Jan Burke - Dear Irene

Show no fear, the old wisdom says.

You have to have a lot of faith in fence-builders to trust the old wisdom.

Across the street, three young men leaned against a car parked on a lawn, huddling in their jackets and smoking cigarettes. We were the best show on the block. They weren’t the only ones with front row tickets. Two detectives sitting in an unmarked car were clearly amused by this spectacle of the intimidation of the press. Mark recognized them, but didn’t know them by name.

“Shit,” Mark said. “I hate this.”

I could tell it was more than an expression of irritation or embarrassment. No one else could hear what we said to each other over the racket the Dobermans were making, so I ventured to ask him if he was afraid of dogs.

He gave me a tense shrug. “I was attacked by one when I was ten. I’m a married man, or I’d moon those two jerks in the car so you could see my scars.”

A porch light came on, and a man opened the front door. The dogs became even more determined, jumping against the fence and causing the metal to sing. “Are you from the Express ?” the man yelled out to us.

“Yes!” we shouted in unison.

He whistled once and the dogs immediately stopped barking.

“Are you Mr. Edgerton?” Mark asked.

The man nodded. He said something to the dogs in a low voice, some words I couldn’t make out, and they ran over to his side. “You can come on in now,” he called to us.

I glanced at Mark. “Mr. Edgerton,” I called, “I wonder if you could pen the dogs for me.”

“They’re very well-trained,” he answered. “They won’t hurt you.”

“It’s okay, Irene,” Mark said, but I wasn’t convinced.

“Mr. Edgerton, I’m sure those dogs are very well-trained, but I’ve got a real fear of dogs. If you can’t pen the dogs, maybe we could meet you somewhere else.”

There was snickering from the trio behind us.

Edgerton looked thoroughly disgusted with me. “If you’re going to be a baby about it, I guess I’ll put them out back.” He walked into the house, dogs in tow.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mark said. “We’re off to a bad start with him now.”

I put my fists on my hips. “He knew we’d be here about this time, we called him a few minutes ago from a pay phone to let him know that we’re nearby, and he lets us sit out here for ten full minutes while his Doberman pinschers bark their asses off. We were off to a bad start before we got here.”

Mark started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Remind me never to piss you off, Kelly.”

DON EDGERTON WAS about 6’ 2”, lanky and lean. He was as fit as Justin Davis had been, but his face had a kind of rugged handsomeness. A cowboy without hat or horse or rope. Or cows. His skin was leathery, as if he worked in the sun, or had done so before we all got the bad news on tanning. He wore running shoes and faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. There was gray in his light brown hair, and a kind of tired but wary look in his blue eyes. James Dean, all grown up?

No, James Dean would have slouched a little by now. Don Edgerton’s nearly perfect posture made me wonder if he had been in the military.

The house was small, one of the wood-framed bungalows that populated this part of town. The only part of it we saw much of was the first room we walked into. A table and four chairs sat at the far end of the room, a worn sofa and a television at the other. A cheap stereo and a record collection sat on a set of shelves made from four cinderblock bricks and two unpainted pieces of particle board. Don Edgerton was apparently unworried about the advent of compact-disc players.

Except for a cheap battery-operated clock and one framed black and white photograph, the walls were bare, but in this house, the effect was not the same as in Justin Davis’s. It was as if Don Edgerton hadn’t really decided that he wanted to stay here.

The framed photo was of a baseball team. From where we sat at the table, I couldn’t make out the team insignia, but it was obviously one of those posed team photos. Not exactly gorgeous, but at least it gave me the idea that he might have interests beyond training his dogs.

Edgerton picked up the beer that had been sitting half-empty on the table and drank from it, not saying anything. I was tired and didn’t like ending an otherwise productive day with this apparently hostile source.

Mark didn’t let Edgerton faze him. He began by gently reminding Edgerton that we were there in part because he had contacted us. He went on to make it sound like Edgerton had done a major public service to Las Piernas, that receiving Edgerton’s call had been this terrific turning point in the investigation. Edgerton started looking a little less sullen, more interested. Mark commended him for his courage and said that the Express shared many of his concerns about Thanatos.

“The Express is especially concerned,” Mark said, “not only because of the way this affects our community, but also because this individual who calls himself Thanatos has focused on Miss Kelly here. We don’t know why, and we don’t know what he has in mind. But he has done his best to make her fearful of him. He has discovered where she lives and on one occasion, broke into her home.”

“He broke into your home ?” Edgerton asked, looking directly at me for the first time since we walked in.

“Yes,” I said, and told him the story of being carried into the bedroom.

“Jeee-zus.” The sullenness was gone. He shook his head. “Too bad you’re afraid of dogs,” he said to me. “I feel a lot safer with the Marx Brothers around.”

“The Marx Brothers?”

“Harpo and Zeppo. My dogs. My ex-wife kept Groucho and Chico.”

“Irene’s not the one who’s afraid of dogs,” Mark said. “I am. She was just trying to keep me from being embarrassed in front of those two detectives out there.”

“You covered for him?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “He would have done the same for me.”

He shook his head again.

I asked him about the Olympus Child Care Center, going over the same ground we had covered with Justin Davis and Howard Parker.

“No, I really don’t remember much about it,” Edgerton said. “Some kid got taken off in an ambulance. I remember that.”

“Do you remember moving to Las Piernas?”

“Yeah, sure. During the war. I liked the kids here better than the ones at my school in L.A. And before my mom met her second husband, there was a nice old couple that took care of me in the afternoons. Mr. and Mrs. York. He taught me how to play baseball.”

“So you didn’t go back into child care after that?”

He laughed, but not as if he were amused. “No, not unless you call running from the end of some drunk’s belt child care.”

“The Yorks abused you?” Mark asked.

“No. My stepfather was a drunken asshole.” He turned to me. “Pardon me, Miss Kelly, but it’s the truth. I used to run away all the time. I’d go over to the Yorks’ place. He’d fetch me back. One day, about three years after they were married, he was driving over to the Yorks’ to come get me. I remember seeing the car come down the street – in one lane, then the other. He was looped, as usual. Then all of a sudden, a dog ran out in front of the car. He swerved to avoid hitting the dog, and ran the car up over the curb and hit a tree instead. Killed him. I’ve loved dogs ever since.”

We sat staring at him for a fraction of a moment, then Mark said, “So your mom wouldn’t have met your stepfather if the child care center hadn’t closed?”

He shrugged. “I guess not. But I wouldn’t have met the Yorks either, or lived in a better house. To tell the truth, I’d forgotten about the day care thing having anything to do with moving to Las Piernas.”