“But I’m going to see Gillian this afternoon.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be nearby.”
I looked at the envelope while we waited for the police. Postmarked just before I took my leave of absence from the paper. “At least I made the little bastard wait,” I said.
“I suppose I should cover this,” Mark said, which started Stuart howling again.
Then I felt my temper kick in — not at Stuart, but at Parrish. “God damn it,” I told Lydia, “Parrish sent that to me here hoping to humiliate me in an office full of coworkers. He thought I’d be terrified, while all of you would be wondering what my problem was. Well, I’m sick of it. Enough of playing defense. Time for the offense to take the field.”
Stuart, overhearing this, said, “She’s back, ladies and gentlemen!”
Lydia and Mark, on the other hand, cautioned me. “Don’t do anything foolish,” Mark said.
I turned to my computer and logged on. “I’ll cover my own underwear, by God!”
“Put that slogan on the masthead!” Stuart said.
I started writing:
What sort of loser thinks he can terrify a woman with a pair of her own underwear?
Perhaps smarting from his previous failures, Nick Parrish has brought out his ultimate secret weapon. The man (I use the term loosely) has attempted to frighten me with an unlaundered pair of my own unmentionables.
Nicky obviously has no idea what sort of horrors await the average woman on wash day.
Here at the Express, picturing him hatching this grand scheme as he carried my dirty drawers around with him for three months has given rise to all sorts of hilarity.
Nicky, who’d have thought you were a panty rustler?
Yes, I know you’d prefer to go down in history as Mr. Evil Incarnate, and you’ve certainly done your best to make that moniker stick. But the world of the media is everchanging, Nicky, and I’m afraid that here in the newsroom, that Evil Incarnate business has already been forgotten — you’re doomed to be referred to as the Bloomer Bandit.
Lydia, reading it over my shoulder, shook her head and walked off.
But I was enjoying myself too much to care. It felt great to imagine what Parrish’s face would look like when he read it. Here he was, trying to terrify me, and if things went my way, I’d make a laughingstock out of him.
I was on the verge of forwarding it to John, when for some odd reason, I suddenly I thought of Parzival. Parzival, whose good intentions did not prevent bad things from happening as a result of his actions.
Suppose Parrish decided to prove that he should be taken seriously? What if, instead of being utterly cast down and immobilized by my needle-sharp prose, the man grew so enraged he killed another dozen women to make us fear him again? Would I be able to live with myself then? Did I think for a moment that he would burst into tears and turn himself in, saying “I’ll confess, just tell Irene Kelly to stop being mean to me?”
Then again, should I censor myself because in my heart of hearts I was afraid of Nick Parrish?
I printed out a copy of the story and gave it to Lydia, but told her I wasn’t ready to file it yet, that I wanted a little time to think it over. I saved the story on a floppy disk, and then deleted it from the main system. If I changed my mind, I could hand over the floppy.
I called John at home to tell him what had happened with the package. “You’re probably going to have some guys from the crime lab in here,” I said.
“Oh, hell, Kelly, not even a full day back, and you’ve got the cops walking around in the newsroom.”
As it turned out, the police weren’t at the paper for long. Once they had taken the package and its contents, asked me a few questions (“When did you last have the garment in your possession?”) and determined that the package had been mailed and not hand-delivered, they were on their way. They even mentioned that I’d probably be getting the van back soon.
I went to lunch with Frank, who seemed more quiet than usual.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lydia told me about the commentary you wrote.”
I tried to read his expression, and couldn’t. “I’m sorry she did. I was going to tell you, but I don’t suppose you’ll believe that now.”
“I believe you.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re infuriating a serial killer. Or in this ‘everchanging media world,’ had you truly forgotten that?”
“What do you suppose the answer to that question is?”
“Then what the hell were you thinking of?”
“I’m tired of playing it his way all the time, Frank.”
“There are experts in forensic psychology who are working on these cases, Irene. People who study this type of guy for a living are on the task force. You ever think it might be a good idea to contact one of them before mouthing off to Parrish?”
“Listen, before we end up in a fight over this—”
“I don’t blame you for getting angry. He’s trying to control you and manipulate you, trying to make you feel afraid. He wants to be in charge. Do I think you should whimper in a corner? No. But standing up for yourself is one thing, and issuing an out-and-out challenge to the guy is another.”
“I didn’t file the story.”
He sat back. “What?”
“Lydia gave you a copy of it, didn’t she?”
He admitted it.
“Well, I didn’t file the story. I have it on a floppy disk. I haven’t made up my mind about it, but I guess I’m leaning toward not filing it.” I held a hand up as he started to speak. “Don’t — please don’t say it’s the smart thing to do, because probably it’s also the cowardly thing to do.”
Wisely, he didn’t say more on the subject.
Gillian lived over a garage, in a small wooden one-bedroom apartment built during the housing shortage of the late 1940s. The garage was at the end of a long driveway and was detached from the large Craftsman house that occupied the front of the lot; the house had been converted into a duplex.
From the foot of the stairs we could hear her stereo; the Boomtown Rats singing “I Don’t Like Mondays.” An oldie. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. The stereo went off. Gillian greeted us wearing jeans and a bright yellow top; her hair was currently very short and black, her nails purple, but also much shorter than the last time I had seen her. Frank had briefly met Gillian once before, when she had inquired about a Jane Doe case he had been working on. She remembered him, though, and the specific case as well, although she must have asked about several dozen such cases over the past four years.
As they talked briefly about that investigation, I glanced around the interior of the apartment. It was oddly blank and austere for someone who dressed so colorfully; the walls were white and bare, the chairs and sofa were plain, and other than her stereo speakers and a potted palm, there were no other objects in the room. The stereo itself must have been in the bedroom. Nothing in this room to distract a guest from the host.
She politely asked us to have a seat, politely offered us something to drink, politely thanked me again for talking to her so soon after I had returned from the mountains. She said she was glad I hadn’t been too scared by the bones in the van and asked if I was back at work yet.
Beneath these good manners was a not-so-concealed level of disinterest in us that made me wonder how she prevented herself from yawning in our faces.
I asked how she had been doing. She had been doing fine.
I expressed surprise at learning of her father’s remarriage. She said she really didn’t know Susan, but her father could do whatever he pleased with his life.
“Jason doesn’t seem very happy.”
“You talked to Jason?” she asked, showing the first sign of real attention to anything I had said.