The Shining Girls A Novel

Kirby

27 AUGUST 1992

Kirby has been running the ad the first Saturday of every month, and every Thursday she clears out the mailbox. Sometimes there are only one or two. The most she got in one month was sixteen and a half, if you count the postcard scrawled with obscenities.

If Dan’s in town, she goes to his place so they can go over them together. Today he’s making her catfish and mash potatoes, bustling round his bachelor’s kitchen while she goes through the haul.

The first mission of any mail day is to sort the replies into categories: sad but not useful, possibly interesting, and cranks.

A lot of them are heartbreaking. Like the one from a man whose sister had been shot. Eight pages, double-sided, written by hand, detailing how she caught a stray bullet in a drive-by. The only unusual object at the scene wasn’t exactly out of place. Bullet casings.

Some of them are borderline. The woman who saw her mother’s spirit lingering after a burglary gone wrong, to make sure to tell her to feed the cat. The boyfriend who blamed himself – if he’d just let the muggers take his watch, the gun wouldn’t have gone off, she’d still be alive, and now he sees the same watch everywhere. In magazines and shop windows and billboard advertisements and on other people’s wrists. Do you think it’s God’s way of punishing me? he wrote.

Kirby deals with these and the others that are clearly non-starters by sending back a brief and sincere letter thanking them for taking the time to write, and including information on free counseling and local victim support groups that Chet dug up for her.

In all these months, only two seemed worth following up on. A girl stabbed outside a nightclub, who was found with an antique Russian cross around her neck. But the letter was from her Russian mobster boyfriend, who wanted Kirby to negotiate with the police on his behalf to get it back, because it was his mother’s, and he couldn’t exactly approach them directly given that it was his business dealings that got her killed in the first place.

The other was a teenage boy (wide net, she thought to herself at the time) found in a tunnel where the skater kids hung out, beaten to death, with a lead toy soldier inserted in his mouth. The parents were distraught, sitting in their living room on a couch with a Peruvian throw over it, their hands clasped together as if their fingers had fused, asking if she had answers for them. Please, that’s all they wanted. Why? What did he do to deserve this? It was excruciating.

‘Any pictures from J today?’ Dan says, looking over her shoulder. J is their regular, who sends photographs of artfully arranged death scenes of a girl with heavy kohl make-up and red hair. She could be either J herself, if you assumed J was a woman, or J’s girlfriend. Drowned in a fishpond in a floaty white dress with her hair drifting out around her. Dead in a black lace number with elbow-length gloves, clutching a white rose in a pool of blood that looked suspiciously like paint.

Today’s picture in the black envelope is of J sitting in a leather chair with her legs spread, in hold-up stockings and army boots, with her head tilted back and a spatter of red on the wall behind her, a revolver dangling from her limp fingers with perfectly manicured nails.

‘I bet you it’s an art student,’ Kirby complains. They never reply to J. And yet she keeps sending the kinky pictures.

‘Better than film students,’ Dan says, casually, filleting the fish.

‘It’s still killing you, isn’t it?’ she grins.

‘What?’

‘If I slept with him.’

‘Of course you did. He was your first love. Not exactly a news flash, kiddo.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘None of my business,’ he shrugs, like it’s nothing, which gets to her, quite a lot, if she is honest with herself.

‘All right. I won’t tell you then.’

‘I still don’t think you should do a documentary.’

‘Are you kidding? I already turned down Oprah.’

‘Ow, shit!’ he says, burning himself on the steam as he drains the potatoes. ‘Seriously? I didn’t know that.’

‘My mom did. I was still in the hospital. She got hectic with journalists. She said they were all a*sholes, either they were basically breaking into my hospital room to get an interview, or they never called her back.’

‘Ah,’ Dan says, feeling guilty.

‘We had a lot of talk shows wanting me to come on. But it felt so voyeuristic. You know? It was part of why I had to take off. Just get away from all of that.’

‘I can understand.’

‘So don’t worry. I told Fred where to shove his documentary.’

Kirby holds a peach envelope up to her nose. ‘This one even smells good. That has to be a bad sign, right?’

