Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

He just kept swinging his foot, but his neck turned red.

ALANA ARRIVED JUST BEFOREthe police showed Claire the note. Alana was slightly taller than Claire, but it was clear that they were sisters.

The note had been found on a desk in the study, beneath a small desk lamp. Apparently, when we arrived, that was the only lamp that was on inside the house. We hadn’t seen the light from outside-the drapes in the study were closed.

Cardenas showed the note to Claire. She had to read it through a plastic cover. It said:

Claire-

Forgive me for not telling you. There is no cure. This has nothing to do with you, my love. I simply choose to avoid days of pain.

Ben

Claire broke down when she read it. “I thought he might be ill,” she said, “but not so ill that he…why didn’t he tell me?” Her sister embraced her and asked the detectives if they could have a moment alone.

I reached for my purse, thinking that I should probably leave, too. It was at about that time that I looked up to see Frank walking into the room. It was an awkward moment to give an introduction, but he managed without me. He nodded to Thompson and Cardenas, then walked toward us. He’s tall, but he lowered his big frame so that he was eye level with us. He took my hand, gave it a quick squeeze, then said to Claire, “Mrs. Watterson? I’m Frank Harriman. I’m Irene’s husband. I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

The words themselves weren’t extraordinary, but something in his manner or his tone must have soothed her. She stopped sobbing. Tears still ran down her face, but she quieted.

“Thank you,” she said. “Irene has been very good to me tonight, but I think she should probably go home now. It’s been-it’s been a long night. Alana will stay with me.” She looked at me and said, “I won’t ever forget all you’ve done for me, Irene.”

I wished her good night, and we left.

“You okay to drive home?” Frank asked when we reached the driveway.

I nodded.

“I’ll see you there, then.” He gave me a hug. He looked tired.

I had a bad moment when I first got into my car and saw the blood on my car window. I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the headlights of Frank’s car, and calmed myself. I don’t always appreciate his protectiveness, but there are times when it feels good to have him watching over me. This was one of those times.

When we were on the road near the golf course, I saw Mark Baker, a friend and fellow reporter, drive past me going the other way. He gave me a puzzled look and honked, but I kept on going. I spent most of the trip home praying that Claire would be all right, and that she would forget every smart-alecky remark I had made about Frank’s job.

JOHNWALTERS,my news editor, called a meeting at the Express the next morning. The paper had already gone to bed when I had discovered Ben Watterson’s body the night before, but it was looking like tomorrow’s paper was in danger of becoming the Ben Watterson Memorial Edition.

John had gathered any of us who had interviewed or covered Ben Watterson in the past. Nobody had anything scandalous to say about him; he was credited with being a major force in Las Piernas’s growth and development. He had known some opposition from antigrowth groups, but even among his opponents he was highly respected. To others, he was all but a god. The Bank of Las Piernas had financed many local businesses.

Lydia Ames, who works on the city desk, was at the meeting. She had been dating Guy St. Germain, one of the bank’s vice presidents, for eight or nine months. Because she socialized with people in the bank’s higher echelons, she had been able to talk to a number of people that might have remained closemouthed otherwise. John asked her to give us an update.

“Several of the executives say that during the past week Watterson seemed agitated. Some of them are pretty upset. They feel they should have seen this coming.”

“Why?” John asked. “Did Watterson drop hints, talk to any of them about killing himself?”

“No, but his activities in recent days fit those of someone who was suicidal. Watterson was settling unfinished business, tying up loose ends in his personal estate, destroying sensitive office files, talking to board members about naming his successor.”

“He tell anyone he was sick?” John asked.

“No. He told several board members that he had decided to retire,” Lydia said. “But now, in hindsight, they see some of the things he said and did as warning signs they didn’t heed. He gave away personal items. He gave one man some archival photographs, saying BLP might want to use some of them in a history one day. The guy now feels as if Watterson was saying good-bye.”

John turned to me. “You were with the widow-right, Kelly?”

“Yes.”

“At some kind of party?”

“A fund-raiser for the battered women’s shelter.”

He paused for a moment. “So the widow is out on the town while her husband is committing suicide?”

“You’re off base, John. I was there. She took it very hard. Last night, on the ride home, she was worried about him, wondered why he suddenly wanted to retire, said she had noticed that he seemed unhappy. But she didn’t even hint at being concerned that he might be suicidal.”

John was thoughtful for a moment, then started barking out orders. “Got lots of angles to cover. Business section will be looking at the financial picture, including real estate.” He listed reporters’ names, assigning an aspect of the story to each. “Baker,” he concluded, calling on our crime reporter, “try to get more out of the grieving widow.”

John’s bad moods are so perpetual that we usually find ourselves afraid of him when he’s cheerful. We’ve all suffered his temper, so his moods allow the often competitive reporters of the newsroom to band together in defense. But today no one complained about him. The suicide of Ben Watterson was one of those stories that made everyone want to do a little more digging. We all knew there was more to the story.

No one had any real reason to believe that, but no one had any doubt about it, either.

WHENIGOTBACKTOMYDESK, a light was blinking on my new phone. The Express had just invested in a voice-mail system, and the light meant that I had a message. I entered the required codes and eventually got to my section of this glorified answering machine. “You have one new message,” the overly pleasant voice of the system said. “Sent today at 9:37A.M.” What followed was a series of telephone tones, as if someone were dialing in my ear. I didn’t mind-they played “Goodnight, Irene,” a signal from one of my city hall contacts.

I called Nina Howell, a secretary who works in the Zoning Department. She calls me whenever she has one of those days when she feels like she’s working for a crook. This means she calls me on a fairly regular basis.

“Zoning Department,” she answered. “This is Ms. Howell. May I help you?”

“I sure hope so. You called?”

“Yes. Moffett is leaving. He resigned this morning.”

“Allan Moffett, the city manager?” There weren’t any other Allan Moffetts running around city hall, but the idea that the most powerful employee in the city government was resigning wasn’t easy to grasp.

“Yes. Word is, he’s running scared.” There was noise in the background, and she hesitated for a few moments before saying, “Yes, that’s right. This is the Zoning Department, and I’m afraid there’s no one here by that name.”

“I take it this means your boss is back in the room?”

“Yes, well,” she went on, “if you spell the name for me, perhaps I can look it up in your directory.”