Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

“Did Ben take other people out in the boat very often?”

“It was a long time ago…”

“Try to remember.”

“Well, yes, lots of people.”

“Anyone who went out on it often?”

“Andre Selman, of course. Andre loved fishing, so Ben took him along. Sometimes it was just the two of us. Sometimes he took business associates.”

“Roland Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Booter Hodges?”

She smiled a little. “Yes. I remember that, because the first time Booter went out with them, the sea was a little rough. Booter became violently ill and they had to turn back. They made fun of him, because he ruined Corbin Tyler’s brand-new deck shoes. The others all said that Booter couldn’t come along after that, but Ben wouldn’t let them pick on him. He just made sure Booter took a pill for motion sickness before he came aboard.”

“Somehow the story about Booter’s seasickness doesn’t surprise me.”

“Actually, Booter was braver than Ben about that. At least Booter took the medication and had the courage to try it again. The last time Ben went out on the boat, he got a bad case of seasickness. Came back from a fishing trip with Andre, looking awful. Ben said he didn’t want to set foot on it again, that he was going to sell the boat to Andre. He sold it, but he was in a blue mood about it for weeks. I remember that much.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Hmm. Ten, fifteen years ago? I don’t know.”

“Let’s work on that for a moment. We’ll assume that Ben told you the truth, that the color photocopy really was a picture of people on your boat, and not some other boating party. Did Ben already own the boat when you married him?”

She shook her head. “We bought the boat after we were married.” Her brows drew together. “Not long after we were married, so about seventeen years ago? And we didn’t own it for very long.”

“Would you still have records on it?”

“Yes, somewhere around here. Why?”

“If we figure out which years you owned the boat, that may help us learn when the photograph was taken. So that’s your first assignment.”

“Okay. But about this Lucas Monroe-” she began.

“I know he’s in the other one, but that doesn’t mean he sent the photograph. Lucas is homeless. He’s unlikely to be walking around with photo albums.”

“But who else would send them?”

I started studying the envelopes. The postmarks caught my eye. “Riverside! Why didn’t I think of that before? There is no easy way to get to Riverside from Las Piernas on public transportation,” I said. “Grey-hound might take you there. Not much else without lots and lots of transfers.”

“You’ve lost me,” Claire replied.

“These are postmarked Riverside. Lucas wouldn’t go all the way to Riverside just to mail a couple of letters, would he? Why? To hide an address? He doesn’t have an address.”

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed, then said, “Well, he might go to Riverside-or anywhere else, for that matter-if he could make a lot of money by doing it.” Seeing my look of obstinacy, she added, “You don’t know who he has become over the years, or how desperate he may be now.”

“No. I need to talk to him. But for now, let’s not jump to conclusions.”

She was silent as I kept looking at the envelopes and the photo. Finally she said, “That’s not a man’s handwriting on the back of the photo.”

“Probably not.” Something else occurred to me. “It’s certainly not Lucas’s.”

“Certainly?”

“He was one of my favorite teachers, remember? I took one of his classes. His handwriting was terrible. We used to tease him unmercifully every time he put something up on the blackboard. No one could read anything but his numbers and stat symbols. He usually used an overhead projector with typed transparencies for anything else that had to be written. Sometimes he taught the whole class period using transparencies. No way is this his handwriting.”

“I suppose a person would remember something like that.” She sighed. “It’s sounding less and less like Lucas Monroe sent the photos. But if he didn’t, who did?”

“I don’t know. And we don’t know that he isn’t in some kind of partnership with whoever sent these. Give me a few days to try to find him.”

“You’re going to go looking through the skid row area alone?”

“Oh no, not alone. I’ve got an excellent partner in mind.”

YOU’VE GOTa really great ass.”

“So you’ve told me,” he said.

I sighed. “Ah, the bloom is already off the newlywed rose. I tell him he has a great ass-”

“A really great ass,” he corrected.

“A really great ass, and he just acts bored.”

“Hmm. A little more to the left.”

I moved my hands to the right.

He peered over his shoulder, smiled at me. “Okay, okay. I apologize.” He didn’t mean it.

I was giving Frank a back massage, trying to get him to relax a little before I told him my plans. Running my hands over his muscles, I was having trouble concentrating on what those plans were. I moved to the left, gently working out the tension.

“Hmm. Yeah, right there,” he said. “Oh God, yes! Yes, yes!”

“No need to overdo it, Frank.”

I felt him shaking beneath me. There was a little snort into his pillow. I slapped that ass I was so fond of and climbed out of bed.

“Ouch. Hey, where are you going?” he asked. For all his size, he can move like lightning; before I was out of reach, he had pulled me back into bed.

“To find Cody. He purrs when I rub him.”

“Hmm. But Cody doesn’t know that you’re hatching some scheme.”

Busted. Well, hell.

“You’re turning red. Does that mean I’m right?”

“Yes, Frank. Feel free to gloat a little more.”

He didn’t, just rested his chin on top of my head, rubbed his hand along my neck. “Nothing to gloat over,” he said after a moment. “I just did something really stupid. Only a fool would have interrupted a backrub like that. I should have at least collected my bribe.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, let’s see. The glass of my favorite scotch? The one you handed me as I walked in the door? That raised suspicions. The dinner you cooked when it was my night to cook? Made me a little more suspicious, but you were smart, you didn’t push it too far-no candlelight, no music playing in the background. Just a nice dinner together. Spaghetti. Not even one of my favorite pasta dishes.”

“Didn’t have time to run to the store,” I admitted.

“Hmm.” He kept rubbing my back and neck.

“So the massage must have been a real tip-off.”

“I knew before then.”

“How?” I said, looking up at him in disbelief.

“You’re upset about something. At first, I thought it was the funeral. Funerals upset you. I understand that; they upset me, too. But you’re not acting like you’ve been to a funeral. You’re hyper-tense. That doesn’t make any sense. You’re distracted.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pasta? Overcooked. The queen of al dente made soft spaghetti tonight. Cody chases Deke and Dunk around the house, you don’t even come to the dogs’ rescue.”

“Oh.”

“Shall I go on?”

“No thanks.”

“What’s on your mind, Irene?”

When I didn’t answer, he said softly, “Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

So I did, only I think the day changed as I talked to him. Feelings I had set aside to concentrate on one problem or another throughout the day took their place in the order of things. The remembered horror of seeing Ben Watterson in that shower; my concern for Claire; my fears for Lucas; my guilt over my nastiness with Roberta.