Jan Burke - Bloodlines

Harvey was one of their best. He had been a top war correspondent who, when he was wounded overseas, recuperated in Las Piernas and decided he wanted to stay. Wrigley had always considered his hiring a coup.

“Harvey? Why?”

“Some newsroom joker pulled the old cap gun prank today.”

O’Connor knew the trick. There were a couple of typewriters with the usual sandwich layers of paper and carbon paper already loaded in, ready to go for a man on a hot story. You didn’t sit at that typewriter unless you were under pressure to begin with. If someone also placed a layer of caps from a cap gun just behind that first sheet of paper, the hapless reporter who rushed to write his lead had the caps explode with a bang as he typed.

“Harvey thought he was back on Guam?”

“Exactly. Wouldn’t admit that, of course. Really shook him up and then he was embarrassed. Think you can talk him into coming back? He’s a friend of Jack’s, I know, but you get along with him, too, right?”

“Sure, but don’t count on me to persuade him to do anything. I’ll call him but he’s his own man.”

Harvey was reluctant to talk at first, but thawed a little as O’Connor told him how Jack was doing and moved on to tell him about finding the floating giant.

Then O’Connor said, “Here’s the problem, Harv. You know how it works. I can’t be the guy who found the body and the guy who writes the story. Wrigley’s lost his best man for the job, because you quit-you had every right to, of course. But what that means is that this story gets lost. And if someone in town knows this man in the marsh, we might learn why this giant was paid to beat the living hell out of Jack.”

“And why the giant was shot,” Harvey said slowly.

Hooked, and O’Connor knew it. “And who paid for any and all of that.”

There was a silence, then Harvey said, “Wrigley put you up to this?”

“I told him you’d make up your own mind.”

After another long silence, he said, “Tell me how to find this place in the marsh.”

It was dark by the time O’Connor got back to the marsh, and for a few moments, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find the body again. He did, though, and waited in the cold darkness for Norton and the others to arrive.

Once he had shown them the body, he was asked to wait in his car. He didn’t mind getting out of the cold and away from the stink. And he didn’t especially want to watch the poor bastards who’d have to fish the giant out of the muck and mire going about their business. So he went back to the Nash.

Harvey had to tap on the car window to wake him up when he arrived. O’Connor talked to him a while, then Harvey talked to Norton. Eventually he got enough for a story and left quickly, hoping to get something in before deadline. Before he went he told O’Connor that the dead man was presumed to be one Bo Jergenson. “Ever hear of him?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Or something close to it. The Linworths’ slightly deaf butler told Lillian that a tall gent who showed up at her daughter’s birthday party was named Bob Gherkin. Close enough, wouldn’t you say? He’s the one who attacked Corrigan.”

O’Connor hoped Harvey would check the typewriter before he sat down to write the story.

After the coroner’s wagon left, Norton motioned O’Connor to come over to where he was talking to a crime lab worker. A second worker was trying to make a cast of one of the drier sections of tread marks.

“You said Jack’s keys were missing?”

“Yes. Did you find them?”

“Describe them. Key chain, too.”

O’Connor thought for a moment, then said, “Three keys on a plain metal key ring. Nickel-colored. A key to his front door-Yale lock, I think. A key to my place, and a key to the back entrance to the Wrigley Building.” He pulled out his own keys and showed them what those last two keys looked like. “Hardly ever use the one for the paper, because the door is rarely locked. He also had a little saint’s medal on the ring, brass or maybe even gold-yellow metal anyway. Gift from a priest he helped out once. It’s a little worse for wear, has a little nick in it, but Jack won’t be without it.”

“Which saint?”

“Patron saint of reporters-St. Francis of Sales.”

Norton nodded to the crime scene investigator and the man held up a cellophane envelope. “Don’t touch it,” Norton warned O’Connor. “Take a look and tell me if that looks like it.”

There was a gold-colored medal in the envelope, bent near the top, where it had apparently been pulled by force off the key ring. O’Connor saw a small nick near the bottom.

“That’s Jack’s-not a doubt in my mind. He caught it in a metal desk drawer at work a few weeks ago and jammed the drawer. I can see the nick that was left on it when he finally worked it free. You found it on Jergenson?”

“In his trousers pocket.”

“No keys with it?”

“No, and if they aren’t in the marsh, then maybe someone is using them to try to get into Jack’s place. I’ve got an undercover car keeping an eye on it, just in case our friends stop by, but I won’t be able to do that for long. You think you can swing by there just to make sure the place hasn’t been turned upside down?”

“Sure. But-listen, Dan, there are some things I want to talk to you about- about Katy.”

“Tell you what. There’s a steak place not far from Jack’s. Let’s go by his house, take a quick look, grab his teddy bear or whatever the hell else he may need at the hospital-other than a bottle of rye-and leave. Then you can tell me all your troubles over dinner. And I can get the hell away from the stench of this place.”

Jack’s house was locked up and showed no sign of disturbance. O’Connor called the hospital from the home of one of Jack’s neighbors and learned that Jack was awake-and that Helen had told him what had happened to Katy and the baby. O’Connor asked to talk to him, and asked him where the spare key was hidden, and if he minded if Dan Norton entered the house with him.

Jack sounded listless, but he told O’Connor that the latest hiding place was in part of a window air conditioner at the back of the house, and that he didn’t care what Dan Norton did. But at the end of this dull recital, he said, “Come by later, if you get a minute, Conn.”

“I’ll definitely be there,” O’Connor assured him.

“For a drunk,” Norton said, looking around the tiny living room, “Corrigan leads an orderly existence.”

O’Connor didn’t reply to him. Norton watched as he walked through the small home. In the bedroom, James Joyce’s The Dubliners was on the night-stand. O’Connor took it with him. As nearly as he could tell, nothing in the house had been disturbed.

“Going to bring him a bottle?” Norton asked.

“No. I don’t want to kill him.”

“Kind of surprised you had to call him to find out where the spare key was. Surprised you don’t have a key to this place yourself. After all, he’s got one to your place, right?”

“He looks after my place when I travel. Helen looks after Jack’s place when he goes somewhere. She lives nearer than I do, and I guess they got into the habit years ago. I didn’t know where the spare was because Jack never leaves it in one place all the time, but I’ve never known him to forget where he’s hidden it, drunk or sober.”

“You finished here?”

“Yes.”

Over dinner, O’Connor told Norton his theories about the Sea Dreamer.

“I don’t believe all hell just accidentally broke loose among four sets of people who were as connected to each other as were Katy and Todd, Katy’s in-laws, Katy’s child and his nurse, and Katy’s good friend Jack Corrigan. And for starters, I don’t think the Ducanes were ever on that yacht.” He went over all the points Lorenzo had made to him. “He’s not a homicide investigator, but he knows boats.”