Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp (23 page)

“Come in, Ana,” Detective Milford
said. It was an order rather than an invitation. When I was seated,
he continued. “We have just a few more things we’d like to clear
up. First of all, let me explain that DuWayne has been charged as
an accessory in Angelica’s murder, due to his involvement in
covering it up. However, his voluntary surrender and cooperation in
capturing Larry Louama and the Ybarras, and breaking up the drug
trade in both Forest and Sturgeon Counties should help reduce his
sentence. We think he can help us some more, today.”

I looked at Star and Sunny. This must
have been an awful lot for them to process on top of losing their
mother. However, they seemed to be holding up all right.

Milford continued, extending a hand in
the direction of the young man. “This is Special Agent Jeremy
Powers of the FBI.”

“FBI! What is it that you want me
for?” I asked in consternation.

“How carefully did you look at the
wrist band the dog brought to you, which led to finding Angelica’s
body.”

“Not very well. It was covered with
mud and dog spit, and then the girls took it. They gave it to
you.”

“So you didn’t make any marks on
it?”

“Marks?”

“Yes. Did you scratch any words or
numbers on it, for example?”

“No. Why would I do that? What are you
talking about? It had the factory-carved words about their shared
birthday. That’s all.”

“Well, no, you’re wrong about that.” I
remembered how rough the band had felt, but that was just because
of the sandy mud, I thought.

I looked around at the people present.
I had no idea what was going on. “Could someone explain to me
what’s happening here? Have I done something wrong?”

Milford nodded at Powers, and the
agent took up the story. His voice was higher than I expected, but
he was concise. “Larry Louama has long been suspected of many
crimes which could never be proven. We think Angelica was killed
because she could link him to the murder of J. Everett Bailey. What
do you know about that?”

“I heard that he was killed in his
motel, that’s all. I still don’t see how I can help. I didn’t live
here back then. You do know that, right?”

“Please just listen,” Milford said.
“The only people who handled that bracelet are in this room, plus
DuWayne, who may have some prior knowledge of what we are trying to
tell you.”

Powers continued. “If we can show that
Louama killed J. Everett Bailey, we can also link him to several
other murders in Illinois through forensic evidence from the
bullets.” He turned to DuWayne. “Did Angelica ever talk to you
about a place where she might have kept important papers, pictures,
notes? Anything like that?”

“No,” DuWayne answered, shaking his
head. “I’m the last person she would’ve told. She wanted to get out
of dealing drugs. She said she didn’t care if we were poor. She
wanted to have an honest job, and raise the girls the way she’d
been brought up. Back then, I wouldn’t listen to her.” He looked at
Star and Sunny and rested his head in his right hand. “I’m so
sorry.”

Corliss moved uneasily in his chair.
The girls stared at the floor, but no one was crying. There was an
awkward silence.

Detective Milford’s voice
drilled through the pain in the room. “All right, I’ve asked all of
you about handling the bracelet, and no one added any words, or saw
anything other than...” He paused and pulled some things out of an
expanding file and laid them on the table. He looked at the top
paper. “...
Sunny and Star - Happy
Birthdays – Mommy Angel
?”

I said, “No.” The girls shook their
heads.

“Please respond audibly,” Milford
said.

“No, I didn’t,” Star answered in an
even voice. “You have to tell him you didn’t, Sunny.”

“I didn’t do anything except hold on
to it until you took it away.” She glared at Milford.

“I only had it for a few seconds when
you showed it to me,” Len added.

“There was something scratched on the
inside of the bracelet, which we found when it was thoroughly
cleaned,” Milford said. “Do the numbers thirteen, thirty-five, and
seven mean anything to anyone?”

Practically in unison, we all said,
“No.”

“What if the numbers were in a series,
with dashes between them, like a code?”

I could feel the blood draining from
my face, and I whispered, “The tackle box under the
bridge!”

Chapter 34

All eyes snapped to me. It was obvious
no one had expected me to have the answer. I hadn’t expected it
myself.

“Cora, Cora Baker Caulfield, and I
were looking at some old photos. We thought we saw something hidden
under Hammer Bridge, so just for fun we went looking for it. We
found a small metal tackle box with a padlock on it. The kind kids
use on school lockers. They have three-number
combinations...”

“Is it at your house?” Powers cut in.
His high voice had become almost a squeak.

“No, Cora has it. We didn’t try to
open it. We had no idea it had anything to do with this
case.”

“Can we get her here?” Powers asked of
Milford, hardly taking a breath.

“May I make a suggestion?” I asked.
All heads turned in my direction. “My dog, well, my cousin’s dog
actually, is in my car. He needs to be let out. Mr. Leonard is very
uncomfortable in these chairs, and we are all hungry and thirsty.
Can’t this wait until after lunch? Maybe Cora would let us come to
her place where there are more comfortable seats, and then we could
see if these numbers open the lock on the box.”

Special Agent Powers hesitated a
moment and then nodded. “I presume you have some sort of restaurant
in your little burg that could seat us?”

“The Pine Tree is right in town,”
DuWayne’s lawyer said evenly. It was the first time he’d spoken.
“It’s quaint, but the food is good. I’ve tried most of the menu in
the past few days.”

Within fifteen minutes Cora had been
called, and we were told she agreed to arrange her living room for
a meeting there in an hour. She said she had the box, safe and
sound.

No one had very much to say during
lunch, but afterwards Sunny came and smiled up at me. “Thanks, I
was really hungry,” she said.

“We all were, but I was most concerned
about your Grandpa.”

“I know, the policemen like to solve
things, but they don’t pay much attention to other people when they
want something done.” I thought Sunny summed it up quite
well.

