Nothing Lost (12 page)

It was the kind of cute factoid the media loved.

J.J. did not believe it for a second.

Maurice the Adamantine. Maurice the Unadaptable. They were like the names of medieval popes. Except Maurice Dodd did not like Catholics all that much. Only slightly more than he liked Jews. No wonder he was such a favorite of the Worm's. Patsy Feiffer now trailed Maurice around the courthouse, looking like a mix-and-match pastel cocker spaniel. Maurice had selected Patsy to be his second chair. Time for that girl to move up, he had told J.J. She's too smart to keep on doing scutwork. Imagine being patronized by Maurice Dodd, J.J. thought. He did not tell Maurice that Patsy was doing scutwork because that was all she was good at. Such airs, Allie said. She acts like she's Sandra Day O'Connor all of a sudden. Waiting for the White House to call. You think Maurice is banging her, J.J.? Slapping that stump across her tiny tits? Maybe in that utility closet, you remember the one. On the fifth floor.

Someday, Allie, you are going to go too far.

Don't count on it, J.J.

In his new grandeur, Maurice Dodd had vehemently objected to Ellen Tracy's decision to let
Courthouse Square
cover the trial live. Cameras in the courtroom will turn the proceedings into “a circus sideshow, O.J. in Loomis County,” he told the Cap City Herald. J.J. was sure that what really bothered him was not the cameras but the kick in the slats he had received from Alicia Barbara when she wondered why a journeyman prosecutor was in charge of the case. He should have jollied her up, J.J. thought. She was a lesbian, however, and sexual deviation was another category on Maurice Dodd's Does Not Fly list. A pervert, he had called her. That was also how he had referred to Max Cline when Max was his boss. As good a reason as any for Max to tell him the fragging story. A couple of things to remember about Alicia Barbara, other than that she was gay. The accent on her last name was on the second syllable, Bar-
bare
-a, and she took pains to correct your ass if you pronounced it Barbara, as in Santa Barbara. She also wanted in the worst way to get off cable and onto network, and she figured the only way she could do it, considering the not-too-well-kept secret of her sexual orientation, was to be the hard-charging bitch of the airwaves. She worked non-stop, was mean as a snake, tapped off-the-wall and sometimes surprisingly reliable sources, and was probably less inaccurate than anyone else J.J. ever met on the beat, which he guessed fell into the category of left-handed compliment. Maurice Dodd's objection over allowing
Courthouse Square
into the courtroom made an implicit point that J.J. thought did not need to be made: He was as dumb as a post, as well as adamantine, and the proof of it was that he had antagonized Tracy from the get-go, not something you want to do with a trial judge, however open-and-shut the case may appear to be. “My name is Tracy, not Ito, Mr. Dodd,” Ellen told him in open court, as reported in both the Cap City
Herald
and the Kiowa
Times-Ledger,
“and it would be your advantage to remember that.”

“I beg the court's pardon” is what Maurice should have said, but he didn't, because he was too thick to realize that a judge might not wish, even inferentially, to be compared with Lance Ito. The antagonism of the judge would more than counteract the sympathy he received from his empty sleeve. “No bargains, no deals,” he told
The New York Times.
Another dumb thing. “We'll do what we have to do” is what he should have said. But then Maurice isn't asking your advice, is he? J.J. said to himself. The fact was, he didn't think the case against Gover and Lajoie was all that hot. There were no witnesses, the gun that had blown a hole in the back of Edgar Parlance's head hadn't been found, nor the pliers that ripped out his tongue and peeled the skin from his thighs. J.J. ran over all the arguments in his mind. Never publicly. He would never do anything that would seem to undercut Maurice Dodd. Who was looking for any reason to complain to the Worm. No word. No gesture. It's going well, he told Poppy when she called. Maurice is doing a bang-up job. “Bang-up” was not a word he normally used. He's putting his ducks in a row. Putting his ducks in a row, Allie had said in elaborate disbelief.

