Lydia had the zeal of a convert, and began ferreting out other stories that seemed to her to be, as she said, “Assembled, not written.” She found several. O’Connor was a favorite to quote, apparently because he was dead rather than retired, and therefore unlikely to call the paper to complain.
“A lot of research. You’d think it would have been easier for Ethan to just write the stories himself,” I said.
“Don’t ask me to explain the psychology of plagiarism,” she said.
The Express ran an apology to its readers that ended up making the paper itself a news story for a day or so. No one doubted the need for it, but the shame the staff felt did nothing for morale, already low due to rumors of the paper being put up on the block.
We thought Ethan would be fired. He was put into an alcohol rehab program and told he could return on probation.
Hailey thought this was another scam on his part. I thought about friends of mine who had been alcoholics, and what it had taken them to try to turn their lives around. “He may be totally insincere about it, but this isn’t the easy way out,” I said. “Let’s hope this has been a wake-up call.”
“Yeah, right,” Hailey said. “For some reason my heart refuses to break.”
Ethan would be gone for at least thirty days. My teamwork with Hailey was intensifying.
We eventually took over a small conference room near the morgue, so that we would cause less interference with the functioning of the library. We camped at microfilm readers for hours at a time. The results of the DNA tests would be back within the week, and we had drafted background material on the Ducanes, the Vanderveers, and the Linworths, and recaps of stories about the crimes and victims of that night in 1958, and the discoveries of 1978.
We had stories written about Max, and thanks to Stephen Gerard, we had photos of Max, Lillian, and the two of them together to choose from. Helen had been at the house during the shoot, and Stephen-who apparently became a fan of Helen’s when he was one of her students, years ago-had even talked her into sitting for a few group photos.
I loved those the best, although there was no reason to run a photo of Helen with this article. They looked happy to be together, though, and looking at the photo made me feel some hope that biology wouldn’t call all the shots-Max would remain connected to these two women no matter what. I made Stephen promise to give me prints of the trio.
We had other artwork ready, including some about how DNA testing worked. Hailey wrote an article to go with that.
We eventually reached the point of having everything but the actual story, for which we’d have to wait. It was a little like trying to fall asleep in a starting gate.
Wrigley led small tours of potential buyers through the newsroom every few days. Rumors abounded. Anyone unknown who ventured upstairs was the subject of speculation and, from certain staff members, a kind of fawning attention the rest of us found sickening. The previous week, a guy with a briefcase was offered a comfy seat and a fresh cup of coffee and took advantage of both as he was entertained by the brown-nosers and asked his opinion of the paper-this went on for about fifteen minutes before he asked if it was okay if he fixed the copier now, because he had other appointments.
One night, as I worked late, the phone on my desk rang. I picked up the receiver and said, “Kelly.” A long silence and a click were all I heard.
This began to happen frequently. I started letting my voice mail pick up all calls at night.
I kept going through O’Connor’s diaries. After reading O’Connor’s story about Harmon, I skipped ahead to the diaries for 1945.
Wedged in the pages for the first week in April was a photograph. It showed a young woman and a young man-I recognized him immediately, even though the photo had been taken before he had broken his nose in some barroom brawclass="underline" O’Connor. There was something else about him that seemed different. Perhaps it was the hat. They were both dressed up and stood arm in arm, looking comfortable with each other. On the back, a feminine hand had written “Conn and Maureen-Easter 1945.” His mother’s writing, I thought. Each of the diaries had been a Christmas present from Maureen, inscribed to him with some whimsical note, often asking him to please think fondly of his nobody of a sister when he became a famous newspaper reporter. I knew her hand by now.
Features that made her brother handsome did not quite do the same for her, but she was by no means plain. She had a face that was full of kindness, or perhaps I saw that there because I had read her brother’s accounts of her. Her dress was simple in style, as was the hat she wore. No jewelry other than a simple necklace-a silver shamrock. Her hair was dark, her eyes were large and blue and full of mischief. She was smiling, looking as if she were just about to go from a smile to a laugh.
I looked back at O’Connor’s image, and saw that he, too, was nearly laughing. That was it, then, the difference in him-I had seen him laugh, I had seen him smile, but I had never seen him as happy as he was in the photo.
There was only one entry after April 5, which had been devoted to plans for a date with Ethel Gibbs. On April 6, he wrote, “Maureen, please be safe. I am so sorry.” There were no other entries that year.
There were no diaries between 1945 and 1950.
The Wednesday night of the week the DNA results were due, Frank and I managed to be home at the same time, and fairly early. We live near the beach, where the nights are often chilly, so he lit a fire in the fireplace. We snuggled close and talked about our days.
When I told him about having the stories ready to run, he told me that the police were watching Mitch and his family closely these days.
“Max said Eric and Ian are back in town.”
“Yes. We’re keeping an especially close watch on them.”
“But they’ve served out their parole, so…”
“So, yes, all we can do is watch them.” He held me a little closer. “Scared?”
“A little. I keep telling myself that Mitch Yeager is an old man, then I remember that an old man can own a new gun. Anyway, let’s not talk about that. Tell me what you’re working on.”
“Looks as if we might have made a little bit of headway in the case of O’Connor’s sister.”
“Maureen? I just found a photo of her.”
“I’d like to see it. Ben Sheridan and the coroner and our new lab director studied photographs of the bodies and the old coroner’s reports-this was the coroner just before Woolsey. Turns out Harmon may be telling the truth, and we may be able to prove that he is without an exhumation.”
“How?”
“Back in 1950, they collected hair evidence, and scrapings from under her nails. She fought her attacker. Guess where the nail scrapings have been kept?”
“A freezer?”
“Yes. The hair might have been enough anyway, but the nail scrapings look better. Some skin and some blood.”
“So you could prove who killed her?”
“Well-let’s say we can prove whether or not Harmon is lying. His DNA is on file, but if there’s no match, then we’ll try running it through CODIS- you know about that?”
“The FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. The big computerized database of convicts’ DNA profiles.”
“Basically, yes. It has a long way to go-it’s going to take a while to get all the samples processed, for one thing. Don’t get your hopes up-if it isn’t Harmon, I don’t think we’re likely to see a match.”
“I understand. It’s just so weird. If it doesn’t match Harmon, someone had to know that Harmon was burying women in that orange grove, and then had to be a killer himself.”
“Harmon was a loner, but we’re not giving up on the possibility that he found a soul mate along the way.”
“I’ll see what I can find in O’Connor’s notes. Maybe he learned something the police didn’t-people Maureen came into contact with, or something like that.”