Jan Burke - Sweet Dreams, Irene

We settled into safer topics, primarily newsroom gossip. Sitting at the City Desk at the Express, Lydia had the best seat in the house for gathering it. We then went on to Catholic school memories, which have provided an unfailing distraction for both of us in times of trouble over the years. There was, for example, our running disagreement on how many days suspension I served for barricading Sister Mary Elizabeth in the school library in eighth grade.

Frank got home at about nine o’clock, and Lydia left. He looked tired. He took off his shoes, loosened his tie, and plopped down on the couch. I mixed a scotch and water for him; he appreciated the effort. As he drank it, I showed him the knife, and explained that Devon and Raney had bought the other three.

“So that’s where the deer hair came from,” he said, studying it. “I’ll have to show it to Carlos. Of course, any number of these knives may be available at other places in town, but given what Zoe told you and what you heard Devon and Raney say, I’d assume we now have some idea of what the murder weapon looked like.”

“If we found Paul’s knife, could we prove anything against Gannet?”

“I don’t know. Carlos could run DNA tests on the blood on the knife to see if it matched Gannet’s. If it did, it would be up to the D.A. to decide if that would help make a case against him.”

“The same D.A. who apparently decided to tell Gannet you were seeking a search warrant?”

“We don’t know that it was the D.A.’s office that gave us away. To be perfectly honest, I doubt we could get more than an accessory charge out of any of this, and a good defense lawyer would be able to get him off without a lot of effort.” He paused, then said, “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?”

“He knows who we are and where we live; he knows our friends – he even knew Rachel spoke Italian. Just this morning you asked about getting a search warrant, and he must have learned about your request within minutes. He found me out on the streets of downtown Las Piernas, when only you and Rachel knew we were going shopping at all, and when I was the only one who knew what store we were going to, so someone must have been following us. Yes, I’m afraid.”

He was quiet.

“I’m afraid,” I went on, “but I also realize that if he’s putting that much effort into trying to make us back off, he’s more afraid than I am.”

“He’s also unpredictable. And very possibly arranged everything that happened to you.” Hearing the anger in his voice, I began to hope he never ran into Gannet on his own; if he did, he was the one who was going to need a good defense lawyer.

I HAD ANOTHER nightmare that night, a real screamer. I woke up to find Frank looking more concerned than usual.

“Jesus, Irene, are you all right?”

I nodded. “Just the strain of the day, I suppose.”

“I swear I’m going to get a restraining order put on Gannet. You haven’t had a nightmare this bad since you first came home.”

We settled back into bed, and he turned out the light.

“Frank?”

“Hmm.”

“Who’s coming over tomorrow, while you’re at work?”

“Jack. The guy’s been great. Don’t know what we’d do without him.” He felt me shiver. “Are you cold?”

“A little,” I said, snuggling closer. It wasn’t the truth, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him who had been chasing me in my dreams.

JACK ARRIVED JUST after Pete stopped by to ride into work with Frank the next day. By light of day, the dream fears receded and had no hold on me. Jack was no monster, he was a concerned friend. I went back to bed and caught up on my sleep, not waking up again until the early afternoon. But once I was awake, I felt restless.

Jack was sitting on the couch, reading more verses of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He looked up from it and assessed my mood in a moment. “Frank called to say he was working late again,” he said. “I told him I might take you sailing if you were still up for it. Maybe Lydia and Guy would like to come along, too. What do you say?”

“Sure,” I said, feeling certain that Lydia would refuse the last minute invitation; she probably wouldn’t want to be out on the ocean with a man she thought to be a murderer. But when I called her, she readily accepted the offer, saying that she’d meet us at the marina coffeeshop.

A few minutes later, she called back to say Guy could make it as well. I detected a note of relief in her voice when she made that announcement. I supposed the company of a former professional hockey defenseman made her feel safer. I began to wonder if she had decided to go along because she thought I might be in danger from Jack.

Later that afternoon, as he helped me put on a sweater and shoe in preparation for our outing, Jack said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you – Frank said Bredloe had approved surveillance of Malcolm Gannet.”

“What made Bredloe change his mind?”

“I asked Frank the same thing,” Jack said. “He told me it was a combination of things. Bredloe was angry that there was some kind of leak of information between his office and the D.A. He was also unhappy to hear about what happened downtown yesterday. I guess that did it.”

Cody made a pain of himself by streaking past us when we went out the door. “Get back here!” I yelled after him, an utterly useless command to give the willful little bugger. He stood in the middle of the street, staring back at me and twitching his tail, as if to say, “Come on, Gimpy, just try to catch me.”

“Jack?” I pleaded.

Jack took one step toward him and he scurried beneath a cable TV van across the street. He crouched there, watching Jack. I could swear the cat was smirking.

“I can’t wait for Frank to get around to installing that cat door,” Jack said. “Are you sure you want Cody inside?”

“His dinner’s in there.”

Jack laughed. “He’ll be all right, then. It wouldn’t hurt Cody to miss a meal. But I’ll put a water dish out for him.”

The moment Jack opened the front door, of course, Cody hauled his gray buns back through it in a four-legged flash. No use starving if we weren’t up for playing hide-and-seek with him. He had achieved one of his standing goals, to make me late whenever possible. Jack took it all in stride. He locked the front door and helped me out to the car.

We traveled at a snail’s pace through late afternoon traffic until we made the turnoff down to the marina, which was virtually deserted. I looked for Lydia’s car but didn’t see it; Guy’s Mercedes wasn’t there either. “Don’t worry about it,” Jack said, reading my thoughts. “We’ll just have a cup of coffee while we wait for them.”

The moment we entered the small coffee shop, a large man I took to be the manager came out from behind the counter. “Hey, Jack! Long time no see! Got a message for you.”

“What’s up, Harry?” Jack asked.

Harry fumbled in the pocket of his shirt for a moment and then put on a pair of bifocals. “Let’s see. Lydia and Gee can’t make it.”

“Guy,” I said. “He’s French Canadian, so it rhymes with ‘key’.”

Harry scowled at me over the bifocals, then turned back to Jack. “I’ll let you get back to your date with the professor here.”

“Irene’s a reporter,” Jack said. Judging by Harry’s deepening scowl, being a reporter put me on a par with attorneys.

“We miss you around here, Jack,” Harry said, turning his back on us. “Drop by again sometime.”

Jack grinned at me and said, “Ignore him. Harry was born grumpy.”

“And never seen any reason to change my outlook,” Harry called out, as Jack held the door open for me.

“We’d better get going if we want to catch the sunset,” Jack said.