There're too many pieces missing, Allie said. He needs to cut a deal. Zip it, J.J. said. Have one of them roll over on the other, Allie continued as if he had not spoken. Take the dime. I said zip it, J.J. repeated. Still, he thought, it's a case I'd rather prosecute than defend. A jury would be looking to convict, especially with all the press coverage, and with the jurors' chance for their fifteen minutes of celebrity, all those long thoughts and softball questions on the steps of the Loomis County Courthouse. But Allie was right. It would have been easier to prosecute if one of the accused flipped and testified against his partner. LWOPP for the flipper, the death penalty for the other. The likeliest to rat was Gover, since it was Lajoie's pickup with its FUCK THE TELEPHONE COMPANY bumper sticker that the witness had seen making tracks down County Road 21 outside of Regent the night of the murder. Gover was a sweetheart, a hyperactive slow learner who would use whatever weapon he could get his hands on—hammer, pencil, knife—to beat up and injure other children in school. He had done one-to-three for road rage after he got drunk, beat up his girlfriend, threw her and her daughter (not by him) out of the car, and drove off. Then he had decided to pound on her again, backed up full speed, and ran over the little girl. She was fifteen months old.

A tragic accident was the defense his court-appointed lawyer put forward.

Involuntary manslaughter the jury ruled.

Three years.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF LOOMIS COUNTY,
SOUTH MIDLAND
AGREEMENT

 

The State of South Midland agrees not to pursue the death penalty at the sentencing of Bryant William Gover. The State will not present any evidence of any aggravating circumstances in connection with Mr. Gover's sentencing.

All other pending charges against Mr. Gover will be dismissed without prejudice and will not be refiled except in the event of noncompliance with this agreement.

Mr. Gover will agree to testify against Duane NMI Lajoie when requested to do so by the State. He will give complete and truthful testimony and answer all prosecution inquiries to the best of his ability.

Bryant William Gover will be sentenced for the killing after the sentencing of Duane NMI Lajoie.

For the safety of the Defendant and as soon as is practicable, the State of South Midland will assist and make all reasonable efforts to have Mr. Gover transferred to an institution in another state.

Maurice Dodd was defensive about the plea deal he gave Bryant Gover. LWOPP was “no bargain,” he told the Kiowa
Times-Ledger.
“Life without possibility of parole is a life without sunlight, a life without hope,” he told the Cap City
Herald.
“If that's your idea of a deal, it's not mine,” he told Alicia Barbara. “Are we a little testy?” she had retorted live on
Courthouse Square.
“Mr. Gover's testimony is going to strap Duane Lajoie into the electric chair, and I will be there to applaud,” Maurice told Channel 3, Channel 8, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and
The New York Times.

Except he would not be there to applaud.

Dodd Death Raises Stakes in Lajoie Trial
By ALICIA BARBARA
WEB POSTED 16:42 CDT

 

Capital City, SM (Courthouse Square)—South Midland Attorney General Jerrold (“Gerry”) Wormwold will be the principal speaker Friday at the funeral of Maurice Dodd, the career prosecutor in the Attorney General's office who died suddenly yesterday of anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee.

Dodd, 57, was scheduled to present the state's case against Duane Lajoie, the ex-convict accused of murdering Edgar Parlance in a grisly dismemberment killing that riveted the nation last Thanksgiving weekend.

Dodd was an avid gardener, in spite of having lost an arm in the Vietnam War, and cultivated roses in a backyard greenhouse at his home here.

His wife, Ana, said he had never been allergic to bee stings prior to this incident.

Anaphylactic shock closes the air passages and can cause cardiovascular collapse if not treated immediately with antitoxins. When Dodd did not appear for dinner, his wife went to the greenhouse, where she found her husband lying unconscious.

Paramedics said Dodd was dead on arrival at University Hospital.

