Dear Irene Read Online Free

Thanatos had watched me, but by the time Frank arrived, I had stopped feeling like my knees were made of gelatin.
    Geoff, the security guard for the building, must have let John know that Frank was on his way to the newsroom, because he stepped out of his office just as Frank entered the room.
    “So, when’s the wedding?” he boomed.
    “It’s up to Irene,” Frank answered, making his way to my desk. John met him there with an extended hand.
    “I haven’t had a chance to offer my congratulations, Frank.”
    Frank thanked him and shook his hand. At the same time, he studied me.
    “I’m okay,” I said, answering the unspoken question.
    He didn’t seem convinced, but asked his other questions aloud. The first was, “Did the call come through the switchboard, or directly to you?”
    I felt like an idiot for not checking that myself, and started to call the switchboard operator when John said, “Never mind, Kelly. I already called Doris. She hasn’t transferred any calls to you today. Must have come through direct.”
    “Then it’s most likely someone you’ve met, perhaps given your business card to, right?” Frank asked.
    “Maybe,” John said, before I could answer. “But it’s not that hard to learn someone’s direct dial number. There are a number of ways to do it. You could ask the switchboard operator for the number; she’ll usually give it out for anyone who’s not in upper management. If you wanted to be a little more sneaky about it, you could call another department, say, ‘Oops, I was trying to reach Irene Kelly. The operator must have transferred me to you by mistake. Could you tell me Irene’s extension?’”
    “Even if it’s someone with a card — I’ve given out a lot of them,” I said. “I had a new direct dial number when I came back to the paper, so I had to let people know how to reach me. I had to re-establish contact with a lot of old sources, and I had to meet some new ones. And on almost every story, I end up giving a card to someone.”
    “Well, it’s something to think about,” Frank said. “Maybe you’ll recall someone who mentioned this history professor to you, or who seemed interested in you in some unusual way — or who just seemed odd.”
    “‘Odd’ will not narrow the list much.”
    “Probably not. You said you found the envelope?”
    I nodded, and handed it to him.
    “Lydia!” John shouted, startling me. “Find something to keep Miss Kelly busy for a while.”
    “Wait a minute—” I protested.
    “You can live without him for five more minutes, can’t you, Kelly? You haven’t gone
that
soft on me, have you?”
    I could sense something was up and that John was in a conspiratorial mood. But I couldn’t figure out a way to object before they walked off into John’s office, Frank turning at the last moment to give me a shrug of feigned helplessness.
    I practiced breaking pencils with one hand while Lydia tried to find something for me to do.
     
4
     
    “I F HE DIDN’T KILL HER in her office, he made a damned good start there.”
    Pete Baird, Frank’s partner, had accepted our invitation to join us for dinner that night. While Frank acted as chef, Pete was filling me in on the progress they had made in the Blaylock case. “There was blood splattered everywhere — over her desk, the windows, her books, the floor, her papers. The guy went nuts. Really sprayed the place. I doubt she walked out of there, anyway. We’ll know more when the lab and coroner’s reports come in.”
    You get two homicide detectives together, you have to be prepared not to let much of anything ruin your appetite.
    “She was killed there,” Frank said, coating some orange roughy fillets with a mixture of herbs and a small amount of olive oil. “All the blows were to her skull. He was hitting her hard.”
    “He?” I asked.
    “Figure of speech,” Pete said. “But didn’t you say the voice on the phone was a man’s voice?”
    “It was synthesized. No telling. But I