Page 16

FIFTEEN

“So, how’s it going up there at the Herald ?” Raymond asks suspiciously as Alex slides onto her stool on Tuesday morning. The sky is heavy with clouds today, trapping the hot air, pulling it down like a blanket over the city where it steams up the front windows of the Bluebird.

“Oh, leave her alone,” Janice scolds as she drops off Alex’s coffee. “She hasn’t even sat down yet. Usual?”

Alex nods. “To go today, Janice.” She catches the worried glance between Janice and Raymond. “I have to catch up on work,” she explains.

“Look at you, already putting in overtime,” Raymond says.

“Just don’t make it a regular thing,” Janice says, turning to put the order in. “We sit, we eat, we talk here. This isn’t a McDonald’s.”

Raymond leans toward her, toast in hand. “So, what’s it like up there?”

“It’s interesting. Her— my office is down this long hallway. Apparently Francis liked the old part of the building. But it’s nearly empty, so it’s really quiet back there,” Alex says slowly, taking a sip of coffee. “But it’s good.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” Raymond says. Alex frowns. Doesn’t she? Maybe that is because she’s not. Alex still feels like she is in a sort of limbo. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t started the week’s column, or maybe it’s because she still hasn’t spoken to Howard Demetri since the interview. The last image she has of him, his head buried in his hands, his shoulders convulsing, is not one that she wants to linger on. Or her feeling may be due to the fact that she is afraid that she might be tragically inadequate. Even though the job is all she’s ever dreamed of, it is hard not to feel like an interloper in the sanctity of Francis Keen’s office.

“I’m just very behind already. There are so many letters. Piles of them. More than you could possibly imagine. But I have an assistant,” she says, trying to tell him the good parts. This is a good thing, after all, she reminds herself. “And a very large desk overlooking the city.”

“Ooh, someone’s hit the big time.” Janice grins and rubs her palms together.

Raymond yawns theatrically, flipping to the next page in the Daily where there is a photograph of a bikini-clad woman lounging on the deck of a yacht under the headline Headless Corpse Was Once Senator’s Mistress.

“Oh, and look, I found something strange in a book of her poetry.” Alex digs into her purse, looking for the notecard.

“What poet?” Janice asks, surprising everyone. It’s out of character and it makes both of them put their coffee down to stare at her.

“Keats, I think?” Alex says.

“Oh, I love Keats,” Janice says. “I had a boyfriend who used to read it to me in bed. Seasons of mist and mellow fruitiness ,” she begins with a faraway look in her eyes.

“Someone put me out of my misery,” Raymond moans.

Alex’s hand closes around the smooth edge of the card and she draws it out of her bag, placing it on the table. “Anyway, I found this inside the book.” Raymond looks up from his paper, his curiosity suddenly piqued.

“What is it?” Janice cranes her neck to read upside down.

“I’m not sure,” Alex admits.

Janice picks it up. “ I know ? What does that mean? What do they know?”

She passes it back to Alex with a smear of syrup on the corner. Raymond intercepts, snatches it from her hand. He takes his reading glasses from his pocket, his fingers shaking as he pushes them onto his face.

“It’s probably nothing,” Alex speculates as Raymond holds the note out from himself, turning it this way and that with his fingertips as though it might be explosive.

“It’s a threat,” Raymond barks, startling them both.

“Oh, Raymond, I don’t know,” Alex says. “It could be anything.”

Janice rolls her eyes. “You know how he gets. It’s all the crap he reads in the Daily . Always some scandal or somebody getting dismembered. It gets into your head.”

“Maybe it’s a love letter,” Alex says. “Like, I know you better than anyone could ever know you.”

“Or maybe she wrote it to herself, as some sort of reminder,” Janice speculates.

“It’s a letter that says I know on the desk of a dead woman,” Raymond says, exasperated. He is looking intently at Alex now. “Was there anything else? Something tucked into the book maybe? Another note?” His eyes are sharp as daggers. He must have been a terror in the interrogation room back in the day.

Alex swallows. “No—I mean, there’s the dedication. But it’s in different handwriting than the notecard. She probably just stuck it in there to use as a bookmark or something.”

“How could they have missed it?” Raymond mutters, still gazing at her over the half-moons of his reading glasses. “Now you are right there, right in the thick of it. This is something to take very seriously. A threatening letter is admissible evidence, Alexis.”

Alex’s chest tightens. She takes the card back from Raymond.

Even Janice seems to be considering this. “It wasn’t written in a hurry, that’s for sure.”

“No, it is quite deliberate,” Alex agrees, staring down at the perfect curve of the penmanship. “But I’m not sure I want to start getting paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia. It’s evidence.” Raymond slams his palm down on the counter, sending a ripple of plates rattling. “Did you ever think that it could have been given to Francis as a threat?” he shouts, ignoring the glares of several diners at the other end of the counter. “Hell, it may have even been written by her killer.” His face is getting red.

“Ray, even if it was, what would I do with it?” Alex protests, looking around. She isn’t interested in the entire diner knowing her business. But there is a part of her that is wondering if he’s right. Now that it’s out in the open, she feels obligated to address the possibility that the notecard is more ominous than at first glance. “Should I take it to the police?”

“Forget it!” Raymond shakes his head. “That detective what’s-his-name.” He snaps his fingers, trying to remember. “That fucking Delfonte. He will drop it into some file somewhere and no one will give it a second look. He should never have been attached to the case. It’s way above his pay grade.”

“Then what do I do?” Alex says helplessly. She doesn’t have time for this. She has a column to write and about three hundred letters left to read by Friday. “Can I just forget it for right now?”

“No!” Janice and Raymond both yell in unison. Raymond points a finger at her.

“Now, listen to me, Alexis. I want you to find a sample of Francis Keen’s handwriting so we can rule her out as the writer. And be careful with this.” He hands back the card, carefully holding the edges. “This is admissible evidence, so don’t mess with it.”

It’s hard to take him seriously with the amount of toast crumbs on his T-shirt, but Alex nods as stoically as she can. She has more to worry about than playing detective. If she doesn’t figure out her column soon, she won’t even have her job come Friday.

“I think you have to find out who wrote it, Alex,” Janice says.

“I have to go.” Alex puts the card in her purse and slides off her stool. She makes a beeline for the door, wishing she hadn’t brought any of it up. Now if there is even the slightest connection between the notecard and Francis’s murder, she will feel responsible for it.

“Bagel! Alex!” Janice calls, waving a paper bag at her.

“Oh, right, thanks!” Alex turns back and grabs the bag, tucking it into her purse. She remembers something. “Actually, I think the book of poems was Yeats.”

“Oh, well, then the note was definitely threatening,” Janice says, crossing her arms over her apron.

Raymond’s basset-hound eyes follow her warily. “You are involved now, Alexis, whether you like it or not.”