The chief witness against Lajoie is expected to be Bryant Gover, who was with him the night of the Parlance murder. In a plea deal negotiated by Dodd, Gover will escape the death penalty in return for his testimony. Sources close to the case say that Gover will claim that Lajoie was solely responsible for the murder and threatened to kill him if he did not participate.

Gover's provisional sentence of life without the possibility of parole—or LWOPP, as it is known in legal circles—is contingent on his not recanting the story he told Dodd and co-prosecutor Patsy Feiffer. If he recants, the state can ask the judge to reopen the penalty phase of his case.

Final sentencing will be delayed until the conclusion of the Lajoie trial to ensure that Gover satisfies the terms of his sentencing agreement.

Wormwold has not indicated whom he will appoint to replace Dodd as lead prosecutor. The most likely candidate is Deputy Attorney General J.J. McClure. McClure's wife, Congresswoman Sonora (“Poppy”) McClure, is expected to challenge Wormwold for the Republican gubernatorial nomination this summer.

The rivalry between the two prospective political candidates complicates Wormwold's choice, since he passed over prosecutor McClure when the case was first filed.

Wormwold denied that political considerations influenced his choice of Dodd.

“We'll do what we have to do,” J.J. McClure told Alicia Barbara on the
Courthouse Square Nightly Wrap-up,
when she asked what facts not currently known he might present in the state's case against Duane Lajoie.

CHAPTER ONE

There is always a moment when, even if doubt is not entirely laid away, you go with your instinct.

A moment usually inconsequential, except that it remains glued to your memory.

This was that moment with Teresa.

That day early in February when we first met.

Remember earlier when I said I had lost four front teeth playing rugby back in my days in the A.G.'s office. Establishing my butch credentials. I had a bridge made, and after it was installed I discovered I could use the bridge to some effect with strangers, or when I was examining or cross-examining witnesses. I would snap it out with my tongue, balance it on my lower lip, and after a moment or so push it back into place. I wanted to see how people reacted to the gap in my mouth, whether they looked away or went off message on whatever story they were trying to spin.

Of course I did it to Teresa.

She did not take her eyes off me.

I waited.

“Bad dentistry?” she said finally. “Or a stagnant genetic pool?”

“I think he should fry,” I said.

“You don't equivocate.”

“He skinned somebody alive. That takes work. You really have to mean it. It's not like you lose your temper and clip somebody. It's not like you stick up a 7-Eleven or jack a car and get scared and start blasting. It's not like you knock up someone, you've already got a wife, maybe two, you never got divorced, what's the big deal about bigamy, you think whacking the new girl will solve the problem. It's not even you want to see what it feels like, or if it gives you wood.” I was trying too hard, and she knew it, but she played along, taking in every word, as if committing them to memory. Slow down. “Skinning someone alive is hard work. These two weren't vascular surgeons, they didn't go to fucking medical school.” I was over the top again. “You slice the skin around the thighs with a box cutter or whatever they used, then you pull it away with pliers, you work up a pretty good sweat. Edgar Parlance
en brochette,
is that what they had in mind? The world will be a better place without Duane Lajoie.”

“Then you don't want to get involved?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You just want to make your feelings known.”

“Look. I was a prosecutor for sixteen years. The last case I did was an eighty-six-year-old woman who wrapped her twin sister's head in a plastic garbage bag. The sister was incontinent. She peed in the bed they shared. Nobody wanted to do it. ‘The old lady's going to cool, cut her some slack, nobody likes to have someone piss on their leg.' The slack I cut her was twenty-five-to-life. Meaning she would've been one hundred and eleven if she served the full ticket. She died in the ambulance taking her from the courthouse to the prison ward at Osceola County Hospital.”

She was not interested. “Why'd you get fired?”

“I didn't get fired.”

“Excuse me, you quit.” She waited. “Why?”

“I was looking for new opportunities. New situations. A chance to meet new people.”

