Free Dear Irene by Jan Burke Page B

very good to me. We wanted a future together… but now… God, now I’m just lost.”
    He was starting to lose control again. I didn’t want to gratify the base curiosity of the people around us by having him break down in the restaurant, so I told him about the second letter from Thanatos. He knew all of the mythology, so at least I didn’t have to cover that again. It was a good distraction. For a few moments he thought about the letter more than about the loss of E.J. Blaylock.
    His brows furrowed. “It sounds like he’s starving someone to death.”
    “My theory exactly,” I said, noticing the carrot cake was no longer appealing.
    “But you have no clues as to who Thalia represents?”
    “None. But maybe if you tell me about Dr. Blaylock, I can begin to get an idea or two.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “What do you know of her past?”
    “Starting when?”
    “As early as possible. Whatever you know.”
    “Well, let’s see. She was born in Los Angeles in about 1936. She never really knew her dad; he was a sailor who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was at the end of 1941, so she would have been about five years old when he died.
    “Her mother got a job in an aircraft factory — Mercury Aircraft. She was sort of a Rosie the Riveter, I guess. She got transferred down here near the end of the war. Mercury had two factories in Southern California then. Now it just has the original plant, the one in Las Piernas.”
    I made notes, not sure any of what he told me would help. I found myself circling the word “Mercury.” After receiving the letters from Thanatos, names and words associated with mythology often caught my attention. They were everywhere. Among other things, Mercury had lent his name to a planet, an element, an automaker, and a dime. I reminded myself that at this rate, if E.J. Blaylock had ever eaten a Mars bar, laughed at Mickey Mouse’s dog, suffered insomnia, or used a mnemonic device, it was all going to be Greek (or Roman) to me.
    “That’s how E.J. first came to Las Piernas,” Steven was saying. “I don’t know too much more about her childhood, just that she was always good in school. She loved history. She got straight A’s in every history class she took, even through college and grad school. She got into Las Piernas College on a scholarship. She went on to UCLA for her doctorate. She met a man there and married him.”
    “Hold on a minute — she was married?”
    “Briefly. It lasted less than a year. James, I think his name was. She went back to her maiden name, and has — had — used it ever since.”
    “She ever tell you why the marriage broke up?”
    “Not really, just said it had been a case of two people doing what was expected of them and then learning it was a mistake. No details. To be honest, she never talked much about the men in her past, which was fine with me.”
    “She didn’t stay in Los Angeles?”
    “No. After she graduated, she had several offers to teach, but she took a job here in Las Piernas so that she could take care of her mother. Her mother was ill by that time. Some kind of lung disease. She had been a heavy smoker and worked around some toxic chemicals, but there was no way to know which gave her the problem, which was… let’s see…” He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Emphysema, maybe? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten. Anyway, they lived together for about fifteen years. E.J. took care of her the whole time. Her mother died about ten years ago.”
    “So, in about 1980?”
    “Somewhere around there. I guess E.J. sort of came alive then. I don’t mean to say she had never dated or was some kind of shrinking violet under her mother’s thumb. She loved teaching and enjoyed being with students; she was a very popular instructor. She really went out of her way to try to get students excited about history.”
    “So how did she ‘come alive’?”
    “E.J. just had less of a load to carry. She told