Jan Burke - Bloodlines

Jack had shared his expertise throughout his career, had been a teacher long before he joined the faculty at the college-as Helen had been, too. Neither of them had been much older than Ms. Kelly was now when they first encouraged O’Connor to write. That thought brought a sour reflection in its wake.

“Ms. Kelly doesn’t want help from the likes of me. Especially not after she eavesdropped yesterday.”

“I never knew you to be fainthearted before now, Conn. Show some spine.”

“It’s not a matter of being afraid of her.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You’re a good Catholic boy in need of some penance. I’m going to be your priest.” She laughed her husky laugh. “You’ve sinned against Irene by opening your yap about her to another member of the staff. You agree?”

“Readily, but…”

“So, for that sin, your penance is to help her even if she doesn’t want you to do so. Even if she never says, ‘Thank you, oh wise and wonderful Mr. O’Connor’-help her.”

“Look, Helen…”

“And for your far worse sin of showing rather sexist prejudice against her-something I never thought I’d see from you, Conn-you must learn everything you can about her. You claim she isn’t working at being a reporter-do some digging. Find out why the hell not.”

He was taken aback. “Do you think she’s in some kind of trouble?”

“She may not be in trouble, but with only one story from her like this, I feel fairly sure that something’s going wrong somewhere in her life.”

“What do you suppose her problem is, then?” he asked irritably.

“Conn, I’d tell you if I knew. Hell, I haven’t seen her since she left for Bakersfield. She called after Jack died, but I was too damned distracted with my own troubles to ask her about any of hers.”

He looked again toward Jack’s chair. He felt a tightening in his chest.

“Conn?”

“All right, Swanie,” he said. “I’ll try to help her.”

W ARREN DUCANE GLANCED AT HIS WATCH. THE YOUNG MAN HE HOPED to introduce to the others was a little late to the meeting, but Warren did not doubt that he would arrive. If the others would be patient, all would be well. Warren was in no hurry-he had waited for this moment for sixteen years.

He looked at the faces of those gathered around the long table in Zeke Brennan’s law office. Zeke, Auburn Sheffield, and Lillian Vanderveer Linworth. So good of her to come. He had worried she wouldn’t show, that the strain between their families might have endured even after his mother’s death. He was pleased to discover that she didn’t seem to feel animosity toward him.

The first five years after Todd was lost at sea had been the most hellish time of Warren’s life, but he had managed to get through them without doing either of the two things that seemed most likely to him: killing himself or confessing to the authorities. Warren believed it was his cowardice and not his courage that had prevented either. That, and Auburn’s friendship. Auburn had extracted weekly promises from him not to commit suicide, until a day when Warren finally promised not to try it without notifying Auburn first.

Warren’s life had changed. He no longer attended social events. Once a man who could seldom tolerate being alone, he now found himself seldom able to tolerate the company of others. His reclusiveness was seen by others as an indication of his grief-after all, others would say, the man had lost most of his family in one evening. That much was true.

One person, however, could command his presence at any gathering: Mitch Yeager. He realized that Yeager was monitoring his moods, as well as making sure that Warren knew where things stood. He wasn’t sure what Mitch Yeager had planned for him. Yeager, once confronted, said Warren had nothing to worry over, provided he wasn’t overwhelmed by an urge to make accusations that couldn’t be proved.

Yeager surprised him unpleasantly one day by telling him of a recording. The tape, Yeager said, made clear that Warren desired his parents’ deaths and wanted to take over his father’s company. Warren was assured that on the tape, Yeager would be heard adamantly refusing to be a part of any murder plot and advising him to seek psychiatric help.

Warren, reflecting on the work that had been done recently on the Nixon tapes, now wondered if specialists could determine that the tape Yeager secretly made of their conversation had been altered. And he was beginning to suspect that such a tape could not be used as evidence against him.

But no one in this room knew any of that.

Instead, he told Lillian what he had told Zeke and Auburn sixteen years ago, about the event that had led to this gathering. How it happened that Warren, leaving the Las Piernas Country Club after a luncheon engagement with Auburn, literally bumped into Yeager’s wife Estelle, who was not too steady on her pins. He was surprised to see her in that condition. He later learned that on the days when her adopted son was in preschool, it was not unusual for her to polish off three martinis in the country club bar.

She smiled up at Warren and asked him if he could help her figure out where she had parked. He gave her his arm and guided her to her car. He offered to give her a lift back to her house, but she shuddered and said, “Mitch wouldn’t like that much.”

Perhaps because of the booze, or perhaps because she hadn’t realized that Warren wasn’t truly a friend of the family, before she settled herself into her BMW, Estelle invited Warren to her young son’s fifth birthday party. Believing this was another appearance commanded by her husband, Warren accepted the invitation.

“I’d be pleased to come. I don’t think I’ve ever met Mitch Junior, have I?” he had said.

“Oh, probably not-I try to keep him out of the way when Mitch has his friends over. And he’s not Mitch Junior. We decided to call him Kyle. That was Adam’s middle name. Did you know Adam-Mitch’s brother?”

Warren shook his head.

“Oh. Well, he’s been gone for some years now,” she said uneasily, and looked away.

“I like the name Kyle,” Warren said, mostly to distract her from what were obviously unhappy thoughts.

She smiled. “Me too. Besides, I could only cope with one Mitch in the house at a time.” She blushed, then said, “Please don’t ever tell Mitch I said that.”

“I promise I won’t,” he said. She thanked him and hurried off, as if afraid of making further unguarded remarks.

Yeager had smiled tightly when Warren arrived at the party, his eyes glinting as he turned to his wife-who was perfectly sober on this occasion. Warren, correctly guessing that Yeager neither expected nor wanted him to be there, saw the color drain from Estelle’s face, and hurriedly spoke before Yeager could lash out at her. “I hope you don’t mind my only coming by for a few minutes-I can’t stay long. Just wanted to wish your son a happy birthday.”

Warren had by this time learned to hide his emotions, behind a bland look perceived by Yeager as a mixture of stupidity and meekness.

Yeager laughed and said, “What could be more important than my son’s birthday? Come in and stay as long as you can.”

Warren saw Estelle’s relief and smiled.

He moved into a room crowded with adults. On the back lawn, a clown entertained a half dozen young children. Two young men were shooed away from raiding a table of hors d’oeuvres-Mitch’s nephews, Eric and Ian, he later learned-then they sat pinching and lightly punching each other whenever their harassed Aunt Estelle wasn’t looking. He thought they were probably in their twenties-too old to be acting so childishly.

Warren carefully set the wrapped gift he had purchased-a Tonka dump truck-at the base of a great pyramid of birthday plunder. He heard familiar laughter and turned toward it, smiling.