“So what are your plans for the holidays?” I asked her.

“Guy is going to spend them with me and my mom. You know that Rachel is coming out to spend Christmas with Pete, right?”

I nodded. Guy St. Germain had been dating Lydia since the summer, and Frank’s partner had been seeing as much of Rachel Giocopazzi, a Phoenix homicide detective, as he could manage between their work schedules and his fear of flying.

“Well, Rachel and I got this idea to do up a real Italian Christmas dinner,” Lydia went on. “It’s a two day affair. You get everybody together on Christmas Eve and eat nothing but meatless dishes – fish is okay, but no meat. Like Fridays used to be. Then on Christmas you go for broke. I’m doing Christmas Eve, Rachel’s doing Christmas, and my mom will do all the breads and desserts – oro corona pane, dodoni, rum tortes, things like that. We’ll eat both meals at my place. We’ve invited Jack Fremont to join us.”

Thank God our food came. Lydia is a fantastic cook, and I was working up an appetite listening to her. So our friends would be together. I became aware of Frank watching me. Lydia kept describing her culinary plans until she suddenly noticed his silent study as well. She looked between us. “I wanted to invite you two, but Pete said you already had plans, Frank. Irene tells me you’re going to the mountains.”

I concentrated on eating my lunch.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s been the plan. But I’m not sure we’ll do it. We may stay down here.”

“What?” I said, putting my cheeseburger back on the plate.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, Irene. I know you agreed to go, but are you really pleased with the idea of going to the mountains, or are you just trying to make me happy?”

“I used to love the mountains.”

“That’s what I mean. Used to. Maybe we should stay home.”

“I don’t want to wimp out, Frank. I’ve got to keep facing the things I’ve become afraid of, get back into life.”

“There’s such a thing as pushing yourself too hard.”

Lydia has been a friend of mine since grade school, and she has seen me at high and low tide, but nevertheless there are some conversations I’d rather not have in front of her. I noticed her interest in this debate. I guess Frank saw me glancing over at her, because he said, “Let’s talk about it later tonight, okay?”

I nodded. I was a little quieter at lunch that day than usual, I suppose, but I had a lot of things to think through. As I swirled the same cold french fry in the same puddle of catsup half a dozen times, I wished that I could just think them through one at a time.

I SAW THANATOS’ LATEST MISSIVE as a declaration of war, so I spent the first part of that afternoon studying my enemy. I went over all the stories about the first murder, and I read the copies of the two letters again and again. I was pretty sure I knew what he was going to do and when. I just didn’t know who he was going to do it to, or why.

Lydia stopped by my desk and interrupted my musings. “You’re pulling on your lower lip,” she said. “What’s up?”

I put my hand down quickly. Beyond being chums for years, Lydia and I were roommates in college, so she knows most of my little idiosyncrasies. I don’t see this as a big plus.

“I was thinking about how it would feel to be very hungry and within sight of a bountiful feast, and yet unable to eat any of it.”

“Are you writing a Christmas piece on the homeless?”

I didn’t register what she meant for a moment. “No, no. I’m talking about Thanatos. I think he plans to kill someone by starving them to death within the sight of food.”

She gave me a look that was one part skepticism and two parts revulsion.

“I do, Lydia. What else could the reference to Tantalus mean? Nothing else in the letters lends itself to a method of murder.”

She shuddered. “It would be such a slow way to die. Not very practical as a means of murder, is it?”

“How practical is it to take someone’s body from a college campus and toss it into a pen full of peacocks? Besides, he’s hinted that it’s going to be a slow death. He says it’s already started and will come to an end in January.”

“Good Lord.”

“I wish to hell I could figure out who Thalia represents. Grace of Good Cheer. Who could that be? I’ve been pouring over the stuff on Edna Blaylock, trying to learn something from it. It’s maddening.”

“You think there’s a reason for these killings?”

“Yeah. You and I might not think his way of choosing his victims is rational, but I’ll bet he believes it’s perfectly logical.”

“But a history professor? Why? Do you think she had a secret past or something?”

“Hard to imagine. She fooled around with some students, so she wasn’t an angel. But other than that, she’s as solid as bedrock.” I read from my notes. “She was born in L.A., lived here in Las Piernas since she was about eight or nine years old. Her mother raised her; her father died in World War II. She went to Las Piernas College, then went on for a doctorate at UCLA. She wasn’t the most spectacular contributor to American historical scholarship, but she had been published in a few minor history journals. The article she was working on for the Journal of American History would have been an important feather in her cap.”

Lydia looked toward the City Desk, where Morry, the City Editor, was beckoning. “I’ve got to get back over there,” she said. She took a couple of hurried steps toward the City Desk, then stopped and turned back to me. “Do you think he might be a student or some other man she turned down?”

“Maybe.”

I watched her walk off. I thought about the first letter and the fact that whoever had killed Edna Blaylock not only knew her schedule, but knew how to sneak a body off campus. Maybe it was a former student or a faculty member. After all, the first letter had been mailed from the campus.

On the other hand, we had checked out the second envelope and figured out that it had been mailed from the downtown post office, not far from the Express.

Had Thanatos been down this way to find his next victim? Or had he been near the newspaper, watching me again?

I PICKED UP the phone and tried calling the one person left on my list of Dr. Blaylock’s former lovers: Steven Kincaid. As far as I knew, Kincaid had been Dr. Blaylock’s last lover; he was the only one who admitted still being involved with her at the time of her death.

The phone rang about five times before he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Kincaid?”

“Yes.”

“This is Irene Kelly with the Las Piernas News Express.”

He hung up in my ear.

I took it in stride. Certainly wasn’t the first time it had ever happened to me. Angry sources come with the territory. Before I could decide on my next move, the phone rang. It was Kincaid.

“I called to apologize, Miss Kelly. That was very rude of me. I don’t usually hang up on people. This has been a very difficult time for me. I’m not sure why I…” His voice faltered.

“It’s okay, Mr. Kincaid. I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do. The newspapers – I wasn’t very happy with what they said.”

“Let me assure you right off the bat that I’m not interested in adding anything more to what Mr. Baker has written about your relationship with Dr. Blaylock. I just thought you might be interested in trying to help out. I received another letter from Thanatos today.”

There was about a full minute’s silence. I knew he hadn’t hung up on me again, because I could hear him breathing. It was the kind of breathing you hear when someone is trying to bring themselves back under emotional control.

“I don’t know how I could possibly be of help,” he said, “but go ahead.”

I had already decided to try to meet him face-to-face. It’s much harder to walk away from a person than to hang up on a voice. “Look, why don’t we meet for a cup of coffee? I’ll buy.”