Angel's Verdict (26 page)

“Bit-O-Honey!” Bobby Lee said. “My glory, I haven’t seen those for years.” He sat back in the armchair, the candy in his lap. “Thing about these candy bars, son, is that they aren’t too good for the false teeth. Bet I can suck on ’em, though. Lord, the sugar in those things kept me good and awake when I was on the night shift.”

“Yeah,” Dent said. “Me, too.”

Bobby Lee cocked his head to one side. “Sounds like maybe you were on the job, sonny?”

“Retired,” Dent said. “Some time ago. Bobby Lee, we’re here about a couple of things. I’ve been looking into some cold cases for the department. We were wondering if you recall much about the Haydee Quinn case.”

“That pretty girl with the funny name—Flurry, Flurry Smith was here about that a couple of months ago,” Bobby Lee said. “Pulled her body out of the Savannah River this morning, according to the news.” He looked sad. “Called her up this Sunday and talked to her as a matter of fact. Got something to give her that might help. I should have remembered it sooner, but I do tend to forget easy these days.” He pulled at his lower lip. “It’s like my memory’s written in pencil and somebody’s erasing it.”

Bree felt the familiar thud of excitement. “There’s a possibility the cases are related, Sergeant Kowalski. Now that Flurry’s gone, we’ve taken up the banner, so to speak. We’d like to find out why she died.”

Bobby Lee snorted. “Don’t see how they could be. Ms. Smith passed on this morning. Haydee’s been dead these sixty years, and whoever killed her is deader than a doornail, too.”

“So you do recall the case?” Bree asked.

“You bet I remember. One of the biggest cases of my career. She asked me a bunch of questions, that girl did. You go right ahead and ask them, too.”

“There was a witness who never actually came forward at the trial,” Bree said. “It may have been someone who saw Haydee after Norris attacked her at the Tropicana Tide. Did you discuss that with Florida Smith?”

Bobby Lee leaned forward. “I sure did. Thing is, the gal never showed up again after she gave Eddie the statement.”

Bree didn’t look in Dent’s direction. “You’re referring to Lieutenant O’Malley? Your partner on the force.”

“You’ve done your homework, just like Ms. Smith. Pretty thing,” he mused, “smart, too. Name of Charis Jefferson. Anyways, yes. Eddie and I had to canvass the area around the Tropi, see if anyone had a notion as to where Haydee had gone after Bagger Bill stuck her. Well, Eddie found her, all right. She danced, same as Haydee. Wanted to be another Lena Horne.”

“Danced?” Bree said. “You mean she was a strip ... in the show?”

“Chorus. In those days, it didn’t do to have coloreds front and center, although she should have been, I suppose. Had a lot of talent. Now, that was a pretty girl, too. Not a beauty like Haydee, but a looker, all the same. Nice girl. Anyways, this girl Charis Jefferson was still backstage when Bagger Bill and Haydee started getting into it, so she hid somewhere’s, a closet, I guess, or under a table. Haydee stumbled past her on her way out, bleeding from the front, the girl said, and the girl run after her. Got into a big old Buick that was parked at the back of the bar, Haydee did, and the car took off.”

Dent’s voice was husky. “Did she know the model? The make? The year?”

“All she told Eddie was that the car was a Buick, white.”

“Do you remember anything else Charis told Eddie?” Bree asked.

Bobby Lee rubbed his scalp through his scant white hair. “No, I don’t recollect more than that. Eddie, he could have told you. He had it all written down. He gave me the statement to put in the file.”

“Sergeant Kowalski?” Bree spoke as gently as she could. “You were responsible for taking the case notes and filing them with the department, weren’t you? That statement wasn’t in the police records.”

“No.” Bobby Lee sighed. “No, it wasn’t. I ditched it.”

“This is an old case, and as you know, any statute of limitations has long run out.” Bobby Lee didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would have taken a bribe, but she had to ask. “Did someone ask you to ditch it?”

“Some crook, you mean? No. Thing is, you have to understand something about Eddie. He had a bad war. Spent time in a Jap concentration camp. Got himself a Bronze Star or two. When he got home, the cheap little gal who he was married to had up and run off with someone else. Plus, he was Irish. And you know what they say about the Irish.”

Bree sighed. She was heartily glad attitudes had changed from 1952.