“You don't have an attitude deficit, do you?”

“Never been accused of it, no.”

“That's what I heard.”

“Then I came highly recommended?”

“Recommended.”

“By whom?”

She ignored the question. “In my job, my last job . . .”

“The one
you
quit.”

“Resigned.”

“ ‘After eight fulfilling years.' That was in your statement.”

The noncommittal stare.

“I found it on the Net. After you called.” My way of telling Teresa Kean that I had a few cards of my own. “You're a big ticket on the Net. A lot of hits. The hundred best this, the fifty best that. Women of the bar. Best person to sit next to at another boring Washington dinner party. That's a recommendation to put in your personnel folder. Margaret Dudley's best pal. I guess you never sat home alone with a BLT and a Bud Lite.”

“You guess wrong.”

“So you had those eight fulfilling years, and you wanted to explore new opportunities too, right?”

She did not bite. All business. “When I had that job, I naturally had occasion to talk to lawyers all over the country.”

“And my name came up.”

“You had a problem with the attorney general.”

“I didn't have a problem with the Worm. The Worm had a problem with me.”

“Because you're gay.”

“Queer. Gay's a comfortable word straight people use. It makes them feel a little less uncomfortable about something they would never admit makes them uncomfortable.”

“You have any other opinions you want to share?”

“
The Godfather.
”

“Whose godfather?”

“Marlon Brando. Vito Corleone. Al Pacino. Michael Corleone. That
Godfather.
Sentimental crap. A Mafia
Gone with the Wind.
”

She waited to see where this would lead.

“Vito and Michael,” I said. “Tragic gumbahs. An oxymoron.”

A beat. “That's original.”

“Fredo and Sonny, on the other hand, they're the genuine articles. One's a fink, the other's a psychopath.”

Teresa Kean's gaze was guarded, wary. You could almost hear the tumblers in her brain clicking, searching for the combination. She was dressed with the kind of simplicity that only a great deal of money could buy. The same with her makeup. No jewelry. Her hair was pulled back, tinted auburny, except for a hint of gray at both temples. Vain, but not too. Pretty, but not threateningly so. “And that, I guess,” she said finally, “brings us back to Bryant Gover and Duane Lajoie.”

She had insisted on seeing me in my office in the Law Building across the street from the Capital City Courthouse. The Law Building is not an edifice that immediately summons the phrase “the majesty of the law.” Eight stories of dirty white brick, some of which have popped out and shattered on the setback balconies; one effect is to make the balcony look like a stale wedding cake under attack by rodents. There is a 24-hour Kinko's in the lobby, the three rickety elevators are prone to getting stuck between the floors, sometimes for five minutes, sometimes for five hours, and the building directory lists a doubtful assemblage of bail bondsmen, PIs, steno services, bucket shops, knockdown tax consultants, ambulance chasers, has-beens and never-will-bes. Murray Lubin and I were the best lawyers in the building, in the sense that we got the more difficult court-assigned cases. This was because the judges in Superior Court, most of them politically connected apparatchiks, at the least recognized a degree of professional competence, and, in the interest of what they liked to call justice, nominated us to defend the indefensible. The real lawyers in Capital City, in other words those not sentenced to the ghetto of the criminal courts, resided in the semi-skyscrapers on Rhino Plaza, four blocks farther downtown, in the AgriCorp Building and the Continental Corn Tower, offices with thirty partners and paneled conference rooms and a law library with the leather-bound decisions of the South Midland Supreme Court, as if those decisions were worth collecting, offices with paralegals and notary publics and crosscut shredders and clients absent tattoos and needle tracks on their arms, clients who only wanted to circumvent the tax statutes and the realty laws. My office in the Law Building was the nondescript workstation of a single practitioner, with access to the public men's room and a secretary I shared with three other attorneys on the same corridor. For the common touch, I kept two dog-eared John Grisham paperbacks, neither of which I had actually read, prominently displayed in the metal bookshelves, each flecked with Post-its that seemed to vouch for my legal bona fides; this was a venue where Grisham carried more legal weight than Benjamin Cardozo, my fellow Jew. The only thing of value, besides myself, was a partner's desk, circa 1850, that I had found at a rummage sale, listed at forty dollars. Its provenance, no less suspect than anything else in this part of the world, was that it had come across the plains in a Conestoga wagon, and then been badly burned in an Indian raid. For a few hundred dollars I had it refinished and releathered, and I had developed a genuine affection for it. A law school acquaintance now specializing in wills and inter vivos trusts in the Continental Corn Tower had offered to “take it off my hands for six thou,” his too-casual words betraying the hustler's intent, but I had already had it appraised for twice that. I think he had convinced himself that I would jump at the deal because he thought I could use the money in my downscaled post-A.G. phase and in the environment where I now practiced. I did not actually tell him to fuck off, but that was the subtext, and it was clearly understood.

