Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

“Right.”

“That’s what we thought,” Frank said. “So while my partner is talking to him, I’m kind of snooping around. This is the cleanest garage on earth. Too clean. It’s been scrubbed. I look up, and I can see that even the light fixture has been cleaned. I wander over to the sink. There’s a shiny new trap under it. I start wondering if anything might be left under the rim of the drain. But then I look next to the sink, and I see a mop leaning against he wall. A good old-fashioned cotton mop. I move it around a little, and poke through the strands, and guess what I see?”

“Bloodstains.”

“Well, no. But I take it over to the guy. What I was showing him was rust from the metal clamp, but he didn’t know that. I made out like I was sure it was blood, and my partner kept his mouth shut. I asked the guy, ‘Why’d you go to all this time and trouble, and then forget to throw the mophead away with the sink trap?’ He started crying-to this day, I’m not sure if it was because we had caught him, or because he had done a lot of unnecessary cleaning. Anyway, he confessed.”

“Was there any blood on the mop?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, the lab guys found traces of it all over the place, even before they wrecked the paint job on the floor.” He smiled. “I got to tell the guy what we were doing to his paint job.”

“I think this is one of your best Bakersfield stories.”

“My dad was still working then. He loved the business with the mop-told it to the other guys so often, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up with a nickname out of it. I’d say, ‘Dad, we would have caught him without the mop.’ He wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

He started the car, turned on the windshield wipers.

“You okay to drive?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “I’m okay now.”

We were almost home when I remembered the cocktail napkin. Frank saw me pull it out and try to read it, and flipped on the dome light. “What’s that?”

“Keene Dage’s cocktail napkin.”

“What’s on it?”

“The letter Z.” I turned the napkin and frowned. “Or the letter N. ”

“Or just a doodle,” he said.

“Right,” I said glumly, which made him laugh.

That was okay.

ONFRIDAY MORNING,my time was whittled away on the phone, to no apparent purpose other than strengthening my dialing finger. I was trying to contact people who might know more about Allan Moffett’s resignation. Most of my time was spent talking to receptionists and secretaries whose bosses supposedly weren’t in. Not in now, not expected back in today, probably not in as long as I was the caller.

The people who were willing to talk to me were his political enemies, and although Moffett’s long tenure in a powerful position allowed him to gather quite a few adversaries, it was clear they were not knowledgeable on the subject of his sudden retirement. It was all well and good to allow a few of these frustrated souls to tell me how happy they were that Moffett was gone, but I wanted to do more than gather reactions to his departure.

I listened to their theories, hoping some useful lead might be found. There had been the disappointment around the convention center plans, they pointed out. The city and its developers had suffered a defeat at the hands of the Coastal Commission, which had recently denied approval of a waterfront convention center. But when I countered that Moffett had weathered far worse, no one disagreed.

There were budget shortfalls and an increasingly uncooperative city council. Budget shortfalls didn’t fit with sudden flight, though, or account for the guest list at the dinner meeting, although I kept that to myself. And even Moffett’s enemies couldn’t blame him for problems caused by cutbacks from the county and state. If anything, Moffett had relentlessly urged the city to budget more realistically when cutbacks occurred.

His priorities might not have been universally embraced by the city council, but even I knew that the council had been at his mercy-not the other way around. The city manager could slow a council member’s pet projects to a standstill, just by making sure that his own staff was overly meticulous in discharging their bureaucratic duties. The council also received much of its information from Moffett and his staff, and no politician who wants a second term fails to realize what a valuable commodity information can be. Council members came and went, Moffett stayed. Until now.

His friends weren’t helpful to me in the least, and after the disrupted dinner at the Terrace, his closest pals were all taking the day off-if their secretaries were to be believed.

Throughout the morning, I wondered how Andre was doing, but realized my concern was not really for Andre himself. I was worried about Lisa and, to some extent, Jerry. I pulled out the card Lisa had given me and dialed her brother’s home number. I got an answering machine.

“Jerry,” I said, after the beep, “this is Irene Kelly. I don’t know if you remembered me last night at the Terrace, but”-I stopped myself from saying “I used to date your dad”-“er, I was just wondering how things are going today. If there’s anything I can do for you or Lisa, let me know.” I left my number.

I was still holding on to the receiver, wondering why I had done such a lame job of leaving a simple message, when the intercom line buzzed. I punched the button. Geoff, the paper’s security guard, announced that I had a visitor, a Ms. Lisa Selman. He put her on the line.

“Lisa?”

“I don’t suppose you’d be free for lunch today?”

“Sure. Give me a minute, I’ll be right down.”

SHE WAS ENGROSSEDin reading a copy of the paper in the lobby when I came downstairs. I stood on the stairway, watching her for a moment. She was wearing jeans and a sweater, but even in the casual attire she looked sophisticated. She glanced up and saw me, and as the light struck her face from this new angle, I noticed dark circles under her eyes. “Just now reading the paper,” she said, shaking her head. “I overslept this morning and haven’t caught up since.”

“Lisa-”

“Don’t get that sympathetic look on your face, Irene, you’ll make me cry. My father’s in stable condition now, thanks to you and your husband, I hear.” She held up the paper, pointing to my article on Allan’s resignation. “Jerry told me that you and your husband happened to be at the restaurant last night.” She paused, drawing her lips together as if suppressing a smile. “Poor Jerry. He really does think you happened to be there.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t actually talk to Jerry last night.”

“Well, whatever your reasons for being there, he was very grateful for your help.”

“I think it was pretty rough on Jerry.”

“It was,” she said, tears welling up.

I put an arm around her shoulders. “Not easy for you, either, I suppose.”

She shrugged, then glanced at Geoff.

I understood the signal. “There’s a burger joint not far from here. Feel up to a short walk?”

“Sure. I-I hope you’re not too busy. I mean, I saw the article and I know you must have your hands full with this story-”

“That was yesterday. Today I’m busy but not very productive.”

When we stepped outside, I reconsidered our plans. In the sunlight, she looked pale and drawn. “Would you rather drive somewhere? You look tired.”

“Oh, I’m all right. I’m concerned about Jerry, that’s all. He’s up at Las Piernas General with Cinco, glued to Andre’s side. He’s exhausted, physically and emotionally.”

Lisa had long referred to her father by his first name, and I should have been used to it, but I guess some old-fashioned notions of mine are more ingrained than I like to admit. I could let that slide, but I found myself unable to keep the censure out of my voice when I asked, “Cinco? As in five? Is that how you talk about your stepmother?”