“He took to drink. He was hanging on to his job by the skin of his teeth. His old CO in the Marines was our commissioner. Creighton Oliver.”

“Oliver?” Bree said. “His name was Oliver?”

“Yeah, his son went on to play a cop rather than be a cop.” Bobby Lee laughed. “You might have seen the show,
Bristol Blues.
Good show, but they didn’t get a thing right about being on the job. Anyhow, Commander Oliver watched out for Eddie as best as he could, but our captain was a Methodist, and you know how they feel about booze of any kind, especially on the job. So Eddie was on thin ice.”

Bobby Lee sighed. He unwrapped one of the Bit-O-Honeys, broke off a piece, and sucked on it. “Eddie used to bring me these. Picked ’em up at the Woolworth’s down on Whitaker.”

“You were telling us about the statement from the dancer, Charis Jefferson,” Bree said gently.

“Yeah.” He sagged in his chair. He was running through whatever reserves a ninety-two-year-old man had. “Thing is, Eddie had a few too many when the captain sent us out to canvass the blocks around the Tropi, and that statement was useless. It was hand wrote, and the writing was all over the place. You could tell Eddie wasn’t exactly sober. We might a got away with that, but it wasn’t signed, neither. Some smart defense lawyer got hold of that, it’d be tossed out on its ear. Me, I went back to the Tropi to get the girl to make another statement, but by then she’d run off. Scared, most likely. And then Bagger Bill confessed. So I didn’t put it in the murder book, no sir. I gave it to the defense lawyers, and they said it was as useless as I knew it was. And they pitched it, I guess. I mean, we had our perp, so it would have just confused everybody.”

Bobby Lee’s eyes closed. His head fell forward on his chest. He was asleep.

“God,” Dent said. It was both a plea and a prayer. “I don’t remember a thing about it.”

“We’ve got a lead. We need to jump on it.” Bree hauled herself to her feet and laid her hand lightly on Bobby Lee’s shoulder.

Bobby Lee mumbled in his doze. He lifted his head and blinked at them. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing in my room?”

“I’m Bree Beaufort, Sergeant Kowalski. Mr. Dent and I came by to talk with you.” His eyes were confused. He looked exhausted. “We won’t bide for very long. Would you like us to go? Are you tired of company?”

“You came to see me about that pretty young girl, Florida Smith.”

“Yes,” Bree said.

“I was sorry to see that she’d passed, and in such a way.” He put his hands on his cane and struggled to his feet. “Got something I wanted to pass on to her.” He looked suddenly shy. “Thing is, she was going to put me in her book. Took a picture of me and everything. I don’t have much to pass on, but I do have this.” He shuffled over to the bureau and pulled open the bottom drawer. He brought out a dented tin box and handed it to Bree. “Thought Ms. Smith might want a picture of these, maybe under the one of me in my uniform.”

“A tea caddy,” she said.

“Open it up.”

The box had a collection of odds and ends. A few buttons. Some sealed plastic bags with flattened bullets, what looked like dirt, a bit of hair. A short link of nylon rope.

“Souvenirs from my cases,” Bobby Lee said proudly. He picked up the rope. “This one’s from the poor old fellow who dragged Haydee’s body out of the river. That bullet’s from the Bishop Heights sniper.”

Bree picked up the bag with the coil of hair. “And this?”

Bobby Lee put a trembling hand to his face and rubbed his chin. “Now that—that wasn’t really a case. Least, not as far as the department. But me, I wasn’t so sure. That’s from the hand of Mrs. Consuelo Bulloch.”

Bree stared at it.

“The one from the Haydee Quinn case, you know. I took this years later. She had a heart attack, the old lady did. Fell in the tub and near drowned. Lasted only a couple of days after they found her. Always thought she must have grabbed on to somebody while she was fallin’, but the med tech thought she grabbed it off herself, while she was struggling.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Me, I thought it was murder. No proof, though.” He shuffled back to the chair and half fell into it.

“Dinner’s at five,” he said into the silence. “You go on and take that tin. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Yes,” Bree said. She was having trouble catching her breath. “Thank you.”

“Nice to see you folks.”

Bree breathed deeply and was finally able to answer. “Yes, and we’ll be sure you won’t miss dinner. There’s just one more thing.” She looked over at Dent. “Mr. Dent came into possession of a letter from Eddie O’Malley. He’d like to read it to you. Is that going to be all right?”