I knew why Teresa wanted to meet me there. She wanted to be in charge, and if our meeting did not go well, the site allowed a quick get-away, don't call me, I'll call you, a pleasure to meet you, and she would be gone, the faint lingering smell of Fracas the only indication that she had been there, diluting the smell of stale urine that seemed to permeate the rest of the building. It was Murray Lubin who told me that she had been making inquiries. She needs someone who knows his way around the courts here, Murray had said, knows the names and numbers of all the players, and where the bodies are buried; I told her you were the only one, especially about where the bodies are buried, the best man in the state. Murray did not expect me to believe that, and I didn't. Murray would have first tried to promote himself into the job; it was a trope with him. He would have licked the soles of Teresa Kean's shoes to get involved with the Lajoie case, would have done it for free just to get the ear of the big-time national crime reporters, not to mention daily face time with Alicia Barbara, who had rented four rooms at the Lovat Hotel in Regent for herself and her crew.

I, on the other hand, claimed not to be particularly interested. Or so I tried to convince myself in the event that I was left only with that lingering scent of Fracas. I was not willing to admit how much I wanted to get back into the game, even on what I knew was the wrong side. There was a premonition of something else, something I was able to sort out only in retrospect. It was the way the rich seam of chance winds its inevitable labyrinthine way under the rough terrain of the everyday. Think of it—a bee sting and a myocardial infarction. If one or the other had not occurred—if Maurice Dodd had not been communing with his hybrid musks in a backyard Capital City greenhouse or if John Broderick's clogged left anterior descending artery had not at a particular moment malfunctioned in a specific Washington bedroom—none of what happened would have happened. Proof again that our lives are funded by the coinage of coincidence.

CHAPTER TWO

Let's do the math on the blood relationship between Alice Todt, aka Carlyle, and Duane Lajoie.

Her half brother. The half brother Alice Todt, aka Carlyle, said she didn't know she had. Until that day her mother said she had to help her half brother Duane out. Her mother said her half brother Duane was being defended by a Zulu. Or whatever they call themselves now. The Zulu she was talking about was Earle Lincoln.

I had taught Earle Lincoln at Osceola Community College of Law. Tutored him when he finally passed the bar. At age thirty-nine. On his fifth try. BARTENDER PASSES BAR was the way the weekly newspaper in Questa headlined the event. Earle Lincoln still tended bar at night in Questa. To pay the rent. And child support. And alimony to two former wives. I failed to tell him during our teacher-student relationship that he had more future tapping kegs than he had as a lawyer. Duane Lajoie was his fourth client. The other three had been DUIs. All found guilty.

On the subject of Alice Todt's mother. Also the mother of Duane Lajoie.

There's a lot to assimilate here. Josefa Carmody Todt Barr Sledge Das. Three husbands followed by a religious rebirth. She was now a disciple of Roshi Gurjanwaia. With a new name. Shehnaz Das. And a new enthusiasm. The Gurjanwaia Method of Meditation.

