Jan Burke - Bloodlines

On the other hand, maybe it would just be a lot of crap that would be easy to toss out, and nothing more complicated than laziness had kept Kenny from doing it himself.

Except that in the time since he was injured, Kenny hadn’t been lazy at all.

I left the paper and spent a couple of hours at city hall trying to get some answers to questions I had about a planning commission proposal. When I returned, Ethan was talking to Lydia again. He soon rushed out of the news-room. Well, I thought, he’s finally catching on to the fact that you can’t cover the news if you stay inside the building. That, or he was going to lunch.

I glanced at my watch and realized that it was almost noon.

I suddenly recalled an appointment of my own and hurried over to the city desk. “I’m having lunch with Helen Swan and my great-aunt today. You want to join us?”

“I’d love to,” Lydia said, “but I can’t get away. Give them my best.”

“I may be back a little late.” I told her about Kenny’s visit and the storage locker key. “I’ll have my cell phone with me if you need me.”

Despite the fact that, as usual, she had three phones ringing, four people walking toward the desk from various parts of the newsroom, and more “highest priority” e-mail messages waiting for her than I wanted to think about, she said, “You need some company when you do that?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be all right. If it starts to…to bother me, I’ll lock it up and come back to it when I can handle it.”

Would that I could have lunch with Helen and Great-Aunt Mary every day. Each time I do, I’m reminded of how strong and smart and wise and downright ornery they are, and how much I hope to be like them someday. If I have half as much energy when and if I make it to my eighties, I’ll be happy.

It was the perfect way to prepare myself for going over to the storage unit. Helen had grown a little deaf over the years, and had voluntarily given up driving, but otherwise was doing well. Mary had become one of her closest friends. Mary was still driving her red Mustang, and seemed to enjoy taking Helen out and about. Mary was sharp and in good health and remained one of my anchors in times of trouble.

I told them about my fledglings, which amused Helen no end. She kindly didn’t mention her own trials with me, when I was her student. I mentioned to Helen that some of O’Connor’s papers had apparently been in a storage locker, and that Kenny had given me the key to it. “I’m on my way over there after lunch. If I find anything that might be of interest to you, I’m sure Kenny won’t mind if I give it to you.”

She seemed surprised, then distracted. Aunt Mary was going on and on about what a pack rat O’Connor was. She has drawings I gave her when I was in first grade, so I didn’t pay much attention to her. I became worried that I had upset Helen. O’Connor had been so close to her and Jack.

After O’Connor died, Max Ducane told me that Helen had been severely depressed and talked of having lost almost everyone who was dearest to her. She was, as always, resilient, and eventually seemed more herself, but I was concerned.

“Helen?”

As if coming out of a trance, she said, “Yes, let me know what you find. But you needn’t give anything to me. If it were up to me to choose one person to have O’Connor’s writing and notes and other treasures, I would choose you.”

I was flattered, and as I made my way to the storage place, I couldn’t help but remember the time I had told O’Connor that Helen’s counsel had kept me working with him. He had admitted then that she had been working just as hard to keep him from giving up on me. I owed her thanks for one of the most important friendships of my life.

U-Keep-It Self-Storage was typical of those built in the mid-1970s. Cinder block and steel roll-up doors. I pulled up to it in the Jeep Wrangler we had just bought from a friend, Ben Sheridan. Ben is a forensic anthropologist. Thinking of him, I wondered if he might be able to help Hailey out with her story.

A sign warned that anyone entering the premises was subject to video surveillance. I entered the 4645 code, and a security gate opened to let me into the parking lot. I was parked and out of the car before it rolled shut again. O’Connor’s unit was on the second floor. I thought that was probably good- a little more secure. I took the stairs. The wide hallway was windowless and dark, but apparently a motion detector sensed my presence, because a series of bare bulbs lit overhead.

I found the unit, shoved a small flatbed cart away from the door, and fit the key in the padlock. The lock was a little stiff, but it opened. I flipped the bolt aside and pulled the door up.

Before me were about forty boxes and plastic containers, and two metal trunks. Some boxes were labeled, some weren’t. Some looked relatively new, but most appeared to be old and bore signs of long storage.

One was immediately familiar to me. Written in that misunderstood scrawl of his was a beloved friend’s name: Jack.

I heard myself exhale, hard. Seeing the box made me think of the day I first saw it, of O’Connor walking across that dusty field, holding on to it as if he were a priest carrying the last tabernacle, asking me-a green reporter-if he could help me with my story. He had worked so relentlessly to discover what had really happened on that night in 1958. For all that had been learned, there was still a great deal that was unknown.

Eric and Ian Yeager were already out of prison, supposedly living on a Caribbean island, but every now and then someone said they had seen them in town. Mitch Yeager-that old buzzard-would probably survive World War III. The only punishment he had received came from his three kids, spoiled brats who had never done an honest day’s work.

I shook off thoughts of that family from hell and stepped inside, found a light switch for the unit (a luxury item), and was surprised to find that the bulb wasn’t dead. I rolled the door down a little more than halfway. I wanted some privacy, but claustrophobia is a problem for me-I counted being able to pull the door shut at all a major victory.

The old trunks intrigued me. One was brown, the other green. They were side by side. Neither was locked, although they were latched shut. I snapped the latches open on the brown one, which looked older to me.

It was full of fragile, yellowing papers covered in a childish scrawl. I carefully lifted a few from the trunk. Each had a title, written in small and large caps, headline style: “THE MAN WHO FIXES MOTOR CARS.” “THE HOUSE WHERE MY MOTHER WORKS.” “HOW MY DA GOT HURT.” “HOW DERMOT HELPS A HORSE WIN A RACE.” “LUCKY THINGS IN MY HOUSE.” “WE MOVE TO A NEW HOUSE.” Each of these stories was clearly marked, “by Conn O’Connor.”

Lucky things in his house included a horseshoe that had come from a stakes winner, various religious medals and other artifacts, a piece of wood “from a true fairy tree” back in Ireland, a crow’s feather that “Dermot says isn’t lucky at all, but he’s wrong,” and a “dollar from my benefactress.” This last word appeared to have been carefully copied from a dictionary.

I smiled. After he had known me for a few years, O’Connor told me of the day he had met Jack Corrigan, and that Lillian had tipped him a silver dollar. I looked around me, thinking that it might well be in one of these boxes.

Maybe not. He was such a superstitious old Irishman, he probably had it in his pocket the day he died.

For some stupid reason, I started crying.

I pulled myself together after a bit and looked in the trunk again. Not far from the top were nine diaries.

The oldest one was dated 1936. I opened it carefully and read the first entry.