‘Hope you’re not going to say the same thing about my cooking.’

Kirby snickers and tears open the envelope. the return address reads: St Helen’s Retirement Village. She pulls out two pages of old-fashioned stationery. The writing goes over the front and back of both pages. ‘Well, read it,’ Dan says, mashing the potatoes. He takes a particular pride in getting all the lumps out.

Dear Mr KM,

This is a peculiar letter to find myself writing and I confess that I hesitated, but your (rather obtuse) advertisement in the newspaper demands a response because it ties in with a family mystery that I have long been obsessed with even if it falls outside of your specified time-frame.

It feels a little alarming to be sharing this information with you when I have no idea of what your intentions are. What was the purpose of your ad? Academic or some morbid curiosity? Are you a detective with the Chicago PD or a conman who trades on people’s hurt for whatever satisfaction it gives you?

I’ll spare you further speculation because, I suppose, this is an opportunity that, like all opportunities, carries its own risk, but I trust that once you have read this, you will reply, if only to clarify your interest in this subject.

My name is Nella Owusu, nee Jordan. My father and mother were both killed during World War Two, he abroad in the course of duty, she in Seneca, in a horrifying unsolved murder in the winter of 1943.

My siblings – we were moved around between various orphanages and foster homes, but in adulthood were able to reconnect – think that I am inappropriately absorbed with this. But I was the oldest. I remember her best.

Your ad specified that you were particularly interested in ‘out of place artifacts’.

Well, when my mother’s body was consigned to the earth and the possessions found on her body released to us, the ‘artifacts’ included a baseball card.

I mention this because my mother had no interest in the game. I cannot imagine why she would possibly have had a card on her person at the time of her death.

We can discuss this further, if you can tell me more about the nature of your inquiry, and if I am up to it. I must warn you that I have been unwell of late.

I trust that you will reply and not keep me guessing as to your motive. Kind regards,

N. Owusu

‘Crank file,’ Dan declares, setting the plate down in front of her on the coffee table.

‘I don’t know. I think it might be worth checking out. ‘If you’re bored, I can find you stuff to do. I need background for the St Louis game coming up.’

‘Actually, I was thinking about trying to write something about all this. Call it the Murder Diaries.’

‘Sun-Times would never run it.’

‘No, but maybe a zine would. The Lumpen Times or Steve Albini Thinks We Suck.’

‘Sometimes you speak a foreign language,’ Dan says, through a mouthful of food.

‘Get with the program, dude,’ she shrugs, pitch-perfect Bart Simpson.

‘Do. You. Speak. English?’ Dan shouts in the manner of tourists traveling abroad.

‘Small press alternative magazines.’

‘Oh, that reminds me. Talking about not-so-small and alternative. Chet asked me to pass this on. He said he knows no one got stabbed, but he says you’re the only other person in the newsroom who would appreciate the weirdness.’ He goes to get a cutting out of his battered leather briefcase. It’s barely more than a line item.

DRUG BUST TURNS UP OLD-FASHIONED CASH

Englewood: A police raid on a local drug den turned up more than crack vials and caps of heroin. Several handguns were recovered from the apartment of Toneel Roberts, a known drug dealer, as well as $600 in expired currency dating back to 1950, originally called Silver Certificates. The bills can be easily identified by the blue seal on the front. Police have speculated that the money most likely came from an old stash and have warned local business owners that it is not legal tender.

‘That’s really sweet of him,’ she says and means it.

‘You know, when you’ve wrapped up your degree, there’s a chance I could get you a real job with the paper,’ Dan offers. ‘Maybe even in lifestyle, if that’s where you wanted to be.’

‘That’s really sweet of you, Dan Velasquez.’

He blushes and looks down at his fork with great purpose. ‘Assuming you don’t want to go to the Trib or one of those underground zine things.’

‘I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘Yeah, well, best you start. You’re going to crack the case and then what are you going to do?’

But she can tell by the way he says it that he doesn’t believe it’ll ever happen.

‘The fish is lovely,’ she says.