“Eddie.” Bobby Lee looked up at Dent. “Eddie.”

Dent fumbled the envelope from his pocket, unfolded the letter, and looked directly into his old friend’s eyes. “Hey, Bobby Lee: Wanted to say so long. Wanted to tell you I screwed up while we were partnering together and I hope you forgive me for it. I never had a brother. But that’s how I thought of you. I’m sorry, brother. If you can forgive me, I’d go down the road a better man. If you can’t, well, that’s okay, too.” He laid the letter on Bobby Lee’s knee.

“What the heck, Eddie,” Bobby Lee said. “You did the best you could. Don’t need to say a word more about it.” He smoothed the yellowing paper out with a hand trembling with age, trembling with a shy delight. “Good to have this, though. Good.”

“Thank you, partner.”

“Hey. No sweat. See you soon, I think.”

Bree stood still for a moment, absorbed in watching the old face drop off into sleep. She was happy and sad all at once. The light in the room seemed very like the light that surrounded her angels when she watched them unaware: the color of sunlight through new leaves.

“Well, then, Dent,” she said, “we’d better go.”

He didn’t answer her. She knew he wouldn’t.

Dent was gone.

Chance governs all.

—Paradise Lost
, John Milton

 

 

 

 

“A happy result,” Petru said. “Dent’s rehabilitation.”

“Except that Bree had to drive herself back to the office,” Ron said. “I could have come and gotten you when you called, you know.”

The three of them were back in the conference room at Angelus Street, staring at the whiteboard with the time line on it. Bree was beginning to think of it as the infernal time line. This case was maddeningly elusive. The plastic envelope with the coil of hair lay on the table in front of them all. She’d tried to raise Consuelo from it. It hadn’t worked.

“I drove back on my own.” She wriggled her leg. The bone-deep ache was gone. The knee was reduced to an occasional twinge. Even the itchiness was minor. “It feels a lot better. It’s a relief to be able to drive myself. I did just fine.” Her private opinion was that the light that had taken Dent on his journey home had a spillover effect on her leg, but she didn’t bring it up. Her angels wouldn’t have answered her anyway.

“We have a crack in the case,” Petru announced.

“You managed to trace the registration of the Buick that picked Haydee up outside the Tropicana Tide, Petru,” Bree said. “Good work! Who owned it?”

“I do not know that yet. I have set my search program on that particular issue. We should have an answer soon.”

“Then you’ve located the 1952 employee tax records for the Tropicana?”

“T-cha! Yes.”

“Was Charis Jefferson an employee there?”

“She was, yes.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Petru shrugged.

“See if there’s a death certificate. Right now.”

Petru’s fingers sped over the keys. “Not in the State of Georgia, no.” He clicked on for a few minutes, then sat back. “And not in the United States. I cannot speak globally.”

“Good. Now tell me what you wanted to tell me earlier.”

“It is about Florida Smith’s whereabouts on Sunday afternoon. It is Ron’s work. He should be the one to tell you.”

Bree turned to Ron and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“You want it step-by-step? It’s best to take it step-by-step. I talked to the folks at the Mulberry Inn, where she was registered. She asked how to get to a funeral home out in Belle Glade.”

Bree looked at the time line. “The Ernest Cavanaugh Funeral Home, where Haydee’s body was taken after she died at the hospital.”

“Exactly. At the request of the Bullochs,” Ron reminded them. “So I went down there, too, and talked to the current owner, Nathan Scotto. Flurry asked to see all the records from July 3, 1952, when Haydee’s body was admitted.” Ron pulled out his Blackberry. “I photographed the admissions sheet for you. The AP was Dr. Pythias Warren, which is consistent with the police report.

“Flurry then went to the county morgue, which is located at Montgomery. She asked to see the employee roster for July 5, the actual day that the autopsy was performed. Guess which private physician was present at the autopsy?”

“Dr. Warren?” Bree said.

“Dr. Warren.”

Bree felt a stab of excitement. “Hm.”

“Then she went back to the hotel and made two phone calls that evening. The police requisitioned the records as part of the current investigation into Florida’s death, and the report’s been filed, so the information was available.”

Bree didn’t ask how Ron actually got the report. It would be part of the public record when the case was either resolved or sent to the cold case division. The Company’s rule was that any information available to the public was available to them; there weren’t any rules about when.