We made our own parade to Cora’s
house. I took my Jeep and the girls rode with me, because they
wanted to hug and pet Paddy, who did not mind the attention one
little bit. Corliss went with Detective Milford. DuWayne and his
lawyer went in another car. That made me think DuWayne must already
be released on bond, since he wasn’t in handcuffs or in the
presence of an officer. The FBI man drove his own vehicle. I knew
we’d have to park along the road. There wasn’t nearly enough room
for everyone to get into Cora’s yard.

I hadn’t been allowed to speak with
her, but I was hoping Cora would figure out some of what might be
happening. She did not disappoint, and she must have summoned the
energy of a whirlwind to prepare her living room for us. As we
filed in I could see there were no boxes filled with future museum
exhibits in the middle of the room. They’d been pushed back against
the floral-papered walls. She’d brought in the kitchen chairs and
placed them between the couch and other chairs. I knew she had a
recliner, and that’s why I’d suggested going to her place. It was
the only kind of seating that didn’t hurt Len’s back.

In the middle of the room, she’d
opened up one of her folding work tables, and she had laid out the
photos we’d been looking at when we first noticed the box. At the
far end of the white table sat the tackle box itself.

I chose one of the kitchen chairs.
Paddy was welcome here, so he came in too and sat between Sunny and
me. He remained alert; he seemed to understand something
interesting was about to happen. We got seated and made
introductions for Cora’s benefit. I learned that DuWayne’s lawyer
was X.E. Jones, JD, of Chicago. Cora took charge. I was surprised
the law officers let her, but despite her tiny frame she commanded
the room like a teacher in a classroom. She explained how we had
noticed the difference in the bridge photos and had gone in search
of the reason why. Star was less interested in the box and more
interested in the picnic photos showing her mother as a small
child.

Cora’s build-up was perfect. At last
she handed the box to Detective Milford and said, “Based on what
you told me on the phone, I believe you may be able to open this,
and solve one more piece of this mystery.”

I hoped she hadn’t overdone it. We
really had no idea what was in the box.

Milford and Powers both slipped on
latex gloves, but it was the Detective who took the knob on the
lock in his big fingers and rotated it. We could hear the mechanism
clicking. It sounded gritty and seemed to stick a little, but the
detective worked it back and forth, and finally spun the dial a few
times. I think we each held our breath as he slowed the rotation
and stopped at a number. I remembered it was thirteen. I tried to
recall how those locks worked. You had to go back past zero to the
next number, I thought. Milford moved the dial counterclockwise a
whole turn. Thirty-five. Then just a short ways to the right, to
seven. Click.

The room was so quiet we all heard the
lock open. Milford slipped it out of the hasp, and lifted the lid.
He pulled out a small brown notebook with a rubber band around it.
When he tried to remove the band it broke and fell to the floor,
but the book itself was in good shape. The metal box had protected
it from animals and most of the effects of the weather. We could
see that much, but I saw no reactions to the book. All faces were
blank; all except DuWayne’s. I thought I saw a flicker of
recognition, but then his expression became inscrutable once
more.

Milford opened the book and slowly
flipped some of the pages. Then, wordlessly, he handed it to
Powers.

Powers pored over the pages. A small
smile began to play around the corners of his mouth. With every
page he turned, his smile widened. At last he lifted his
head.

“This book contains a complete diary
of drug deliveries over a period of time between 1998 and 2004.
Apparently, Angelica was acting as something of an accountant.
There are notes of dates, places of delivery, kinds and quantities
of drugs. Best of all, the person who was the courier for each
delivery signed the book.”

I was shocked. “Why would drug dealers
do that?”

DuWayne answered the question. “We
were a tight group, but Larry himself insisted on it. He was so
paranoid about getting cheated by one of us that he made us sign in
and out. But after Angelica wanted out, she refused to keep the
book any more. I thought she gave it to Larry.”

“No wonder he came back here,” Milford
said, sounding extremely pleased. “He needed to find this
notebook.”

“Bailey was killed September 12,
2003.” Powers said. “Let me read that entry.”

The agent flipped through a few more
pages, and his smile became predatory. “Fifteen pounds marijuana,
two kilos cocaine, picked up at the Sleep Lodge. The entry is
signed Larry Louama. We got him.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Cora said.
“But why did you bring all these people out here on the unlikely
chance you might find this evidence?”

“Because I was hoping to be able to
say this.” Powers lifted his head and looked at Star and Sunny. He
practically squeaked, “For the person or heirs, there is a $30,000
reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer of
J. Everett Bailey.”

Sunny slipped from her chair and flung
her arms around the big red dog by her side. I’m sure Paddy was
smiling.

Chapter 35

The lazy warmth of July drifted into
the humid heat of August. Larry Louama was charged with the murder
of J. Everett Bailey, and Juanita Ybarra for Angelica’s murder.
Although she kept accusing Larry and Pablo of the crime, she was
the knife expert, and the autopsy had officially concluded that
Angelica had most probably died from being stabbed, due to those
knife marks on the ribs. Larry and Pablo were charged as
accessories, and the drugs found at the old house led to still more
charges.

DuWayne’s case had been handled
speedily, and he was already in the State Prison where he would
spend the next two years. He had promised Star he’d be on his best
behavior and be out in time to see her graduate from high
school.

“You’d better be!” she had said. I
knew she really hoped he could be there for her.

The reward money was delivered, in the
form of a cashier’s check, to Misses Star and Sunny Leonard. I saw
the check myself, because Len asked me to go with them all to the
bank to make the deposit. I had wondered which last name the girls
used. Len explained that although they cared for their dad, when he
and Becky had gained custody the girls chose to become
Leonards.