No use suspecting everybody who had ever been in the state of Arizona, I told myself. All the same, I knew that whoever was involved was powerful, and few men in Las Piernas were more powerful than Andrew Hollingsworth. What if on the eve of his wedding, a young woman had suddenly shown up to tell him she was pregnant with his child? Would he kill her? Mutilate her body? Why not just pay her to keep quiet?
Who would have better access than a district attorney to a rogue’s gallery like the one that had been involved in the dirty work so far? I tried to picture Andrew Hollingsworth in this role. It was not impossible, but I had a long way to go before I was out of the realm of speculation.
I picked Cody up and lugged him back to the bedroom. “You weigh a ton, old boy,” I whispered to him, and got a purr in response. I flopped down on the bed with him, and we got settled in. I turned the light out and lay in the dark, thinking of Frank. I wondered if he was still asleep. I wondered if we would start driving each other crazy if we got any closer to each other. He could irritate me so easily, and I knew I could return the favor. Yet, paradoxically, there was something so comfortable about him, so easy to be with.
I wondered if I felt drawn to him because of the circumstances, if I had reached out to him as some kind of refuge. I was vulnerable, and I knew it. O’Connor’s death alone was enough to make me feel I had lost my footing. Was I getting close to Frank just because of the situation we were in? Could I have any kind of perspective on anything in a week like the last one? Was I just grateful to him for protecting me? Guilty because he had been injured?
I thought of him standing there in his shorts and smiled in the darkness. I didn’t know if Frank and I would be able to be more than good friends, but I did know that something more than dependence and guilt was involved.
“I like the guy,” I said aloud, and Cody looked up at me. I scratched him between the ears. Before long I was fast asleep. Morning came so quickly, I’m not sure I had time to dream.
38
IWOKE UP with the lousy awareness that exactly one week ago, my whole world had blown apart. O’Connor dead a week. I lay in bed, feeling the spike of painful, hopeless longing for his company run through me. I wanted so much to hear his voice, his laugh, his lousy Irish jokes. I wanted him to come back, to be alive again. I knew I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, but I wanted it anyway.
I made myself get up and get dressed. It didn’t help. Lydia was scheduled to work a half-day at the paper; I asked if I could ride in with her.
“Sure,” she said, studying me. “What’s wrong?”
I shrugged, not wanting to open a Pandora’s box of emotion by talking about how much I missed O’Connor. I was afraid I’d spend the morning blubbering into my breakfast cereal. I tried to make an effort at light conversation; when I failed to carry that off, I settled for being quiet.
Throughout breakfast and the drive to work, Lydia didn’t try to force me to confess my mood or the cause of it. If I had been on better emotional footing, I would have been grateful for it; as it was, I felt bad about not talking to her. I wondered if she regretted taking in such a brooding boarder.
“Lydia,” I said as she pulled into a parking space at the newspaper, “I don’t know how long all of this will go on. Maybe I should try to figure out some long-term arrangements.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to put a strain on our friendship. Maybe I should look for a place of my own.”
“Irene,” she said, giving me the exact same look that Sister Joseph used to give me when I had misbehaved in third grade, “relax. We’ve been friends over a long period of time. We survived both Catholic school and being roommates in college, and we’re still friends. So we’ll be okay. Not another word on the subject.”
“But if I start to bother you-”
“Irene.”
Even Sister Joseph was never so exasperated with me. “Yes?” I asked meekly.
“I know what’s wrong with you this morning. I don’t like thinking back on it either. But there are fifty-two Sundays every year and we can’t just fall apart on every one of them. So let’s deal with it like good little workaholics. Get out of the car.”
So I shut up and we walked into the building together. Once there, we went our separate ways; Lydia went to work at the City Desk, I went to the morgue. I checked out the same roll I had looked over before, and threaded it through the machine.
A little bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, I tried to concentrate on the microfilm images on the small screen before me. I found the June 18, 1955, issue again, with its story of Jennifer Owens’s murder. It struck me that I was reading the article on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the night she was murdered.
The June 21, 1955, issue had the story of Blanche Woolsey’s accident. Finally I came to the June 26 issue, with its coverage of the Sheffield-Hollingsworth wedding.
I paid closer attention to it now. Elinor wore an ornate wedding gown; the young woman in the photos looked as self-assured at twenty-two as she did today. The years had not done much to change her. Was it my imagination, or did Andrew Hollingsworth look nervous? Of course, many bridegrooms do.
The article talked of family, friends, and attendees. The guest list read like the blue book of Las Piernas. The groom’s family had arrived from Boston, Massachusetts. So Andrew had merely chosen a warm climate for his undergraduate work, and returned to his local neighborhood for his law degree.
Suddenly, I came across a paragraph that riveted my attention. It told of how the bride and groom had met. “Richard Longren, Las Piernas City Councilman, proudly took credit for introducing the happy couple to one another.” Apparently, Longren and Hollingsworth had been fraternity brothers at ASU. Longren was three years ahead of Hollingsworth, but they had been good friends. Hollingsworth came out to visit Longren in Las Piernas one summer vacation before law school.
I combined what I read on the microfilm with stories I had heard from O’Connor over the years, or knew from growing up in Las Piernas. The Longrens were in the same social circles as the Sheffields, at least on the outer orbits, since the Sheffields were a circle of their own. I remembered hearing that Richard Longren had all but ruined his father’s once very successful lumber business. Evidently his political ambitions had taken precedence.
The gist of the microfilm story was that Longren had taken his old pal Andrew Hollingsworth out to some fancy to-do at the Sheffield place. Andrew met Elinor, and, as they say, the rest is history. She waited for his graduation from Harvard, but persuaded Daddy Sheffield to make sure Andrew could clerk wherever he wanted to during summer breaks. Andrew knew a good deal when he saw one.
I returned the microfilm. I walked upstairs to the newsroom and sat at O’Connor’s desk. I needed time to think.
Both Richard Longren and Andrew Hollingsworth had gone to ASU. I wondered if Elaine Owens Tannehill had attended ASU as well. If she had, then that might provide some kind of connection between one or both of the two men and Jennifer Owens. I picked up the phone and called Arizona information. I asked for the number for the Owenses, but it was unlisted. I hung up and thought for a while. I called information again, with success this time, when I asked for the numbers of Rachel Giocopazzi and the Phoenix Police.
I tried Rachel at home first. She answered on the second ring with a terse “Giocopazzi.”
“Rachel? Irene Kelly.”
“Oh, Irene! For a minute I thought those bastards were gonna call me in on a Sunday. First day off I’ve had in the last nine days. So how are you doing, kid?”
“I’m doing a lot better than the last time you saw me. I guess you know the guy who killed Elaine Tannehill is dead.”