time, it’s…” His voice trailed off.

“Steven?”

“Every time this happens – I keep wondering what it was like for her. I worry that she suffered, like Rosie Thayer.”

“If it’s any comfort at all, the coroner has said that E.J. and Alex Havens died quickly. He’s fairly certain the first blow killed E.J., and he suspects Havens was strangled before he was put in the water.”