Shehnaz Das ran seminars on the Gurjanwaia Method of Meditation (always referred to by its full name) at Amritsar University of Mental Purification in Divide County, North Dakota. As Josefa Sledge (her third husband was Conway Sledge, a part-time pimp and bookmaker), she had taken a voyage of personal exploration to the Indian subcontinent where at Varanasi she bathed in the Ganges and nearly died of dysentery. Upon her return to South Midland, she left Conway Sledge, changed her name to Shehnaz Das, and dedicated her life to Roshi Gurjanwaia. Shehnaz Das claimed that the dysentery she had picked up in the Ganges had purged her body and mind of all their evils.

The evils possessing Josefa Carmody Todt Barr Sledge, before she became Shehnaz Das, had not been in short supply.

Allie Vasquez had checked her out. For J.J., of course. I had asked her to bring me up to speed after Murray Lubin told me about Teresa's inquiries. Allie showed me the discovery, and I spent half the night copying it at the Kinko's downstairs. Allie was waiting for me outside Kinko's at five-thirty. She took the file and got into her car without a word. I had little doubt that J.J. knew I was on her private distribution list. At some point it might become useful to him. Give him the edge he was always looking for.

Shehnaz Das was still only thirty-five, Allie said.

Josefa Carmody Todt Barr Sledge Das had led a full life.

She had exploded into puberty as part of a floating hegemony of rootless children, the flotsam of feckless parents and random liaisons, blowing through the underside of Kiowa and Cap City, in and out of crash pads of friends and boyfriends, a week here, three days there. Human repos in an environment where dreams were the currency of hope.

Josefa Carmody found herself pregnant and alone at thirteen. On her fourteenth birthday, she gave birth to a premature three-pound-eleven-ounce son at St. Fintan of Cloneagh Foundling Hospital in Halloween County, just across the Midlandia Wash from Kiowa. The baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck, so that the oxygen supply to its brain was cut off until the emergency room staff could disentangle it. Josefa Carmody told the admitting Sister of Mercy at St. Fintan's that the father of her son could be one of three possibilities, none of whom she could identify with any degree of certainty. The admitting nun told Josefa Carmody that a good home would be found for her son, and that she could, if she wished, give the boy a Christian name, as it was possible that some time might pass before proper foster parents could be located, since special children needed special parents. Josefa Carmody said she would like him called Duane, and when the nun asked if any of the possible fathers might be named Duane, Josefa Carmody said no, Duane Box was the lead singer of an Amarillo rock group called Duane & The Dudes that she had heard on WROK, “The Voice of Rock in Rhino Land.” Josefa Carmody thought Duane had a cool sound.

The nun's name was Sister Alice Faith. Last name Maguire. Sister Alice Faith did not tell Josefa Carmody that the oxygen deprivation endured by her son at birth had perhaps left him brain-damaged, which was why he fell into the category of special child.

Sister Alice Faith said that Saint Faith was the patron saint of prisoners.

Josefa Carmody said that if she ever had a daughter she would name her Alice Faith. Because Sister Alice Faith had been so much nicer to her than her own bitch mother had ever been. Alice Faith Todt was born three years later. Her putative father was Karil Todt, aka Bruiser Todt.

Bruiser Todt was a long-haul driver who long-hauled himself out of Josefa Todt's life shortly after the child who carried his surname was born, and after laying a bruising on his wife, who was ten weeks pregnant when they got married.

Bruiser Todt had only known Josefa Carmody five days when they exchanged their wedding vows at Feathers, the keno bar on the Chippewa reservation in Chippewa County where she worked as a waitress and a keno runner, sticking whatever tips she received down between her pushed-up tits, and where she was available when she was off the clock, freelance, hire your own lawyer if Chippewa County vice moved in, which they only did if someone pulled a blade.

Bruiser Todt said an eight-pound-nine-ounce baby did not compute as premature.

