Angel's Verdict Part 21

"I was sorry to see that she'd pa.s.sed, and in such a way." He put his hands on his cane and struggled to his feet. "Got something I wanted to pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.tons. 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.

Fifteen.

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.

"Who did she call, Ron?"

"Craig Oliver."

"Craig Oliver?" Bree sat back. She had a theory of the case. Finally. "Craig Oliver the actor. The one who's playing Dent in the movie."

"Eddie O'Malley," Petru reminded her.

"Whatever," Ron said impatiently. "We know who she means, Petru. Flurry called Oliver twice. The first phone call lasted about two minutes. The second one lasted almost an hour. The interval between the two calls was exactly twenty-two seconds."

"He hung up on her," Bree said. "And she called him back."

"Surmise," Petru said. "But a sensible surmise. Wait one moment please." He tapped his keyboard, read the screen, and looked up at them with a grim smile. "I asked for the search to cross-reference white Buicks registered in 1952 with all of the names in Florida Smith's database. Look at this." He spun the laptop around so that both Bree and Ron could see it.

"Creighton Oliver," Bree said. "Craig Oliver's father."

Petru whirled the laptop around to face him again, and spoke as his fingers flew over the computer keyboard. "The man is sixty-three years old. It is his father, surely. Aha! Aha! This is the break in the case! It is his father. More than that! He is at the time the commissar of the police!"

"The commissioner. Of the police. Dent's old CO."

"You seem to know this already." Petru grumbled under his breath as he read the screen. "If you know this, why am I working? If you know this, why did you not ... Here I will print it out for you. And then we shall see."

It was all falling into place, with a suddenness that made Bree dizzy.

"Are you feeling quite well, my dear?" Petru asked.

"Is there any way you can check the morgue records for 1952 and find a Jane Doe, age early twenties? She would have died on the fourth of July. Probably African-American. Dr. Warren would have signed the death certificate. She would have been brought in by a policeman reporting directly to the commissioner."

"Of course. Would you like me to accomplish that now?"

"I would."

"Craig Oliver's still registered at the Mulberry Inn, isn't he?"

"As far as I know," Ron said. "The police might have gotten there before us."

"I'm not worried about the police."

It was dark outside, and cold. The Mulberry Inn was only two blocks from the Angelus office, and Bree decided to walk. She could walk on two legs now, after a fashion, and Petru had generously lent her his cane.

The room was a comfortable suite, right off the main entrance. Bree tapped at the door and waited. Craig Oliver's voice demanded to know who it was. When Bree told him, he opened up and stood there, a drink in his hand. It clearly wasn't his first of the evening.

"Is Justine in?" Bree stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Justine sat on the couch, a drinks tray on the coffee table in front of her. She was wearing an elaborate bathrobe-a tea gown, Justine's generation would call it. The peac.o.c.k jewel was pinned to the collar. Florida Smith's ma.n.u.script, Death of a Doxy: Who Killed Haydee Quinn?, lay in her lap.

"h.e.l.lo, Haydee," Bree said.

The old actress looked up at her, stone-faced.

"You wanted to break the contract with Norris because you were pregnant."

Justine smiled. Haydee's three-cornered smile. The one Bree had seen in the black-and-white pictures taken sixty years ago. "And wasn't it lucky that I was?" she said. She jerked her chin at Craig Oliver. "You want to know who killed Florida Smith? Ask him. Ask my baby boy."

Sixteen.

Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To p.r.i.c.k and sting her.

-Hamlet, William Shakespeare Antonia, Bree, and EB sat around the small table in the town house kitchen, eating boiled shrimp from Huey's. Sasha lay at Bree's feet. Hunter had arrested Craig Oliver for the murder of Florida Smith the night before. It was close to noon, and Bree hadn't been to bed yet.

"Craig Oliver is Justine Coville's son?" Antonia said. "And Justine Coville is really this B-Girl from 1952? Haydee Quinn?"

"Craig Oliver is Haydee's illegitimate son by that police commissioner," EB said. "That right, Bree?"

"That's right. Haydee promised to turn the child over to Creighton Oliver and his wife if Oliver helped her fake her own death."

Antonia shook her head. "Wow. Wow. How come the tabloids never picked up on that?"

"Police cover-up," EB said succinctly.

Antonia nodded. "Happens all the time."