Read Online Sweet Dreams, Irene by Jan Burke - Free Book Online

Gillespie. She had disappeared from a city park, where she had been attending a children’s birthday party one Saturday afternoon in late September. Her body had been found in a trash bin in an industrial park a week later, now about three weeks ago. She had been sexually molested. Cause of death was strangulation.
    I closed the file with a shudder. Although Las Piernas was big enough to have its share of crime, including homicide, this type of case was rare. I didn’t need to read more of the file to know that although the case was being worked on actively, no suspect had been charged. The level of fear in the community, especially among people with small children of their own, was palpable. The pressure on the police was tremendous, but I didn’t think that was what bothered Frank. He had lived with that before. It was more likely that the very nature of this particular case had upset him.
    “Excuse me, Miss Kelly?”
    I know I must have jumped. When I managed to find my voice, I said, “What is it, Stacee?”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
    “I’m okay. What do you need?”
    “I just wanted to apologize. I wasn’t able to cover the coalition meeting last night.”
    In view of what I had just read, I couldn’t have cared less. “I know,” I said.
    “You know?”
    “Yes, Wrigley stopped me on the stairs to gloat over it.”
    “Oh.” Her eyes misted over.
    I wish I could tell you that I was moved, but I wasn’t; I was just angry. The day was going lousy and I just didn’t have patience. But I held my tongue, because I remembered my chant.
    Finally, she said, “Well, I apologize anyway. It won’t happen again.”
    “Why should I believe that?” I said, nasty in spite of myself.
    “I guess you don’t really have any reason to. I wanted to tell you that I learned a lesson—I really don’t think I want anything more to do with—well, I’ll just say Mr. Wrigley has made a first-class fool of me and I deserve it. If you’ll give me another chance, I won’t disappoint you.”
    I was too tired and frazzled to argue with her, and God knows I didn’t want her to sit there and confess all the lurid details of her liaison with Wrigley. “I’ll see what I can come up with for you. Are you here to do more research?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Good. Come by my desk later and we’ll talk it over.”
    She smiled a little and said, “Thank you, Miss Kelly.”
    I logged off the computer and headed back to my desk. Compared to the pain the Gillespies were living with, I guessed I could cope with my little aches. I remembered O’Connor quoting something to me once. “Irene,” he said, “if everyone in the world could put all of their troubles in a basket, we’d each still want to pick our own problems back out of it.”
    I’d take mine over the Gillespies’ any day.

8
    A S I WALKED BACK into the newsroom, I could feel some tension, but no one came anywhere near me. I sat down at my desk and tried to shake off the cloud of depression that threatened to settle on me. There were three phone message slips waiting for me. The first was from a Julie Montgomery. No message, no number—would call back later. Monty Montgomery’s wife was named Nina. He had three daughters and a son. I pulled up a file on him on the computer. Yes, one of the daughters was named Julie.
    The second was from Jacob Henderson. Will call back later.
    The third was from Sammy Garden. Same routine.
    Damn. While I was in the morgue listening to Stacee, half of Las Piernas High School was trying to get in touch with me.
    I wondered if Sammy had tried to reach me at home. I’d been too distracted that morning to check my messages. I called my home number and entered the code to get the machine to play back to me.
    “Miss Kelly? Are you there?” The voice on the tape sounded frightened. “This is Sammy. Look, I’ve got to talk to you. I’m leaving the shelter. Something awful has happened. I’ve got to go. I’ll