Seventeen years later, terminally ill with pancreatic cancer, Sister Alice Faith wrote to Josefa Carmody, now Shehnaz Das. An attendant with dreadlocks in the hospice in Duluth where Sister Alice Faith was waiting to die had searched and found Josefa Carmody's latest name and last known address on the Internet as a way of perfecting his computer skills, in the hope that said skills would offer the opportunity of a better job than cleaning up the drool, vomit, and excretions of old people. With death so near, Sister Alice Faith no longer felt constrained by the strictures of silence she had sworn to observe. In her letter, she said she had never forgotten the frightened little girl who on her fourteenth birthday gave birth to a baby boy she named Duane. When Duane was four, Sister Alice Faith wrote, he had been placed in the care of a French-Canadian family named Lajoie in Albion County, and the Lajoies had subsequently adopted him. She had hoped, Sister Alice Faith wrote, that Duane, special child that he was, would lead an exemplary Christian life.

But apparently he had not.

His adoptive parents weren't much of a help, Allie Vasquez reported.

They were killed in a hunting accident when Duane was eight. Pascal Lajoie, called Pete, shot his wife Mercury in the back of the head with a .22-caliber CZ 452 Deluxe while hunting white-tailed deer out of season. Pete said it was an accident, one of the deer had spooked Mercury, she had stood up just as he was trying to take the deer down, but the Albion County sheriffs said that until somebody proved different they were calling this one a homicide. Mercury, it seems, was a regular at the Albion County Emergency Room, broken ribs, broken cheekbone, household accidents, she said, she was always falling down the stairs to the root cellar. Little Duane, or Dummy Duane, as his father called him, was another frequent visitor to County Emergency, his list of injuries including a broken wrist, a broken pelvis, each injury credited to that root cellar again, although the root cellar did not seem to explain the cigarette burns on his back and arms. Pete said he'd plead to hunting deer out of season, that was clear enough, but he was no damn murderer, and he grabbed the CZ 452 Deluxe from a deputy, and put it in his mouth.

Oh, hell, call it a hunting accident, Lew Lodge, the Albion County sheriff, said. Pete shot himself out of grief, anyone would. Too much paperwork the other way. Duane went to a foster home. He lived in twelve foster homes in all. He ran away from every one. When he was eleven, a juvenile court declared him uncontrollable, and he became a ward of the state.

Sister Alice Faith Maguire died before her letter to Josefa Carmody was delivered.

Duane Lajoie had the same birthday as Josefa Carmody Todt Barr Sledge Das.

Shehnaz Das telephoned her daughter.

He looks like you, she told her daughter Carlyle. He has a space between his front teeth. Just like you. Just like me. My little boy Duane wouldn't do anything like that. You got to help your brother Duane. What do you mean, you never knew you had a brother Duane? I was trying to give you a chance in life. You were my number one priority. That doesn't mean I forgot little Duane. Who got you that job modeling at Teen Town? All that time you spent ditching school and going to Rhino Mall, you finally made it pay off because I knew Denise what's-her-face at Teen Town. You remember the way you were when Waylon and Kile got killed? You were hysterical. Waylon was the love of your life, you think I didn't know you and him were doing it? I washed your panties, I washed your jeans, I know what that stuff is, he must've done a bucketful. The night before he died, you don't think I knew what you and him were doing back there? I never yet been in a trailer that was sound-proofed, and I have lived in more trailers than boys you've done it with. Who dragged you down to the Three V traveling show, you said you were so sad you wouldn't go, you missed Waylon, you missed Kile, and I said they were dead and you had a life to lead, well, we know what happened, and look where you are today, and where Waylon and Kile are, you tell me who is better off, and it is because of me and Denise what'sher-name, and now you won't help your brother Duane, he's got some Zulu lawyer from Questa, not even Regent or Cap City, look at the picture I sent you and tell me if that's not your brother.